If the mask fits . . .

A new tune, 'Soho 4a.m.' is up on my Myspace. All Mooged up, Arp-ped out, Beat-boxed in and ready to go - hmmm, gonna need back-up on this one I think - help us out Kevin . . .

"What's really helping us is House Music and Rap. They're bending the whole previous perception of what's right and wrong about structure and where everything (in mixes) should be placed". KEVIN SHIELDS circa 1989.

And Stuart from Glasgow ;

"Saturday night at Atlantis and the lights went down at midnight like they always did. The volume cranked up, the strobe began to flicker and the massive synth line of Love Corporations 'Palatial' came chiming out of the speakers. The place exploded and there it was - everything I'd ever wanted in one perfect moment. The cheer was louder than any of the records played that night. It was like watching Morrissey or Joey Ramone walk on stage, like Rock and Roll had finally arrived. For once I was part of the gang". © STUART BLACKWOOD.

'Palatial' - My Death, My Rebirth. The whole concept of the guitar band in the late 'eighties had become painfully dull, yawningly formulaic, in need of a sharp kick up the jacksy. High Street AciieeeeedHouse was contemporary Clownsville, but as Kevin says, the real pioneers in this area gave us all a chance to reconsider how to make our own music, to create our very genuine renaissance to challenge the works of '66 and '67. My personal ambition was to change the generic House sound to create (along with Bill Drummond's KLF) a more ambient sound - namely Chill Out.

for Love Corp stuff, apart from the obvious names (Kraftwerk, Eno etc) the biggest influence of all for me was John Carpenter's 'Halloween' films and his self-composed/performed soundtracks. My L'Orange Mechanik's 'Poems' of 1989, recorded at the same time as 'E For Edward' and 'Tones', was a homage to those 'Halloween' themes. The album was conceived as a way to get shot of a bunch of Creation Books titles the distributors couldn't shift. I suggested we re-package them with specially recorded lps for Rough Trade to distribute. I did the Edgar Allan Poe book 'Poems', and within two months all surplus book stocks had gone.

In hindsight, Carpenter's Michael Myers and I seem to have an awful lot in common - we both started out in 1978, had off-years around '84 and '87, really kicking in with a vengeance around 1988 ('Beat Torture: The Return Of Edward Ball' - I'm even holding a noose on the front cover for Chrissakes!). Both seemingly indestructible, year after year, sequel after sequel.

And when it comes to Head Tilting At Slight Angle Cuteness I could give the great lummock a run for his money, as my 'Love Is Blue' video will testify. I could tilt 'til the cows came home or at least 'til I could damage the Top 75, whichever came soonest. Would the real "Boogie" man please stand up.

So to all intents and purposes Haddonfield's very own House Mod and I have been haranguing and distressing dissolute teenagers, skivers, slackers and general flotsam for 30 or so years. AND he's the only semi-mythical creature out there with more Myspaces than me. CHECK THIS OUT!

So where was I? Oh yeah, 1990. At the studio for the 'Palatial' re-mixes, House club star Danny Rampling implored me to play the 3-note arpeggio motif - the bit at the front in non la-di-da speak. That was the final piece of the jigsaw, the fait accompli to my own album version. The mix of 'Palatial' that's up at least twice on YouTube at the moment, is not the Rampling mix. Marvellous in its own way, it's the version I developed with the studio engineer to make up the numbers for different formats etc. it's not the one we've all known to come and love. The classic Rampling "money-shot" mix is up here.

Love Corporation - Palatial II - Creation Records - 1990

My overall vision in 1991 was a sort of cross between progressive Mod and Punk - "Monk" if you will. Thus I'd record Love Corp piano stuff thinking the great Thelonious was guiding my fingers to all the right notes (a micro-second after I was hitting all the wrong ones) - all first takes complete with fluffs and mistakes.

And it weren't for nothing that we all wore target shirts at Creation house. We'd never be seen wearing such things before or since, these tacky garments generally considered by all to be the height of naffness. At this time though, they seemed oddly contemporary. The Guv'nor sported a khaki target affair and Bobby Gillespie had one in black and white. I favoured the more "street" hoodie with classic bullseye. Noggins or Bobbins? Hard to say, the acid and the ecstasy I was ingesting fairly regularly had shot my personal sartorial critical facilities to fuck by this time, so less said . . .

1, 2, Eddie's coming for you. 3, 4, Better lock your door . . .

Weatherall's Bells. Andy Weatherall realised the full potential of 'Give Me Some Love' by taking my main piarno phrase and changing its sound to those ominous clangourous bells. The whole effect akin to a post-modernist aesthetic spreading like a house-fire through John Lydon's Death Disco. The version currently up on YouTube is the more breakbeat-ish mix which we edited down to single format. The genre-defining Give Me Some Love can also be found here.

GET OUT OF THE HOUSE! Within eighteen months though, our work here had been done. It was time to move on again . . .

The Love Corporation - Gimme Some Love

Give Me Some Love on Youtube is the edited version of the Side Two 12" - the definitive version is here. Video directed by Douglas Hart, featuring Karen Parker, who contributed vocals to the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Teenage Filmstars.

Originally posted 26/10/08 on www.myspace.com/edwardball. Thank you.

ON THE CONVEYOR BELT TONIGHT! 

THE TIMES 'MANCHESTER' SINGLE. How I invented Creation indie-dance.

ALSO . . .

BALL/SHIELDS. The most enlightening interview since Frost/Nixon? You decide.

AND . . .

BAD JOURNALISM. Will no one rid us of this mind-numbingly, dreary 'Guardian' of the bland?

BUT FIRST . . .

It's January 1990. My friends and I are about to become the new Counter-Culture Kids - recordshop counter culture, that is. From a canter out of the 80s to a Gallup into destiny. . .

Since the dawn of DIY, many records of independent status had been outselling their major label counterparts 5 to 1 handsdown, but would never show up in the Top 100. I'd certainly made a couple - 'Cloud Over Liverpool' as the Teenage Filmstars, 'I Helped Patrick McGoohan Escape' as The Times. In old money, 'Part Time Punks' would easily have been a Top 40 hit.

Not that we cared a plugger's cuss, you understand, but by the turn of the decade, a roster of Creation's current stature could no longer be ignored by the Music Establishment who were now more clueless than at anytime before.

Also by January 1990, dance records had been regularly sailing into the charts via independent distribution. Radio One couldn't very well brush over their presence forever. And as labels like us were starting to get wise to the Tools of the Rough Trade, Smashie and Nicie at Portland Place Old DJs Home were about to receive a rude awakening.

So as I keep saying, it's January 1990. I've recorded and produced a Times single that's getting played on the Radio One Breakfast Show. Why, I don't know. Perhaps they think I'm the New Direction. I'm not - I'm just an emissary from the underworld, from those Stygian waters where records actually count for something.

And this song of mine they're playing, 'Manchester', about E trips and general degeneracy, had morphed from an acoustic ballad on 'E For Edward' LP 1989 into an electropop epic, comprising a list of Manchester Faces past and present. In a flat even light, it's as shameless as any other record of its ilk of that time. In a more romantic chiaroscuro light, it's a TimesLordTARDIS journey from 'Cloud Over Liverpool' ten years after and 35 miles across.

Meanwhile at Creation HQ, Primal Scream are experimenting with the new forms in the air - breakbeats and remixers - and soon everyone's deliberating over 'Loaded', To Release Or not to Release.

New signings Ride have recorded their first EP featuring 'Like A Daydream' as the lead track. They're pure guitar pop, perfect and flawless. We all decide that 'Manchester' would make a fine compliment to the Ride EP as a brace of new Creation releases. Both go National Top 100 (Ride 71, Times 98) the first Creation singles to do so.

This is partially interesting because at this point I was considered so unfashionable my sell-by date was in roman numerals. But secretly I was only just warming up! 12 years of making records, I was suddenly looking forward to the future. The following month the Primals sail into the Top 20 with 'Loaded' and the whole operation's stepped up a gear.

So here's a Transmission TV interview that I've found on youTube from February 1990, conducted by the wonderful Rachel Davies . . .

manchester The Times (Edward Ball TRANSMISSION TV Interview)

Three months later, I was back at Transmission, this time as an interviewer. Rachel had quite shrewdly enlisted Pat Fish of The Jazz Butcher to do some features and anchor the show. He was a natural, easily translating his onstage persona to camera.

Unfortunately, as his regional plugger, I'd got him an interview at GLR on the very same day Kevin Shields was due in to talk about 'Soon', and Rachel asked if I would step in and interview the "real musical alchemist". Having never dabbled in the craft before - or since - I naturally said yes and decided to opt for a Tony Wilson/'So It Goes' interview style.

In fact I took it really serious, not wanting to let Kevin down, preparing 20 questions on all sorts. And you know, I think it's one of the best interviews I've seen him do, particularly three and a half minutes onwards. Perhaps partly due to my inexperience, but also my complete empathy to Shields the Artist. Actually I did do one more interview, Pat Fish himself a few weeks later. I'd love to see that if anyone out there's got it.

Kevin was interviewed again for Transmission 8 months later, for 'To Here Knows When'. On this occasion by a wet-behind-the-ears Paul Lester (surely a nom de plum in homage of Paul Morley and Lester Bangs) and I'm betting five will get you a hospital bed that was a barrel of laughs!

With a bedroom-perfected sullenness complete with regulation-length long indie hair, "Hannibal" Lester interviewed a whole slew of our bands, Primals, Telescopes, Swervedriver, managing to murder the atmosphere of every one of those features with his distinct brand of blandness.

In fact, ten years later, when this tediously dull fellow gets Kevin Shields again for the Guardian, four words come to mind - can't, shoot, fish and that barrel again. A feature full of inanities and regurgitated info. So insulting to the readership's intelligence. In all, a dull and dreadfully boring arriviste.

Anyway, here's me letting Kevin be Kevin.

My Bloody Valentine Transmission Interview