Bill Drummond’s The Man
Bill Drummond - The Man (1989, Bar/None Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
A few words on Bill Drummond’s The Man, taking in Big in Japan, Zoo Records, The Timelords, The KLF, The Triffids, Bar/None Records, The Wild Swans and Herbert James Draper’s 1898 painting ‘The Lament for Icarus’.
In a recent post about Kathy McCarty’s Dead Dogs Eyeball (Songs of Daniel Johnston) I mentioned that in 1994 at the time of its release the only Bar/None records in my collection were They Might Be Giant’s self-titled debut and Bill Drummond’s The Man. Drummond’s only release under his own name is a curio and an album I still play from time to time.
Drummond’s career as an artist, musician, producer and writer is well documented. He was in Big in Japan, Liverpool’s infamous “supergroup in reverse”, alongside Jayne Casey (Pink Industry), Holly Johnson (Frankie Goes to Hollywood), Ian Broudie (The Lightning Seeds), David Balfe (The Teardrop Explodes) and Budgie (Siouxsie and the Banshees).
Taken from The Souse Phenomenon - The Scrapbook of the New Liverpool Rock Scene. Compiled by Klaus Schwartze (1987, Druckerei und Verlag Bitsch GmbH).
Drummond ran Zoo Records with David Balfe and the pair managed the early careers of Echo & the Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes. Both Will Sergeant (Echo & the Bunnymen) and Paul Simpson (The Wild Swans) have lots of Drummond stories in their recent memoirs. I reviewed both Echoes and Revolutionary Spirit for Issue 19 of The Goo.
I accompanied the review with my Top 5 Liverpool Post-Punk songs. No mean feat, considering Liverpool’s Eric’s scene of the late 70s produced some of my favourite bands. My review can be read here.
To the Shores of Lake Placid (1982, Zoo Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
To the Shores of Lake Placid, a Zoo Records compilation, compiled by Bill Drummond and publicist Mick Houghton was released in 1982. I found my copy at a record fair in Cork in the mid-90s and as a huge Julian Cope and Bunnymen fan I was absolutely over the moon. This is a beautiful gatefold package with a four page stapled insert of band photographs. The compilation is a mixture of previously unavailable tracks, b-sides and session tracks. Favorites for me, apart from the Bunnymen and Teardrops tracks, are Those Naughty Lumps’ ‘Iggy Pop’s Jacket’ and Big in Japan’s ‘Society For Cutting Up Men’. It’s one of my favourite albums.
Those Naughty Lumps - ‘Iggy Pop’s Jacket’ 7” (1979, Zoo Records. Photograph by Paul McDermott.
“I touched Iggy Pop’s jacket
It was made out of leather
Iggy Pop’s jacket
I could have worn it forever”
Zoo Records put out one more album, the Julian Cope compiled Fire Escape In The Sky: The Godlike Genius of Scott Walker. I came across this once at a record fair but the sleeve was ripped to bits so I let it go. It’s funny that I often remember the records I didn’t buy just as much as the ones I did.
Big in Japan (Casey, Broudie, Balfe, Budgie and Drummond). Photograph taken from To the Shores of Lake Placid (1982, Zoo Records).
After his time managing the Bunnymen, Drummond was hired as an A&R man for WEA Records, a position he resigned when he was 33 and a 1/3 years old. His next move was to record The Man. The album, best described as a country/folk record, was released in 1986 on Creation Records in the UK and eventually released in the US three years later on Bar/None Records.
One of the reasons why The Man remains a curio is that it’s an interesting document of what Drummond was doing just before he hooked up with Jimmy Cauty in 1987. Cauty had played guitar in Brilliant, a band Drummond had signed to WEA. Cauty and Drummond became The Justified Ancients of Mu-Mu, The Timelords and eventually The KLF.
The Timelords - ‘Doctorin’ the Tardis’ 7” (1988, KLF Communications) and The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way) by Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond (1998, KLF Publications/Ellipsis). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
The other main reason why The Man has a certain curio status is that the musicians who accompany Drummond on the album are Australian band, The Triffids (sans leadsinger, David McComb).
Back Sleeve of Bill Drummond - The Man (1989, Bar/None Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
The Man features a brilliant version of Goffin and King’s ‘Going Back’ but is probably most notable for the track ‘Julian Cope is Dead’ in which Drummond fantasises about shooting Cope to ensure that The Teardrop Explodes’ frontman will gain mythical status and the band will end up selling “platinum records not gold”. The song is often described as a riposte to Cope’s own ‘Bill Drummond Said’ from 1984’s Fried.
“Now, Julian Cope is dead,
I shot him in the head,
He didn’t understand,
The glory of the plan,
Now, Julian Cope is dead.”
“We’ll have platinum records not gold,
To hang on our walls at home.
When the neighbours come round,
I’ll always break down,
Repeating the stories of old.”
The whole notion of rock stars gaining mythical status after death is a topic Drummond has often ruminated upon. When Domino Records reissued The Triffids’ back catalogue in the late 00s, Drummond was asked to pen a few words, he explained:
“The reason why I have been asked, is not because I have written glowingly about The Triffids in the past, but because I worked with them, using them as a backing band on an album that I made in 1986, called The Man. This record sold less than any record that The Triffids ever made, but when I then went on to sell a few million records around the globe, in another guise and musical universe, this seemed to give my opinions on things some sort of standing.”
Drummond continued:
“Now, I was never a big fan of The Triffids, never had more than a couple of their records; only saw them play live the once and that was because I was doing a number with them. But, and this is a major BUT, in David McComb they had everything you could ever want from a dead rock star. And we need dead rock stars more than we need living ones. Some dead rock stars are crap at it, the bloke out of INXS and Freddie Mercury are shit at it, but David McComb is perfection... The reason why David McComb, is such a perfect dead rock star, is that he failed in his life time, but left a pristine body of work behind that was all about loss and longing, about failed relationships and love gone wrong.”
CMJ - New Music Report (21 April, 1989).
On 20 May, 1989 Billboard reviewed the Bar/None release of The Man writing:
“Scottish impresario behind Echo & the Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes, Zodiac Mindwarp, and others turns singer/songwriter with a widely varied sampler of his distinctive talents. ‘True to the Trail’ and ‘Queen of the South’ are ear-catching instrumentals, while ‘I Want That Girl’ and ‘I’m the King of Joy’ are infectious Brit-soul numbers. Also included is modest musical proposal ‘Julian Cope is Dead’, a response to Cope’s ‘Bill Drummond Said’.”
Bill Drummond. Photograph taken from the back sleeve of The Man (1989, Bar/None Records).
Drummond even payed a gig on a Bar/None label bill in New York’s The Knitting Factory in support of the release. Jerry Rubino, who was Bar/None’s promotions man at the time, wrote in the 09 June, 1989 issue of Hard Report:
“Music history was made this week as Bill Drummond made his first stage appearance here. Opening a bill, which included The Ordinaires and label newcomer Otis Ball at New York’s Knitting Factory, he performed 4 songs from his debut LP The Man. He came over from London with a band that included former Teardrop Explodes’ bassist David Balfe. They did ‘The King of Joy’, ‘I Want That Girl’, ‘I Believe in Rock & Roll’ and the ever popular ‘Julian Cope is Dead’, After the set, Bill and his band all remarked how much fun it was, they may be back. Let’s hope so!”
Rubino was obviously being slightly hyperbolic in this piece, but then that’s the job he was hired to do - hype up Bar/None releases. Drummond didn’t return to the US to play further shows as Rubino had hoped, because by the time he returned from his gig at The Knitting Factory The KLF were just about to release ‘Kylie said to Jason’. The rest as they say is history.
Postscript:
“All is quiet where the angels fear,
Oh my blood relations the revolutionary spirit is here.”
The greatest record released by Zoo Records, and No. 1 in my aforementioned Liverpool Post-Punk Top 5, is of course ‘Revolutionary Spirit’ by The Wild Swans. It’s simply one of the greatest songs ever written.
The song has lent its name to a Cherry Red Boxset, the 5CD Revolutionary Spirit: The Sound of Liverpool, 1976 – 1988, and a forthcoming documentary about the Liverpool Post-Punk scene by Grant McPhee (director of Big Gold Dream and Teenage Superstars). Paul Simpson also titled his memoir Revolutionary Spirit, and in it he details the recording of this song and how it inadvertently ended up in mono. In 2022 Optic Nerve Records rereleased ‘Revolutionary Spirit’ on 7” as part of their “Optic Sevens 4.0 Series”.
The Wild Swans - ‘Revolutionary Spirit’ 7” (2022, Optic Nerve Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
The Optic Nerve 7” was accompanied by a beautiful poster of ‘The Lament for Icarus’ a painting by Herbert James Draper. The poster has the Wild Swans’ logo across it. Draper’s painting is from 1898 and depicts the dead Icarus, surrounded by lamenting nymphs. This reproduction of Draper’s Icarus was originally intended to be in the top righthand corner of the 1982 Zoo 12” sleeve but was withdrawn when permission to reproduce the painting was denied.
I instantly recognised Draper’s Icaras. It is one of my favourite paintings.
MacMillan’s Class Pictures and Reference Book (1934, MacMillian and Co. Ltd, St. Martin’s Street, London). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
In the mid-1930s my Grandfather graduated from teach-training collage and started his first teaching position in Watergrasshill NS, Co. Cork. As a graduation present he was given a copy of MacMillan’s Class Pictures and Reference Book, and Teaching in Practice for Juniors a four volume collection of classroom books accompanied by a set of 180 A3 plates and a small reference book detailing information about the History, Geography and Literature pictures on the plates. The MacMillan’s set was published in 1934 and the A3 plates were used by teachers in the classroom as visual aids. As a child I was absolutely fascinated with this set of plates and spent hours upon hours poring over the collection and reading the accompanying stories in the books.
The collection has ultimately passed to me. Draper’s ‘The Lament for Icarus’ is plate No. 164 in the collection.
