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Bucketfull Of Brains # 28 - february 89

NEW ROSE

BLOOMING ROCK‘N’ROLL

What do The Saints, Alex Chilton, Roky Erickson, Eleventh Dream Day, Tav Falco, Richard Barone, R. Stevie Moore and the Plimsouls all have in common? They all have albums released by New Rose (along with dozens of other banda familiar to most "Bucketfull Of Brains" readers) that’s what. In the words of Louis Thevenon, who with Patrick Mathe forms the partnership that runs New Rose:

"That’s the thing about New Rose, it’s not trendy but it’s solid"

Louis Thevenon and Patrick MathéIn the past we’ve run features on both Australia's Citadel Records and the UK's Reckless Records; beginning this issue we turn the spotlight on France’s biggest independent label, New Rose. Patrick and Louis are the dynamic duo who head the organisation (several record labels, a shop and an independent distribution service) and, having recently met both of these charming characters, let me assure you that notwithstanding the undoubted success of New Rose and all it’s ventures these guys remain first, foremost and (very possibly) forever, fervent rock’n’roll fans. Over two days, in Paris, we swapped anecdotes and info, returning to the deserted New Rose HQ at midnight to while away the early hours sampling the delight of Patrick's hoard of unreleased demo tapes (not necessarily by New Rose bands either) and forthcoming attractions. And, although New Rose is evidently flying high (they claim they’ll soon have the clout of a major label and are in the process of expanding their distribution side), Patrick and Louis keep both foot firmly on the ground, involving themselves closely with all their artiste, many of whom they regard as personal friends rather than business partners. Similarly they maintain contact with their ultimate customers by continuing to work behind the counter of their shop on a frequent and ongoing basis (let me know next time you spot Geoff Travis filling records at the Rough Trade shop will you?) despite. the many, many other calls on their time and a staff of almost 30 people.

The New Rose shop is, and always has been, at 7 Rue Pierre Sarrazin, Paris 75006 - just off the busy Boulevard Saint Michel and close to the Sorbonne; students, record and book shops and innumerable bars and cafes throng the area. If you’re in Paris it's well worth a visit.

In March, nine years ago, Patrick and Louis (who had met while working et another Paris record shop, Music Box) moved into the shop- also using the collar as a makeshift rehearsal area (Louis on drums and Patrick blowing harp - they claim they cut a single, for another label but refuse to divulge the sordid detail, -anyone got any ion this?) but it was more a means to an end for they already had their hearts set on their own record label, like the shop, named in honour of their then favourite band, the Damned (their subsidiary collector’s label, Fan Club, and their publishing company, Lively Arts are also named after Damned songs). Sure, they liked selling records, but they wanted to sell their own records most of all. However, it was all to happen even more quickly than they had planned. As huge fans of the Australian group, The Saints, the pair sent a letter to Giovanni Dadomo (then a writer for the NME) who had written in praise of the band; he put them in contact with the band’s singer/ songwriter/ guitarist (and in this writer’s opinion, genius) Chris Bailey. Saint Christopher BaileyFollowing a lack of commercial success, despite the release of three excellent albums, The Saints were at a low ebb having been dropped by EMI/Harvest. Patrick and Louis had no lack of faith in the band and what better group to get their label underway? So, a more four months after the opening of the shop, New Rose’s first record, The Saints album ‘the Monkey Puzzle’ (ROSE 1) was sitting proudly in their racks (and, like their other Saints albums, continues to sell consistently well to this day).

Even today, after nine years and with hundreds of records released, Mathe and Thevenon display the same breathless and contagious enthusiasm - which serves to mark them indelibly as terminally addicted fans; they just can’t get too much of this good thing we call rock’n’roll. Once they fall headlong for a newly discovered bond, they can hardly wait until the cherished music is newly clad in a shiny New Rose sleeve (as a topical example, Patrick, like me, was knocked out by ex-Bongo Richard Barone’s stunning live set in Berlin last year; that was mid-October, swiftly contact was made, wheeler-dealing quickly dealt with and lo and behold, the latest Barone LP ‘Cool Blue Halo’, originally on US label PVC, was released in Europe by New Rose -on LP and CD- in a more two months! Tardy they are net!).

Anyway, we’re leaping ahead a bit - so back to the early 80’s we go...... Following the release of that first album, subsequent records came thick and fast. Amongst the early LP releases were Willie Alexander's ‘Solo Loco’, the classic Gun Club LP, ‘Fire Of Love’, Johnny Thunders ‘Hurt Me’ and, later, 'In Cold Blood' (originally a double 12" set).

There was also plenty more from the Saints 'Out in the Jungle’ and ‘A Little Madness To Be Free’ plus a crop of 45s and 12" records like ‘Paralytic Tonight Dublin Tomorrow' and a brace of Chris Bailey solo albums, 'Casablanca’ and ‘What We Did On Our Holidays’, too. In fact, it was Patrick and Louis who initially encouraged Bailey to record under his name, it took them several more years to persuade him to play solo gigs - Patrick got his reward in the end though, and even accompanied Chris on harp at one gig near Paris a couple of years ago, a memory he treasures. Although the Saints later signed to Polydor in Europe (Mushroom in Australia and TVT in the USA), it is significant that Chris has still continued to record exclusive tracks for various Now Rose projects (a great version et Me & My Uncle on the ‘Play New Rose For Me’ double album set and ‘It Doesn’t Matter Anymore' on the label’s newly released Buddy Holly tribute set, but more on that anon).

During the early 80’s, New Rose were also quick off the mark regarding the burgeoning American guitar band renaissance; Snapping up some of the best US bands and ensuring European releases for the likes of True West (the essential ‘Hollywood Holiday’ LP which compiled the band's original US 12" plus some extra tracks, adding up to the band’s finest release; and later the less distinguished ‘Drifters' LP too), the sadly under-rated Divine Horsemen (the LPs ‘Time Stands Still’, ‘Devil’s River’, ‘Snake Handler’ plus a 12" mini-album - Patrick suggests the main problem with the Divine Horsemen was that they released too many records in quick succession; nevertheless, there's a lot of great material here still waiting to be discovered, pick any one and you’ll come up with a plumb!), the amazing Giant Sand (debut LP, 'Valley Of Rain’) and alter-ego Blacky Ranchette as well.

Garage bands are also well represented by bands like The Lyres, the Slickee Boys (both with multiple releases on New Rose) and the Chesterfield Kings, though the label has also played a welcome role as regards new releases by original Garage/Psych pioneers like ex-Charlatan Mike Wilhelm ('Mean OI’ Frisco’ LP), ex-Seeds Sky Saxon ('Masters Of Psychedelia’ and others) and ex-13th Floor Elevator Roky Erickson (several releases - see the Elevators article in this issue.).

Alex Chilton playing Tav Falco's guitarOther mavericks like Alex Chilton and Tav Falco & Panther Burns have been largely resuscitated by New Rose; the fact that the French label signed these artists when they were being ignored in their native USA led to renewed interest from the American labels who had had this talent right under their noses all the time!! Both Alex and Tav are particularly highly regarded by Patrick and Louis and the New Rose catalogue contains a crop of particularly neat Panther Bums items (the quadruple 7" pack and the 10" 'Red Devil' album for instance - "If we say it's a limited edition, it is!"), Tav's another one who turns out a lot of material, fortunately mostly top quality stuff - dip in and see. Alex is less prolific, but has recently been active as a producer of (another New Rose band) the Lolitas, who are, rather curiously, based in Germany although they sing only in French! Anyway, Alex heard some tracks by his labelmates, asked to produce ‘em and voila! The Lolitas. are the first European band to be produced by the legendary Big Star himself.

New Rose seems to foster this sort of camaraderie between the artists; who have even been know to cover each others songs - the ‘Play New Rose For Me’ set (issued to commemorate the first 100 New Rose LPs) consists entirely of New Rose acts doing tracks written (or at least regularly performed) by other New Rose acts (quite a unique release, it’s a double album too!).

Now I think that really does say something about the spirit of the whole operation!

Apparently, to celebrate their first 10 years the label are considering a mega-gig in Paris which may involve a large selection of their artiste doing roughly the same sort of thing live on stage, with bands swapping members and appearing in all sorts of weird and wonderful combinations.
Patrick and Louis take an above average interest in the bands on their label - for example:
Patrick: "When we sign an artist the music is important of course, but also the character. For instance, The Shoes - we haven't released anything by them for 4 years, but we kept in touch and I went to see them in Chicago and they did the first cover they've ever recorded for our compilation ('Every Day Is A Holly Day'). Part of the fun of having a label is just to have friends like that and we keep in touch whether we do business or release records or not. Why should we ignore them because nothing is happening?"
Louis: "The Saints aren't on the label anymore, but the first people Chris Bailey sends his new demos to are us, because he knows we'll tell him if they're shit, or fantastic or whatever. And he knows we appreciate it".

New Rose are also concerned about giving their artiste a firm base in order to try and ensure that future recordings will be possible and that they can work in as creative an environment as possible.
Patrick: "What we are always trying to do is to build a strong back catalogue - like with Tav Falco, now he has four or five LPs and three or four CDs, so all the time he's selling records and so he doesn't have to think 'shit, I must have a new record out next month to pay my rent'. That's not the exiting side of the label, but you can't blame an artist for waiting to put out lots of new albums because that is his source of living".

The Louis and Patrick are also vinyl junkies of the first order - they reckon they can have a new record on the streets within 4 weeks of receiving the tape, and Patrick's comment is telling "There’s only one thing that matters - to have the record in your hands!".

Running parallel to the main New Rose label, is Fan Club, a subsidiary that now boasts well over 50 albums and mini-albums; it specialises in records specifically for dedicated collectors/ fans and also in reissuing classic material originally released by other companies (e.g the first three Buzzcocks albums on UA).

I queried Patrick regarding the poor quality of a few of the records, principally Roky Erickson’s ‘the Holiday Inn Tapes’ and ‘Live At The Ritz 1987’. Apparently, in Patrick's opinion, it is ever more likely that Roky Erickson will never record again (for health reasons that we won’t go into here) thus he felt it reasonable to release the ‘Ritz album (recorded by Roky's mother, Evelyn, on a portable cassette) as a document of what he considers will be the last, ever, Roky gig. A valid point, and I’m pretty sure that if the album was a bootleg instead of an official New Rose release that fans would seek it out, pay twice as much and be just as pleased as punch into the bargain!

The 'Holiday Inn’ LP resulted from Roky being unable ho undertake a scheduled recording session. Apparently the studio was booked, halt the musicians in Austin were waiting there to play on the record … and Roky just wouldn't do it (despite much pleading by his friend, bassist Speedy Sparks). Instead he played a selection of material (much of it previously unheard) to Patrick in a Holiday Inn bedroom where it was taped on a handy portable. Again, in view of the precarious nature of Roky’s health, Patrick felt justified in releasing the recording, particularly so as many songs were simply not documented elsewhere. He also told me the strange story of how one of Roky's brothers (a classical musician) was playing a concert in Paris and at the same time Evelyn Erickson appeared at the New Rose shop clutching a camera with the sole purpose of taking a picture to "prove I (Patrick) existed!" Having got her snap, Mrs Erickson promptly turned on her heel and took the next flight back to Texas. Bizarre!

Although I didn’t bring up the subject, Patrick also referred to the poor quality of the New York Dolls ‘Red Patent Leather’ live album - but this time it appears New Rose were mislead as to the fidelity of the ‘master tape’ (here their galloping enthusiasm got the better of them) and only realised what they had let themselves in for after they had paid a small fortune for the tape. Again Patrick made the point that although the quality wasn’t of the best, it was probably better than any other live New York Dolls material and that it had a pretty snazzy cover too! In the end though most fans would want the material almost irrespective of the recording quality - which is borne out by Louis comment:
"It was a big seller at the time, then it went quiet and suddenly six months ago it was huge again! Two years ago we sold maybe two thousand copies, but last year it was like five thousand!"

In any event, there is some great stuff on the Fan Club label. I was particularly glad ho see the first Mike Wilhelm solo album, originally released under the short lived Zigzag/UA banner, available again and the Loose Gravel compilation that consisted of tracks only released on totally obscure 45s in San Francisco & the Netherlands.

One of Fan Club’s latest and best releases to date is the only available live recording of the late, great Plimsouls (the late 70’s / early 80’s power-pop combo fronted by Peter Case). Entitled ‘One Night In America’, it’s a great album, a good performance well recorded and featuring several songs of which no studio version has been released. Peter Case, though now recording a second solo album in the US, is so taken with this release that he is, I hear, considering reforming the Plimsouls for some live work. Now that I would like to see! I haven’t seen the LP sleeve (it was only at the test pressing stage) but I’d buy it even if it was wrapped in bag paper! Any Plimsouls fan will love this - a great set of 12 driving tracks including a batch of covers not on any others Plimsouls album (like ‘Time Won’t Let Me’, ‘Come On Now’ and 'One More Heartache’) and stage version of some of thier own classic cuts (including ‘A Million Miles Away’, ‘I’ll Get Lucky' and ‘How Long Will It Take’).

The Slickee BoysNew Rose policy with CDs, to include as much material as possible on each diesc, is one that I find laudible. Examples of this are all over their catalogue. Every Saints CD has either extra tracks or the whole contents of a mini-album added as a bonus. Similarly both of the two Paul Roland CDs (‘A Cabinet Of Curiosities’ and Happy Families’) have extra cuts added. Where possible two-on-one discs are also preferred, take the recent release of the new Eddie Ray Porter album ‘Dance On The Earth’, the CD of which also includes all tracks from his debut LP, featuring Chuck Prophet, 'When The Morning Falls’.

With CDs in mind I asked Patrick how he thought they would develop in relation to vinyl: "I'm still a vinyl fan, to me a record is a magic thing, no one will ever replace a good cardboard sleeve and that black vinyl inside. But CDs are convenient, you can put more music on them. The CD will kill vinyl but people like you and me who grew up listening to vinyl in the 60's will always be addicted to it. I think within a couple of years the normal for a record will be CD and there will be limited editions for vinyl junkies. The record companies are killing vinyl much too quickly." Louis: "What we are doing now is putting out the whole back catalogue on CD, even stuff that's not available on vinyl anymore".

"As far as rock music goes, England is not the centre of Europe anymore."

I also asked Patrick how important he considered the UK these days, bearing in mind that the vast majority of bands on New Rose are American in origin: "As far as rock music goes, England is not the centre of Europe anymore - it's one of the key markets but it's not the only one. And each country has its particularities, Paul Roland, for instance, is going barely OK in England, but he's almost a star in Italy. Apart from 'Bucketfull Of Brains', I can't remember anything about him in the UK press. It must be frustrating for an English guy to be so ignored in his own country but at the same time it's good to know that you can do something for him in lots of other places. It's the same for lots of American bands, they don't mean anything at home, but they're popular in Europe."

Things weren't always this way, and in fact the one label thet inspired the formation of New Rose was Stiff Records, back in the mid to late 70’s. Stiff, then, were notable for their strong family atmosphere too - remember their package tours where the bands would swap the headlining spot from night to night, and the way they played on & produced each others records. Patrick "We always felt very close to Stiff, the spirit of the label. Like they put out five LPs of unknown people at the same time, Wreckless Eric, Lena Lovich and Mickey Jupp…… We were very early fans of Devo, we wrote to them and imported their first two 7" (this was before New Rose existed) and who did they sign with … Stiff! I think they're one of the most brilliant bands of the last decade."

Every Day is a Holly DayTo bring things right up to date, this month, in honour of Buddy Holly, New Rose have released a double 10" album set (also available on CD with 9 extra tracks) called ‘Every Day’s A Holly Day’. This release consists of cover versions of Buddy’s songs (and a couple of special tributes) recorded by the label's artists, past and present, from Chris Bailey (a superb 'It Doesn't Matter Anymore’) to the Country Rockers (‘Rock Around With Ollie Vee’) with the Classic Ruins turning in a great version of ‘Loves Made A Fool Of You’, There’s other fine tracks by Paul Roland (another of his out of character covers, a wonderful hiccuping version of ‘Peggy Sue Got Married'), Red River (‘Rave On’), Eddie Ray Porter ('Wishin' '), the Shoes (as mentioned earlier, with ‘Word. Of Love’) and, of course, Tav Falco’s Panther Burns with a fittingly sparse 'Peggy Sue’; I was also impressed with the new-to-me Ted & The Tall Tops with a gorgeous ‘Take Your Time’. In general, the bands play the songs true to the original recordings (though a band called OFB take unnecessary liberties with ‘Oh Boy’ - I don't remember Holly singing ‘tonight there’ll be no masturbatin". I hope they're visited by a plague of boils!) and, with songs as strong as Holly’s, it all sounds just fabulous. Patrick Mathe initiated this project because the first record he ever bought was one of Buddy’s - the second was by Eddie Cochran, and you can expect a similar Cochran set sometime in the future; I hope it's as good as this one is.

Other new releases out soon include Red River's first mini-LP (they’re a guitar band from Austin and on the strength of their Holly cut probably well worth checking out), the Lolitas' ‘Fusée D’Amour' (the album produced by Alex Chilton), the Boston band Classic Ruins ‘Ruins Cafe’

Chris SpeddingLP and Robert Gordon’s first album for something like seven years; last time I saw Robert Gordon was when he played some great shows in the UK in the company of that grandfather of trash, Link (‘Rumble’) Wray, the new LP ‘Live At The Lone Star' sees him teamed with journey man guitarist and producer Chris Spedding (another of the New Rose team’s favourite characters) and if the tracks I heard are representative of the whole then this should be a damn fine album with some spine-tingling guitar play. Further live albums well on the way include the Slickee Boys (with Kim Kane), recorded during their last French tour, and one featuring Dino Lee. New Rose are also releasing the new studio album by the well known French band The Dogs. Needless to say, most (if not all) of these will also be released as CDs with a liberal helping of extra tracks.

On CD only there will be a second volume in the ‘Laserock’n’Roll Party’ series - i.e. a budget price sampler of a cross-section et New Rose acts - the last one had 24 tracks and sold for something like £6 or £7 here, so it’ll be well worth looking out for.

Laserock n roll party

On the Fan Club division, apart from the Plimsouls album mentioned earlier, there is a live set by Ron Asheton’s post-Stooges band Destroy All Monsters which should be interesting (a recent visitor who used to live in Ann Arbor in the 70’s told me the band were a whole different ball game onstage), particularly for those into the late 60’s/early 70’s Detroit scene, and it’s descendents.

Well, that just about wraps it up as for as New Rose are concerned, for this issue anyway. We’ll conclude next time with a complete discography of all New Rose releases - which should make for fascinating reading, I’d forgotten just how much prime stuff they have in their catalogue and some items just don’t seem to make it across the channel either so there are some surprises too!

My thanks to Patrick Mathe and Louis Thevenon (two guys who prove that you can run a successful record company without sacrificing the music you love) for their kind hospitality and to Chris at Wayward for all his help.

JON STOREY

Bucketfull of Brains # 28 - february 1989

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