— Lola Borg
The Jesus & Mary Chain last popped up on this page back on Christmas Day, 2019. In Smash Hits time (ie real time), it's actually been about eighteen months between "Never Understand" getting an enthusiastic SOTF from DJ Andy Kershaw and the Some Candy Talking EP being similarly recommended by staff writer Lola Borg. Listen to the two releases back-to-back, however, and it's like time standing still. You'd even be forgiven for assuming that the latter work predated the former.
Indie groups who hit it big are frequently accused of selling out, typically by the very fans that helped get them there. What they fail to consider — beyond the fact that there's nothing inherently wrong with success — is that having hits, becoming famous and making money changes everything. Music critic Taylor Parkes recently made this point on the Chart Music podcast in the context of The Smiths and Morrissey's rapid decline as a songwriter. Drawn to the singer's sharp early work, Parkes concludes that he had a lifetime as a angsty, self-righteous youth to compile his observations into the songs that make up the group's self-titled debut album, as well as the material that made up the companion compilation Hatful of Hollow. By 1985, his bedsit scribblings have all dried up and he's reduced to composing fresh material from the perspective of a whiny pop star, tackling serious issues with naiveté, making lame quips about the poor and the needy being "selfish and greedy" and being increasingly unconvincing about being inadequate. Sure, he invented the concept of powerful individuals pretending to be victims (cheers, Stephen) but his art suffered. (Though at least the bugger never sold out so there is that)
The Jesus & Mary Chain weren't on the same level as either critical darlings nor in terms of commercial might as The Smiths but they were doing all right for themselves. Psychocandy sold in respectable numbers for such an abrasive act and it managed to finish second to Tom Waits' Rain Dogs as NME's Album of the Year (nine spots ahead of Meat Is Murder by The Smiths). But tensions were high with William Reid fraying from the constant touring, an over-indulgence in alcohol and drummer Bobby Gillespie's imminent departure. This could very easily have been the moment they lost the plot, in terms of both their creativity and their sanity, but for the Reid brothers decision, as Zoë Howe recounts in her splendid JAMC biography Barbed Wire Kisses, to "return to East Kilbride to try to write songs in the kitchen".
The idea of Jim and William spending their precious free time in the nondescript home they grew up in right in the middle of a bleak Scottish New Town outside of Glasgow in the greyness of Thatcher's Britain might seem peculiar but it was precisely the same setting in which they conjured up the likes of "Upside Down", "Never Understand" and "Just Like Honey". Composing on the road may have suited the talents of Lennon and McCartney as they sat on hotel beds "face to face and eyeball to eyeball" but it couldn't have done much for the volatile Reids. The "inspiration" of East Kilbride was in its lack of culture, its stifling atmosphere and its neighbours with their (to quote The Style Council in their own New Town demolishing "Come to Milton Keynes) "curtains all drawn". This was the sort of place they came from.
Though released as an EP, the title track is the clear standout and could have easily stood on its own as a single. This scarcely matters (Lola Borg doesn't mention the format and keeps her review strictly to the A side) but it does give equal prominence (at least in theory) to companion tracks "Psychocandy" and "Hit". It could just have been a thoughtful gesture to fans by having more than two cuts on their latest release, plus the promise of acoustic demos on the Double 7" and 12" versions to really get their followers down to the local Our Price. This material is all perfectly fine even if there's something off about a JAMC song that isn't plugged in with maximum distortion.
As for "Some Candy Talking" itself, the song is about sex (not heroin as is often reported). Had the Reids been at work on it in a hotel room in Munich or Philadelphia, it would have been an altogether different beast. On the road there's booze flowing and groupies at one's disposal (or so I hear) so it's hard to imagine yearning for sex and futilely seeking it out coming from a night spent with a woman. Back in their family kitchen in East Kilbride, their sexual frustrations returned. There's no glamour in being a guitarist for an indie rock band up there. People talk about success and how everything changes when you return home but inadequacies also come back. The bully who duffed you up on a regular basis at school might suddenly be pleased to see you but how happy are you bumping into him? Now, for most this doesn't matter or it would be a situation to avoid but it was just what Jim and William needed. Nothing humbles the ego like being a nothing again.
Morale had been low on the road and their misery remained while holed up in East Kilbride. Having previously taken pride in their ability to fuse sugar-sweet melodies with ferocious lyrical darkness on earlier material, the Beach Boys/Girl Group lightness is expunged on "Some Candy Talking" in favour of pure aggression and pain. Is it a joy to listen to? Somehow it is. Yes, as Borg says, they sound more like The Velvet Underground than ever but there's lots to mine in "I'm Waiting for the Man" and "Venus in Furs" and the results of which developed into the sparse beauty of what would be their best album, 1987's Darklands. All the while never quite getting that wretched Scots New Town out of them. And how could they? They needed it now more than ever.
Indie groups who hit it big are frequently accused of selling out, typically by the very fans that helped get them there. What they fail to consider — beyond the fact that there's nothing inherently wrong with success — is that having hits, becoming famous and making money changes everything. Music critic Taylor Parkes recently made this point on the Chart Music podcast in the context of The Smiths and Morrissey's rapid decline as a songwriter. Drawn to the singer's sharp early work, Parkes concludes that he had a lifetime as a angsty, self-righteous youth to compile his observations into the songs that make up the group's self-titled debut album, as well as the material that made up the companion compilation Hatful of Hollow. By 1985, his bedsit scribblings have all dried up and he's reduced to composing fresh material from the perspective of a whiny pop star, tackling serious issues with naiveté, making lame quips about the poor and the needy being "selfish and greedy" and being increasingly unconvincing about being inadequate. Sure, he invented the concept of powerful individuals pretending to be victims (cheers, Stephen) but his art suffered. (Though at least the bugger never sold out so there is that)
The Jesus & Mary Chain weren't on the same level as either critical darlings nor in terms of commercial might as The Smiths but they were doing all right for themselves. Psychocandy sold in respectable numbers for such an abrasive act and it managed to finish second to Tom Waits' Rain Dogs as NME's Album of the Year (nine spots ahead of Meat Is Murder by The Smiths). But tensions were high with William Reid fraying from the constant touring, an over-indulgence in alcohol and drummer Bobby Gillespie's imminent departure. This could very easily have been the moment they lost the plot, in terms of both their creativity and their sanity, but for the Reid brothers decision, as Zoë Howe recounts in her splendid JAMC biography Barbed Wire Kisses, to "return to East Kilbride to try to write songs in the kitchen".
The idea of Jim and William spending their precious free time in the nondescript home they grew up in right in the middle of a bleak Scottish New Town outside of Glasgow in the greyness of Thatcher's Britain might seem peculiar but it was precisely the same setting in which they conjured up the likes of "Upside Down", "Never Understand" and "Just Like Honey". Composing on the road may have suited the talents of Lennon and McCartney as they sat on hotel beds "face to face and eyeball to eyeball" but it couldn't have done much for the volatile Reids. The "inspiration" of East Kilbride was in its lack of culture, its stifling atmosphere and its neighbours with their (to quote The Style Council in their own New Town demolishing "Come to Milton Keynes) "curtains all drawn". This was the sort of place they came from.
Though released as an EP, the title track is the clear standout and could have easily stood on its own as a single. This scarcely matters (Lola Borg doesn't mention the format and keeps her review strictly to the A side) but it does give equal prominence (at least in theory) to companion tracks "Psychocandy" and "Hit". It could just have been a thoughtful gesture to fans by having more than two cuts on their latest release, plus the promise of acoustic demos on the Double 7" and 12" versions to really get their followers down to the local Our Price. This material is all perfectly fine even if there's something off about a JAMC song that isn't plugged in with maximum distortion.
As for "Some Candy Talking" itself, the song is about sex (not heroin as is often reported). Had the Reids been at work on it in a hotel room in Munich or Philadelphia, it would have been an altogether different beast. On the road there's booze flowing and groupies at one's disposal (or so I hear) so it's hard to imagine yearning for sex and futilely seeking it out coming from a night spent with a woman. Back in their family kitchen in East Kilbride, their sexual frustrations returned. There's no glamour in being a guitarist for an indie rock band up there. People talk about success and how everything changes when you return home but inadequacies also come back. The bully who duffed you up on a regular basis at school might suddenly be pleased to see you but how happy are you bumping into him? Now, for most this doesn't matter or it would be a situation to avoid but it was just what Jim and William needed. Nothing humbles the ego like being a nothing again.
Morale had been low on the road and their misery remained while holed up in East Kilbride. Having previously taken pride in their ability to fuse sugar-sweet melodies with ferocious lyrical darkness on earlier material, the Beach Boys/Girl Group lightness is expunged on "Some Candy Talking" in favour of pure aggression and pain. Is it a joy to listen to? Somehow it is. Yes, as Borg says, they sound more like The Velvet Underground than ever but there's lots to mine in "I'm Waiting for the Man" and "Venus in Furs" and the results of which developed into the sparse beauty of what would be their best album, 1987's Darklands. All the while never quite getting that wretched Scots New Town out of them. And how could they? They needed it now more than ever.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
The Vindaloo Summer Special: "Rockin' with Rita"
The daft side of indie which makes for a welcome pallet cleanser after all this dour Jesus & Mary Chain stuff, The Vindaloo Summer Special were a one off "super" group made up of comedian Ted Chippington, a still punk We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It and a nearly done Nightingales. Some good, if rather pointless, bit of summer fun, it certainly gives some idea of what a British B-52's might sound like. Amazingly, it almost became a hit but there were much worse records to be buying during the summer of '86.
The daft side of indie which makes for a welcome pallet cleanser after all this dour Jesus & Mary Chain stuff, The Vindaloo Summer Special were a one off "super" group made up of comedian Ted Chippington, a still punk We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It and a nearly done Nightingales. Some good, if rather pointless, bit of summer fun, it certainly gives some idea of what a British B-52's might sound like. Amazingly, it almost became a hit but there were much worse records to be buying during the summer of '86.
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