The Psychedelic Furs' "Talk Talk Talk Interview"

"If you believe that anyone like me within a song / would try and change it all, then you have been put on... I'm into you like a train."

With strong echoes of both the glam-rock of their collective youth and of the punk sentiments of the band's genesis, The Psychedelic Furs' Talk Talk Talk album has proved to be a timeless encapsulation of  a young, brash artist's forays into the human jungle.

Released in 1981, Talk Talk Talk not only vanquished any notion of a sophomore slump, it was a landmark record, solidifying the Furs' trademarks.   A full-course, yet no-nonsense myriad of emotions, conditions and observations — lust, disgust, irony, disillusionment, deep introspection — were thrust upon a bed of surprisingly complex and powerful musical arrangements.  And, of course, it contained a ditty called "Pretty In Pink."

Three decades later, Talk Talk Talk remains a brooding, raucous, furious and hypnotic masterpiece; by popular demand, The Psychedelic Furs will be performing it in its entirety during a spring/summer tour of the U.S.

I recently cornered one of the participants in greatness, Furs bassist Tim Butler, for anecdotes from a very pivotal time in the band's career.  Butler, who was just 22 at the time of Talk Talk Talk's recording, is frontman Richard's youngest brother.  Rarely seen without his signature shades and a smile, Tim not only shares his sibling's extremely gracious demeanor, but a habit of blunt honesty, as well.


Steve Stav: I can't tell you how pleased I am to hear you're going to be playing this entire record on stage.

Butler: Is Talk Talk Talk your favorite Furs album?

SS: Yeah, I think so... it's your meanest album, and probably the most complete.

Butler: I beg to differ there... my favorite record is Forever Now; but you're right, it's a mean, energetic album.

SS: I think it would be a bigger hit, perform better on the charts as a new record today.

Butler: Yes, I think I'd agree with you on that.  When it first came out, there wasn't that much acceptance of alternative music on the radio.. now, alternative music is all over the place, but back then it was pretty much just on college radio.

SS: You debuted the "Talk Talk Talk" show in Europe last fall.  How did that fare overseas?

Butler: It was great!  We played a festival in Belgium; we haven't played in Belgium in... 20 years?  We got an incredible reaction there.  And of course, the English dates... the last time we played London was in 2004.

Since we've been back together, it's been fun; whereas towards the end, before we took the hiatus... it was getting to be like work.  The whole 'album, tour, album, tour' bit, trying to make a hit that beats the last record - it's a lot of pressure, and it tends to take the fun out of it.

SS: I imagine during a song like "Mr. Jones," it's fun for you to watch some in the audience mentally buckling their seatbelts... it's hardly a Human League concert.

Butler: (Laughs) Some people who haven't seen us before, perhaps they come to the show because of the name — sometimes I think they expect a 'laid-back' performance.  But we are a hard-rocking band, and I think many people who see us once are pleasantly surprised, and come back over and over again.

SS: Now you're playing a second set during the show... 'hits' ?

Butler: Yeah, plus other favorites - not necessarily all the hits, but also songs we just like to play... the 'hits, misses and also-rans,' if you will.  We shuffle around the songs in the second set quite a bit.

SS: Talk Talk Talk is such a vigorous record... did you all have to pick up an exercise regimen to prepare for the tour?

Butler: (Laughing) No... it's funny you said that, though, because one night last year, after the 'Talk Talk Talk set,' we came offstage and Paul Garisto, our drummer said, "Wow, this is really a young person's album!"  It's deceptive... a lot of the songs I didn't realize were so fast.  By the way, we have a great band right now, probably the best lineup we've ever had.

SS: I've always thought of the Furs as a combination of Roxy Music and say, the Buzzcocks.

Butler: I'd say Roxy Music and the Sex Pistols!  (Laughs)  That's one of the reasons why we started in the first place... the Sex Pistols brought an energy back to music.  We'd always been Roxy Music and Velvet Underground fans... and when we went to see the Sex Pistols at the Hundred Club, we were just blown away by the aggression and the energy... we decided to form a band.

SS: The middle Butler brother, Simon... he was in on this, too, wasn't he?

Butler: Yeah, he was in it for awhile... Simon actually helped write "Imitation of Christ" and "India."

SS: Why did he quit?

Butler: Uh, Simon didn't see it going anywhere; plus, at the time he thought it would be too much like the Bee Gees.

SS: I imagine he's endured about 30 years' worth of heckling.

Butler: No, no, he's proud of us.  He comes to see us at the shows.  Simon's got a real job, he works for Apple Computers in California.

SS: What do you recollect about the writing and studio sessions for Talk Talk Talk?

Butler: I recollect... going to the pub around the corner from the rehearsal studio about 11 o'clock; we'd get drunk until the pub closed, and we'd grab a six-pack and go to the rehearsal studio and jam.   And then at 5:30 when the pub opened, we'd be back there.  I remember a lot of fights, a lot of energy and aggression — everybody was trying to get their input in.  It just happened to all click.

SS: Sorry, I'm culturally obligated to ask you a question about "Pretty In Pink."  But I'll make it a little interesting... personally, what was the iconic, "Pretty In Pink" song of your formative years?

Butler: Hmmm... "Virginia Plain" by Roxy Music.

SS: Wow.  I saw them about ten years ago.  I almost peed my pants, it was so exciting.

Butler: I was at one of those shows, too.  Wasn't that something?

SS: And the thing is, I figured that might be the final swan song... but 10 years later, Bryan's still at it.

Butler: Well, why shouldn't he be?  Great music has no age limit.

SS: Did you start as a bassist, or was the instrument assigned to you by tradition - as you were the coolest member?

Butler: (chuckles) No, Richard and I were sitting down at our parents' place one night... we were talking about forming a band, and what'd we do, what it would be like.  And he said, 'What do you want to play?'

I originally thought, 'drums,' but they'd be too expensive for a 17-year-old to buy.  So I said, "bass!' because the drums and the bass hold everything together.  I got a cheap bass, and the rest is history.

SS: Did you have a serious early influence for the bass?

Butler: Yeah, for the sound — and because I wanted to move around on stage a lot — it was Jean-Jacques Burnel of the Stranglers.  I used to go see them all the time; I loved his sound, the way he moved... he wasn't standing in the background like bass players are supposed to.

SS: The 'anti-Bill Wyman."

Butler: The 'anti-John Entwistle' !

SS: If you and Richard ever have an argument, what's it usually about?

Butler: Hmmm...

SS: Girls?

Butler: No... how a song should sound like, or which song is good or not.

SS: As in, 'This is crap, I refuse to play it' ?

Butler: No, there's been instances where we'd have to cajole Richard for weeks, convince him that a tune is good... and finally, when its been recorded and mixed, he'd turn around and say, 'That's really good.'

A case in point is "Heartbeat," from Mirror Moves.  Richard didn't like it, but we'd carry on in the studio after he'd gone, we'd change it around and add or subtract bits.  One day, Keith Forsey played it back to him, and Richard said, "What's that?"  "Oh, this was the one you didn't like."

SS: Richard's been answering questions about a new album for almost 10 years.  For pete's sakes, when are you guys going to get off your butts and make it happen?

Butler: You'd have to talk to him... we have song ideas and things, it's just a matter of Richard doing the lyrics... I know he's working on it.

SS: I would think a new Furs CD would sell like hotcakes.

Butler: Hopefully... but would it?  That's one of those scary things - would it?  Seeing how the music business is now... is it worth doing it, only to have it fall on deaf ears?

SS: Ah, the fear of failure.

Butler: Everyone has that fear, no matter what job you're doing.

SS: Not only musicians, but of course fans mark time, mark their lives by music.  But technology plays tricks on us... alters the passage of time.  I wore this tape out in high school, and now Talk Talk Talk is in my computer, fresh as a daisy.  It's all very surreal.

Butler: It's very surreal, to me, to hear it on the radio all these years later.   It's surreal to think that people still want to come down to hear it... I think about how old I was when I recorded it; "What was I thinking when I played that bass line, how did I come up with that?"  It is surreal... and kind of scary (laughs).

SS: The fact that you've physically aged so well plays into all of this.

Butler: We're pickled; we're in embalming fluid (laughs).

SS: The embalming fluid of rock 'n' roll.

Butler: That's the thing... I like to think that all of our albums - save for Midnight to Midnight - you could play 'em today, and not think, "that's an 80s album."  Midnight to Midnight, of course, had that "80s" production...

SS: Your brother once told me that he thought of the Furs as a band not necessarily 'of the era,' but sort of apart from it all.

Butler: Yeah, well, that's what every band strives for - to be different, and I think we managed that.  We didn't kowtow to any sort of record-company pressure to "fit in" at the time; we marched to our own, different drummer... I think we were influential in that we were not willing to take any crap from the music business, and willing to experiment.  If the record company ever said, "We can't release that," we'd say, "Screw you, that's what you're getting."

SS: Some artists are so influential, so unique, they can't be imitated.

Butler: That reminds me of a story from the 80s, from a journalist who had done a piece on Rick Springfield.  The guy had been in up in his hotel room, and Springfield had some of our records lying there.  Trying to keep the the conversation going, the journalist said, "I see you have some Psychedelic Furs albums."  And Rick Springfield replied, "Yeah, they're great, but there's nothing to rip off."

The Style Council's Political Health Farm

The Jam's constant references to British politics and British working-class life in the late 70s-early 80s were probably contributing factors to their relative lack of success in the United States at the time.  Paul Weller's follow-up group, the Style Council (an outfit that in at least one critical respect, was comparable to McCartney's Wings) offered up blue-eyed, metropolitan soul with less heavy doses of political outrage and social sarcasm.

"Life At A Top People's Health Farm" is one of the exceptions.   While Mick Talbot cops a fantastic groove popularized by Stevie Wonder, Weller fills this rollicking song with acerbic jabs at the government, the economy, and the middle classes' aspirations for upward mobility while their brethren are getting "the shove" and the "iron glove."

Some things haven't changed much in 25 years, it seems, on either side of the Atlantic - and Paul Weller has always spoken his mind about it.  The Style Council, at least on this occasion, put a pretty clever, butt-wigglin' disguise on his commentary.

Ultravox's Enduring Lament

For some, "Lament" is not as memorable as "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes" or "Reap The Wild Wind," but this gorgeous song has always occupied special places in the playlists of my life.  Reportedly shot on the Isle of Skye, the video's filtered cinematography and uncontrived "plot" (or lack thereof) seem to be influenced by your average ABBA clip.  However, the visuals and music evoke a romanticism that all too often remains just out of range of most modern attempts.  The beauty of simplicity has always been underrated.

In other words, the video makes you want to jump back in time and place, to be with the band and the girls on this amazing island.

The Icicle Works - Hollow Horse video

At last!  The beyond-bizarre video for The Icicle Works' "Hollow Horse" is on YouTube!

"We'll be as we are / when all the fools who doubt us fade away...."  few songwriters of frontman Ian McNabb's heyday matched his passion and penchant for Romantic themes.  From its 12-string, Byrds ripoff-riffs to drummer Chris Sharrock's superb drumming, "Hollow Horse" is one of my favorite Icicle Works tracks.  From 1984's A Small Price of a Bicycle, the song was one of the first in a brilliant, post- "Whisper To A Scream" singles that found about as much airplay in the U.S. as those released from their fantastic debut album.... i.e., not a whole lot.

Sadly, another 1980s music-biz mystery that will remain an enigma.

The Icicle Works will begin a 30th Anniversary UK tour in April.

I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch In The House's Doghouse Blues

Tucked amongst the farmland scattered somewhere between Seattle and Bellingham, The Doghouse is the closest thing the area has to an old-fashioned roadhouse. The invitation-only, private parties held on an expansive property happen only a couple of times a year — special events, indeed. Fittingly, the wild Doghouse — the property's large, stage-equipped shack — hosted a reunion of Portland's infamously wild-and-woolly   one frigid Saturday night in March.

Around bonfires and kindly supplied heaters, numb hands held Pabst and Jack Daniels as the band's diehard fans waited for their turn at bat inside the Doghouse — which is about the size of a three-car garage. And there was a lot of diehard fans, from far and wide; I heard a rumor that someone had arrived from Nevada. SOB had played Dante's in Portland the night before, but one show was obviously not going to satisfy the group's still-loyal subjects in their former, far-reaching kingdom.

When I eased the Dodge Dart into the field-turned-crowded parking lot around nine, the party had been going on for quite some time, and a number of bands had already played. I sat with the guys and talked about everything but music, catching up on the three years that had passed since they last played a show. It seemed that nothing had changed, really. Bassist and deep thinker Mole Harris was still frozen in time, eternally 17. Drummer "Flapjack" Texas regaled us with a hilarious, bawdy story from his college baseball days. "Handsome" Jon Burbank was still baby-faced, and as nice a guy as a guitar monster could be. David Lipkind still resembled a super hero-musician-genius waiting for the release of stored-up energy that playing his harmonica brings. And brawler-turned-poet Michael Damron... Mike D seemed a bit older, a bit wiser, simultaneously stronger and more fatigued after three years of going solo.

Then the Doghouse beckoned, the bonfire-circle evaporated, and five oh-so-talented men transformed into a band one more time. Heavy coats were shrugged off, guitars were plugged in, a bottle of Maker's Mark was opened. A familiar, darkly joyous surge of dirty sonic power that we had all missed so terribly was unleashed.

It was so good to hear it again.

Click here to view an exclusive photo gallery of the reunion show.

An interview with The Knack's Doug Fieger (1952-2010)

If you were alive and cognizant of your surroundings in 1979, you couldn't escape the pounding bass of "My Sharona." Everyone on earth seemed to follow the album's advice, and got The Knack — you couldn't listen to a radio for an hour without hearing them.

The Knack's reign was short, but incredibly influential — not just for the New Wave acts that immediately followed them in the early 80s, but for power pop bands of another generation. The Knack's blend of the bombastic, feel-good pop of their youth (Dave Clark 5, Paul Revere & The Raiders) with the Mod, lyrical sensibilities of The Kinks, in turn has doubtlessly inspired the punchy, chord-driven alternative rock of today. Green Day comes to mind.

Sabotaged by the very label that once touted them as the next Beatles, The Knack disappeared, then reappeared with a lower radar visibility — but nonetheless kept making great music.

Tragically, The Knack's career has come to a close with the passing of frontman/songwriter/guitarist Doug Fieger on Valentine's Day 2010. Fieger had been battling cancer for several years, a cancer that finally interrupted a flurry of activity for the band — who had enjoyed a noticeable rise in popularity at mid-decade. (Incidentally, the loss of Fieger was preceded by the passing of original drummer Bruce Gary in 2006).

As I listened again to an interview I had conducted with Fieger a few days after his 53nd birthday in 2005, I was struck by how much the singer was in love with music, after all this time. Fieger was an extremely gracious and genuinely nice man, and we had a remarkable, long conversation — we talked about all sorts of things, from his love of gardening to his appreciation of the Raiders' Mark Lindsay as one of the greatest rock singers, ever. But mostly about his love for his beloved band.

I saw The Knack a week or so later, at the new Tulalip Ampitheatre north of Seattle. Woefully under-promoted and under an unusually chilly August night sky, Fieger and Co. played for a few hundred people as if they were performing an arena show. Impossibly tight and as dynamic as one could imagine, The Knack erased decades of time passed as if their guitars were magic wands. It remains one of my most memorable concert experiences, ever.

Doug Fieger, may there be Telecasters in heaven.

SS: I still can't get over how you lost on Hit Me Baby, One More Time.

Fieger: Oh, it was much better that we lost. I'm serious... it generated controversy, and it kept the whole thing alive a lot longer. It was great.

SS: But you blew everybody away, and lost to Vanilla Ice!

Fieger: It's not about how good you are on television, with a "TV audience." Vanilla Ice had been on “The Surreal Life,” and his popularity was up.

SS: Did you have fun doing the show?

Fieger: Oh, absolutely. I have fun doing everything. I'm happy to be still doing the same thing that I've loved doing all my life... and I get to make a living doing it. It's great.

SS: Heck, I'd do it for free...

Fieger: Well, that's the thing... I joke that I get paid to leave home and stay in hotels and fly in airplanes; that's what I get paid for. (Otherwise) I'd do it for free.

SS: Did appearing on the show garner the band some attention?

Fieger: Oh, yeah, serious attention. Audiences have been exponentially bigger — not just twice, but four times the size. It's been great.

SS: How did your gig at the Fuji Rock Festival go?

Fieger: It was amazing. 100,000 people. Amazing. There was eight stages; we played the main stage with Foo Fighters, Coldplay, Beck, New Order... we were on the stage with the big boys, and it was nice to be recognized.

Back in the day, we were gigantic in Japan. We were on the Japanese domestic charts, which was a big deal for overseas artists. It was nice that we were welcomed back to Japan with such a great response.

SS: From a fan's standpoint, the story of The Knack has been an infuriating one — the breakup, no big comeback...

Fieger: That's not really true. We were really only apart for four years. And then we couldn't get a record deal — that wasn't our fault; it was ridiculous, I mean, we had sold eight and a half million albums at the time. Capitol cut out our entire catalog for eight years, and wouldn't allow us to earn money for an eight-year period.

If anything that should infuriate the fans, it should be the music business, and not the band.

SS: Oh, I don't think the fans hold it against the band. What I was trying to say is that you should have been on top all along.

Fieger: Thank you, that's very nice for you to say that. We've always tried to do quality work. Every time we've gone into the studio, every time we've written a song, every time we get up on stage, we try to give 110 percent. I'm proud of every song on every record we've made. We've done exactly what we wanted to do... the difference has been the music business.

For example, Get The Knack was meant to be a double album — the first two albums were actually the "first album." Capitol wouldn't release a double album. Again, the record company created a problem. If we had released a double album, we wouldn't have been slagged by people as if ...But The Little Girls Understand was an inferior product — when it was really just, as Guns 'n' Roses did many years later, a record of stuff that just had to be left off the first album. No space for it.

We did a show with Journey a couple of years ago. Neal Schon came up to us backstage and said, "Man, your second album was one of the greatest albums ever recorded."  I said that he must be mistaken — he was probably talking about our third album, Round Trip. He said, "No, no, Let The Little Girls Understand."

So, there were fans who really loved that record, but it had the stigma of being this "less successful" follow-up to the first album. But it sold two-and-a-half million copies, which is not so bad.

SS: With the revival of power pop — Green Day, etc. — perhaps the time is ripe for another shot at mainstream success for The Knack.

Fieger: Well, we do what we do. I have no fantasies of becoming successful on the charts again. The fact that I'm making a good living doing what I'm doing... and 27 years after the band started, people are still calling me up to interview me, that's great.

We just played a show at a regular outdoor concert series here in Woodland Hills last night. It was huge; 5,000 people showed up to see us. I had no idea that many people would show up!

People continually come up to us and say, "You're better than you were 25 years ago." Hopefully we are. If you don't get better at something after years of doing it, you should give it up.

SS: Did you form The Knack as a power pop, Mod act?

Fieger: "Power pop" was a term invented by Pete Townshend to describe The Who back in the 60s, at least that's when I read about it.

We did have an idea of forming a band influenced by The Who and The Kinks — our two main influences. That was the idea, but nobody called it "power pop" in the beginning.

SS: Were you impressed by The Jam's power-pop, Mod splash overseas?

Fieger: I went to see them at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go when they were on their first tour here. I wasn't that impressed. I mean, I liked their energy, I appreciated the fact that they were doing the Mod thing, but...

SS: How about your cross-town rivals, The Beat?

Fieger: Well, I had known of Paul Collins when he was in a band called The Nerves, with Peter Case and Jack Lee. I went to see The Beat, he was a friend.

I never felt we had a rivalry with anybody. We had our own scene, our own group of fans, our own thing. We weren't part of the punk crowd, or anybody else's crowd. We were fortunate that (in LA) there was no specific "big thing" going on at the time, and we found our own way quickly. We were ready.

SS: Were you scared of the sudden rush of success?

Fieger: Oh, yeah. I don't know about scared, but it was... overwhelming. I thought I was ready for it, but there was no way to prepare yourself for something like that.

And it really was instant. We were playing a club like the Troubadour — 300 people — one night, and the next day we were the biggest group in the world. It was crazy, really crazy.

SS: With that beat, that bass line, didn't everyone think "My Sharona" was going to be a huge hit after first hearing it in the mixing room?

Fieger: Well, Mike Chapman did. Actually, Capitol didn't want to release it as a single. They thought "Oh Tara" should be the first single. That's why the album went to Number One before the single... "My Sharona" wasn't released until two weeks after the album.

SS: What happened to your Sharona?

Fieger: She's one of the most successful real estate agents in southern California. Sharona is the mother of two beautiful children. We've stayed friends, we talk a couple of times a year.

SS: I've rarely interviewed someone who has adjusted to the ups-and-downs of the business as well as you have seemed to. I detect very little, if any, resentment.

Fieger: Resenting what happens to you that's beyond your control — there's no purpose to it. Everything in life is designed to teach you something. I certainly wouldn't resent something that's brought me such wonderful opportunities as a song like "My Sharona" has.

Also, "My Sharona" is a fun song to play. Ask anybody who's played it.

(More photos of The Knack at the Tulalip Amphitheatre)

(NPR piece that included an interview with Sharona.)

Kid Creole & The Coconuts' Lifeboat Party

Embracing War-era music, August Darnall (aka Kid Creole) was a man ahead of his time. Commanding a stage filled with horns, rhythm and scantily dressed backup singers, the frontman's frenetic act pre-dated the swing-craze revival by almost 20 years.

And man, was it cool.  Cool – and unusual – enough to garner occasional airplay on Seattle's alternative music stations in the early 80s. An even more occasional appearances on MTV prompted more attention from American suburbia, though I have a hunch that Kid Creole's street popularity peaked on the East Coast and in Europe.

"Endicott," "Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy," "My Male Curiosity," "Caroline Was a Dropout," "Stool Pigeon"... the mix of funky R&B with Cab Calloway, 1940s jumpin' jive was irresistible, and reportedly was on Prince's turntable quite frequently. Though I had heard him on the radio, I first saw Kid Creole in action in the film Against All Odds, in a nightclub scene performing "Lifeboat Party." I was hooked, as the full Kid Creole experience combines the audio with the visual.

This live version of "Lifeboat Party" (seen above) is from 1985's Leisure Tour.

As we all know, sometimes an artist is too hip, too cool, too influential to reach the heights that their successors do, and such was the case with Kid Creole. Stuck somewhere on the dial alongside the Human League and Cyndi Lauper back in the day, the impresario was alone on a funky island of panama hats and wide silk ties. However, he never really left the room – Darnall and his Coconuts still perform occasionally, and an anthology was released in '09.