I’ve been off work this week and have been enjoying and enduring record breaking temperatures for May in the United Kingdom. What I discovered in the early part of the week, when temperatures were at their hottest, is that they are not good conditions for listening to anything by Leatherface. Each time I tried to start listening to Books, which was recorded for their fourth album, Minx, I found myself skipping on elsewhere after 30 seconds, “I’m too tired for you today” was my general attitude. And if thrashy guitar noise was all that Leatherface had to offer, I may still be sitting here, necking cloudy lemonade and putting them off until the drizzle returns next week. But I persevered and in doing so found I was reminded of something I wrote about when they last featured on this blog - you really have to listen to the words. They may have looked like they were all you ever need to meet your bricklaying needs, but they were virtuoso musicians and romantic poets, in a way that contrasted with their sound. They had you cherishing beauty and melancholy, even while you moshed as though your life depended on it.
Books is another example of the music of aggressive reflection which appears to characterise many of Leatherface’s songs. Here, author Frankie Stubbs examines a relationship between a brother and a sister which has seen both of them become paralysed with inertia. It’s not explained whether one is caring for the other, or if both of them have seen their lives shrink due to uncontrolled circumstances. Throughout the song, there are references to things and objects from another time, which have stayed in place through habit for so long that the house they share seems to be physically crying out for change:
A house full of things some of which they hadn’t seen
Since they bought the sodding things in 1980-something.
And if only their place
Had a little more space
And a little less waste
That would be something.
Stubbs is an observer to this unchanging picture, chafing at the bit to get out and get away:
I don’t wanna be, bound up like books.
I don’t wanna be a sad ornament of a place.
However, the cracked vocal note on which he ends the song implies a moment of doubt as to whether he will avoid the same fate.
As the year progressed, Leatherface moved towards a split. They recorded a third session for Peel on 23 December, which was broadcast in February ‘94, by which time Stubbs announced their dissolution, onstage, during a gig at The Garage, Islington. They reformed again, 5 years later and released four further studio albums between 1999 and 2010.
Apart from their final session, Peel never played anything else by them after this programme, though he had been reading up on the band through an article in a magazine called Paint It Red, which focussed on the music scene in the North East. He was particularly taken by a photo in it of PJ Harvey, who were about to play a gig in Newcastle, which he thought was the best one he’d ever seen of her/them. That evening, the band* had played at the University of East Anglia, with Sheila and William in attendance.
While researching this article, I discovered just how highly rated and influential Leatherface were, with some describing them as the best UK punk band of the 90s, and their third album, Mush, venerated as one of the best guitar records of the decade. So, why did they not reach wider acclaim? Some answers may be found in this article/interview with Laurence Bell who had the group signed to his Roughneck Recording Company label and also put out a posthumous album after Leatherface’s first split, on Domino.
Video courtesy of Leatherface - Topic
*I can’t wait till we get to the To Bring You My Love phase and know conclusively that all references to PJ Harvey refer to a person rather than a group.
No comments:
Post a Comment