“Do something involving seagulls” – That was the brief given to Brian Griffin, Photographer, by Echo And The Bunnymen for the cover of their second album ‘Heaven Up Here’. Black Country-born Griffin went on to create an iconic image which sychronised perfectly with the music on the record: The four band members in silhouette, standing on a beach with backs turned to the camera, staring out at a blue horizon with gulls flying around over an outgoing tide, beneath a heavy sky, reflections of Bunnymen in the seawater left behind on the sand… Griffin, who went on to be recognised as one of the most eminent British photographers of the seventies and eighties, worked with Martyn Atkins, the artistic director for the cover, a man with a considerable pedigree – Joy Division, Teardrop Explodes, The Monochrome Set (pre-‘Heaven Up Here’), Depeche Mode, Gary Moore, Altered Images, Bee Gees, Tom Petty, Skinny Puppy, System Of A Down, Johnny Cash, Eagles, John Fogerty, Seal, Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, Jeff Lynne (post-‘Heaven Up Here’). Shades of blue, waiting for you on the blue horizon, prophecies of a gentler, future ocean rain, set sail in these turquoise days…
Heaven on tape?
”A winter’s day, in a deep and dark December”, wrote Paul Simon, perhaps (inadvertently) capturing the post-punk Liverpool mood as Echo And The Bunnymen’s debut LP release ‘Crocodiles’ surfaced on the Mersey waters, containing a number of catchy tunes with melodic hooks and offbeat lyrics: ‘Monkeys’ ‘Villiers Terrace’ and the poppy ‘Rescue’ amongst them. Two extra tracks were added to the cassette version – single ‘The Puppet’ (which had failed to reach the top sixty) and ‘Read It In Books’ (a track written by McCulloch with Julian Cope and first recorded by The Bunnymen with a drum machine, later released by The Teardrop Explodes, fellow ‘veterans’ of Eric’s club in Liverpool in the late 70s).
Echo And The Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes and The Mighty Wah! – Britpop before ‘Britpop’ was coined ten years later, or something much deeper and longlasting? Another Liverpool scene, almost two decades after the buoyant sixties, dominated by the ‘Fab Four,,, That northern swagger, exuded by Big Mac, the ‘King Of Cool’, mouthy and confident, super-talented and well aware of it…But The Bunnymen were more than just Ian McCulloch’s backing band, much more – At their peak, they were majestic, with amazing chemistry between the musicians, De Freitas and Pattinson a very powerful rhythm section and a perfect foil for Sergeant’s inventive guitar wizardry, McCulloch’s vocals soaring above the beautiful maelstrom. ‘Crocodiles’ paved the way for a brace of masterpieces – the ‘difficult second album’ – the moody, dark, other-wordly ‘Heaven Up Here’ – and the icy Nordic cool of ‘Porcupine’,
Waiting on the blue horizon? The Bunnymen modelling gear, including Mac’s tank top!
Liverpudlians Ian McCulloch (vocals, guitar, piano) and Will Sergeant (lead guitar) were joined by Lancashire-born Les Pattinson (bass) and ‘Echo’ the drum machine, replaced by the enigmatic Pete de Freitas (drums). De Freitas, born in Port Of Spain, Trinidad, the product of a Catholic upbringing in England and monastic public schooling at the brilliantly-named Downside Public School near Bath, seemed an unlikely addition to the trio of northern lads but he became the glue that held the band’s sound together…In a 1983 interview, de Freitas described The Bunnymen: ”We’re all very different and have very, quite different musical tastes, but somehow we, ehm, we manage to fight our way through to one thing that satisfies all of us…” Inspired by John Peel’s favourites Mark E. Smith and The Fall, McCulloch and Sergeant were determined to make their own mark on the music scene, eventually also championed by Peel and usurping the headstrong Julian Cope, to become frontman of psychedelic outfit The Teardrop Explodes. The early Bunnymen management and entourage were colourful characters, including David Balfe, keyboard player with The Teardrop Explodes/producer and Scotsman Bill Drummond, later to be famous in The KLF and infamous in the K Foundation for their burning of £1 million in 1994…
Forever to tread his own path, ‘Mac The Mouth’, as Ian McCulloch was sometimes referred to, laid into the rock establishment and his contemporaries in 1983: ”I like it when people don’t pander to audiences…and don’t use all the obvious gestures that are crowd-pleasing things, you know…and eh, things like sayin’ ‘You’ve been a great audience’ and all that rubbish…and wavin’ flags around (dig at Bono)…the moment you’re main objective becomes pleasing people, yer finished I think…A lot of people’s idea of pleasure is like…that bit when… you know…I think music should be about magic and not entertainment or..you know…satisfying someone on small terms. I think it should be a bigger thing…” ‘The Big Music’ – a song by Mike Scott, leader of The Waterboys, describes this ‘bigger thing’, soaring melodies and poetic lyrics over music that transcended the mundane, achieved by a The Bunnymen and a few of their musical compadres in the 80s…
Rockfield Studios, Wales
The band had recorded some of their debut at the famous Rockfield Studios, in the heart of the Welsh countryside and returned there for their ‘difficult second album’. The pre-Bunnymen 1970s Rockfield Studios roster is very impressive, including such rock gods as Queen, Rush, Motorhead and Black Sabbath, progressive heavyweights Mike Oldfield, Van der Graaf Generator, Hawkwind, Arthur Brown and Man, as well as singer-songwriter/guitarist extraordinaire Roy Harper…You would think that The Bunnymen may have been a bit over-awed by the history of the place, but ‘Heaven Up Here’ shows no signs of that – It is confident in itself, an original tour-de-force…It seems to have opened the floodgates, as a revolving door of ‘post punk’, ‘alternative rock’, ‘goth’ and pop bands followed The Bunnymen to record at Rockfield in the 1980s: Simple Minds, Adam and the Ants, The Damned, Clannad, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Undertones, The Waterboys, Robert Plant, Icicle Works, Bauhaus, T’Pau, Age of Chance, Edie Brickel & the New Bohemians, That Petrol Emotion, Fields of the Nephilim, The Wonderstuff…According to Mick Middles, “The recording at Rockfield was intense, inspired, inebriated and, in the grand traditions of the studio, very weird.”
Released in May, 1981 as Korova KODE 3, ‘Heaven Up Here’ raised the band to new esoteric heights and inspired legions of followers to mimic their enigmatic cool, soon to don long coats, gel up their hair and look moody, the alternative guitar-based soundtrack to an eighties Britain peppered with pop electronica…
Opener ‘Show Of Strength’ is just that…Interviewed in 1983, Ian McCulloch may have captured the secret in words: ”It’s really easy to sound powerful I think…yep…ye can buy particular guitars and amplifiers that give a definite sound and it will sound powerful but eh…I prefer to see a group or to be a group that sounds strong because there’s something inate in what they do..that is strength you know…like, eh, a true honesty…” The song builds from the initial unsettling guitar riff and pumping bass into a driving force:
”Realistically
It’s hard to dig it all too happily
But I can see
It’s not always that real to me…”
The bridge is accented brilliantly by de Freitas’ brilliant cymbal-less tribal drumming, a style adopted by Kenny Morris of Siouxsie & The Banshees and also used to great effect on Peter Gabriel’s third album (known as ‘Melt’). McCulloch’s voice soars over lifting it all up:
“Bonds will break and fade
Go snapping all in two
The lies that bind the tie
Come sailing out of you…”
Side One flies by…The lyrics on ‘With A Hip’ are surreal in places:
”With a hip-hip-hop
And a flip-flap-flop
Gonna steal some bananas
From the grocer’s shop”
…before Mac pours out his heart again:
”This is the one for the money
This is the one for the trees
This is the one called Heaven
And this is the one for me”
’Over The Wall’ is menacing and powerful and ‘It Was A Pleasure’ quirky in its time signature. ‘A Promise’ closes Side One. Released as a single, it didn’t dent the charts, despite its catchy guitar riff and its reflective, closing lyrical refrain:
”Light on the waves
Light on the waves…
Light on the water, a promise…”
Bass player Les Pattinson, plays out of his skin on this album, creating many great riffs and fills and aggressively driving the rhythm section on gutsy tunes like title track ‘Heaven Up Here’ and the closer ‘All I Want’, but the former boat-builder in fact appeared to be non-plussed by the whole band experience and was said to find the recording process particularly tedious. In a 1983 interview, he compared a life in music with his former career thus:
”I used to build yachts and boats and things, and it’s good from day-today like you, I felt really satisfied after the end of each day ‘cause I could see how far you’d gotten with the job, and when you’d actually finished something it was launched and sailing you’d actually get reports of people coming back and saying ‘Ha, it’s great having this boat…’, but in this job you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta wait, and it’s really slow, and there’s no sorta like real material thing to say you’ve finished it or you know ‘it’s a really good job’. I mean it’s really nice when people come up after you’ve finished an album and say ‘That’s great’ you know it’s sorta like changed my life you know. I mean that is brilliant but it seems, erm, less steady…”
After the opening energy of the title track at the beginning of Side Two comes possible the best sequence of songs on any Bunnymen album – not a hit in sight but beautifully crafted: ’The Disease’, ‘All My Colours’,’No Dark Things’ and the wonderful ‘Turquoise Days’, in which Will Sergeant creates some amazing layered guitar soundscapes. As Sergeant explained in a 1983 interview: “Every time I pick up the guitar, I don’t know what I’m gonna do, it’ll just ‘appen, just, I don’t think ‘I’m gonna do this’, ye know…it just…I don’t know where it comes from! (laughs) It just happens…” His style is certainly original, occasionally reminiscent of the likes of Adrian Belew’s discordancy, but all Sergeant’s in idea, the soundscapes a perfect foil for that very recognisable Bunnymen choppy rhythm guitar style…
Beginning to end, the record flows and there are no fillers, every track a joy, full of musical ideas. Pete de Freitas uses the ‘no cymbals’ bare bones drumming sparingly, giving it maximum effect, and exemplified no better than by the beautiful, dreamy ‘All My Colours’, McCulloch’s heartbreaking vocal starting over just the drums before the musical backing kicks in:
”Flying
And I know I’m not coming down
You’re trying
But you know you must soon go down
All my colours turn to clouds
All my colours turn to clouds..”
As with many of the songs on here, it’s the dynamics that lift the music, McCulloch putting all his heart and soul into the singing on the second verse:
”That box you gave me burned nicely…”
The song is a masterpiece, with plenty space, The Bunnymen skilfully knowing what not to play as what to play…
’All I Want’ closes the LP, angry in parts and fading out with the band strangely questioning their motives:
”If we make
The same mistake
Who could we blame?
When we make
The same mistake
Who will we blame?
What will we blame?”
They certainly made no mistakes on ‘Heaven Up Here’ and would return in force a couple of years later, the iconic riff of ‘The Cutter’ opening their next magnum opus ‘Porcupine’…
Anti-pop stars in attitude, Pattinson, Sergeant and de Freitas were famously apathetic in interviews but Sergeant takes the biscuit with this rant to Mick Middles in 1985:
”Stardom does funny things to you. Changes people. But not us, not really. And do you really want to know why? Good. I’ll tell you. It’s because, us three, me, Pete, Les, we fucking hate being pop stars. We hate being in a band. We hate this whole rigmarole. Just because some dick has bought one of your records that doesn’t give him the right to come up to us in the street and start pestering us. It’s nothing special, you know, making pop records. No more special than making a cabinet or running a sweet shop. No fucking big deal at all. So why can’t people accept that and treat it as such? Why do we have to be placed on a pedestal all the time? I’m deadly serious here…”
Cynical words indeed! By that time, the Bunnymen had passed their peak, going on to release one more album, eponymously titled and a rather weak affair compared to the riches of their first four albums. The band split, McCulloch to become a solo artist, and Pete de Freitas died tragically in a motorcycle accident in 1989, after years of heading ‘off the rails’. There was even a 90s version of the band without Mac – unthinkable! A ‘comeback’ album, ‘Evergreen’, was released in 1997 to some kind reviews and there were several other albums to come with three, then two original members, but things would never be the same again…
1980-1984 – ‘Crocodiles’, ‘Heaven Up Here’, ‘Porcupine’ and ‘Ocean Rain’ – a musical ‘purple patch’ – In the spirit of Mac’s hero David Bowie, all explore new sonic avenues whilst still carrying the unmistakeable Bunnymen trademark sound. So, put the needle on the record, put the CD in the tray or press ‘play’ on the mp3 player, close your eyes and let yourself be carried away…”There is no comparison, between things about to have been…”
‘Heaven Up Here’ tracklisting:
Side One
Show Of Strength
With A Hip
Over The Wall
It Was A Pleasure
A Promise
Side Two
Heaven Up Here
The Disease
All My Colours
No Dark Things
Turquoise Days
All I Want
References and quotes:
Middles, Mick (1998). ‘Ian McCulloch – King Of Cool’. London: Independent Music Press.
Interviews 1983: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMSHRQSZ5Rk)
Brian Griffin: http://www.stevenkasher.com/artists/brian-griffin
Lyrics and music:
Echo And The Bunnymen ‘Heaven Up Here’
Photographs:
Echo And The Bunnymen ‘Heaven Up Here’ – from LP cover and sleeve (author’s own collection)
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