part3     (Japanese)

V: Do you think the Set were singled out by the music press for your lyrics a lot of the time, and not always in a complementary way?

Bid: No, the UK press just didn't like us. We didn't go away, so they hated us more.

Regarding the WEA period, the music was definitely more commercial, but I was never a chart writer, despite Jacob's Ladder achieving the most plays of any UK single, etc., etc.. Has the WEA period been commercially suceessful, it really would have ruined the band, though I don't think we could have kept it up anyway.

We definitely weren't "entertainers", in the same way that The Ants were. We simply shouldn't have ever left the indie scene, and by then didn't feel that we wanted to go back, or carry on with WEA, so just split.

It is worth pointing out here that The Lost Weekend was actually recorded at the end of 1983, with Cherry Red money. It was then sold to WEA, and re-mixed piecemeal over 1984. Reach For Your Gun was written in 1984 (problate), the reason for not appearing on that album. It was in the live set.

V: I've read that "Reach for Your Gun" was extraordinarily expensive to record.

Bid: No, it wasn't that expensive to record, but the recording was struck by a series of misfortunes- we used 4 or 5 studios in total, they kept breaking down. (It is, of course, and anti-vivisection song.)

V: What is/was Thunderpussy?

Bid: Thunderpussy was the name of my wife's company, she wrote some lyrics, so used that as a psuedonym. I didn't know about the other ones. I know there was an MCA band that she sued for using the name.

V: And Rock Hard, the producer "Jack" and "Dante's Casino"?

Bid: Rock Hard was us! A crappy joke.

V: Some songs from those albums appear on el compilations like "What A Whopper!" and "Trinity Road," or were performed live with Bid's Love Circus. For example, there's an early version of Flamen Dialis live with the melody of "Miss Twinkle's Been on Holiday Again," by Scarlet's Well.

Bid: The songs that I later partly re-used, and that also later turned up in their original demo form- well, they were never meant to be released, an
d it was a mistake. I don't know why I agreed to releasing those demos.

V: Was that you on "Invocation of Thoth?" And did Beck and Moby hear them?

Bid: Yes, I did the "Invocation", etc., but who's Moby and Beck?

V: In SWell you actually don't take many lead vocals.

Bid: Because I think the girls sing them better- it was originally planned not to have me at all, but one girl pulled out of Strange Letters, so I had to. I thought a male voice doing a couple sounded more balanced. Another girl pulled out of Blue Flowers, so I sung more than I intended to (and Flo, my wife, had to sing one). To cover myself, I've got 6 (!) girls for this album, so I'm gonna have to squeeze myself in somewhere.
I didn't want these to sound like solo albums.

Bid: Orson and Tony Robinson play a fairly large role in the project. To what extent are you the dictator of Mousseron?

V: Well, the bottom line is that Orson is a great instrumentalist, and Toby is a very good engineer and co-producer.

I was short of material for SL, so used The Narison and The Spell (by Alex Huntley), though they were both good songs, and also needed Orson's musical contribution for a couple of others (the middle section of Edo and a bit of The Captain's Song), and Toby's music for The Mayor's Song. I wrote all of Blue Flowers.

Scarlet's Well doesn't have anything to do with them outside of recording the albums.

V: Was it difficult working with the girls? Any bruised egos or nerves?

Bid: It wasn't too bad with the girls because the atmosphere in the studio is so relaxed. They had all done school musicals, etc., and had some confidence. Just unused to singing with headphones on, and all that.

V: is it because the Monochrome Set (and Scarlet's Well) have effectively reinvented their sound after every record that has prevented th
em from releasing the dreaded "shite" record?

Bid: There are a few bands/soloists who have done this, and, when it was f
or the "right" reasons (i.e., mucking about, for a laugh, felt like it, etc.) it not only usually worked, but made their career much more interesting.
Unfortunately, pretty much all those that I can think of ended up becoming shadows of themselves, and simply uninteresting. Both Alice and Lou (amongst many others) were like this up to a point.

I'm not saying, either, that it's always a good thing- Zappa could be very tedious.

Certainly, had the MSet continued, I had thoughts about the next album going more into Amon Duul territory, as I was getting a bit bored. SWell, though, I don't think changes exactly. Rather, the whole concept is both odd and " of change". I'm not sure if there is a precedent for a changing roster of singers that nevertheless give the impression of being an integral part of the project- it's not a band, it's a village. It's a kind
of combination of ever-evolving musical and band, but that'll become more a pparent, the more albums I do. I figured that no-one would take it seriously (XTC/Dukes Of Stratosphere) first time around, and on the release of the second would start to take notice, and so on.

V: You've never been so comfortable talking about Monochrome Set records?

Yes, it's very difficult for me to give an opinion about MSet albums. I don't listen to them! Individual songs I can talk about, though. I don't
know why.

(FIN)

back