A Kick Up The Nipsie by David Nolan

A Kick Up The Nipsie
by David Nolan

Former Crispy Ambulance frontman Alan Hempsall talks to music author David Nolan about being interviewed by Ian Curtis's daughter, the merits of Marti Pellow hair and being beaten to a prestigious honour by Thick Pigeon.

Crispy Ambulance formed as a duo in Manchester in 1977 and had already released a single – From the Cradle to the Grave - on their own Aural Assault when they became a 'Factory band'. Unsightly and Unseen was their Factory debut – a fitting title for a band often overlooked in the FAC catalogue.

The band's original line up was Alan Hempsall (vocals) and Robert Davenport (guitar)... with Keith Darbyshire (bass) and Gary Madeley (drums) joining in '78. This four man Ambulance was to remain intact throughout the group's life until they started adding members, changing their name and going ' a bit poppy.'

Alan Hempsall now works in publishing in the centre of Manchester and lives with his wife and family south of the city.

As broad as a door yet with an underlying theatrical air, Alan Hempsall is that rare commodity – a musician from the early Factory era who is fully able to articulate the times he has lived through. Words and ideas – nearly always in a pleasing order – tumble from him.

David Nolan: You were at the first Sex Pistols' gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall on June 4th 1976, but you also had a colourful musical career before Crispy Ambulance that took in more varied fayre. You were in bands like Aqua and Danny and the Dressmakers... whimsical and a bit prog. Great fun. You played at the Deeply Vale festival near Rochdale. Was there a sense of punk spoiling the fun?

Alan Hempsall: I didn't feel that punk came along and spoiled it, in retrospect I do tend to agree with the norm that it did come along at the right moment and my goodness things did need a kick up the nipsie. When you're in amongst it and you can't see the wood for the trees and you're watching Tangerine Dream surrounded by blokes in Barclay James Harvest tee shirts... It's all very well having hindsight with 20/20 vision and saying 'We planned all this'... well actually you can't have done.

It was innocent fun for a boy of 15 who'd been listening to Hawkwind and Magma and Faust for three or four years and yes it was a great deal of fun. But when punk started to happen it was New Wave that had more of an effect on me because I was one of the few people who walked away from the Pistols' concert thinking, 'That was interesting,' but that was it... I didn't get my haircut and I didn't form a band I just went back to school.

That was the difference between Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner (who were also at the Lesser Free Trade Hall gig on June 4th )... they were 19 to my 15... there was very little option for my other than carry on playing my tennis racket in front of the mirror.

And that's why it took New Wave and Howard Devoto forming Magazine before it was ' I wanna do this'. I was a copy boy at the Daily Mirror by then, stuffing bits of paper up tubes like we sued to do before computers. If I'd been three years older and gone to the Pistols, things might have been different... as it was I carried on being a hippy and was in Aqua and Danny and the Dressmakers.

What punk did was imbue the whole scene... what had gone before was fun but this was serious. That's why I never thought it rained on the parade. I'm so glad it happened.

DN: How did you make the leaps from tennis racket to hippy to Crispy Ambulance?

AH: Rob Gretton was our model. He was quite clever in that he turned round and said after we'd met Joy Division ...'Why don't you just put your own record out. To me that was like, 'Why don't you build a rocket and go to the moon.' Don't be silly. He said, 'That's what we did with Warsaw... we got a bank loan... we lied to the bank manager.' I think one of them went and said it was for a garage extension or something. Next thing you know they've got a thousand records.

So we applied for this bank loan and bugger me we got it. So Rob Gretton was there every step of the way. Before we knew where we were we had a record out and next thing we knew John Peel was playing it... bless his cottons.

I was overly aware of the fact there was Spiral Scratch, then there was the Ideal for Living EP, then probably a whole load of others... then us. But Rob Gretton tutored us through those four or five months. Getting the money together, getting it out. It's interesting because he was the one who came back in June 1980 and said, 'Oh I'm an equal shareholder in Factory records and I want you to be my first signing.'

We were half way through recording our second single when we got signed and it was taken off us and Factory produced it as a ten-inch.

DN: What was the first point of contact with Joy Division?

AH: I'd been to see them a couple of times. I went to see them one Friday night and I was in town the following day in Virgin Records. In walked Bernard. We just got talking and he was really nice. He was like, 'What do you do?' Oh I'm in a band, Crispy Ambulance. 'Oh we saw you about six months ago.' He described this gig at the Band on the Wall, probably one of our worse and he thought we were great. That was how it started

DN: Is it fair to sat that you were almost more Rob Gretton's band rather than a Factory band.

AH: I think that's a very astute remark. Tony Wilson's since admitted that he didn't like our name and he had a problem with it. We were very much Rob's first band on Factory and to that degree yeah, we were more Rob's band. But the wonderful thing about Factory is this thing called the Factory Effect. We benefited from it.

People bought any thing that was on Factory. You didn't get that with any other label. You didn't get it with Postcard or Fast. There was an enigma about Factory that people were drawn to.

DN: How did any antipathy towards your name and therefore the band manifest itself?

AH: Tony managed to deposit us onto Factory Benelux pretty quickly so by the time we were doing our next single we were on Benelux. So we only actually did one Factory record the rest were on Factory Benelux.

DN: Did you feel like you were being flirted off to one side?

AH: At the time I thought it was. But Benelux were very passionate about us and it didn't stop Rob Gretton. He used to turn up to all our recordings to see how it was turning out.

As it turned out, Factory never produced contracts anyway so a lot of bands came and went . Joy Division did things on Sordid Sentimentale. Cabaret Voltaire were never a Factory band but came back years later.

Like an arty clique, like a movement, but quite free. I always think of us as a Factory band but maybe you're right, maybe we were more Rob's band.

DN: Photographs of you at this time show you with Marti Pellow 'I feel it in my fingers' type long hair. Some of the aesthetes at Factory must have viewed this with something approaching horror...

AH: Maybe. We certainly didn't just go out to be part of the Factory 'thing'. The name was very un- Factory I suppose. Although Tony Wilson used to say that we had the worst band name in the world... until he went and signed Thick Pigeon!

Were there aesthetes attached to Factory? There probably were. Did they sneer at us? I've never really given it much thought. We were just happy as pigs in shit to be making music we liked and getting it out on record. The rest of it could take the high road.

DN: The famous Joy Division Bury gig where you took over vocals when Ian Curtis had an epileptic attack - I first met you when I interviewed you in 2001 for 'I Swear I Was There.' about the Sex Pistols' '76 gig. There's nearly as many myths about that Bury gig as the Lesser Free Trade Hall. That interview was probably the first factual account of the Joy Division occurrence.

AH: As factual as dammit... I assume you've still got that in the can? That evening made quite an impression. I'm amazed that certain people forget things like that. Some just don't have the recall. But how could you forget something like that?

DN: I assume that's going to form part of the 'Control' film that's currently in production?

AH: Natalie Curtis has been round to talk to me about it . She recorded it and has given it to the scriptwriter... and the scriptwriter's rung me a couple of times. Even the American producer has rang me a couple of times and emailed me for a couple of factual details. But who knows what will end up on the cutting room floor...

DN: ... but surely if you were Sydney Wisenheimer from Wisenheimer Pictures you'd think, 'I've got a dramatic arc here...just prior to the main character's death his job was briefly taken over by someone else because he was too poorly...' I would have thought that was a fairly robust dramatic device?

AH: It is but the question is how factual will they decide to be with that? You've seen some fairly wide- of-the-mark reports. Everybody knows there was a riot at a gig about a month before Ian died, but does it matter that the details don't come out? On one level yes, from a journalistic view. I've seen some accounts where I'm not mentioned at all.

DN: And do you know if there will be some Todd Hunk from Hollyoaks playing the young Alan Hempsall?

AH: I was asked to describe myself because they were trying to cast me. But I'm under no illusions. Ultimately I was a bit part in the whole shebang anyway and I can't stand all that reflected glory bollocks, so let them get on with it.

Let's see what comes out. I hope it's a good film. I loved 24 Hour Party People. I thought it was hilarious. But a film about Ian's life...

DN: ...It's never going to be a chucklefest...

AH: No but there's a temptation to go the other way and I hope they don't do that because I only saw the funny side of Joy Division... I was lucky in that respect I was just in on the good times and the japes. Part of the problem was they hated being interviewed... they were once interviewed by Sounds and the journalist made certain things up and after that that was it they really hated the whole promoting process.

DN: Was one of your problems that unlike that, you have a desire to articulate and you enjoy the act conversation. That was anathema at the time

AH: You may have a point there. The few press interviews I did at the time, I was passionate about it why not. That WAS anathema at the time . It just came naturally, I never thought ooh I should have played that differently...

DN: The Crispy Ambulance website is wonderfully self effacing... I like the language of it. 'We supported lots of bands who were far more famous than we were...'

AH: Just telling it like it is - we very rarely headlined. I never had any ego about who went on first. I learnt that very early on. We did a gig at Manchester Grammar School which, because of the venue had to finish at 10.30pm. But they'd made the mistake of putting six bands on. The last band on were this local five piece who were indigenous MGS boys in the 6th form and they had quite a big following in the school... and they were adamant that they were going to go last. We were interlopers and just beginning to make a name for ourselves and they insisted and they played into out hands.

The whole programme ran over, they got to play at quarter to 11 after the last bus. So everyone watched our last number and left, so they played to an empty hall. That's the reason why... don't get hung up about where you are on the bill, sometimes it can act in your favour.

DN: By the same self depreciating token you didn't really split up, but just changed your name really didn't you?

AH: We took on three new members, we decided on a restructure so we got percussionists in and basically went a bit poppy. I didn't want to let go of the nasty darker stuff, so that's when the tension seriously started to develop. People wanted to go in different directions. Hence getting more people in... change the name... We did carry on another three years - we got a 12-inch out on Genesis P Orridge's label, which I think is the rarest of all the records I've ever been involved in.

DN: So rather than having a big bust up and stabbing some one...

AH: We were all a bit too matey for that. Me, Robert and Keith were all ex schoolmates. I met Robert when I was 10 or 11. Everybody knew their job.

DN: I saw you recently at I do I was involved in at Urbis in Manchester and you tipped up you're your fellow Dressmaker Graham Massey. You do seem to be able to maintain friendships with people

AH: Friendships are important. They need maintaining. And if you manage to stay friends with someone from your childhood... that's vital. Try and foster as many relationships as you can, that's always been my motto.

DN: Was there a danger in 1999 that in getting Crispy Ambulance back together you might piss that away?

AH: You're gambling when you come back. And it's a difficult one because we ended up really enjoying it. We got together for one gig and the next thing we're writing new material and producing two albums that I was really quite pleased with.

But you have to bear in mind from a fan's perspective, some have it that that first period is the period they are interested in and in a way by coming back you do offend certain people's aesthetic by doing that. I do understand it.

DN: This is not the dim and distant past we're talking about either...

AH: We played at the ICA in 2003, put an album out then just didn't gig it. Then that was it. We did one mini four-date tour of the east coast of America. That brought it home to us that it was time to stop. My voice was packing up after four days. I was just stunned...what kind of bile must it take to summon up the emotions...

I just can't work me knickers up into that much of a knot anymore!

But we meet twice a year just to have a few beers and to catch up. Apart from anything else the drummer's just had twins so I don't think he'll be doing much for a while.

DN: Is that it as far as you're concerned?

AH: Well never say never but if you're playing live you need to rehearse at least a few nights a week... if you got a job and a family as well... no thanks. It's almost like some separate parallel life. You get other priorities.

I wouldn't deny for a second that playing in a band is great... but it seems pointless to cling onto such things if you haven't got an urge to say anything in particular. Let somebody else have a go. There's plenty of it going on... of varying quality.

DN: You were at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, at Deeply Vale and at the start of Factory Records – someone once said to me, 'Ask Alan Hempsall if he was at the Last Supper...' You don't go on it about it like some folk do...

AH: I think a lot of people do try to gild the lilly when there's no point. I was reading something the other day about only children, of which I'm one. I think only children are significant in the way they put themselves across.

This isn't my theory this is child psychologists with a lifetime of learning... that they will be very self confident because there the only one and all the love has been channelled to them. But very quiet as well because they're not used to shouting because they've never had to – me me me - I think there's a element of that.

I've never felt the need to shout about anything... until the time came when I was presented with a stage and a microphone with a three piece band behind me.

Thanks to crispyambulance.com for photos. David Nolan is currently writing a biography of Bernard Sumner.