FAC-2 Travel For Pleasure Alone by Colin Sharp

Travel For Pleasure Alone
by Colin Sharp

Colin Sharp was The Durutti Column's vocalist on Thin Ice and No Communicationm, the two Durutti Column tracks on FAC-2 A Factory Sample. Here he recalls the making of the record.

The early incarnation of The Durutti Column was a five piece band. However, by the time these recordings were completed, the nucleus had shrunk to two (the genius guitarist Vini Reilly and the enfant terrible Dave Rowbotham) with the addition of myself. I was working as an actor at the time, replacing the previous singer.

The backing tracks had laid down a few weeks previously and feature the full band, who had then been unceremoniously sacked by Svengali manager / entrepreneur / Record Label mogul Tony Wilson.

The backing/rhythm tracks are a curious hybrid of dub reggae inflected rhythms, neo-psychedelic guitar washes; post Velvets rhythm guitar chops, experimental electronica and baroque backing vocals.

My task, as lyricist, was to add words, meaning and voice to the tracks. I was only given the recordings a matter of days prior to entering the studio (on cassette, for those were the times).

I wrote the lyrics for No Communication and Thin Ice in a matter of hours. Indeed No Communication was altered on the way to the recording studio, as Tony wanted some insertions / edits. Some of the wording to Thin Ice was extemporised in studio.

The vocal tracks, including more backing vocals and some keyboard textures, were laid down in one 8- hour session at Cargo Studios in Rochdale and the final mix was completed at Strawberry Studios several days later.

This was my first meeting with Martin, which was to develop into a friendship, mutual appreciation, a druggy buddy relationship and more besides. It started a life long obsession for me with Martin's work and personality and now results in the writing of a biography of Martin - Who Killed Martin Hannett?, 15 years (unlucky for some) after Martin's untimely death.

The production of the two Durutti Column tracks and the sound created is unlik anything previously or been subsequently, heard. Again an incredible melange of hard dub leanings, psychedelia, spoken word, chamber music, new wave posturing, primal expression, basic rock 'n' roll and ethereal voices. It makes for a heady, narcotic brew and opened the door for the more experimental, artier side of post-punk, such groupings as Wire, XTC, and the Psychedelic Furs.

After the recording sessions, Dave R left, leaving Vini and I to work together briefly on some "songs", more ambient poetic stylings really. They performed twice together publicly, once as support act to Magazine, before Vini was laid low with recurring stomach / psychological problems and I went on to form the much more commercial, punky glam new wave combo-The Roaring 80s.

Colin Sharp is the author of Who Killed Martin Hannett? The Story of Manchester's Musical Magician. The following extract is used with permission:

Martin swivels on the chair and surveys the 'desk'. This is his toy shop, his domain and his kingdom. He places his three packets of of Marlboro and his Zippo lighter on his left. He runs his right hand, palm downwards, over the knobs, faders, indicators - the controls. This is his ritual. He is the Shaman; he is setting the controls for the heart of the sun. He is in his time capsule. He is far removed from the quotidian struggle.

'Right then, what have we got?'

He pushes himself away from the control desk and looks up at Tony Wilson who is hovering around like a spare part in a spare part shop. Tony liked to be present, at least to begin with, at all stages process. He is fascinated by the means of production. Martin, for his part, sees him as getting in the way in his sacred studios.

'So we're just going to bang some vocals on the top, add a bit of keyboard colour, some sonic texture, then see what kind of cake that makes.'

'You're the producer. You're the Magician,' Tony accedes graciously.

Martin considers this, but doesn't comment. Tony often variously describes Martin as 'the Magician', 'a nutty professor', 'Gandalf of the poppy' (with fine double meaning), or 'a music fiend'. Eventually Martin will come to resent what he sees as the implicit patronising tone in such descriptions. He doesn't want to be the nutty professor in Tony's toy set who can be brought out and moved around and played with and then put away safely in a bottom drawer.

At this stage, Tony is still in awe of the production work that· has done only a few weeks previously, in the same environs, with the Joy Division lads. Two tracks of awesome power and fractured splendour in the shape of 'Digital' and 'Glass' that will be their contribution, and the main selling point, for the planned Factory Sample. Martin has taken the raw material provided by Ian Curtis and the boys and transformed it into a jagged aural landscape.

'That speed is bloody marvellous,' he comments, employing one of his character voices from his repertoire. He was always a great mimic.

'He seems like a nice kid,' Tony agrees.

'If his vocals are half as good as his chemicals... ' Martin adds.

Then he leans into the linking microphone.

'Do you want to hear the first track again, our kid?'

'That would be handy,' I deadpan back.

Then the maelstrom kicks in, the mammoth, clattering drums and the portentous dubbed-out bass and the Neanderthal hum of some terrible dread. This is the filthy symphony that Martin has concocted with the dirty Durutti boys and then mixed on his own into something monstrous and massive. Martin has the line switched on so that when I start to intone... 'Dance... to the Disco Radio...'

... he can capture that spontaneous performance. He knows that vocalists cannot resist rehearsing, can't resist listening to the foldback of their own voices. And he is absolutely certain that the first take is invariably the best; the first cut is the deepest. I am in my cathartic capsule. Martin is my pilot. He sets the dials for the dark side of the moon, with his co-pilot ever vigilant, watching the meters and meteorites. Martin understands the paradox of the vocalist - the vanity and the insecurity. We are linked by the wires and terminals and a silver astral thread. We are terminally wired, totally wired. I provide the words and the voice. He gives it space, spontaneity, depth, width, atmosphere. This is his magic.

We complete the take of 'No Communication', with spoken word passages, devilish vocal effects, space rock middle eight, knowing nods to krautrockers Can, dub wizard Lee Perry and Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd. But the whole heady witches' brew sounds totally fresh and original and he has indeed captured the spontaneity of a near-live vocal performance, seamlessly welded it onto, and stitched it into, an existing backing track. He has worked his Hannett hoodoo voodoo. His mojo has been working overtime, and his six senses. He beams at me: it's a Hannett moment. You want to please the man - another trick of the great producer. You crave his approbation. He has that effect on those that come near him. Even after his death, far more people will claim to have been his friend, his dealer, his gofer, than could possibly been the case. He has a great smile.

We have made something together. The alchemy has worked. I glide back through to the control room. I am walking on amphetamine air.

'Shouldn't that be "dance"?' Tony asks.

He uses the Northern 'a' sound, the shorter vowel sound rather than the elongated Southern and/or posh pronounciation. Muso scholars will be discussing and arguing this point for years to come. Should singers vocalise in the own authentic accents or should they appropriate the transatlantic nu-speak that was so popular in the early 1970s? Punk took everyone hostage and insisted on working class credibility and angels with dirty faces and Doc Martens inverted snobbery, and it was considered de rigueur to come from some broken home, to be in possession of council estate, tower block, Westway credentials. Admitting to being middle class was tantamount to punkoid career suicide, or even suicide itself. Some 'punks' went as far as reinventing themselves and having a revisionist attitude towards their own personal histories. Of course the irony was that the main movers and shakers in the whole scam were, as always, middle-class ex-art school, drama conservatoire types like Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood, Julien Temple, Peter Saville, et al. It had been the same in the 1960s with Andrew Oldham, Brian Epstein and George Martin.