On Thursday, June 6 Australia’s Severed Heads performed at the Luv-A-Fair in Vancouver. The previous day, CITR’s Larry Thiessen interviewed Tom Ellard, the main musical force behind this band. Following are some of his impressions from the concert itself and from the interview (which will be broadcast in its entirety during July check the DISCORDER Program Guide for details).
AWARENESS IS THE FIRST THING. TOM ELLARD SEEMS TO be constantly watching everything and everybody, listening, gauging, sampling. Information of every imaginable type is being examined. It’s not shifty-eyed or nosy-he’s just very conscious of his environment. That environment isn’t particularly hot-house or elevated. Rather, it’s quite ordinary – a bit like sitting in front of the tube with a bottle of port and recording three hours of voices (which he does). He also hears as well as listens – if it’s possible to make that distinction. The quality of a radio announcer’s voice, the harmonics of South Pacific Island chants meshing with pre-organized pitches, percussive hand movements, any number of simultaneous noises… they’re things we can all listen to but never take the trouble to preserve (which he also does).
Preserving the sounds is probably the easiest part. Ellard’s approach to the creation of his music is far less concerned with gadgetry than the finished product might suggest. Tapes, loops, delays, splicing, mixing, etc. are relatively accessible operations in comparison with the use of $40,000 Fairlights and things of that ilk, which he freely admits to shunning. He prefers to have direct control over his sounds–the hands-on treatment as opposed to letting the hardware do the work. Early recordings use very little else beyond an eight-track tape deck, perhaps a keyboard, a mixer and a few cassettes. The results are imperfect and consequently more human. He relates the ironic story of certain bands spending wads of money to buy drum machines which can be programmed to make mistakes. My own impression of much of the sophisticated technology available now is that its potential usefulness is largely dependent upon how long it takes to learn how to use it. Ellard goes further – suggesting that no one has reached the point yet where that technology
is controlled by the musician rather than the other way around.
Irreverence is there too. Ellard’s perception of the music industry, his own music and probably the world in general is tempered by his belief that there should be no sacred cows. That’s why he can laugh at radio announcers who splice, reverse and otherwise mutilate his recordings. It’s why he can regard the whole process of trying to perform live as ludicrous but necessary – even desirable as a means to an end. It pro-vies justification (should any be needed) for a form of musical piracy utilized by anyone (even in the big-league) who works with tapes. Dreadful B-sides of old dance singles can supply thousand-dollar drum machine tracks. Electronic sounds from the rarefied atmosphere of early classical non-acoustic music are freely butchered and re-assembled to form something which can appeal to a crowded dance floor. The irony is not only inescapable, it is for him a joke that is freely shared. Ask him about any track on any Severed Heads album and he’ll recite a litany of sources which are at once pedestrian, honest, outrageous and utterly brilliant in their simplicity. Early releases even had manuals explaining exactly what was done to effect the end result.
Realism is a major part of Ellard’s own view of his music. He believes that it’s possible to release a single with a dance hit on one side and “something else” on the other. He understands that while popularity and radical innovation are almost mutually self-exclusive, it is necessary to juggle both in order to continue creating either. It occasionally puts him in the maddening position of being expected to justify the “pop” material to “those-who-remember-the-good-old-days-before-the-sell-out” while trying to present less danceable material to a crowd who have likely heard one or two songs at best and those only through a vapid, smoky, noisy, alcoholic stupor.
If we sometimes feel a little isolated in Vancouver, think how frustrating it must be for musicians in Australia. The sheer logistics of taking a band from down under to the U.K. or North America involve far more effort and money that we might ever realize. For Tom Ellard, I think the experience of going to England was a valuable one. He now seems convinced that while his own music is not becoming more mainstream per se, there may be a place in mainstream music for Severed Heads. It would be most gratifying, for me at least, if he is proven right-because mainstream music badly needs a new direction. This is an attitude Tom Ellard shares. The difference now seems to be that earlier interviews I’ve read convey the impression that he feels very cynical about the state of music world-wide, whereas he now seems convinced that it might be possible to change it.
Listening to him explain all this, I felt that what he was trying to tell me was that anybody can do this stuff. Maybe so, Tom, but not with the human-ness of Severed Heads. I would have paid $7.50 the next day just to listen to him talk.
THE CONCERT
ART CAN PROBABLY BE CONSIDERED ART SO LONG AS creative energy of some sort is expended in bringing it about. The amount or type, or even the motive, for this creativity are all qualitative judgements and their misuse should be avoided. Anyway, art forms, and tastes, vary. On some occasions, art forms get together, have a lot of fun and something great and magical happens. I hope most people would agree, however, that magical events are less likely to occur when art forms interfere with one another. Visual art was in abundance. Two screens on stage, video monitors in corners, etc. One video screen (the left) was pre-programmed; the other was manipulated by means of a video synthesizer. I couldn’t see the left one for hair and regrettably confess to not understanding the right. To be fair, certain obvious problems should be mentioned. Electrical currents in Australia and U.K. differ from North America. Most of the equipment had to undergo major surgery for two days before the concert. There were also several other artistic intrusions which I feel compelled to mention.
Dear Person-With-The-Platform-Hair: I really appreciated the effort, time and money which went into creating your look for June 6. Art, as I said, takes many forms and I truly thought you looked great. It was, however, Severed Heads’ gig not yours and in purely practical terms, I feel that standing at the very front of the stage with the rest of the Joi Gel Jungle represented for lots of us an unneeded distraction. Please don’t do it again. No. that’s wrong. By all means do it again–keeping in mind that any art should be be appreciated on its own terms-not at the expense of others. Yours truly..
Dear Fashionable-Group-Who-Waited-Until-The-Concert-Started-And-Then-Rudely-Shoved-And-Elbowed-Their-Way-To-The-Front: Couldn’t this disgusting activity be relegated to the back-burner of de rigeur deportment along with slam-dancing, black garb and camouflage gear? I find myself wondering in these difficult economic times why so many people would pay good money simply to make their petty statements of fashion, act rude at a venue which was uncrowded enough to make it unnecessary and generally become nuisances for the minority who were genuinely interested in what was going on. Yours truly…
While their approach to the concert was decidedly utilitarian, this should not have come as the surprise it seemed. Tapes, after all, are tapes. You cannot record, splice, delay, reverse and otherwise alter what are primarily physical sounds on stage. Tom Ellard works directly with his sounds, without what he would no doubt regard as the interference of Fairlights and other technology which is still too expensive. When a show like his is presented, tapes represent everything that cannot be realistically handled by the performers on stage. Tom Ellard made a brave effort. He knows how to use his voice and worked whatever equipment he was using with admirable facility. The same “awareness” he exhibited the previous day was in evidence. He gauged the initial mood of the audience (burnt out by the time I got there) and watched it closely the whole time. Only occasionally did his frustration show through.
Dear Person-With-The-Microphone-At-The-End-Of-The-Concert: Tom Ellard freely admits to snatching musical ideas from everywhere and manipulating them to his own ends. Everywhere includes old Human League drum tracks (you might have had a more stimulating time at home listening to them) and bits of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Strident cries of song-theft at the end of the concert are therefore not only strikingly tasteless, but go further than anything imaginable in broadcasting to everyone the fact that the human capacity for ignorance
is limitless. Yours truly..
Perhaps the most telling point of the whole evening for me was the reaction of the people I accompanied. Many of them knew very little Severed Heads material and they enjoyed the music immensely. As far as the music itself went, I probably represent a small minority who had a really good time. The high-minded who felt let down for want of some- thing less “boppy” might do well to remember the venue- Luv-A-Fair–not La Galeria Esoterica. Others would have done well to recall that it was Severed Heads playing – not the Ike & Tina Turner Revue (if the analogy is dated, so’s the musical attitude). Music aside, I think it is necessary for both Severed Heads and the audience (in Vancouver, at least) to do a few things. Raising the video screens, adding a few personnel on stage for the sake of being able to do more on stage and generally catering to the not entirely unreasonable public demand for dumb, schlocky but slick public appearances might help the Severed Heads. My suggestions for audiences at this point involve the use of nuclear weapons. Behaviour is a science–not an art form.
Nettwerk and Odyssey (and promoters in general) should be encouraged to take chances. No one else does. We all learned from the experience.
-Larry Thiessen