Chelsea Girl

Chris Briggs and Howard Thompson - 'Sounds' June 23rd 1979 (UK)

Howard Thompson: I like Simple Minds and I like this song but I feel this particular version loses out on the production which lacks any sense of dynamics. I think Simple Minds will be successful providing they don't believe their own hype. The B-side stank.

Chris Briggs: Subconsciously drawn from so many elements of mid-Seventies smART school rock. Can any of these bands keep straight time? Vocals wins Contrivance Is Equal To Lack Of Conviction Award Of The Week. David Bowie has done all this on 'Low' and so much better, Scotland seems to be the stronghold of the Bowie/Roxy Music re-cloning society at the moment. But I get the feeling that I'll still check out their next record.

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Self Abuse Leads To Simple Minds

An everyday story of men with narrow lapels in bleak urban landscapes

John Gill - 'Sounds' June 23rd 1979 (UK)

I was standing in the bar of a second-rate hotel in the suburbs of Manchester, swapping polite small-talk with a quartet of Scots teenagers with broad Glasgow accents. They seemed to be living up to the press image of Innocent Youngsters Abroad - until, that is, something exploded under my nose and they exploded into gales of laughter.

Drummer Brian McGee had just walked in looking very sulky and had offered me a cigarette in what seemed to be a simply diplomatic gesture. the bloody thing blew up in my face. So much for innocence...

Simple Minds were in Manchester for a gig at The Factory, an oddly-shaped club in the middle of a terminal (and I mean terminal) council estate. Three hundred people trickled into the 900-capacity club; about a third of them jumping around at the front, the rest gathering in groups near the bar talking and drinking. The acoustics of the place were terrible, and without a large crowd to soak up the sound, those who were there were at the mercy of a deafening PA. The band played a fast, vigorous set and said later they enjoyed it, but the audience wasn't so sure.

Simple Minds were formed in early '78, from the remnants of the charmingly entitled Johnny & The Self Absuers. The nucleus of the group is formed by writer/vocalist Jim Kerr and writer/guitarist (plus a touch of violin) Charlie Burchill. Joining them on the front line of Scots-rocks are Mick MacNeil (keyboards), Derek Forbes (bass) and Brian McGee (drums). The early Simple Minds plied a sprightly brand of slice-and-cut new music (they'll kill me for that) around Glasgow and Edinburgh until falling beneath the benign gaze of Bruce Finlay, friend to the stars, enterpreneur, wit, sage and onion and owner of Zoom Records.

When Zoom was hitched to Arista's wagon late last year, Simple Minds found themselves in the hands of Arista's promotion machine. They also found their debut single, 'Life In A Day', leaping into the charts at 35. An album of the same name was released after a jog around the country supporting Magazine on their ill-fated tour and was similarly well-received by the punters, peaking at 30 in the charts. The sweet smell of success began to waft around the elegant Mayfair offices of Arista... So what went wrong in Manchester?

"We were more disappointed than anyone else," said Jim. "We were really looking forward to this gig because we went down so well at the Apollo with Magazine. We thought we'd get a real good crowd there; a club with a good reputation and everything. But once we got on, I did enjoy it."

In mitigation, it should be added that the gig wasn't given the publicity splash you'd imagine a rare gig by the band should have been given. It was also in a very heavy, rundown part of the city. A few weeks before, The Lurkers only just scraped together the same amount of punters.

"Up in Scotland," Charlie adds, "it's really good. But outside that, the only time people have seen us was on the Magazine tour. Apart, that is, from these few dates now."

Hibernia seems to be a sore subject within the band. Bruce had initially tried to get the band to come on all rock 'n' rolling SNP, but they're none too enamoured of the auld sod.

"We're really restricted in Glasgow," Charlie said, "because there isn't anywhere to play, because of size, organisation and that kind of thing." He goes on to recount a nighmarish tale about playing and un-controlled college gig where 500 people milled around in a tiny hall with no bouncers or organisation. "It was just bedlam."

Jim has stronger feelings on the subject; "I don't really enjoy playing in Glasgow any more. Glasgow's a weird place for a band at our stage. When you first start off, everyone in Glasgow gets right behind you. There isn't much going on in Glasgow and when you get a band that's getting on a bit, they get really jealous. It's not as though we're getting mass acceptance, but now it's like "Those up there, those cunts. It could've been me."

This is just part of a problem assailing the group at present. They find themselves in the unenviable position between the company, which wants to capitalise on what it sees as a bright new band, and the public, who see no proof that these barbarian upstarts have paid their dues.

"We just wanted to do things straight; get a proper studio, a proper sound, a proper producer, and obviously we couldn't have done that on our own. So I imagine a lot of people think we've had it really easy because they didn't see us in the Hope 'n' Anchor or wherever."

Needless to say, it didn't actually help to dispel the suspicion when they played their first London gig... at the Drury Lane Theatre, supporting Magazine. But, as I've said, they lived up to it. They got an excellent reaction on the tour, getting called back for one or two encores each night (a virtually unheard of phenomenon in the world of downtrodden support acts).

Allowing the business machine free rein was, they all aver, a bad move.

"We'd much rather go out and get grassroots following behind us," Jim said, "as opposed to just sticking out a single, waiting for it to get high in the charts so we can sit back for a while and then do the next album. Because playing's still the most important thing to us."

The 'Life In A Day' album surfaced during the tour, and you would have forgiven for thinking that Arista was giving Simple Minds the Full Works. The press greeted it with the ticker-tape shower of names; Ultravox, Roxy Music, Magazine (?), Tubeway Army, XTC and so on.

"Some of it we could agree with," Jim said, refusing to actually say which bits they agreed with. "But some we couldn't agree withn at all. Especially XTC and things like that."

"It was recorded almost half a year ago," Charles adds. "I can see bits on it where I think, 'Perhaps we shouldn't have done that'. But we had a lot of things to get off our chests."

Jim again; "We're going to experiment, to try and get a sound of our own. I think the next album will be much more us. I don't think it will be so much of the 'Simple Minds sound like this or that or...' Some of that we could take, but some of it got on our nerves. People always look to compare a new band with someone else."

There's only one thing they'll accept as valid comparison with the abovementioned bands, "and that," said Charlie, "is the line-up."

They refuse to be drawn on the subject of where the band will move, stylistically. "I don't think we've yet come to the point where we want to come out and be black and white about things, and say we stand for this and this is us.

"It's not getting any more advanced or intricate or technical," Charlie said. "It's still really got that basic simpleness."

"We feel at this point that the basis of the band," said Jim "the hard shell of it is still - as cliched as it is - pretty much a rock 'n' roll band."

I'll drink to that.

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