In A Green World

-- Jamming!, June 1985

Chris Heath finds out how Scritti Politti chase the profound implications of pop and still manage to sell records.

It's 5 o'clock on a Friday night and Green sips another Pils in a London hotel basement. By his side sit Fred Maher and David Gamson, now officially members of Scritti Politti. Green does most of the talking -- long words and hard ideas -- though occasionally he tries to deflect questions in the direction of the others, more to emphasize their equal presence rather than because they're better suited to answer. Green says he's not drunk, though he's been sitting there all afternoon talking to people, but he does confess that "a few beers" is a frequent source of pleasure for him at the moment. "Lots of drink in fact," he reflects, "far too much". Some people, I venture, would be surprised to learn that a man responsible for such intellectual and sincere records also appreciates the finer points of getting pissed. He grins. "Well I like to drink of course," he explains, feigning the self satisfied smile of a drunkard, "because I'm a tortured soul and one has to seek some kind of anaesthetic release. You drink to steady nerves and enforce a kind of forgetfulness that you otherwise would not be able to enjoy. And then," he smirks, "it becomes a habit. One that I think I'm looking forward to getting under control. Though basically it's a good drug. Being familiar with quite a lot of drugs, alcohol's not a bad one as they go."

Green has read a lot of books in his twenty eight years. Many of them are obscure texts by Italian, German or French writers full of complicated words and even more complex ideas -- the sort of thing which frequently gets name-dropped in the NME without a whisper of explanation. As these millions of chains of words have passed before his eyes, Green has realised, along with many intellectuals this century, that some of the most interesting philosophical questions involve words themselves. What constraints are there on what we can say through language? Who is in control -- the language or the speaker? Can we think about something if we can't describe it? Are words neutral, or do they have a power, a weight, a bias of their own? Most people interested in this sort of stuff just muse silently in their bedroom armchair or furrow their brows in the dusty library towers of academia. But Green tries to write pop songs.

The earliest Scritti messed clumsily with these issues and by 'Lions After Slumber' -- the b-side of 'The Sweetest Girl' on which he drew attention to the politics of possession by offering up a list of things all pre-fixed by the pronoun 'my' -- he was getting into his stride. In 'Absolute' he manages to articulate these ideas far more powerfully by introducing a more human context -- the idea of a love (maybe all love) beyond language.

Nevertheless until recently, Green confesses, he's been reluctant to tackle such subjects explicitly since being disillusioned a couple of years, both by the narcissism of his earlier intellectual speculations, and also by the depressing answers they offered -- particularly those with painful consequences for his faith in Marxist determinism (loosely the belief that Marxist revolution is inevitable). But now, with their latest single, 'The Word Girl', his confidence has grown -- this is a bewitching, seductive lovers rock-meets-electro song which is actually about the way the word (and idea) girl is used in pop music.

"It had come to my notice," explains Green rather regally, "that we'd written a lot of lyrics that had referred to the girl or used the word girl in them quite a lot, and I thought it would be quite a good idea insofar as it was possible within the confines of a short song to take stock of the fact, announce that we were aware this device was being used and that it was loaded, wasn't neutral. Just to emphasize the materiality of that one piece of language."

In other words what he's saying is that it is not possibly to simply refer with innocence to a girl (either a specific one or as a class of person) in a pop song without drawing on, and also running the risk of implicitly supporting and legitimating, a whole range of ideas and ideologies (mostly chauvinistic) related to the use of the word 'girl' in pop.

Which is all very interesting and valuable -- except that it's also all a bit of a mouthful. Is Green sure people will understand?

"I obviously hope that some of its import, its intentionality," he answers in characteristically simplistic terms, "will settle somewhere, have some impact. Otherwise," he smiles, "I shouldn't have bothered to write it."

Green does know some short words too. They tend to come to the fore when he leaves off the abstract concepts for a moment to explains how he's come to be playing his current hi-tech transatlantic electro-soul. Discovering that he, humble Green, could work with respected musicians like Fred and David was a great eye-opener.

"Suddenly," he recounts, "a whole new culture, a whole new continent was accessible to me. Name players weren't on another planet -- they were guys around. It was like the demystification at the beginning of punk -- 'gosh, we can make records, it only costs £370 to go into a scrag-end, dog-end studio and wham something down' -- one had grown up thinking that other beings made records. It was as enlightening to realise that real musicians who you see on the back of LP covers were quite approachable and in most cases quite enthusiastic to work with me."

Consequently the last year and a lot of money has been spent crafting an LP of nine songs (no leftovers", all four singles), working first with producer Arif Mardin (who did Chaka Khan's 'I Feel For You') then alone. Hardly an option open to everyone. So does Green now reckon that in 1985 that old punk ethic is stone dead, that the only way to make records nowadays is with credit card dollars and computerised mixing desks?

"I despaired of the independent scene for a long time in the early eighties," he replies, "when it fell into just a slough of gothics, doomheads, miseries, sub-Joy Divisions and sub-Falls. The whole thing was rotting to pieces. But now, due to the likes of The Smith and Cocteau Twins it's still alive."

But The Smiths and the Cocteau Twins have got far, far more than £370 behind them.

"Yes they do," he admits. "They're a perversion of the original. The Smiths got a lot of money from a major record company to do what they do. A lot of people don't realise that."

Perhaps then, as David suggests, the true budget indie pop of the '80s is American Electro where records are frequently churned out for the equivalent of a few hundred pounds. Such thrift however doesn't appeal to Scritti Politti anymore.

"It's not something that interests us, making records with £370 of studio time," explains Green. "There are other ways to skin a vole." "Or an avocado," chips in Fred, helpfully.

The respite doesn't last long. Try as he will, Green soon returns in his friendly and fascinating way to a world where words like 'signifier', 'obviate' and 'epistemology' slide off the tongue with a fluid regularity. Settling myself comfortably in my chair, I risk another onslaught by asking him about the new LP's title -- 'Cupid And Psyche 85'.

"While you explain, I'm going to go and point Percy at the Porcelain," apologises Fred to Green, obviously also realising we're going to be in for another heavy stint of polysyllables.

Green begins. "There is the myth, the legend of Cupid and Psyche. They fell in love with each other but could only stay that way as long as neither attempted to find out too much about the other. Their ignorance was their bliss. But overfamiliarity got the better of them. I don't know specifically what they found out about -- his nosepicking? ingrowing toenails? sweaty bottom? I suspect none of these, it being a myth. Anyway Psyche fled and Cupid was fated to travel the universe in search of him. Apparently in the end they got together but part of Cupid's punishment was to be in the service of Venus.

"Apart from that, which I thought was relevant to one or two of the songs, I liked the idea that Cupid had come into common parlance as a key word for affairs of the heart and psyche had for the tortured unconscious. Hence the title. The '85' helps ground it."

And Green pauses for breath. By this time I'm starting to get the hang of all this intellectualism so I carry on for him. The '85', I suggest, more than just helping ground the myth also succinctly refers to the notion that we have, in 1985, crossed the threshold into a new episteme as far as the dialectic between the mental and the emotional was concerned. Something like that? No?

Green looks up at me, a little puzzled, a little pitiful. "No," he answers, shaking his head. "It just grounds it."

And as I change the subject he sips relaxedly at another Pils and smiles silently.

GREEN STROHMEYER GARTSIDE

Green was born on June 22, 1956 in the valleys of South Wales. His father was first in the merchant navy, then a travelling salesman; his mother worked in a hairdressing salon. They didn't really get on. His original, very ordinary Christian name is a secret -- he claims to have christened himself Green one day as he looked out of a train window onto the "lush, verdant" scenery outside. To his surprise when he announced the change his friends just accepted it.

As a schoolboy he was beaten up for his German surname by the reactionary lads of Caerphilly but prospered academically until falling in with a friend who's parents were communists. Inquisitive, principled and naive Green joined the Young Communist League and, after rowing with his headmaster over the ideological distortions in the school syllabus, he waled out in the middle of his 'A'-level year.

Naturally he then became an art student, ending up in Leeds. There, he promoted gigs by avant-garde hippies Henry Cow -- he used to visit Fred's (and hence also rock critic Simon's) parents house in York to watch them rehearse -- meanwhile again rowing with his teachers, this time simply because of their lack of intellectual concern. "All the lecturers," he recalls, "just got drunk and took girls out for Chinese meals". Then he caught a gig on the legendary punk tour -- The Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Clash and The Heartbreakers all on the same night -- and his life changed.

Getting his degree, he moved to London and formed Scritti Politti -- named after the Italian marxist Gramsci's term for political writing, 'scritti polittichi' ("I wanted to make it sound more like "Tutti Frutti") -- and released desperately independent singles in photocopied sleeves. They lived in a squat, listened to reggae, took 'substances', discussed political tracts, washed occasionally and Green got severely ill. Of the records, 'Messthetics' was typical -- supposedly a sort of anarchist revision of aesthetics it was sadly an awkward clever-clever mess.

After recuperating for a while in Wales, Green suddenly reincarnated as the sweetest boy, reappeared, his neck swimming in designer knitwear, with 'The Sweetest Girl'. When the LP, 'Songs To Remember' finally appeared, it was a clumsy mixture of classy pop singles kept from the charts by Rough Trade mismanagement, muso soul, and strange political obscurities. "I'm in love with Jacques Derrida," he crooned, but unfortunately when he reached the famed French deconstructionist's name he mispronounced it.

The rest is history. Rough Trade left him alone, first for Aztec Camera, then the Smiths, and he disappeared again. When he reemerged, he was changed again. Gone were the somber interviews, the tongue twister lyrics. Instead Green discovered America, hip hop, 'Wood Beez' and the charts.

FRED MAHER

At 16 Fred waled out of school in Manhattan in New York to play the drums with a band -- "we had an incredibly embarrassing name which I won't mention" -- on a low budget tour in a school bus.

"We were involved with this guy called George Gemelski -- years ago he produced the Yardbirds, Soft Machine -- he's been a catalyst of all sorts of music since way back when. In New York we'd invented this big loft space and invited all sorts of people to come down and play."

From this first band evolved the now legendary material with Fred on drums and on bass, Bill Laswell (producer of endless records, most expensively Mick Jagger's solo LP) -- their most commercial moment being the near hit on 'Ze Bustin' Out', which featured Nona Hendryx on vocals.

"Meanwhile," continues Fred, "I played with loads of different bands -- The Dance, Massacre (with Fred Frith)...the chronological order starts to get pretty foggy but we also had a bad called Deadline -- there's an album just out with the crusty old ashes on -- in which I played guitar alongside Robert Quine."

Quine proved a good connection. "I got to know him quite well," explains Maher, "and through him did the second Richard Hell And The Voidoids LP, 'Destiny Street' and subsequently ended up playing with him on the last two Lou Reed studio albums ('Blue Mask' and 'Legendary Hearts') and one live one ('Live In Italy').

Recently, as well as working in Scritti, Fred also released an instrumental album done with Quine on EG records, called 'Basic'.

DAVID GAMSON

"My history pales by comparison," untruthfully insists 23 year old David, Scritti's shyest member who rarely drinks ("except when alone") and composes many of the keyboard parts.

"I've never been in a band before in my life. I was brought up in Westchester, New York. My father's a musician, my mother's a dancer -- terribly artsy-fartsy! I've studied music all my life, y'know? Went to college. Terribly middle class," he apologises.

"Fred and I met about five years ago -- my first year in college. His old girlfriend used to also go to my college. I hadn't thought originally of getting into pop music but I was made assistant engineer in a horrible little studio where they made 16 track backings for business presentations. I made a demo of a horrible cover -- Sugar Sugar (the old bubblegum hit by The Archies) -- which Fred played drums on, and took the tape to Michael Zilkha at Ze because Material had released Bustin' Out. There he said 'No, this is far too twee' but Geoff Travis (from Rough Trade( was in the office so I gave him a tape and he said he'd put it out, which he did. Then I did something else for Zilkha (the excellent No Turn On Red) which never really came out (it was on an NME tape).

"I met Green, through Geoff Travis, when I was on holiday in England -- Cricklewood actually! We did a demo together of Small Talk -- now rerecorded for the LP -- which was subsequently remixed by Nile Rodgers, an incredible learning experience."

Next he got Fred involved. "I got this call," remembers Fred, "from David's mum! She said David was working with this person Scritti Politti."

And that was it.