Music Reissues Weekly: The Pale Fountains - The Complete Virgin Years

The Pale Fountains played their first live show on 12 February 1980 as the support to on-the-up fellow Liverpudlians Wah! Heat. Their final stage appearance – notwithstanding the odd reunion – was on 21 May 1987 at their home city’s The Majestic Club, a venue which also traded as Mr Pickwick’s

In between, The Pale Fountains’ live schedule was erratic. Nothing was undertaken which constituted a full UK tour. Beyond one-offs or odd consecutive shows, there were a handful of December 1985 dates supporting Echo & The Bunnymen, three Japanese shows in May that year, a sprinkling of UK appearances over August and September 1982. Overall, for the span of the band, it was just 38 known shows.

It’s a curious set of statistics for a band which issued seven singles and two albums, mostly on the high-profile label Virgin. In terms of ubiquity in record shops, as opposed to on stage, the peak years were 1984, when debut album Pacific Street was issued that February, and 1985, when second and final album …From Across The Kitchen Table came out (also in February). It’s also curious in the light of what followed: the band’s focal point and songwriter Michael Head formed Shack with his brother John (who had joined The Pale Fountains in late 1984). They played their first show in December 1987 and went on to appear on stage regularly. The Pale Fountains had not really bedded themselves in.

They formed after Michael Head encountered The Teardrop Explodes’ keyboard player Dave Balfe in Liverpool’s Probe Records shop. In turn, Balfe introduced him to local scenester David Palmer aka Yorkie, who later played bass with Space. Palmer exposed Michael to The Byrds and Arthur Lee’s Love. Burt Bacharach, Astrud Gilberto, Sergio Mendes and jazz soon followed. It all fed into how Michael envisaged The Pale Fountains and, of course, coloured his songwriting. Tellingly, The Pale Fountains, after a brief spell as The Dance Party were known for even less time as The Love Fountains. Michael has maintained he did not hear The Beatles until 1987 and has never listened to their “White” album.

Initially, the band was Michael Head (guitar, vocals), Andy Diagram (trumpet), Chris McCaffery (bass guitar) and Thomas Whelan (drums). After Diagram left in 1984, John Head joined.

A chance to appreciate The Pale Fountains and their very particular approach to pop comes with the four-CD clamshell box set The Complete Virgin Years. Both albums are here, along with non-album remixes from B-sides and 12-inchers. Their pre-Virgin single does not appear, and surely could have been licensed to make this a complete Pale Fountains set. There is, though, a raft of alternate and rough mixes plus demos which were not issued back then. After they came out, each of the albums stalled in the lower reaches of the Top 100. The only single to chart, helped by a picture-disc edition, was the Virgin debut “Thank You.” In late 1982 it went no higher than a 48 chart position. It took more than a year after this for the first album to be issued. Momentum was lacking. Virgin dropped the band in 1986.

Heard now, Pacific Street and ...Kitchen Table – the focus, respectively, of Discs One (which, oddly, has a few differences between its tracklisting and what is heard) and Three – sound extraordinarily strong. Timeless too. As far as contemporaneous comparisons go: perhaps in the Aztec Camera ball park. But certainly not – despite a similar approach to clothes – Haircut 100. There are elements of bossa nova, a Burt Bacharach-informed classicism and, of course, shades of Love circa Forever Changes. All of which blends with a very direct pop sensibility. Tunefulness is paramount, as is ensuring that the arrangements are interesting, unpredictable. Evolved stuff. …From Across The Kitchen Table is slightly hampered by Ian Broudie's bright, direct production and its radio-friendly foregrounding of drums, whereas the band-produced Pacific Street is more dynamic, warmer. Pacific Street is the more satisfying of the pair, as it comes across as the more subtle album.

Disc Two of the set collects what are identified as "Rough Mixes." However, the frequent presence of a drum machine suggests much of this material may be demos. There is no annotation indicating when (or where, or why) these were recorded, but as there are takes of “Beyond Fridays Field” and “(There's Always) Something on my Mind,” both of which are on Pacific Street, these assumedly are drawn from sessions prior to the recording of the album. If this is the case, in contrast to the shortage of live shows, The Pale Fountains had songs to burn – there is enough unreleased material here to form the basis of another album.

Disc Four teams pretty uninteresting extended versions and remixes from singles with nine fascinating tracks annotated as demos: full-band recordings which, as they include versions of …Kitchen Table’s “27 Ways to Get Back Home” (preferable to the issued version), “Bruised Arcade,” “Shelter” and “These are the Things" must be try-outs recorded before commencing the sessions for the band’s second album (again, nothing indicates exactly what these are: didn't the tape boxes say something?). These are a window into how …From The Kitchen Table might have sounded if it had not received Ian Broudie’s production.

Frustratingly, although the band’s story is told, the essay in the booklet coming with this set has nothing to say about the material which was not issued at the time. This is very disappointing as the alternate The Pale Fountains which is presented is the major selling point of The Complete Virgin Years. Nonetheless, anyone with at least a passing interest in British, auteur-driven Eighties pop, as well as The Pale Fountains, Shack and Michael Head, needs this intriguing, tantalising release.

• Next week: Chip Shop Pop – Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley digs into British studio pop from the early Seventies
  
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