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10th November 1990, Melody Maker
EVERETT TRUE TRAVELLED TO PORTSMOUTH TO TALK TO ALISON AND JIM SHAW ABOUT THE STRANGE ATTRACTIONS THAT MAKE CRANES' NEW EP, 'ESPERO' LAST WEEKS SINGLE OF THE WEEK, SUCH COMPULSIVE LISTENING.
You want to know how I feel when I listen to "Espero", the new three-track EP from Portsmouth's Cranes, right? You want to know whether it evokes images of abused childhoods, fetal murmurs, voodoo nursery rhymes, claustrophobia, the horror from "Eraserhead", disembodied structures, obsession, right? You want to know how this music affects me. Okay, I'll tell you.
The new Cranes single makes me feel distinctly, devoutly, uneasy. The first track, "I Hope", is the sound of devastation, pain, isolation; a child inarticulately screaming as it faces a nameless, faceless horror in the closet, the attic, face downwards in the frowning pool. The second track, "E. G. Shining", reminds of that section in E. Nesbitt's "The Story of the Amulet", where the word of power is spoken and the air grows dank and oppressive, the hubbub of Victorian London streets outside fades to a mere trickle, and the charm begins to grow and grow until it fills the whole room. And on the other side . . . my God, you don't want to know what's on the other side. And the third track "Cha Cha Escueta", makes me feel exotic, ecstatic. Cranes put me in touch with emotions that aren't there.
It's midday on an overcast Wednesday in Portsmouth, and we're on our way to pick up Matt Cope, one of Cranes' two guitarists, from the Guild Hall, where he's roadie-ing for tonight's Pixies concert. A massive venue, it was the site of Cranes first ever show alongside seven other local bands in front of 209 people. Mission accomplished, the five of us, Matt, myself, Stephen, plus Jim and Alison Shaw (the creative core of Cranes) walk down to the New Theatre Royal, where they're holding tea mornings to raise money for renovation. Over a giant pot o tea, Alison explains why the Cranes other guitarist (Mark Francombe, the dreadlocked one) isn't with us today. He's in London finishing off the final edit of the new video.
"Mark spent ages building up this big globe shaped pendulum out of metal and plaster," says Alison, "With detailed windows and little bits on, to be suspended from the roof above us. At one point it was supposed to gently crumble and disintegrate, but Jim over-did the stage bombs and used four instead of one, and it exploded with enormous force. Fortunately we were all standing at the back at the time, cos otherwise it might have been a very different story. They wanted me to stand at the front, but I didn't. And afterwards there were three giant chunks of metal embedded in these seats where my head would have been."
"The whole idea behind the video had to be re-thought," Mark tells me on the phone later. "I got Alison to stand on a chair in my garden till midnight, for extra facial shots, but in the end we couldn't use that either. It looked like a Heart video; The wind blowing though her hair and smoke billowing out, in front of this strange red tree. Not very appropriate." Mark's tip for the day is the new Julee Cruise album, and he still can't work out why he was so bad at playing the keyboard part on "Inescapable" (the previous single) on the last tour, as he studied piano for five years. Anyhow.
Next it's off to the beach by the Round Tower where Jim used to have to pick up litter every day come hell or high water, for the photo shoot. Jin's in his "very untrendy, I'll be told off later for wearing it" Nick Cave tee-shirt, Matt has his Mr Abusing "All Rock Stars Are Tossers" badge on, Alison looks, well, radiant. Just across the way is the wretch of the Mary Rose, now a tourist centre, where Jim and Alison's mother works. The harbour is filled with warships and helicopters in preparation for the outbreak of World War III.
Little known facts about Cranes number one. When Alison was 16, she was asked to dance by Alan Biley and Niel Webb (later of Manchester United) at a Portsmouth football club social evening. Alan Biley was the trendier of the two, Singing Elvis Costello songs to her all night.
We're now sitting around in Jim's flat, a jumble of speakers, master tapes, mixing consoles and guitars. Matt has scuttled back to work. Talk drifts, and I ask Alison whether she has to place herself in a particular frame of mind when she's recording. I couldn't imagine Cranes going through the motions with their songs - it just wouldn't work. She laughs nervously. "It's the other way round," she replies, flicking a piece of ash from the sofa. "I don't have to sit around waiting for the mood to take me, because usually, if I hear a new sound, it'll take me to somewhere I haven't been before. Like listening to those sounds Jim was making on his sampler earlier (train noises, waterfalls gushing, elephant bulls lowing) it reminds me of hot baking plains in America, an old Western film or something."
What about the songs you've just recorded? "When I first heard the music to 'I Hope' - you know its got the intro, then the guitars come in with a big whoosh and it stops - it was like running into this precipice and stopping on the very edge, and its like vertigo. It reminded me of being in a high place." We stop the recorder briefly so Jim can play me a rape of early (pre-)Cranes from '84. Alison instantly disclaims it, saying she had an American accent and the band sounded "disco". I don't know what i was expecting - Earth Wind and Fire, maybe - but, knock me down sideways, if it doesn't sound like, uh, Cranes.
Little known facts about Cranes number Two. Alison only smokes cigarettes when she's nervous. She's smoking right now. "I feel like you're preying on us today," she remarks, and then in response to my noting this comment down, she reaches over and hits me, semi-playfully, semi-annoyed. "You can't write that down!" Oh yes I can.
When I last spoke to you, you mention how your lives seem to be completely unreal - a constant stream of ever-changing faces and situations: interviews, planning, recording, writing. Is your reality a constant? Jim : "I try to ignore things I don't like. I guess I live in a dream world, and wait till things come to a head. Reality depends on the way you think, but it usually ends up coming back down to money." Jim just received a FINAL demand through the post from the gas board, alongside a note saying "You may need our help". Sometimes he'll go up to the roof of his bedsit at night and sit there for hours. "I think we do our dreaming in a constructive way, though," Alison adds, her voice dropping down to below a whisper. "If you just take drugs and dream to yourself, there's nothing left to it at all. It's pointless . . . but then, what we do is pointless." I'm sure you don't believe that. "I guess not." She sounds unsure.
Here's pretty much the secret to Cranes in interview. Alison : "I'd hate it if at any time our whole pasts and histories were written down for everyone to see and mull over. If there were no secrets left. When we started, there weren't even any pictures of us. I'm just not that interested in projecting myself. This whole thing . . . it's absurd. It would be an eternal hell if we just had to tour and tour and tour and do interviews constantly. We just make up songs, it's not that big a thing."
"But obviously it is important to other people," Jim corrects. Right. It's only as important as one chooses to make it. I'm sure thousands of people (well me and Chris Roberts) have said that thousands of times before. Right now, Cranes (and the new Pet Shop Boys and Bleach singles) are the only thing that are keeping my life together. I'm not joking, either. Obsessed.
"Why don't people interrogate other groups the way they interrogate us?" she asks pitifully.
By Everett True.
Pics by Stephen Sweet.
© Melody Maker, 1990.
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