The La's - The Band And their Album
Created | Updated Sep 24, 2010
The La’s as the world came to know them evolved out of the primordial ooze of Liverpool’s music scene in the mid-1980s. Musician Mike Badger first formed the La’s to play with him on tracks based around 1950s and 60s R and B, and recorded for compilation albums of local music. After the second of these, A Secret Liverpool, was released, a young Lee Mavers joined, at first on bass. He stayed with the band, recording on more compilations, gigging around Liverpool and seeing various musicians come and go, until he usurped Badger’s place at the head of the band in 1986, after having started to write his own jangly-guitared rock n’ rollesque material. Lee Mavers’ La’s signed to Go! Records and released their first single, ‘Way Out,’ in 1987 (the song made it to the final cut of the album in a different guise some three years later). The band consisted of John Timson on drums, Paul Hemmings on guitar, John Power on bass, and Mavers on vocals and guitar. Only the latter pair would remain constant through various exchanges of personnel; the duo originally met at a music workshop for unemployed youths. Like so many bands before and yet to come, they were hyped on the strength of their first single by the music press, moved down to London to capitalise on this newfound fame, but soon moved back to Liverpool after it didn’t work out.
The lineup shifted at this point, Chris Sharrock replacing Timson on drums, and an old school friend of Mavers on guitar, apparently going by the name of Boo, in place of Hemmings. The only recorded evidence of the group in this form is, in fact, There She Goes, released as a single in October ’88. Again the single made a positive critical impact, but failed to do so commercially. Soon after the song was recorded, Boo departed and was replaced by Barry Sutton, as the band began the long process of making their first, last and only album.
In recording the album Mavers wanted to capture the music as it was live, dirty and raw, as if the band were sitting there next to you, with no studio tricks. The idea was not a new one, and the sound closely resembled 50s and 60s rock n’ rollers like Eddie Cochran, but Mavers pursued it with vision matching the most far-out and ludicrous of prog-rockers, and with unbounded eccentricity: he once refused to wipe the dust from his guitar because he thought it to be sonically beneficial. Mavers’ purism and pickiness would end up shaping the recording process and the finished album as much as any other thing, becoming more of an obsession as time went on.
John Leckie was the first to take up the gauntlet of producing the album in early 1988, and the band presented some rough four-track recorded demos to him that they wanted to build their album around. Although Leckie went on to bring state-of-the-art production to bands like the Stone Roses and Radiohead, he took the trouble of finding the band a recording studio in Chipping Norton that boasted an antique recording desk from the 1960s, Mavers’ own golden age of music, and used old AKG D190 microphones of the same vintage. Despite this, Leckie apparently could not fit his production techniques with Mavers’ rough-hewn musical vision, and he found himself dismissed before the album could take shape, leaving only six tracks recorded.
Leckie’s shoes were filled next by Mike Hedges, who adhered even more closely to the band’s specifications. The recordings were done in the kitchen and living room of a house in Devon, and in Hedges’ London flat. The sixteen tracks of the LP ‘Callin’ All’ were recorded with four four-track recording consoles linked together. Not only were these machines also from the early 60s, but had been taken from Abbey Road studios and, better still, had been used by the Beatles and in John Lennon’s solo work. Initially Mavers seemed happy with the recordings, but when the band returned after a holiday and started mixing the record it seems he began to express dissatisfaction with what had been achieved in the Hedges sessions. Promo copies of a single, ‘Timeless Melody,’ were distributed to the music press, and received uniformly good reviews, but the release was recalled at the last moment. For better or for worse, ‘Callin’ All’ never saw the light of day.
The band finally completed their album with Steve Lillywhite in 1990, the lineup having by now changed for the final time with Peter Carnell taking over guitarist duties and Mavers’ younger brother Neil on drums. The idea of working with the producer of Simple Minds and U2 perhaps would not normally have appealed someone of Mavers’ particular musical sensibilities, but as with Hedges, his attitude towards the initial sessions with Lillywhite was a positive one. However the band walked out before the album was mixed, perhaps expecting to be allowed to start from scratch with a new producer once again, but they had already been through seven of them and had spent countless fruitless and expensive days in various recording studios over nearly two years. Lillywhite was asked to finish mixing the album on his own and at best he did so in a way that he thought the band would have wanted it and at worst to the specifications of their somewhat more commercially minded record company. Go! Records maintains that Mavers was invited to the mix sessions and the band insist they were not consulted, and that had they been involved the results would have been very different. In all honesty however, the above statement is probably over elaborating Mavers’ sentiments. He settled for simply declaring his hatred of the album at every opportunity.
The La’s was released in late 1990 to wide and wild critical acclaim. Despite Mavers’ hang-ups, the results of the Lillywhite sessions were, in my opinion, stunning. The eleven tracks encompass jangling rhythm and blues (I Can’t Sleep, Feelin’), vivid social reality, Liverpudlian style (Doledrum, Failure), epic and climactic guitar music (Looking Glass) and, of course, the skintight and perfect There She Goes. The re-release of that single went to number 13, and the band stuck around to tour the in the USA and Japan to promote the album they had so maligned but Mavers’ refusal to record another note of new music until he could remake the album his way, in addition, perhaps, to some fact behind the continual rumours of hard drug abuse lead to John Power leaving in 1992 and forming the highly successful Cast. Mavers continued the La’s for years afterwards, but, true to his word, no new material came of it. Perhaps Mavers’ continuing artistic silence was a result of his frustrating inability to resolve his unique musical imagination with the limitations of modern music technology, which, in terms of the music of the La’s at least, grow as recording studios become ever more sophisticated. It seems highly unlikely now that we will ever see Mavers’ perfect version of that album, in all its imperfect glory. A clue to how it would have sounded is perhaps provided by an alternative version of ‘I.O.U,’ found among the bonus tracks on the digitally remastered version of the album. After Mavers gives a quick ‘1-2-3-4, the guitars roll into the familiar chords, but the song itself seems to jump out of the speakers. The production is rough, but the track has the disconcerting effect of making the original seem drab by comparison. So maybe what ended up in the shops is a pasteurised, dimmed down version of the real thing. So maybe what’s on the record is an underachievement. For a band that was underachieving in the recording studio in comparison to what they did on stage, they still sound pretty good to me
The lineup shifted at this point, Chris Sharrock replacing Timson on drums, and an old school friend of Mavers on guitar, apparently going by the name of Boo, in place of Hemmings. The only recorded evidence of the group in this form is, in fact, There She Goes, released as a single in October ’88. Again the single made a positive critical impact, but failed to do so commercially. Soon after the song was recorded, Boo departed and was replaced by Barry Sutton, as the band began the long process of making their first, last and only album.
In recording the album Mavers wanted to capture the music as it was live, dirty and raw, as if the band were sitting there next to you, with no studio tricks. The idea was not a new one, and the sound closely resembled 50s and 60s rock n’ rollers like Eddie Cochran, but Mavers pursued it with vision matching the most far-out and ludicrous of prog-rockers, and with unbounded eccentricity: he once refused to wipe the dust from his guitar because he thought it to be sonically beneficial. Mavers’ purism and pickiness would end up shaping the recording process and the finished album as much as any other thing, becoming more of an obsession as time went on.
John Leckie was the first to take up the gauntlet of producing the album in early 1988, and the band presented some rough four-track recorded demos to him that they wanted to build their album around. Although Leckie went on to bring state-of-the-art production to bands like the Stone Roses and Radiohead, he took the trouble of finding the band a recording studio in Chipping Norton that boasted an antique recording desk from the 1960s, Mavers’ own golden age of music, and used old AKG D190 microphones of the same vintage. Despite this, Leckie apparently could not fit his production techniques with Mavers’ rough-hewn musical vision, and he found himself dismissed before the album could take shape, leaving only six tracks recorded.
Leckie’s shoes were filled next by Mike Hedges, who adhered even more closely to the band’s specifications. The recordings were done in the kitchen and living room of a house in Devon, and in Hedges’ London flat. The sixteen tracks of the LP ‘Callin’ All’ were recorded with four four-track recording consoles linked together. Not only were these machines also from the early 60s, but had been taken from Abbey Road studios and, better still, had been used by the Beatles and in John Lennon’s solo work. Initially Mavers seemed happy with the recordings, but when the band returned after a holiday and started mixing the record it seems he began to express dissatisfaction with what had been achieved in the Hedges sessions. Promo copies of a single, ‘Timeless Melody,’ were distributed to the music press, and received uniformly good reviews, but the release was recalled at the last moment. For better or for worse, ‘Callin’ All’ never saw the light of day.
The band finally completed their album with Steve Lillywhite in 1990, the lineup having by now changed for the final time with Peter Carnell taking over guitarist duties and Mavers’ younger brother Neil on drums. The idea of working with the producer of Simple Minds and U2 perhaps would not normally have appealed someone of Mavers’ particular musical sensibilities, but as with Hedges, his attitude towards the initial sessions with Lillywhite was a positive one. However the band walked out before the album was mixed, perhaps expecting to be allowed to start from scratch with a new producer once again, but they had already been through seven of them and had spent countless fruitless and expensive days in various recording studios over nearly two years. Lillywhite was asked to finish mixing the album on his own and at best he did so in a way that he thought the band would have wanted it and at worst to the specifications of their somewhat more commercially minded record company. Go! Records maintains that Mavers was invited to the mix sessions and the band insist they were not consulted, and that had they been involved the results would have been very different. In all honesty however, the above statement is probably over elaborating Mavers’ sentiments. He settled for simply declaring his hatred of the album at every opportunity.
The La’s was released in late 1990 to wide and wild critical acclaim. Despite Mavers’ hang-ups, the results of the Lillywhite sessions were, in my opinion, stunning. The eleven tracks encompass jangling rhythm and blues (I Can’t Sleep, Feelin’), vivid social reality, Liverpudlian style (Doledrum, Failure), epic and climactic guitar music (Looking Glass) and, of course, the skintight and perfect There She Goes. The re-release of that single went to number 13, and the band stuck around to tour the in the USA and Japan to promote the album they had so maligned but Mavers’ refusal to record another note of new music until he could remake the album his way, in addition, perhaps, to some fact behind the continual rumours of hard drug abuse lead to John Power leaving in 1992 and forming the highly successful Cast. Mavers continued the La’s for years afterwards, but, true to his word, no new material came of it. Perhaps Mavers’ continuing artistic silence was a result of his frustrating inability to resolve his unique musical imagination with the limitations of modern music technology, which, in terms of the music of the La’s at least, grow as recording studios become ever more sophisticated. It seems highly unlikely now that we will ever see Mavers’ perfect version of that album, in all its imperfect glory. A clue to how it would have sounded is perhaps provided by an alternative version of ‘I.O.U,’ found among the bonus tracks on the digitally remastered version of the album. After Mavers gives a quick ‘1-2-3-4, the guitars roll into the familiar chords, but the song itself seems to jump out of the speakers. The production is rough, but the track has the disconcerting effect of making the original seem drab by comparison. So maybe what ended up in the shops is a pasteurised, dimmed down version of the real thing. So maybe what’s on the record is an underachievement. For a band that was underachieving in the recording studio in comparison to what they did on stage, they still sound pretty good to me
