Lee Mavers and The La's
Created | Updated Feb 23, 2004
It's easy to take a cynical view of The La's singer/songwriter Lee Mavers - especially if your ideal of success in the music industry is chimp-legged Robbie Williams, smarming up to the masses to pick their pockets, and you measure everything in terms of chart placings, sales and money earned, together with the latest actress/model that your reported to be fettling in 'The News of the World'. Lee Mavers: A wasted talent. A spent force. A musical footnote. A mythical charlatan. But if you do that then you totally and utterly miss the point of what Mavers is about. Music. Fundamentally - music. Not business, not industry. Music.
Which perhaps makes Mavers an artist in the true sense of the word, yes?
Maybe.
To the uninitiated: the La's were a Liverpool group formed in the 1980s, who signed a recording contract in 1986, then through various personnel changes recorded and re-recorded their first album under three different producers and in several different studios, together with trying out the acoustic potential of the occasional kitchen. Still not happy with the results, the eponymous album was released from the final recordings produced by U2 collaborator Steve Lillywhite and against the wishes of the group late in 1990. The La's - and especially Mavers - were withering in the criticism of the album at the time, a stance that's never altered. 'Our album is crap.'
After the album's release the La's continued, some hit and miss live appearances supplemented by varying stories surrounding their activities - they were recording the next album in their own 8-track studio in Liverpool, they were re-recording the first album to get it right, and so on. John Power left the band to form Cast and start his own story after a couple more years and more elaborate tales of Lee Mavers' perfectionism. Mavers carried on with new and ever varying band members, and then slipped into obscurity and from there into Syd Barrett-like cult status. No further releases from the band or Mavers.
The refusal of 'There she goes' to disappear but continually return in several inferior cover versions, adverts, films and TV programmes, raises the perennial question, 'Whatever happened to the La's, and what is the songs writer Lee Mavers doing now?'
You listen to the album not sure what to expect on the back of the stories and it's difficult to see what Mavers was so upset about. Apart from 'Freedom Song' - which I've never liked - the collection of songs is solid. The obvious set-piece is 'There she goes', but 'Son of a gun' and 'Timeless Melody' are equally statuesque, the rest pull the experience together and absolutely nothing disappoints. In some ways the 60s based music is anachronistic but in so many others ahead of its time (especially considered in the light of Britpop and beyond). If you're into this sound, then the album is a classic.
What was Mavers' problem?
A little more digging into alternative recordings and mixes gives food for thought. Compare the earlier version of 'I.O.U.' with the one that appears on the Lillywhite version (both available on the 2001 re-issue of the album). There is no comparison. It's like a recording on vitamin 'C', friendly bacteria, and a 12-month fitness regime, lifted, brighter, better. And those granite-like Pete Townsend guitar chords on the end of the verses, Keith Moon (or in this case, Chris Sharrock) cymbals splashing over them like breakers on the shore. The vocals have more impact and the melody hits harder. A seemingly better song, but the same song. And Mavers wasn't happy with this one either - mixed from the 'missing' Mike Hedges [1] sessions .
This re-evaluation is backed up by other recordings. 'Over', with Mavers sounding (intentionally or not) unbelievably like John Lennon (in the same way that Northern Soul legend J.J. Barnes sounds like Marvin Gaye on 'Sad day coming'). This track was recorded in one take in a barn in Liverpool. A shocking lo-fi production, but the moments shine through. The sound you heard when you listened to songs as a child is there. That magic. And a Mavers approved release. For that reason?
So is it the quality of the songs rather than the production that shines through to make 'The La's' a classic inspite of itself?
Consider this and then maybe you get to thinking that The La's had a point.
Definitely.
Matt Macefield's 'In Search of the La's: a secret Liverpool' (2003. ISBN 1-900924-63-3), both gives and takes away from the La's and Mavers' legend. The sense of discovery in the book is palpable - conversations with former La's band members and associates in various Liverpool pubs, old and half-forgotten articles from music magazines, the elusive search for what Mavers and his music was and is all about. Culminating in the bitter/sweet sight of Mavers - still enthusiastic, with his kids, his guitars, and a home-build, eclectic studio, with the tantalising sight of completed reels of recordings. And then just as you get a glimpse of him and hear his Scouse tones tell the story, Mavers disappears again. Up his own arse or into his own future? Take your pick.
For me, Lee Mavers remains an attractive enigma. Living in a semi in Huyton on Merseyside - the suburb of Liverpool where he was born and grew up - clean from the hard drugs that dogged his mid-1990s, a family, still writing, no one sure how much is getting recorded, but rumours of new material filtering through. 'Human Race', the song that's better than 'There she goes'. 'Raindance', and others. Perfecting what he wants to do, what he needs to be.
Go for it, la'.
They're still bloody good songs, though.
[1] The second recording sessions for the debut album, c.1988/89, down in Devon at Hedges' house, a keynote to the session being the use of a mixing desk from Abbey Road studio 2 in the 1960s, used by the Beatles. Hedges was at the time working for Devon and Cornwall Police. He would, like Mavers, subsequently turn his back on the music industry and become Chief Constable of South Yorkshire. It's rumoured that he produced tracks for Pulp in Sheffield during 2003.
For more of The La's online a good place to start is: http://www.geocities.com/The_Las/index.html
Which perhaps makes Mavers an artist in the true sense of the word, yes?
Maybe.
To the uninitiated: the La's were a Liverpool group formed in the 1980s, who signed a recording contract in 1986, then through various personnel changes recorded and re-recorded their first album under three different producers and in several different studios, together with trying out the acoustic potential of the occasional kitchen. Still not happy with the results, the eponymous album was released from the final recordings produced by U2 collaborator Steve Lillywhite and against the wishes of the group late in 1990. The La's - and especially Mavers - were withering in the criticism of the album at the time, a stance that's never altered. 'Our album is crap.'
After the album's release the La's continued, some hit and miss live appearances supplemented by varying stories surrounding their activities - they were recording the next album in their own 8-track studio in Liverpool, they were re-recording the first album to get it right, and so on. John Power left the band to form Cast and start his own story after a couple more years and more elaborate tales of Lee Mavers' perfectionism. Mavers carried on with new and ever varying band members, and then slipped into obscurity and from there into Syd Barrett-like cult status. No further releases from the band or Mavers.
The refusal of 'There she goes' to disappear but continually return in several inferior cover versions, adverts, films and TV programmes, raises the perennial question, 'Whatever happened to the La's, and what is the songs writer Lee Mavers doing now?'
You listen to the album not sure what to expect on the back of the stories and it's difficult to see what Mavers was so upset about. Apart from 'Freedom Song' - which I've never liked - the collection of songs is solid. The obvious set-piece is 'There she goes', but 'Son of a gun' and 'Timeless Melody' are equally statuesque, the rest pull the experience together and absolutely nothing disappoints. In some ways the 60s based music is anachronistic but in so many others ahead of its time (especially considered in the light of Britpop and beyond). If you're into this sound, then the album is a classic.
What was Mavers' problem?
A little more digging into alternative recordings and mixes gives food for thought. Compare the earlier version of 'I.O.U.' with the one that appears on the Lillywhite version (both available on the 2001 re-issue of the album). There is no comparison. It's like a recording on vitamin 'C', friendly bacteria, and a 12-month fitness regime, lifted, brighter, better. And those granite-like Pete Townsend guitar chords on the end of the verses, Keith Moon (or in this case, Chris Sharrock) cymbals splashing over them like breakers on the shore. The vocals have more impact and the melody hits harder. A seemingly better song, but the same song. And Mavers wasn't happy with this one either - mixed from the 'missing' Mike Hedges [1] sessions .
This re-evaluation is backed up by other recordings. 'Over', with Mavers sounding (intentionally or not) unbelievably like John Lennon (in the same way that Northern Soul legend J.J. Barnes sounds like Marvin Gaye on 'Sad day coming'). This track was recorded in one take in a barn in Liverpool. A shocking lo-fi production, but the moments shine through. The sound you heard when you listened to songs as a child is there. That magic. And a Mavers approved release. For that reason?
So is it the quality of the songs rather than the production that shines through to make 'The La's' a classic inspite of itself?
Consider this and then maybe you get to thinking that The La's had a point.
Definitely.
Matt Macefield's 'In Search of the La's: a secret Liverpool' (2003. ISBN 1-900924-63-3), both gives and takes away from the La's and Mavers' legend. The sense of discovery in the book is palpable - conversations with former La's band members and associates in various Liverpool pubs, old and half-forgotten articles from music magazines, the elusive search for what Mavers and his music was and is all about. Culminating in the bitter/sweet sight of Mavers - still enthusiastic, with his kids, his guitars, and a home-build, eclectic studio, with the tantalising sight of completed reels of recordings. And then just as you get a glimpse of him and hear his Scouse tones tell the story, Mavers disappears again. Up his own arse or into his own future? Take your pick.
For me, Lee Mavers remains an attractive enigma. Living in a semi in Huyton on Merseyside - the suburb of Liverpool where he was born and grew up - clean from the hard drugs that dogged his mid-1990s, a family, still writing, no one sure how much is getting recorded, but rumours of new material filtering through. 'Human Race', the song that's better than 'There she goes'. 'Raindance', and others. Perfecting what he wants to do, what he needs to be.
Go for it, la'.
They're still bloody good songs, though.
[1] The second recording sessions for the debut album, c.1988/89, down in Devon at Hedges' house, a keynote to the session being the use of a mixing desk from Abbey Road studio 2 in the 1960s, used by the Beatles. Hedges was at the time working for Devon and Cornwall Police. He would, like Mavers, subsequently turn his back on the music industry and become Chief Constable of South Yorkshire. It's rumoured that he produced tracks for Pulp in Sheffield during 2003.
For more of The La's online a good place to start is: http://www.geocities.com/The_Las/index.html
