I was prompted to dig out an ancient notebook to see if there were any ‘Kimono My House’ out-takes. Well, guess what. Here are my recording notes from the time:
| title | location | engineer | date | notes |
| Amateur Hour | Island Basing Street | Richard Digby-Smith | Feb 1974 | |
| Barbecutie |
Ramport | Tony Platt |
Dec 1973 | B-side |
| Complaints | Ramport | Richard Digby-Smith | Nov 1973 | |
| Equator | Island Basing Street | Richard Digby-Smith | Jan 1974 | scrapped |
| Equator | Island Basing Street | Richard Digby-Smith | Feb 1974 | |
| Falling In Love With Myself Again | Ramport | Richard Digby-Smith | Dec 1973 | overdubbed at Island Jan ’74, eng. Tony Platt |
| Hasta Manana | Island Basing Street | Richard Digby-Smith | Jan 1974 | |
| Here in Heaven | Island Basing Street | Richard Digby-Smith | Feb 1974 | |
| In My Family | Ramport | Richard Digby-Smith | Nov 1973 | |
| I Like Girls | Ramport | Tony Platt | Dec 1973 | out-take |
| Lost and Found | Island Basing Street | Richard Digby-Smith | Jan 1974 | out-take, later B-side |
| Profile | Island Basing Street | Richard Digby-Smith | Feb 1974 | out-take |
| This Town Ain’t Big Enough | Ramport | Richard Digby-Smith | Nov 1973 | overdubbed at Island Jan ’74, eng. Richard Digby-Smith |
| Talent Is An Asset | Ramport | Tony Platt | Dec 1973 | |
| Thank God It’s Not Christmas | Ramport | Tony Platt | Dec 1973 | overdubbed at Island Jan 74, eng. Tony Platt |
Mixing took place at Air Studios, London between Feb 20th and March 3rd, with Bill Price engineering.
REHEARSALS
Rehearsals took place in a wood-panelled dance studio in Clapham, with mirrors on every wall, so it was nice and bright, that’s for sure. There were heated discussions over arrangements. For example, the tune ‘Complaints’, where I proposed an outro section, which was rehearsed, recorded to cassette and taken away. The following day, after it had been Mole-digested, there was a reversal of position. My outro, to which I had become unfortunately attached – always a mistake – was deemed to ‘overshadow the rest of the song’. My work ethic at the time was, and indeed still is, to make the weak bits better, rather than chop the good bits out. However, this solution was not realised and the outro was chopped. Disgruntlement began to set in.
The song ‘This Town‘ had a bunch of chords but no actual parts. I came up with a line, Adrian doubled it, kind of, and it worked. “I didn’t actually hear those chords as a riff”, said Ron after rehearsals. Middle 8? Certainly, sir. I threw some chords in for a brief syncopated instrumental interlude. IPR? Don’t even go there. This was 1973, after all. ‘In My Family‘ seemed to be stuck in its US-band mould from which, no matter how hard I tried, it was not possible to prise it loose.
RECORDING
The band kicked off in Ramport, owned by the Who. Roger Daltrey looked in one day, but quickly left. Later we moved to Island in Basing Street. Paul Kossoff visited to say hello to Muff, and was scorned for not having ‘neat hair’. Takes all sorts, I suppose.
The bass playing on ‘In My Family’ was described as ‘really wimpy’ by the head Mael, an adjective which I initially presumed was ironic, given the nature of the underlying composition. There was no retake. Listeners can judge for themselves, no doubt. ‘Equator‘ seemed to go on a bit, but there was always a newspaper handy.
The ongoing issue was about how much time to spend getting a decent bass sound, about which I naturally had certain opinions. I suppose it depended upon whether you were attached to the notion of a good bass sound. I was, very.
Here, in response to regular queries, is how the bass was recorded:
I had the sound figured out before I joined the band but I was playing a Fender Mustang, given the unattainable price of a 4001 in those days, and even more so in these, actually. But once unlimited budgets were in the air (ha! the innocence of youth), I finally got hold of a 4001. Round-wound Rotosounds, one gauge thinner than the standard, a plectrum and an H&H amp. This was a transistor amp, which I turned up very loud to get some distortion. It was miked and DI’d, but the mic was where the sound came from. There was some compression in the control room, but not much. The H&H in fact had a ‘sustain’ switch, which probably did the job. I always used to find that the closer I was to the amp and cabinet, the more responsive the bass felt, so that was what I used to do. The mystery of where my amp went – along with my royalties, it also ‘mysteriously disappeared’ – was recently revealed by Hungarians.
The studio engineers (Richard Digby Smith and Tony Platt) were probably rather bemused that a bass player would be so finicky about his sound, and possibly some of the band were as well. However they (the engineers, obviously) indulged me, and the bass on most of the recorded tunes sounded just fine to me.
MIXING
There were confrontations about mixes. The proles – i.e. those of us who actually played the music – were discouraged from attending the mixing process, although I ignored this heavy hint and attended all except one session. There were various surprises in store upon hearing rough mixes from that one session. On ‘Falling in Love’, for example, there’s a break where the guitar is clearly too quiet. My remark about this did not go down well.
BASS
My sonic requirements were sometimes achieved, as on the track ‘Barbecutie’, and sometimes not, as on ‘Amateur Hour’. On this latter tune, I was requested to replace the (to my ears well-recorded) amped bass by my D/I’d retake, using a plonking old Fender Precision. Having to replace a well-performed part on the ground that someone didn’t like the sound struck me as being rather bonkers, especially given the sound which I was aiming for, and which I was generally achieving.. In the remake, the bass part itself was identical, although performed with perhaps less enthusiasm. (Actually, there is no ‘perhaps’ about it – I did it standing in the control room, looking through the studio door at the activities in the nearby office, and immediately went home as soon as it was done without waiting for a playback).
GOLD IN THEM THAR WELSH HILLS
The Precision which I was encouraged to use for this absurdity belonged to a bass player who later replaced me. The gold disc for Kimono, awarded to each band member some weeks after my departure, mysteriously disappeared. Many years later, following a chance meeting at a fan convention, the owner of the Precision bass said “It might be in my loft, I’ll have a look”, and promptly did nothing of the sort). However, a mere forty 40 years after the recording, guess what? Armed only with a credit card, I was kindly allowed to purchase my own gold record. And they say that capitalists are hard-hearted bastards and that Beethoven was deaf. It’s a funny old world and no mistake.
CONCLUSION
The rehearsal process, which was where the arguments /discussions/whatever took place, was a positive process which improved the final result rather than detracted from it. In my recent ‘solo’ life, I have returned to the notion that those musicians who know what to do are best at knowing what they CAN do.
On the KMH album, I generally I tried to shoehorn in as much as I thought relevant/possible, which included extra-curricular poly-rhythmic stuff from the realms of prog rock and jazz fusion, much to the stylistic horror of some. Playing three chords in the space of four, for example – I offered these kind of musical tricks from other genres. In the event the result was a (kind of) synthesis. As we now know from Hegel, this can only be A Good Thing. But if only he had Told Us Earlier. Or if only We Had Known About It At The Time”.
Just revisiting KMH after a long time. I’d forgotten how great it is! Takes me back to sixth form in South London – I remember being blown away by the tone and attack of your lovely bass playing on this album. Do you remember who plays the sax on ‘Equator’? I can’t find a credit anywhere. Sounds a bit like Gary Windo to me — but it could be anyone, I guess. Thanks, and best wishes from Belfast (long way from Sarf London now).
Thanks! The ‘sax’? It was that well-know Oirish pisshead Mel O’Tron. He only had one finger, you know, and consequently was in great demand at the time, and indeed later. There is more essential KMH detail under the S****s heading above.
Martin, I know you’ve probably covered this elsewhere, but I seem to recall you offered up Cover Girl as a potential Sparks song. Was that ever up for consideration as a recording? And was the version on the (magnificent) Jet album in the vein of what you’d envisioned had Sparks recorded it?
I was prompted to visit your site after noting your absence from the Sparks Brothers film. What an oversight.
‘Cover Girl’ never moved out of semantic territory – it was discussed (briefly) and that was it. Would it have sounded similar? Probably, I suppose, I have never really thought about it, but I guess it would have been more or less the same.
As for filmy things – I do have long experience with pretending, but acting as though I am deeply impressed by two people who deliberately defrauded me of a six-figure artist royalty would have been beyond even my considerable skills. More on this topic here (https://sparkspodcast.podbean.com/e/episode-21-martin-gordon-returns/), somewhere in the middle.
“Kimono My House” was utterly brilliant. Gordon’s Rickenbacker sound was essential.
“Propaganda” apart from “At Home At Work At Play”/ “Reinforcements” / “Mother Earth” /, was a letdown.
No surprise Sparks mania waned . They lost that essence of “Kimono” .
Russel’s idiosyncratic voice became too much of a good thing , the never ending silly Ron act 🥱.
Too bloody clever for their own good.
Can’t win ’em all, I suppose…
Lost and Found is one of my favourite Sparks tunes. Do you think it deserved to end up as a b side? Any particular recollections or thoughts about that track?
I have to say that nothing really sticks out in my memory. I imagine the reason it was left off the album was that it didn’t really match up quality-wise, but I think there are worse things in life than as a B-side, i n my experience.
I have since read that Lost and Found was considered a bit of a tedious song to play in a live context. Shows you how much I know!
Is it really true that Adrian Fisher didn’t really like the music of Sparks? He must have thought KMH was pretty good surely given its ‘classic’ status and the apparent joy in his playing.
Was he ever considered for Jet or Radio Stars?
Well, I think that was only my view of L&F in performance, others might have different opinions.
As for Adrian: of course the KMH album only became ‘a classic’, as you note, over time – when we were rehearsing and recording it, it was just a bunch of songs that we were working on. I think that, like me, Ade enjoyed playing the stuff greatly, or at least most of it, seeing as it had been worked up into something that all parties approved of.
He was indeed a great player – Sparks manager John Hewlett suggested to me, following Jet but before Radio Stars, that Andy Ellison, Chris Townson (both from John’s Children), Adrian and myself get together and see if we could make JCv2 a reality. We did this for a couple of days but were restricted by the JC dimension, so we didn’t pursue it any further. It sounded great but when you only have one chord to play with, or two on a good day, then things are a bit restricted.
Hi Martin
KMH was the first album I ever bought.
You say it only became a ‘classic’ over time, well maybe, but to me it always was, and always will be, because it was the first.
Probably my favourit track is Thank God It’s Not Christmas, the bass and guitars seemed to have a ‘crunchy’ sound which I hadn’t heard before on a pop record.
Presumably Adrian’s guitar was responsible for that tone, the Flying V he used, as seen in the video on YouTube.
I wondered if you had any thoughts on playing with ‘Dinky’ Diamond as a rhythm section, did you ‘get on’, it certainly sounds like the band gelled in the studio.
Thanks for all your music over the years
regards
David
Hi David,
Thanks for your comments! I too like the crunchiness, although I must confess that some of the bass and drums stuff on that particular tune (and a couple of others) was inspired by the Yes peeps, who were specialising in that sort of thing at the time. I seem to remember that Adrian used a Les Paul on everything; the Flying V looked great but it was always tricky to get it also sounding great, as we also found later in Radio Stars.
The rhythm section did indeed gell in the studio. We rehearsed the stuff exhaustively, and that always has an impact on the end result. In fact, rehearsing in a room with other people is the one thing that I miss in today’s music-making environment. I was about to adopt that approach again for some current work, but then COVID appeared and that was, unfortunately, that.
Onwards and upwards!
Hi Martin, did you play on any other Sparks songs apart from those listed in your notes? I was wondering about Alabamy Right and Marry Me, they ended up as B sides like Profile and Barbecutie? Thank you.
Hi Tony
According to the notes, these were the only tunes recorded by that line-up. I do recall rehearsing a number of other tunes which fell by the wayside but ‘Alabamy Right’ rings no bells at all.
Hi Martin thanks for the reply, much appreciated. I’m glad you kept your notes. I find the period between Woofer and Kimono the most interesting as there was a lot going on, but it’s not very well documented. A couple of years ago I managed to get inside the Basing St studios for a look around, before it closed. It was great to see where some of those fantastic recordings were made. All the best, Tony.
Well, I kept all my info about that period, so certain parts of it (my parts, of course) are pretty well documented. I might bung my recollection up on the website when time allows. I saw one pic which captures Studio 1 as it looked at the time of KMH: http://www.gettyimages.ae/detail/news-photo/sutherland-brothers-and-quiver-recording-in-island-records-news-photo/457919339#sutherland-brothers-and-quiver-recording-in-island-records-studio-no-picture-id457919339
In sequence:
No, ILG is not a KMH outtake, in as much as it’s not me on bass.
I haven’t heard that version of ‘Profile’, so I can’t say.
There were no band ‘demo sessions’ before KMH. All KMH outtakes are indicated above.
Thanks for these interesting details!
¿The Allmusic review describes the version of “I Like Girls” on the “In The Swing Compilation” as a KMH outtake. Is that correct? (Soundclips included: https://www.allmusic.com/album/in-the-swing-mw0000915619)
¿The “Profile” released on the flip of “Get In The Swing” is a (“Propaganda”-era?) re-recording, not the one you played on?
¿The rumored KMH outtakes “About To Burst”, “Green Thumb” and “She’s Getting Funnier” (the latter a Mankey/Feinstein-era live track IIRC) don’t appear on your list. Did you by any chance keep a notebook of any demo sessions you may have taken part in before the album itself was recorded?