Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 19:39:19 +0100 From: David Thorpe Subject: News from Too Pure [Long, but some 4AD content] I've been told that the new non-american-recordings Too Pure WWW site is now working, and indeed you'll find it at the following location: http://www.toopure.com/ >From what I've seen, it's one of the best I've come across in a long time and I hope they manage to keep it up-to-date unlike some other record companies I could mention. Particularly interesting is the "History" of Too Pure, most of which I knew already but it was nice to be a bit nostalgic over coffee and a biscuit. Some snippets from the interview with the very nice Paul Cox, which I think relevant for 4AD-L'ers. This seems a very honest interview, and it only increases my admiration for the people at Too Pure, if that's possible. There's some news at the bottom of this message. ------------------ Too Pure started in 1989 - how did it happen? I was working at Pacific records, distributing acid house records, phoning up record shops, selling them Candy Flip, Rebel MC etc, and I met Richard there - he was label manager for Shut up and Dance records - legendary impossible to work with, but he seemed to do alright and before I joined the company I spent a year unemployed and while idle set up this indie club - The Sausage Machine - it had gone really well - turned into a weekly club - getting some good crowds down - Richard started to come down and got really into it and it became the catalyst for this idea 'Why don't we put out some of this music.... At this point were you still running the label from your bedroom? Yeah - we were still working at Pacific and it was going through real shit at that time - going down the pan...I was going into work and doing my own thing - do Sausage Machine or Too Pure stuff. In the end Pacific went bust and we lost a lot of money - we'd been working there unpaid for 3 or 4 months... How did you? Was this when you got involved with Ivo at 4AD? Well, yeah - at the same time as that, Dave Callahan had decided or been told that he needed some management and Tim Gane suggested me and Richard...we didn't really want to do management but we thought it would be a good thing to do; we liked Moonshake, it would be a real challenge - we thought it would be interesting to work with Creation. Sadly, within 3 weeks of deciding to do it, Dave, being Dave, decided that Creation weren't really up to the job and he wanted out of there, and without even asking us, handed in his notice there and we were without a label! ... There was a gig at the Borderline, with Moonshake headlining, PJ Harvey supporting ....So we got toghether with him [Ivo] before the gig - he said he was going away the next day and would call us when he got back in a week...But before he left, the next day, he rang and said 'Look I want to get involved in some way - I don't know how, but if you need help...let me know.' We realised this was a way that we could afford to get a PJ Harvey LP recorded, afford to have Moonshake - become a proper label! It was really hard to decide....I'd come to 4AD via the Pixies - Richard was a more long term 4AD fan:- Ivo was buying into the company, so it was a big deal....but he was coming across so well and it was a way forward. This was Christmas 1991 and sadly this was the time that Island was chasing PJ Harvey....Ivo made it possible to make an offer to her that actually matched the Island deal, over a period of time, but Mark Vernon was pretty determined to do the Island deal....Over Christmas PJ Harvey were recording the 1st album for us - at first in the Island studio in Chiswick. That wasn't working out and they abandoned those recordings. So there is an alternative version of the first album... I think we've got the tapes somewhere! So you were a proper label - and got some more bands! Who was next - Pram? Yeah - Pram had been around for ages - I'd been playing their demos at Pacific and getting the tape ripped out of the player! It was the strangest thing anyone had ever heard! Everything including the kitchen sink was on there....We'd put them on at the Sausage Machine so during 1992 when they were working on Gash .[snipped]. we wanted to put it out, but were busy with everything else.... [snipped] And then 6 months later, we went back to them and said 'Are you still together?' - cause you know they just sit in their house in Birmingham, listening to Can and doing whatever it is they do - making their music! ...they said "Yeah!" So we gave them some money to record that 1st EP. Which was amazing - I still think it's one of the best things we've released... Minxus - they were part of the London music scene again... It was probably about 2 years of them giving us demos and inviting us to gigs and then there was one gig at the Powerhaus that just clicked:- Bunch of new songs - Richard said 'I think they're great now' and we decided to go for it.....The Minxus thing was not a successful Too Pure thing really, but I still believe in those songs. I believe the 1st Minxus album should have been as striking as the 1st Pixies album.... ...Moonshake had split and Margaret formed Laika... That was a serious mess - especially as it seemed so untimely - they'd toured with PJ Harvey in America - after Eva Luna and Big Good Angel they seemed poised to do something cataclysmically good. Eva Luna was a ground breaking album....then Margaret didn't really like Dave keeping the name etc But she's now rolling on with Laika - she's really proud of what she did with Moonshake....Dave released a record that was received quite badly....I'm still pissed off by how badly it was reacted to - it's a really ambitious, interesting LP - maybe a little hurried...but it led to a situation that made it impossible to keep working with them for financial reasons... How did you set up things in America...? The American deal came about after dealing with various different companies for our releases - The year we had those 1st high profile releases out we went to CMJ in New York and had a Too Pure night with Stereolab, Th' Faith Healers and Moonshake - massively sold out; and out of that we got a deal for Stereolab with Elektra - which was annoying really because it meant they could leave us (they release their records in England on their own label), Th'Faith Healers with Elektra too and Moonshake with Matador, PJ Harvey had already gone to Island in the States....working with different companies there - finding out how majors work there - it helped financially too of course...Seefeel got a deal there with Astralwerks...but we felt it was an interesting prospect to get the whole label a deal over there....then Richard was in LA and Robin Hurley from the 4AD office over there recommended Mark Giger from American Recordings and after a last minute meeting with him he was totally persuaded to go to them - Mark knew virtually more about the history of Too Pure than he did....So it seemed ideal. We really wanted someone out there running things so with that deal we could have Nick West there in an office in LA - we'd known him since Pacific days..... How did Scala (3 of the members of Seefeel) come back to the label? Mark Clifford had taken what seemed to be a bit of a stranglehold on the proceedings within Seefeel - the other 3 had been doing some song writing and didn't have an outlet for it, Touch had helped them to record some early demos - and they came to us for a publishing deal actually, but when we heard the songs we realised we liked it so much, we wanted to do it and asked them to come and record for us...Seefeel leaving Too Pure was unpleasant, even though they tried to leave on good terms, it was sad what happened to Seefeel - they were poised to really happen and it kind of went astray so it's good to be working with them again. Was there anything you wanted to achieve with Too Pure- a mission statement sort of thing? There was never any statement of intent - Too Pure just sort of happened organically - no real aesthetic or definate aim - just releasing stuff we liked, worked with people we thought it would be fun to work with... I'm intrigued by the balance between business and art - it's a shame you have to sell records to release them...it can't be 100% artistic decision making...it can be heartbreaking - a delicate balancing act...You have to recoup the money you spend in order to make more records or its all over...but labels that expand and get too big seem to loose the direction or desire to push forward new or different things that they once had.... If you grow too much and become too commerically based you can get too far away from what motivates you, from what you want to do... 4AD is a good blueprint - it has million selling records like the Breeders or whatever but it's still what they want to do - they still release things like His Name is Alive and Dead Can Dance that are unique and rather less likely to have big pop hits... ------------------------ I feel slightly guilty posting so many snippets from this history, but suffice to say there's much more detail on the WWW site. In the news section [I'll resist posting the whole thing] it mentions a new Laika single next week "Almost Sleeping" two London tour dates for Stereolab on 16th & 17th which I wasn't aware of and preparations of new Albums for Long Fin Killie & Jack. Apparantly Seely have been blah blah blah and etc etc etc as well [sic]. I'm envious. Yours faithfully, David Thorpe djt@robots.ox.ac.uk