From politeness

Paul Smith set up Blast First in 1985 specifically to release Sonic Youth's seminal Bad Moon Rising in the UK. Twenty years on, the Blast First legacy is a back catalogue comprising some of the weirder and most influential US rock acts, as well as jazz, obscure electronica and experimental eclecticism. Paul has most recently set up Blast First [Petite], releasing releases by Klang (featuring Donna Matthews of Elastica fame) and No Things (formed from the original Liars line-up).

MAT SMITH : I recently found out that you worked with Ricard H Kirk and Stephen Mallinder (of Cabaret Voltaire fame) at Doublevision - how did that happen? Had you been involved in the music business before?

PAUL SMITH : Music had always been an important part of my life since I was kid, which later bloomed into working as a 'management trainee' in a record store and - as an occasional bad musician, but better organiser - I had previously 'managed' a couple of local bands in the Nottingham and Sheffield hinterlands, one of whom had gone onto be briefly signed to Polydor on a singles deal... as long as they changed manager.

Disillusioned with the music 'business' I, along with my friend John Moon, decided to present a series of nights showing the then developing world of music video at The Midland Group Arts Centre in Nottingham on ten cheap secondhand TV's and a signal distribution box from a local TV shop. We showed everything from ABC to Z'ev, including some work by Cabaret Voltaire.

Shortly after, Cabaret Voltaire released Red Mecca and did an interview with the NME talking about their interest in funding a pirate radio station. As this was at the height of Thatcher's powers I was doubtful such a notion would last for any length of time and knowing the Cabs' interest in film and video, I re-contacted them about the possibility of starting an independent music video label. This, with CV's sole funding, and their considerable effort in making their own 90 minute programme, became Doublevision DV1.

We went on to release programmes by Throbbing Gristle, 23 Skidoo, Chris & Cosey, Tuxedo Moon, The Residents and Derek Jarman, and a great compilation called TV Wipeout for the price of a blank tape! After the initial, wildly expensive 'professional' run of DV1 from a 1" TV quality master, Doublevison rented 6 VHS and 2 Betamax machines and I hand copied batches of tapes from the then state of the art Lo-band U-matic master machine that lived in the back bedroom of my terraced house in Nottingham. At that time video releases were still unclassified by the BFI and therefore under the radar of the government - Blondie had released the first longform music video 'Parallel Lines' priced at £40 and no music papers (or indeed anywhere else) had a section to review such releases.

Doublevision Presents Cabaret Voltaire became the first indie music video release, a claim which was usurped by Factory Records' IKON label, who in fact put out the Press Release first and the video second.

MS : What were Richard and Stephen like to work with? I always got the impression that they were very organised, structured. In fact, Richard's work ethic seems very similar to Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore in so far as it's really difficult to keep track of all the records he puts out.

PS : Richard creates EVERY day, it's what he does with his life and he's very dedicated, hence a lot of diverse recordings. Thurston is, as you correctly observe, very similar.

MS : How did you move from releasing videos to releasing records?

PS : In order to get the reviews to highlight the existence of the long form videos we began releasing the soundtracks as records - this was my introduction to releasing records commercially.

One day I was reading a Sounds music paper interview with Lydia Lunch about her '50 One Page Plays' with Nick Cave, which I thought would make for a great long form video. Via Rough Trade I tracked Lydia down to flat in South London but unfortunately she and Nick had just split up as a couple only weeks before so we could not develop this idea. Lydia however had with her the incomplete recordings of what became her In Limbo mini album and a strong desire to move back to her native New York.

Lydia completed the recordings at Western Works (CV studio in Sheffield) and Doublevison released them, giving Lydia an 'advance' by buying her an air ticket back to New York.

Thurston Moore had played on some of the backing tracks to In Limbo when they had been recorded the year previously in NYC. Lydia, who had on her return sung on [Sonic Youth's] 'Death Valley 69' reported to Thurston that there was an 'OK guy' in the UK and Thurston sent me a cassette with about two thirds of what became Bad Moon Rising. Listening to these recordings was an epiphany for me and as Doublevison only released things that all three of us liked (RHK, Mal & myself) and Richard was not interested in 'amercian rock n' roll' I started out on a mission to find an outlet for the album. After several months of taking the tapes to every UK indie record company I could think of, eventually, after suffering me repeatedly go on, and on, and on, about the merits of Bad Moon Rising, Peter Warmsley (who was head of Rough Trade International Dept and the Cabs' main contact at Rough Trade) decided he could arrange to have the record pressed if I could afford to get the rights from the band.

[After] three seemingly astronomically expensive phone calls to Lee Ranaldo in New York, I had a deal with the band, and after two skipped mortage payments, the deposit / advance for the rights to Bad Moon Rising in the UK and Europe for five years - this was the birth of Blast First.

MS : Do you remember how you felt when you first heard Bad Moon Rising for the first time?

PS : I feel I have a total recall of that moment, the time of day, light, smells and the effect of the sound... I was ABSOLUTELY sure that I was experiencing a future music... a music of my own generation... with all the zeal of a new convert, so very unaware of how long and how much effort it was going to take to get the rest of the world to see it too.

MS : How did you come up with the name Blast First?

PS : It's from (painter / writer / nasty person) Wyndham Lewis's Blast poetic manifestos for the Vorticist art movement (a great source of inspiration for Mark E Smith too it turns out). Vorticism was arguably Britain's only 20th Century indigenous art movement. A first line reads "Blast First (from politeness) ENGLAND" (hence cat no BFFP...), [and] talks about how Britain is kept mild by the winds from America, which amused me in terms of what Sonic Youth were sort of about at the time...

MS : As a label, BF was undoubtedly the primary mover in bringing some of the most subversive bands to the UK. I've been reading Our Band Could Be Your Life, and it strikes me that the operations in the US for a label like SST were quite ramshackle. Was it a logistical nightmare co-ordinating releases with bands in the States?

PS : Subversive...? Hmmm don't know about that ? Depends what you are saying they subverted...

From the very first Blast First record, Sonic Youth's Bad Moon Rising, which was released in the USA through the Dutch East India label, A&R'd by Gerrard Cosloy (later Matador) the americans were in general paranoid about release dates, regardless of the exchange rate, or any amount of assurances.

It seems to come from the the commerciality and therefore competitive nature of american culture, even in the so called Alternative Culture. The punk / indie distribution system born in the late 70's in the UK and Europe came far more from an aesthetic root. The countries are all physically so much smaller so it is easier to communicate and to some degree control.

US independent label have far more to cope with, distributors just declare Chapter 13, cease trading and also cease being responsible for their debts, move over a couple of states and restart under another name, leaving the labels and artists fiscally endangered and legally powerless. Screw up in the UK and within days (even pre-email) everybody in the indie community would be aware of it. [If you] need to get paid, an eight hour drive gets you from one part of Britian to the other and knocking on the appropriate door. SST seemed to me pretty efficient - they had grown from three cars parked on a corner that had a couple of phone booths to a full grown label with their own warehouse - but their 'politics' and belief system at that time was so strict, to me almost fascist, which is strange considering they were supposedly against The System.

For [Sonic Youth's] Sister I flew to LA from London just because the Youth were fielding calls from both labels and SST didn't trust us to send them the metalwork (this was back in the day when vinyl was still king). [I] met with Chuck Dukowski and Greg Ginn - the main SST dudes - in some diner. Chuck was just really obnoxious and Greg never spoke as I recall. From the moment I sat down at that diner table... it just grew to the same distance I just flown, no communication at all, no trust, no understanding... 'You limey, you're gonna screw us anyway 'cos that's what people do in the record biz...' [That's what they] wanted to believe, full stop.

But I did meet the great Ray Farrell there, then doing PR for SST. He'd been there since the start, he's good man, and eventually came to Blast First USA, then over to Geffen. He was the town cryer of every main street and several side roads of the USA for Sonic Youth, a real music man.

I know for someone like Thurston he really couldn't believe how a label run by, for him, inspirational musicians, (ex Black Flag chaps) would be so able to turn round and screw so many other artists and friends. The main characters all got big houses and BMW's out of it, having previously espoused that most bands were pussies 'cos they couldn't or wouldn't tour on a dollar a day for food and sleep in the van for eight to ten weeks at a time. I know the Youth had to employ a lawyer to get their masters back and try to get paid... so far we've always managed to find a reasonable way to settle any differences. I've never been in court...

Increasingly these days band's send in their manager and lawyer into battle BEFORE they've even sent you an email saying 'gotta problem, little help please'.

MS : Reading Our Band Could Be Your Life, it was mentioned that Sonic Youth weren't happy about a live album that you put out for them. What's your take on that, and more importantly, will that album ever see the light of day again?

PS : At the time of the tour, which turned out be the last one with Bob Bert on drums, we had been talking about a double 10" 'official bootleg' called The Screaming Fields of Sonic Love.

Primarily this had come as an idea from me at the time to make them some money as they were working very hard but were going back to New York with no money, and their rents were unpaid or in arrears - one of the reasons Bob had to leave - and take up part time jobs.

I was keen for them to at least be able to concentrate on their next round of music making. As they did not get round to completing the process, and being aware that other bootleggers were planning a release, I took the decision to bootleg them myself with my choice of material.

As was always the intention, they did get all the money, BUT the record arrived in New York via Dutch East India Co. before the cash, so they actually found out about it via Gerrard Cosloy, not me.

Salt was further rubbed in wounds when a Rolling Stone journalist who was writing a piece on them at that time bought the record and mentioned in his piece that this record was a better document of the band than their official releases available at that time.

Strangely 'my' vinyl version was subsequntly bootlegged as a CD from which the band never saw a penny and the band never batted an eyelid... Anyway, they have the record master tapes and metalwork, so I won't be suprised if it features in some box set or somesuch in due course. The Youth later applied the title to their first video compilation and its CD equivalent.

MS : How did you find the bands that you released records by? Demos sent in to you, gigs?

PS : Demos, very rarely - Head of David was the very first demo BF got sent. Other than that only Easy was signed from a demo. Mostly [the bands were] recommendations by other bands already on the label or seeing the bands live.

MS : Were there ever times when you thought a release was never going to happen?

PS : Nope, all the bands WANTED to get the records out, none of this namby pamby My Bloody Valentine wishy washy, 'oh my art, my art' bollocks. 'My' band's knew what they wanted. You tend not to go over budget when you are spending your own dollars first then licensing it out.

MS : Who were the hardest bands to deal with?

PS : They are people so they all have their quirks, Butthole [Surfers] have been known to get the wrong end of the stick due to operating with their consciousness chemically altered. Texans, frontiermen - direct action, then debate.

Steve Albini was and is pretty straight edge lifestyle-wise and so would be the opposite of the Buttholes. There was a precision in his music that indicates his personality. He prefered yes or no answers, not maybe's. Pessimistic, more suprised if you came through than if you let them down.

Sonic's were pretty much fun, fun, fun... Lots of laughing... We were learning together. Obviously it got weird at the end and for long time after that.

Maybe Dinosaur Jr... J [Mascis] was frustrating to work with, so much talent, pre-slacker attitudes to cover up being seen to appear to care to much about 'making it'. Always wanted to cancel every tour the day before or day of them flying - moody.

When you do what we do, you prefer a good argument that clearly states the problem - that way you at least know what they want and don't have to try to second guess their 'needs'. So much of that rock n' roll bullshit comes from people around them building in another couple more layers of comfort zone for the artist, till they can't live with it.

MS : Were there any releases or bands that you thought failed to live up to their initial promise?

PS : Artistic failures and disappointments? Nope don't put out sucky records. I might, however, need some enlightenment from an artist as to the why's and wherefore's from time to time.

In general there is some truth in the maxim, 'don't work with your heroes', or at least not if you want to continue to regard them as 'heroic' and that doing this job, great though it is, will not, in the end, help you be their bestest friends. To fall in love, you are bound get some pain.

MS : What brought about the deal with Mute Records? Did you know Daniel Miller before?

PS : Daniel heard a record whose name he could not remember on John Peel and called me one day while I was visiting Rough Trade (Collier St). I sent him Big Stick 'cos it had a drum machine on it - it turns out he was wanting Head of David... he liked them all. [This was the] start of a very, very, very long series of talks about his 'interest' in BF.

I knew who he was and had seen him at a couple of shows but never spoke.

MS : Do you have complete control over which artists you sign to BF? Has this changed at all with EMI buying out Mute?

PS : In the last few years the situation has changed so that I now suggest artists to sign to BF / Mute and Daniel formally 'yeah's or 'nay's, so he 'edits' the labels' activities. Prior to that I could pretty much do as I pleased. I always discussed it with Daniel beforehand anyway being as BF was spending his money!

MS : Pan(a)Sonic joining the label in the 1990s seemed an inspired, and slightly unexpected move to me, but only because I had BF down as more of a alt-rock label. Can you tell me a bit more about how that came about?

PS : Someone who used to work for Mute moved to New York to work for a hardcore dance distributor. A few Sahko 12"s passed through and he recognised it as something different. He sent it Daniel, who I doubt ever heard it. We ran into each other in New York and he sent me a couple of 12's. I faxed the label in Finland and Tommi Gronlund, who was running the label, and he binned it. Fortunately Mika Vainio visited their office that day, saw the fax in the bin and knew of Blast First. The same week a Sahko team was visiting the UK, playing a show in Brixton. Mika did not come, Jimi Tenor was the main operator with two or three other guys.

They played for maybe 10 minutes then the power went out and [they] ended the set. It was a full room when they started (200 people?) which was near empty just before the power went out, about 10 people 'magnetised' to the sound source, all the others repelled.

MS : Why did Liars move from BF to Mute?

PS : More money... I signed the orginal band, as a band.

MS : What made you set up Blast First [Petite]? And how do you ensure there is no 'conflict of interest'.

PS : Within weeks of Mute selling to EMI I was put in a situation by a couple of managers and lawyers of bands I thought interesting, that I was - to them - a major label A&R man (albeit to a 'boutique label')

I'm not interested in being solely perceived in such a light, so BFP allows me, at my own expense, to do small, low level projects which can grow at their own pace whilst BF / Mute is a climate of higher investment and expectation. To have both opportunties is, to me a blessing.

MS : Finally, I'm drawing a major conclusion in asking this, but judging by the first part of your email address, I believe there must be some connection between yourself and Susan Stenger of Band of Susans - or is this an embarassing faux pas on my behalf?

PS : Susan and I just celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary.

(c) 2005 Documentary Evidence