I love The La's. Since first hearing There She Goes in 1988 and then discovering Way Out, their first single, I've worked my way through every successive new release, pre-release, re-release and sneakily obtained every demo recording known (and unknown) to man. With one album to their name and only 20 officially released songs (12 on the album plus 8 assorted b-sides), The La's will always be in my Top 3 Bands of All Time. They've rarely bothered the charts and they've rarely toured. But they're a record collector's dream –a small back catalogue that's easily obtainable due to the fact that in the scheme of things, they're not that well known or cared about. After reading this article, my day will be made if even only one of you takes the time to track down a copy of their album. It'll fit perfectly into your record collection, right next to Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger, Rubber Soul and The Rolling Stones' Out Of Our Heads.
Although many people could be forgiven for writing the band off as one hit wonders, the story of The La's does not start and end with There She Goes. Sure, most people would recognise its chiming guitar intro and skiffley back beat and may even notice the lyrical references which may or may not allude to taking heroin. If those people dug a wee bit deeper they'd find a story that is over 20 years old and is still playing out today, like some passed-his-best footballer who still believes he has one good game and a couple of goals left in him.
The La's have been a going concern in Liverpool since the early 1980s, but the ever-changing line-ups formed around the nucleus of Lee Mavers (vocals and guitar) and John Power (bass and backing vocals) began in earnest around 1986. Mavers essentially is The La's. It's his songs, his arrangements and he's always had the final say on most things that matter. These days, Lee Mavers is my generation's very own Howard Hughes, Arthur Lee and Syd Barrett rolled into one. Eccentric behaviour? Yep. Reclusive lifestyle? Uh-huh. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? Absolutely! Now living off a reported £5000 - £10,000 a month There She Goes royalty cheque (depending on what you read and who you talk to), he seems happy to live in isolation from the rest of the world. But it was not always the case. This was a man who had music bursting out of every pore and a burning desire to have it heard. Unfortunately, this was also his undoing.
A perfectionist to the nth degree, Mavers was desperate to create the perfect album that sounded like Merseybeat mixed with Captain Beefheart and the Delta Blues – the sound of the Merseyssippi as he was keen on saying in every interview he did between 1987 and 1990. Following the release of Way Out and There She Goes, Mavers had a fair idea of how The La's album should sound. He says that the version of Over which found its way onto the b-side of Timeless Melody was the best recording the band had made. Just so you know, Over was recorded in a stable on an old ghetto blaster…
“We spent four months in a studio in Liverpool and then scrapped everything.” (Mavers, June 1989)
Numerous recording sessions were started and abandoned when the vibe wasn't just so. One-time guitarist Barry Sutton claims to have recorded the entire album three times in the 11 months he was in the band. Acclaimed producer John Leckie tells the story of how the band handed him their old 4 track demos and demanded his recordings sound like that. Mavers would demand the impossible, telling Leckie to “ make the guitar sound like a tree.” The producer would do his best under the circumstances, then listen in frustration as, tape machines off for the day, the band would gather in the kitchen with a couple of acoustic guitars and a spliff and play him even better songs, songs that were destined for “the second album(!)” (seek out the Kitchen Tapes online.) An old mixing desk from Abbey Road was allegedly sought out and used in some recordings after Mavers rationalised that being covered in 60s dust, the desk would somehow summon up the ghosts and vibes from the past and help the band create the type of cosmic recordings that their leader only really heard in his head. John Power said at the time that Mavers reckoned the guitars sounded better with dust on them too. In the summer of 1993 I met Mavers and asked him about the stories surrounding The La's and their recordings. This is how he summed his frustrations up:
“Y'know when your mam makes soup and she takes all the vegetables; the carrots, the potatoes, the onions, all the lentils and adds the water and then you taste the soup and it's like something else has been added? Some magic ingredient? Something you never saw your mam adding to the mix, but you can tell it's there? That's what I want The La's to sound like, but these modern studios and desks just aren't up to it, so the producers can't make the soup.”
Using words like ‘organic' and ‘rootsy', Mavers spoke at great lengths about the La's sound he heard in his head. This was clearly one tortured artist, tortured by the inabilities of those around him to turn his visions into realities. To Mavers, too many cooks were spoiling his particular blend of broth. Go! Discs, the band's record label put up with their errant genius for so long, but eventually even their patience began to wear thin. Rumours that Mavers had tried to set fire to his latest recordings done in Devon with producer Mike Hedges were the final straw, especially as it was generally agreed by those that had heard the session that these tracks were the best tapes of any La's session ever. Label boss Andy MacDonald and uber-producer Steve Lillywhite oversaw the completion of the album, sticking together bits of songs from various takes on top of half-finished guitar parts and rehearsed vocal tracks, much to Mavers' dismay.
I need to backtrack a wee bit here. Long before the album's release, I was lucky enough to have acquired a cassette tape full of La's demos and sessions recorded with numerous producers. I played this tape to death. I knew every subtle acoustic riff, every three-part harmony, every rattling and rolling psychedelic version of Callin' All there was. I knew it all backwards and inside out. I could tell who had produced a particular track from listening to the first few seconds of the intro. “That's a Leckie! That one's a Hedges!”
When the album came out, yes, some of the tracks sounded a wee bit different. To an extent I could understand Maver's frustrations. For example, where was Timeless Melody's full-fat mono-sounding apocalyptic thunk? This version had been promoted as The La's third single before being hastily withdrawn. The album version sounds weak and thin in comparison. But it's still a great song. What had they done to IOU? A track once so full of life now sounded like it had been recorded on heavy downers at 3 in the morning. But it's still a great song too. And what had happened to Callin' All? A belter of a track, straight out of a We Love You -era Stones recording session, all skirling Spanish guitars, spooky backing vocals and clattering wooden block percussion, it never even made the album! But. Pause for thought. These were great songs. This was still The La's album. Surely that's what mattered? I'd only ever heard Son Of A Gun on a well-worn video from a TV show. I'd never heard the garage rockabilly rumble of Failure until now. And I'd never heard Looking Glass before. This track alone was worth the price of the album. A slow burner ruminating on the meaning of life, it builds for almost 8 minutes. The end of it sounds like a whirlpool; drums, vocals and the kitchen sink on spin dry, all competing in a fantastic maelstrom of noise. Many of the other album tracks you've just heard come tumbling back in and out of the mix, courtesy of the much maligned Steve Lillywhite.
“ Sail away on the airwaves……….look what it's doin' to me……don't…go...down…to…doledrum…..”
Fan.Tastic! You could even argue that Lillywhite was responsible for the best bit of the album. So it's not all bad. Sure, there are maybe better recordings elsewhere, recordings where the producer has managed to capture the vocals, the harmonies and the playing together into something equaling more than the individual parts (the BBC Janice Long Session version of Doledrum, for example.) Many La's demos have that unknown soup ingredient that Mavers was constantly chasing. The best ones have a real depth and soul that is missing from the released album versions, but to say The La's album is rubbish would be wrong. In fact, it's good. Very good. Very good indeed .
“It's shit,” said Mavers.
Most people were hearing this collection of songs for the first time. To them, it wasn't shit. It was The La's album and this was how it was meant to sound. ‘Rootsy', yes, ‘organic', yes and steeped in all the right musical reference points. The La's went on a brief tour to promote the album, Mavers telling the record-buying public not to buy it as he zig-zagged across the UK and Europe. Inevitably, there was a stand-off between artist and label. In time, Go! Discs released their watered down version of Timeless Melody, reissued There She Goes (making it a hit single – Numer 13 in the UK, number 17 in the US Hot 100) and finished off promoting the album by releasing Feelin'. Mavers and his band went through the motions of promoting the singles but that, as they say, was that.
To this day, no other piece of new La's material has ever been released. We've had re-issues and re-releases, there's a great Japanese singles compilation you can buy, a BBC Sessions disc that features many superior versions to the album takes, as well as a version of Over with Russian Cossack chanting and a brilliant druggy sounding lead guitar part which was apparently overdubbed by Mavers as there were only 3 La's in the studio that day. Overdubbed! That's about as close as the La's ever got to modern recording techniques. The album has recently had the ubiquitous ‘Deluxe Edition' treatment from Polygram and There She Goes was even released (again) to promote it. But unless you ignore the poorly-recorded Viper Recordings releases or dig deep into the furthest corners of the internet there's still only 20 official La's songs (albeit in multiple versions) to listen to. Mavers has even recently threatened to re-record the album again. How frustrating is that!? It wasn't supposed to be like this. Back in 1993 Mavers promised me,
“One. Nine. Nine. Four. The year of Cocktail. Imagine a mountain. At the top, a blue police light beams round and round – Callin' All! Callin' All! Callin' All! All the other groups are climbing the mountain – U2, Nirvana, the Stoned Poses, all of them. All climbing the mountain, but never quite reaching the top. Never quite reaching that blue light. Callin' All! Callin All'! Cos we're at the top. The La's. Cocktail. One. Nine. Nine. Four.”
1994 came and went. A whole decade came and went. The odd bootlegged rehearsal session leaked out. A poorly reviewed ‘comeback' tour in 2005 (Lee singing with the tootache, his old mate Jasper playing stand-up drums, the band playing through 15W Fender practice amps) lead to much speculation of a new album, but nothing came of it. Until recently, it would appear that The La's were but a footnote in musical history, a could've been, should've been massively popular band, with Cocktail as their second, globe-straddling ratlling and rolling LP.
Now there's a new twist to The La's tale. In less than 2 weeks time, The La's are billed to play a festival in Sheffield, England. Mavers recently re-surfaced on stage with that other great misunderstood genius Pete Doherty (see YouTube). A band has been cobbled together featuring various members of Babyshambles (betraying Mavers initial vision of The La's being Scousers) and they're due to play. On one hand, I want them to be great, to play a whole host of new tracks and rush release an album as soon as possible. But on the other hand, with Mavers threatening to re-record the whole of the album again, it could be a frustrating time for all. We'll just have to wait and see…
