Life NME Interview
TELL ME, SAYS JAMES SHELLEY TO THIS 'DELICATE, TENACIOUS' MANCHESTER GROUP, TELL ME YOUR
LIFE TIMES
Something we should all know. Life. These days in life's dull daze, the finest freedom is to live life knowing it is not necessary to be liked. And hidden behind the delicate charge, fleeting touches and tenacious, vague lure that Manchester's Life are perfecting, lies a quiet strangeness, a new discovery of ways with beauty and a singular surety. Much like James, Ludus, Berntholer, Sudden Sway, Life do not care to be liked. But they will be loved. A secret of Life.
Graham Ellis - guitar, music, adept, 24, straightforward, gentle, Gemini, Chess and Robert Fripp.
Rita Griffiths - voice, singing, perfect, 24, prim giggles, stuffy niggles, Gemini, studying and "I'm not telling you".
Facts of Life:
Graham Ellis - guitar, music, adept, 24, straightforward, gentle, Gemini, Chess and Robert Fripp.
Rita Griffiths - voice, singing, perfect, 24, prim giggles, stuffy niggles, Gemini, studying and "I'm not telling you".
Andy Robinson - machines, words, wilfully inept, 24, sincere, smug, Gemini, pinball and Can.
Fresh from the Albert Hall Miners Benefit (their London debut), a New Order tour support and their first FAC release, 106, Life meet me in a Midland Hotel Room, where Rolls met Royce (where Shelley met Life: a plaque for the future?) for a £4 pot of coffee, not on expenses. Life's sentences are friendly, sense-filled, steady sayings with no erratic glamour, defiant ravings or desperate drive. They know their business and their beauty and have their implacable devotion. To Life.
Life began, strangely, with Andy Robinson's flat being robbed. A pile of insurance money in palm, he woke up, worked up, his friend Graham, a thinking studious musician, a veteran.
"Go on." prompts Andy with pushy pride of a doting auntie, “say the bands"
"I just used to go along and play, with anyone," his face apologetically concerned, bewildered, "never had a due what they were about - LT Fitz, Blue Orchids, too many others."
They enticed Rita into singing in a band. A voice like some sweet, sullen nightingale, she still hadn't thought of it herself.
"I never followed pop at all," she sings drearily, looking down her nose, away from me. "I sang at school, ever since I was eight. I was a soloist. Stagework was an ordeal at first. What do I do? Shake."
'Tell Me' / 'Tell Me (music)', already destined to be become an elusive classic, is emotional, beautiful, forceful, effective and affecting, a seductive, attacking sketch that fells between calm and distress, gravity and grace. Recorded after Life's third concert. It has drums, snares and dials by Steven Morris. It does not sound like New Order. It sounds effortlessly better.
Andy offers with probably painful scrutiny - "It's about this really wet character who was infatuated with my girlfriend, trudging after her. The song's saying 'What are you waiting for? You're wasting your time'. It's a bit arrogant, a bit sad. The other life-members were holding their breath. They had wondered.
With its fallible sadnesses, vivacious zest, 'Tell Me' bears, possibly, the graceful traces of performers like Pauline Murray, Vini Reilly, but few others. It's as perfect a debut punk pop song as 'Ambition', 'Hand In Glove'. 'It's Kinda Funny', Durutti's 'No Communication'.
"We wanted it to be dreamy but powerful. Most people use the dreamy quality to cover up an average song, but 'Tell Me' is a very strong song. You can't really know straight away whether it's happy or sad."
"Oh it's happy." Rita pips in.
Andy is softly shaking his head. "God it isn't. It isn't happy at all.” A sad secret.
What's the secret of Life, Life?
"We don't know the secret."
"People always ask me to describe the band. I never know what to say." says Rita, demurely, finally sensing something correct.
"Other bands have to try so hard. Because they're pretending. They've got to attract attention to themselves to sell (and vice versa). We're intelligent, and we're not pretending."
WHAT A SECRET!
So, Life play chess and pinball, look down their noses, sleep and get enthusiastic They chat and joke, don't go out much, tease one another kindly. They have dull faces and plain habits, I note with disappointment but no surprise: they have clearly put their beauty into their music.
Tell me, is it hard not to sound like other bands? "It's easy," they answer simply.
It is said that Life persists in the vulnerable only. A great secret. Something we should all love. Life. Support Life.
Fresh from the Albert Hall Miners Benefit (their London debut), a New Order tour support and their first FAC release, 106, Life meet me in a Midland Hotel Room, where Rolls met Royce (where Shelley met Life: a plaque for the future?) for a £4 pot of coffee, not on expenses. Life's sentences are friendly, sense-filled, steady sayings with no erratic glamour, defiant ravings or desperate drive. They know their business and their beauty and have their implacable devotion. To Life.
The beginning of Life:
Life began, strangely, with Andy Robinson's flat being robbed. A pile of insurance money in palm, he woke up, worked up, his friend Graham, a thinking studious musician, a veteran.
"Go on." prompts Andy with pushy pride of a doting auntie, “say the bands"
"I just used to go along and play, with anyone," his face apologetically concerned, bewildered, "never had a due what they were about - LT Fitz, Blue Orchids, too many others."
They enticed Rita into singing in a band. A voice like some sweet, sullen nightingale, she still hadn't thought of it herself.
"I never followed pop at all," she sings drearily, looking down her nose, away from me. "I sang at school, ever since I was eight. I was a soloist. Stagework was an ordeal at first. What do I do? Shake."
Sound of Life:
'Tell Me' / 'Tell Me (music)', already destined to be become an elusive classic, is emotional, beautiful, forceful, effective and affecting, a seductive, attacking sketch that fells between calm and distress, gravity and grace. Recorded after Life's third concert. It has drums, snares and dials by Steven Morris. It does not sound like New Order. It sounds effortlessly better.
Andy offers with probably painful scrutiny - "It's about this really wet character who was infatuated with my girlfriend, trudging after her. The song's saying 'What are you waiting for? You're wasting your time'. It's a bit arrogant, a bit sad. The other life-members were holding their breath. They had wondered.
With its fallible sadnesses, vivacious zest, 'Tell Me' bears, possibly, the graceful traces of performers like Pauline Murray, Vini Reilly, but few others. It's as perfect a debut punk pop song as 'Ambition', 'Hand In Glove'. 'It's Kinda Funny', Durutti's 'No Communication'.
"We wanted it to be dreamy but powerful. Most people use the dreamy quality to cover up an average song, but 'Tell Me' is a very strong song. You can't really know straight away whether it's happy or sad."
"Oh it's happy." Rita pips in.
Andy is softly shaking his head. "God it isn't. It isn't happy at all.” A sad secret.
The secret of Life:
What's the secret of Life, Life?
"We don't know the secret."
"People always ask me to describe the band. I never know what to say." says Rita, demurely, finally sensing something correct.
"Other bands have to try so hard. Because they're pretending. They've got to attract attention to themselves to sell (and vice versa). We're intelligent, and we're not pretending."
WHAT A SECRET!
Life in general:
So, Life play chess and pinball, look down their noses, sleep and get enthusiastic They chat and joke, don't go out much, tease one another kindly. They have dull faces and plain habits, I note with disappointment but no surprise: they have clearly put their beauty into their music.
Tell me, is it hard not to sound like other bands? "It's easy," they answer simply.
It is said that Life persists in the vulnerable only. A great secret. Something we should all love. Life. Support Life.
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