Was there any other time that would have produced an act as mercurial and quixotic as The Associates? Probably not, and in that sense they were of their time. Yet musically they seem to stand apart from the post-punk scene from which they emerged. This is partly due to their eccentric influences, which seemed to be Weimar era cabaret, krautrock, disco, Bowie, but most of all the wild and impish personality of octave leaping vocalist Billy McKenzie which seemed to shape the music. He was a one off and as such The Associates sounded like little else before or a since.
Multi-instrumentalist Alan Rankine and McKenzie formed their duo in Edinburgh in the late seventies, although Mckenzie originally hailed from Dundee and were supplemented by various musicians, the most important of which was ex Cure bassist Michael Dempsey. Eschewing the usual circuit, their early gigs saw them play the chicken and basket cabaret circuit to a bewildered middle aged audience. When it came to their debut single, they were typically idiosyncratic, choosing to release a cover of "Boys Keep Swinging" a week after Bowie.
So eccentric were The Associates that it's a wonder they had any kind of career at all, but they released a series of extraordinary singles on indie Situation 2 (these are collected on the album Fourth Drawer Down)). Each single sounded different to not only each other, but anything else around and were marked by McKenzie's soaring, Wagnerian vocals, unrestrained and verging at times on hysteria, and Rankine's edgy, scratchy soundscapes. Some selections..
Q Quarters
Tell Me Easter's On a Friday
Message Oblique Speech
Debut album The Affectionate Punch is more rounded and smoother than the provocative Situation 2 singles, although hardly mainstream. It is an obvious bridge to their masterpiece Sulk.
Somehow they found themselves on a major label where they blew their advance on the extravagant and unhinged sessions for Sulk. Stories from this time are legion -submerging a hired drum kit in a tank of water to get a different sound etc. Rankine reminisces here..
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/apr/27/popandrock.alexispetridis
How to describe Sulk then? Cramped, dense, spikey certainly, but also sumptuous and rich. Perhaps delirious would be the most fitting description for a multi-layered music that is continually exploding in different directions. It's 80s production won't be to everyone's taste, it's about as far away from organic as you can get, but it's inventive and always surprising, and the melodies are there beneath all the sonic extravagance. Party Fears Two has become their best known track and provided a short lived pop stardom in the heady months of 1982. However we should also consider some of the album's edgier, restless songs. A brief selection...
Sadly this was the peak as Rankine left shortly afterwards, burned out by the band's hedonistic lifestyle and McKenzie's energetic unpredictability. McKenzie carried on the band and the album tht followed is not without its delights, particularly the gorgeous 'should have been a massive hit' Those First Impressions and the moody and elegant magnificence of 'Breakfast'.
But still McKenzie wasn't suited to a mid 80s major label, like a lion in a cage, his music felt restrained and compromised. His solo career is kind of hard to navigate and I rather bailed out at this point, but this was a good collaboration.
Sadly McKenzie was to take his life at 39. I'll leave you with a fitting tribute that I hope you'll have time to watch.
So Long Kid, Take A Bow.
