The Servants - "Small Time" ('Lost' Second Album)
19 videos • 13,702 views • by Isak Borg Previously Unreleased Recordings Cherry Red Records 2012 (CBS RED 535) DAVID WESTLAKE: vocals & guitar. LUKE HAINES: vocals, guitar, piano & Cat synthesiser. Amanda Perrior: vocals & drums on tracks 16-19 Des Lambert: bass on tracks 16-19 Recorded by David Westlake and Luke Haines. Tapes restored and recordings mixed by Des Lambert. Mastered by Nick Robbins at Soundmastering, London «Early 1991. David Westlake (Servants main man and songwriter) and myself (Servants guitarist) have completed our pre-recording ritual -- watching daytime trash TV in my Southgate flat and drinking endless mugs of tea. We must now turn our attention to the task of recording the demos for our next album. Except the recordings that we make over the next six months are not the demos. They 'are' the album, and the album won't be released for twenty-one years. It is the album you are holding and it is called "Small Time". (It was always called "Small Time".) It's the Servants' second and best album. It's a strange and wonderful thing, and we're lucky that it is now in the world. A diminished Servants wakes up blinking in the light of the new year of 1991. Alice has decided to do an art history degree, so isn't around to play on the new demos. Andy Bennett, the drummer on "Disinterest", mutters something about 'going off to bake bread', and that is the last we see of him. So the Servants becomes a duo of David Westlake and myself. We are armed with two Fostex four-track tape recorders, a Dr Rhythm drum machine, an out.of.tune piano, a box of effects pedals, and a secret weapon: a CAT Octave VCO synth. And a sack of great new Westlake songs. The new songs come fast, and have swooped away from the "Disinterest" blueprint. Where those songs are looser, more mysterious, strange and beautiful, transcending their influence and sounding... like nothing else really. Our work routine goes like this. Westlake records a demo at home on his four-track machine, comprising rhythm guitar, bass-part, programmed drum machine, and vocals. He then brings the recording over to me, where on my machine we add overdubs -- including lots of CAT synth, and in the case of 'Everybody Has a Dream' the contents of the kitchen sink. Between takes, we weigh up whose turn it is to call the record company. Then one of us puts in the regular call, and the record company guy (if he's there, or if the phone gets answered) says: "I'm busy with the Teenage Fanclub -- I'll call you back later." Of course, the record company guy never calls back, so he never gets to hear about our exciting new recordings. By the end of the summer we have recorded all the new songs. It's going to be a great album. I think we both know that it will never come out, and these recordings, completed in the living room of my flat in Cannon Road, Southgate, are the album. By the end of the year I am writing songs for my new group the Auteurs, and David Westlake has decided to study law. Which makes sense, because if you've written an album as good as "Small Time" you have nothing really to prove, so you might as well do something else -- let the world catch up. Hearing these songs again, it's reassuring to find that "Small Time" is as enigmatic as I remembered. Highlights include the good-advice chant of 'Aim in Life', the repetitive groove of 'Complete Works', snatches of whispered conversation drifting in and out of monstrous riffs ('Born to Dance' and 'All Talk'), the Studio One pianos over the "Dragnet" conspiratorial 'Fear Eats the Soul', and 'Motivation' -- which would not be out of place on the Residents' "Commercial Album". But really this is just the tip of the iceberg -- turn out the lights, put on your headphones and dig the mystery for yourself. It is hard to imagine an album like "Small Time" coming out in 1991 or 1992 -- the time would not have been right. Maybe that's the point: that some rock and roll has to exist in a twilight hinterland, just doing its own very cool thing. And now, that is exactly what "Small Time" can do. And it's good to know we were right all along.» (Luke Haines)