With the Mull Historical Society’s new single ‘Watching Xanadu’ out in January, James Berry unravels the mystery of another minor pop classic by going straight to the source itself. Colin McIntyre of talks to Crud about his album ‘Loss’.
To follow on from their debut album ‘Loss’ released in October last year, the Mull Historical Society (well Colin, to all intents and purposes) release their new single ‘Watching Xanadu’ on 28 January. This is the fourth single off the album, with previous releases being ‘Barcode Bypass’, ‘I Tried’ and ‘Animal Cannabus’.
Local hero, Colin MacIntyre, songwriter and inventor of Mull Historical Society, was born and bred on the island of Mull, just off Scotlands’ west coast. Although his early musical experiences consisted of watching his uncle’s covers band rehearsing and gigging around the island, there’s little doubt that much of Colin’s youth was mis-spent trawling through the archives of Beach Boy records, Aztec Camera debuts and the entire back-catalogue of Creation Records. His debut album, ‘Loss’ is testament to that, honouring as it does all the tight, dizzily tuneful arrangements of Wilson and the innocent vocal whirl of Frame and Fannies alike. It’s an album that’s still rooted in first hand experience, however, whether it’s the monotony of working in a BT call-centre or of musical awakenings:
“I can remember seeing all these guitars and just falling in love with them,” he recalls. “I can still see this wallet full of song sheets about a foot high they used. That’s really how I got into music, through listening to them playing these mainstream rock classics.”
And BT Directory Enquiries? Two numbers please?
“I love the language of BT,” he explains. “There’s this scary corporate conviction to the company that you can’t help admiring, even if you find it goes against everything you believe in. I’ve kept their mission statement and every time it mentions BT I’ve changed it to Mull Historical Society.”
Colin’s first non-listed band, Trax, comprised of family and friends, playing the local town hall and generally just larking around. His next band, ‘The Lovesick Zombies’, a continuation of ‘Trax’ played Beatles, Bowie and The Clash covers in Tobermory’s old Distillery building on Mull’s harbour front using, as is the fashion for any wannabe rock star, broom handles for mic stands.
A move to Glasgow and the appointment of a new mic stand saw Colin knock about the employment ladder with the same lack of discernible game plan that marred his work on the field. A stint at BT, and the spare-time lure of a four-track recorder eventually saw the birth of the MHS:
“I wrote the song Mull Historical Society and thought it was a good band name. I did have doubts whether it was too long, but people seemed to like it. Smells Like Marzipan never really meant anything and I always felt a bit daft phoning people up saying ‘Hi, this is Colin from 7-11’. After a while, a name’s just a name anyway.”
Strangely enough, the song itself was based on a ‘real’ Mull Historical Society, whose column in Mull’s local paper had inspired Colin originally.
“Mull Historical Society has definitely got an agenda,” he explains somewhat cryptically. “As much as my family has a history or tradition on Mull and I grew up there, I don’t want to be seen as parochial or twee. That’s not part of the plan. Anyway, almost everything I’ve ever written has been in Glasgow. But people seemed to be intrigued.”
For Colin it’s a piece of work that he feels accurately represents the last 15 years – no mean achievement when you consider two hundred and ninety odd songs lay on the cutting room floor upon its completion. And how does he feel the singles have so far?
“I didn’t really know what to expect from Barcode – I knew when I recorded it in the studio (having had it on 4-track for a while) that it sounded on tape exactly as it did in my head, so I was happy with it, but you never can tell what other people will make of your stuff. The chart position was fine….it had no video and no advertising or real profile other than the press it received of its own back – it was only really intended to get record companies interested and make the music media aware…which is exactly what it did – as opposed to troubling Top of the Pops!”
Loss: Track by Track
Public Service Announcer
That came to me stuck on the London Underground. It was really busy and everyone was getting impatient. I had this idea for a song I already had called ‘Narrow Escape At 2000ft’ which was about this air traffic controller. This day on the tube the announcer kept making apologies even though he could do nothing about it and that’s where ‘Public Service Announcer’ came from. I always do stuff down in London even when I’m miles away from a guitar or piano because you do get a lot of time to think down there.
Watching Xanadu
I definitely came up with that in London too. I thought it was just a bit throwaway, which I suppose it is, it’s just a pop song. I was after a kind of Phil Spector sound and wanted it to sound big and liked the bells. I did a remix of the song for the single and it was funny listening back to the tapes again, because it was so throwaway we did it one take and I was shouting the arrangements out to my drummer, it was all over the place, but he’s so good he managed to follow me. The idea was about a homeless couple, she’s called Xanadu. They’re sat in the doorway of a TV shop and they’re showing the Olivia Newton John film ‘Xanadu’. It’s a bit confused really.
Instead
That came totally from Turner Classic Movies, the cable channel. I was watching a film called ‘The Shop Around The Corner’ with James Stewart. There’s this woman who walks into the shop and likes this guy, it’s one of those 1940s romantic things, but they pretend they don’t like each other. She says ‘instead of a heart you’ve got a lead balloon’. And I suppose musically I wanted choirboys on the album, that was one of the prerequisites I had, and I got them on that song.
I Tried
just a really straight sentiment and I found myself singing it over and over again in the chorus. It’s a struggle in a relationship. The idea for the single cover I wanted to use, but it was going to cost a grand so I couldn’t was of snooker player Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins when he won a championship in 1982 I think. It’s this great picture of him holding the cup and the photo just says ‘I tried’. I was obsessed with him when I was a kid.
This Is Not Who We Were
It’s about people as products really, a factory that churns out people, there’s an almost George Orwell ‘1984’ theme to it. It may be a single and I really hope it is because I’ve got such ideas for the video. It’s quite simple really, just about people being suppressed in some way.
Barcode Bypass
Again that’s one with a pretty straight story, I can’t really remember where the original inspiration came from, but it’s kind of about this corner-shop owner trying to tell his wife they can’t compete with the supermarket, which is a 24 hour shop. And basically he gets his dogs, walks off and has a heart attack. I remember watching Coronation Street when Alf Roberts was having his shop taken over by Better Buys or something. Now I’m not a bit Coronation Street fan! But it’s basically about Alf Roberts syndrome.
Only I
That’s about bereavement really, just about trying to deal with it and how it doesn’t have to be all negative or a terminal thing, you can turn it around. And that’s one I wanted a big brass sound for. Sometimes you write something and you don’t really know what it’s about, but then in retrospect you do, you figure it out. For me that’s the way I do it sometimes and I suppose that was one.
Animal Cannibus
It’s really just about escapism, not following the crowd, not being dictated too about what to wear or do. It was originally just an acoustic guitar but then I decided to make it sound much bigger. It’s supposed to just be a really uplifting song, hopefully that’s the way it comes over.
Strangeways Inside
It’s supposed to be a romantic tale about 2 escaped convicts, a couple of people on the run just before fate catches up with them really, set in this honeymoon period they have. It started off life about 3 years ago, I think the more experienced you get you realise exactly how you want a song to sound. A bit slower and melodic, that one came together really quickly in the end.
Mull Historical Society
I am from Mull, yes, but having named the band after that song I get asked about it every day of my life! But I just liked the words and when coming up with a name it was definitely more interesting than my own. And it doesn’t sound like a band. There is actually a real Mull Historical Society, I basically just saw their poster, took some of the text and rejigged it into a song. They were apparently on the record company website trying to get a copy of ‘Barcode Bypass’ to play at their annual dinner, so I don’t think I pissed anyone off. I’ve kept the theme going too, I’ve got a new song called ‘MHS Lady’ which is me imagining meeting the woman who runs it, kind of a romantic tale, but I think she’s probably 65 or something!
Paperhouses
Which started off life called ‘Animal Cannibus’ believe it or not, and it’s along the same lines of not giving into people or style or fashion. And I was thinking animals don’t need uniform, or to dress up, they’re all the same. I suppose they have chains of command as well but maybe they’ve got the right idea and we should learn from them. At the end of it I put on the ferry announcement from the Mull ferry to finish off the album as if that’s the end of your journey.