Great Lost Albums - Snakes and Lovers by Interview

Having a large vinyl collection that I can't get at easily, those records that I do place within easy reach of my gramophone include records that didn't make it to CD. The Kinks' Great Lost Kinks Album is one such, and it is in the spirit of GLKA and countless other vinyl masterpieces that never made it past vinyl that your Great Lost Album reviewer presents the following:

Since I had the preceding conversation with my worn out buddies, and since so much time has passed, and so many surprises, such as the reissue of music that was a waste of vinyl to start with, that it may be that some of these gems are out there, digital.

Here's a shortlist of some of the recordings that have yet to surface in digital (to the best of my and so on): Vic Godard's What's the matter boy?, Beat Noir by Fingerprintz, and Interview's Snakes and Lovers.

There was a time in the 1970's when nobody remembered The Kinks, but practically nobody ever heard a note of Interview's music, so it seems. With the non-distinct 'Interview' name, with an album titled what it is (big help actually), one would scream miracle if a search yielded much more than a one or two obscure references every now and then. This proved to be the case, and dazzlingly, all were at the top of a search result that was based on 'interview snakes and lovers.'

So, Interview have a few fans out there, and I am one of them. Interview's number one fan site knocks chips out of the wall of indifference that they faced in the music press, and even Virgin Records, which let them flounder but to its credit, put Snakes and Lovers into international distribution, or, as the case may be, in distribution in Canada, which around 1980 was Virgin's biggest North American market, and certainly the only market where Virgin was a distributed line of a company (PolyGram) that was interested in the whole Virgin catalogue. Such an approach allowed Interview (and Fingerprintz) to penetrate the Canadian market, while remaining an unknown elsewhere.

Echo and the Bunnymen broke in Montreal in a spring 1981 performance at Le Pretzel en Chainé. It was their second Canadian visit, and the hall was packed. Later called the Spectrum, Pretzel was a movie theatre that was converted into a concert hall. But the layout was comfortable, and there were tables and waitresses. What a perfect place. Take in King Crimson in the spring of 1984, being rich enough to afford drinks; what a life. But I digress in a severe manner.

Virgin's catalogue being so freely available (Simple Minds' Life in a Day is disponible? No way!) allowed me to pick up a copy of Snakes and Lovers at my fave Montréal record store, Phantasmagoria. It was the only record store that had a sunken lounge with goldfish tanks along two sides. You could go in, read a copy of Rolling Stone, and occasionally get stoned on a weekday morning when the store was empty.

I bought my copy of Snakes and Lovers because I liked one song that I played from the album (at random) while making a radio demo tape. As is often the case, Crossing Borders remained my favorite track for a while. What most impressed me at the time was how intelligent the song was, how subtle its examination of a preferred solitude (or hermitage) and the loneliness that can come from it, and the challenges that are associated with trying to breach solitude to share a place with a lover for more than a while.

But there's too much going on on the rest of the album for one track to remain a favorite for long. One track that I disliked was Until I hold Her, which I thought to be too rock-n-roll for what was supposed to be a -<mod>- band (singer Starrs contributes vox which I propose as evidence to support my claim). As it turned out, Until I Hold Her's charms won me after my predilections toward situation/context had become relaxed along with a few other attitudes. Still, I believe to this day that the song doesn't fit, and it's all about a searing guitar solo. Sometimes I listen to Until I hold Her for the sake of its guitar solo; there you are. Each time that I do listen I am reminded of my first impression of the song: Perhaps it had been added to the selection of songs to showcase Interview's versatility, had it been necessary to do so.

The thing that surprises me the most about Interview's lack of success is Jeff Starrs' voice, which is unique. What happened to this guy? With a singing voice like his, he must have gone on to do something, but perhaps not. Vic Godard worked as a dishwasher within a few years of his album's release. Any number of artists have never make it past two albums.

Interview's songs articulate pathos, a sense of helplessness and also of bravery. I find these qualities present in the records of two extraordinary artistes, Paul McCartney's Flowers in the Dirt, or Elvis Costello's Mighty Like A Rose. As it happens, neither album was 'received' at all, with McCartney barely surfacing with My Brave Face. The artists had collaborated on some of the songs that went on to the two albums; McCartney included three McCartney/MacManus songs on Flowers, Costello two on Rose. Perhaps being morose is a ticket to the cutout bin.

With Interview's Snakes and Lovers, the pathos is no more, no less than McCartney and Costello, but it is made more poignant for its simpler palette, and smaller canvas. The closing track on Snakes and Lovers, Union Men, holds forth a depth that Ray Davies should have taken us to on Muswell Hillbillies.

A treasure.

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