I’ve never really been certain what I should do with this article. Around two years ago I found in a 2nd hand shop a taped recording of The House Of Love’s set at the 1989 Reading festival, and if anyone reading this ever finds a copy, it is a masterful piece of live performance and a quite definite indication that HOLs recorded output never quite captured what the band were musically capable of.
The copy of the tape I based this article on is now in the hands of a Creation artefacts collector in New Jersey, but I am quite certain that there are others circulating somewhere in the weekend market stalls, and here, in the absence of my own copy, is an expression of my own sense of awe and amazement that not all of my memory circuits are failing, yes it actually is true that bands really did sound as good as The House Of Love were on a damp August evening in Berkshire, nineteen years ago -
The House Of Love – Reading Festival 1989
Now there’s a name from the late 80′s,The House Of Love. My own memories of the band are based solely from what radio play I heard of ‘Shine On’ and ‘Beatles And The Stones’, and I need to confess I wasn’t instantly fired with an urge to run down to the nearest record store and buy up everything The House Of Love had released while placing advance orders on anything they might. Why was this?
A lot of the reason for this was, as I discovered recently, a matter of the production their songs received. Plus, in the instance of ‘Shine On’, the idea that some of the bands more potent material was hidden away in their 3 eponymous albums of that time, or indeed never actually found it’s way onto vinyl. I remember hearing ‘Shine On’ at the time and thinking ‘yeah, the Bunnymen, like that’s 5 years ago now’ and sticking my copy of ‘Heaven Up Here’ back on the turntable. Nowadays though, bands can pretty much get the results they need when they need them, as pro-tools have significantly speeded up the recording process and freeing up musicians from too much in the way of fiddling with and amongst bulky amp stacks. It did sound as if The House Of Love had spent a little too much time in the studio.
Had I seen the band perform live though, my opinions would have been altered significantly. I recently found a tape recorded at the 1989 Reading Festival which demonstrates that while some of their recorded output may have come across as less than fully inspired, The House Of Love were a formidable live act, and also a highly influential one. I no longer raise an eyebrow when I hear what an influence they were upon Ride, and can definitely detect their continuing influence today – Hard Fi and The Departure, for instance. So exactly what’s on the tape?
First things first. The House Of Love formed in London in 1986 and were initially signed to Creation before gaining the deal with Fontana records which secured them the radio play I’ve referred to, and the tape would appear to date from the beginning of their major label career. The onstage line up on what was a drizzly evening in mid August was – Guy Chadwick, guitar and vocals: Terry Bickers, lead guitar: Chris Groothuizen, bass and Pete Evans on drums. All of whom were on exceptional form that night.
The tape begins with some sonorous growlings from the Festival PA as the band take up position onstage, which suddenly fades as Terry Bickers picks a chiming guitar intro to the first number, which isn’t credited with a title on the tape. The intro develops into a twisting three note solo and the initial rush of bass and drums drops away as Bickers cranks up the effects pedal while Chadwick intones the lyric – ‘deeper than any heart / deeper than any sea / deeper than anything’ before the bass and drums kick back in again and the song careers into a furiously thrashing end. This has definitely caught the audiences attention – and probably that of some of the other performers: also on that years Reading main stage were Green On Red, Loop, My Bloody Valentine, The Mission, Spacemen 3, The Sugarcubes and Swans. You could throw guesses as to exactly who were in the audience.
The next track on the tape is ‘Christine’. Now anyone who’s heard the album version (the track is included on the band’s MySpace) would probably agree that it could slot unnoticed into an expanded reissue of the JAMC’s first album PsychoCandy. It’s a fuzzily tuneful pop song with a one sentence lyric, much of which involves the repetition of the song’s title. A little grimy, a little throwaway, and the Raveonettes have probably covered it at least once. On stage though, the song is entirely transformed. Taken at a slightly less frenetic tempo, the band seem to deliberately throw off any Reid Brothers comparisons and stretch the tune for all it can take – the mid part has some nifty interplay courtesy of Bickers and Groothuizen which simply doesn’t exist in the songs’ recorded form. There is perhaps an air of a band with something to prove to both themselves and their audience here, but more importantly they’ve the confidence to take their material by the neck and wrench it into an altogether different creature. These are not C86 type janglers, oh no. They’ve been listening to The Cult, and the intro of ‘I Love The Way She Cried’ contains definite shades of ‘She Sells Sanctuary’. The thumping bass drum which accompanies Bickers’ power chords gives the signal, here is a credible piece of late 80′s rock music and would any goths in the audience kindly pay attention? Once again it’s Bicker’s lead part which lifts the song into an effects-led epic, the juddering chordage and screeching feedack providing Chadwick with a 3D backdrop for his twisted introspection.
The next number has, slightly, the feel of a band treading water somewhat. ‘You Can Do Anything’ has a thudding drum part from Evans and Chadwick isn’t at his most cheerful – ‘destroy the heart she said / it’ll make you want to smash your head’ he intones over a choir of buzzsaws, and the song ends abruptly. To a very enthusiastic Reading crowd who are now paying their fullest attention to The House Of Love, and doubtlessly filling out the mosh pit in various degrees of enthusiasm.
It’s at this point that the gig really does begin to sound less like a rehearsal and more like an inspired live performance. The next song, ‘Man To Child’ is a ballad with a deeply embittered lyric from Chadwick, a tale of ageing and loss which easily knocks many of Morrissey’s plaints into the file marked ‘whining’. Quite what Chadwick (I’m assuming it’s his lyric) was thinking when he penned lines such as ‘Jesus, where did the time go / Holy God, where is the money now?’ is a question only he can answer. Add to this the quality of the guitar work – and it is an excellent tune – then ponder on exactly what we would’ve heard had The House Of Love been as big as, say, the Charlatans. Or the Stone Roses. Or Suede. Or anyone else you care to mention.
The following number is uncredited on the tape and is mostly an instrumental which gives Groothuizen and Evans an opportunity to indulge in some rhythmic trickery, particularly here Evans drumming receives something of a showcase as the crashing floor toms of earlier in the set are replaced by what sounds like some nifty brushwork and rimshots, interspersed with some bloody great slabs of noise from Bickers, and the whole band are sufficiently in control of what they’re playing to ensure that the contrasting aspects of the piece don’t collide with each other.
Next song up is introduced by Chadwick, who asks if it’s still raining. It’s a new song called ‘In A Run’ which, while it’s a properly rocking number with certain similarities to ‘Christine’ has an altogether lighter tempo than the band began their set with, and it’s definitely Chadwick’s number, a atmospheric strum-along with Bickers taking something of a backseat for 2 and a half minutes or thereabouts. And this leads directly into ‘Finest Hour’ a song from the same mould as ‘Shine On’ which is given a seriously epic treatment and has Bickers’ chorus pedal threatening to overload.
Now what really persuaded me to write anything about both The House Of Love and this tape is their treatment here of what is possibly their best known song: ‘Beatles And The Stones’. On record, it’s a slightly dreary ballad. Onstage at Reading, the song is, frankly, unrecognizable, save for its lyric. What began life as a 3 chord paean to the nineteensixties is provided with a bravura display of musicianship that perhaps didn’t sit too comfortably with the bands’ new bosses at Fontana records. Both Bickers and Evans excel themselves, and at this point I realised that Bicker’s guitar playing reminded me strongly of no-one less than Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera – on quite a good day – while Evans once again has an opportunity to display some of his percussive versatility. ‘Put the V in Vietnam/the Beatles and the Stones/made it good to be alone’ sings Chadwick, and there’s a real sense that the band are providing his lyric with the depth of musicianship it requires.
The last number is, also, uncredited on the tape but I’m going to assume that it’s ‘Touch Me’, which is the last track on the band’s second album. It has a naggingly discordant lead part from Bickers which runs right through the number, and the minor chords it’s built around seem somehow at odds with much of what’s gone before on this evening. Once again Chadwick’s lyric is on vitriolic form – ‘there’s murder in the hearts of men / and treason in the skies’ – and Bickers’ effects pedals probably burned out around here, such is the blistering multi-chorused cacophony he’s drawing from his instrument. The song also has a catchily swaying rhythm which doesn’t resemble anything else The House Of Love have played this evening, and before anyone knows what’s happening it’s a polite goodnight from Chadwick and the set is well and truly ended.
So why weren’t the band more of a quantity than (at least I) had been led to believe? Any biography of the group I’ve read makes some mention of tensions between Chadwick and Bickers, alongside hints regarding mismanagement. It’s also probable that they were casualties of the then ascendant dance scene. But The House Of Love certainly enjoyed more of a profile than, say, Loop. Or Bjork before she went it alone from the Sugarcubes. Definitely more than Spacemen 3. And 2006 saw the beginnings of a new album from the band, with Chadwick and Bickers resolving their differences. I haven’t yet heard it. What I did hear recently, almost by chance, was a cover of ‘Shine On’ which it transpires is the work of a Norwegian electrogoth outfit known as Apoptygma Berzerk. It does seem as if the legacy of The House Of Love is set to continue, for quite some time yet.
Jon Gordon
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