I would rather sell blood and sleep under cars, practically, than write this article, so don't even ask why I'm doing it. Thank Leslie Gaffney; it's her fault...

Oh, and by the way, this IS a story about Stuart Moxham.

For me, Young Marble Giants were always a special band, real life-changing at the time and one of not many post-punk groups to hold up especially well today, so I was mildly curious when I read in Writer's Block that Young Marble Giants founder/songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist, Stuart Moxham, had been shopping around a collection of songs he'd recorded over the past ten years. Young Marble Giants only released one LP and a couple of singles before disbanding. Stuart then formed a group -- really a solo project with help from friends -- called The Gist; they recorded just one album and three singles and split up around 1983. Like most of my fave musicians of that era (Lora Logic, An Up, Martin Bramah, etc.) Stuart dropped out of view and was presumably raising a family, gardening, and living off royalties or something. Colossal Youth, the only Young Marble Giants LP, was one of the biggest selling indie records for years and years (and a top ten hit in Portugal!); later a Gist song was covered by French superstar Etienne Daho, and sold about thirty kazillion copies. Now Stuart is nearly as legendary in French-speaking nations as Jerry Lewis or King Tubby.

The elaborate underpinnings and strange turn of events that led to Stuart's solo album, Signal Path, to be released on Feel Good All Over (run by yours truly), and me being tapped to write this article (under duress) all started one day after I received a call from some guy overseas -- he told me he had recorded a bunch of songs and wondered if It would be okay if he sent a cassette of them off (for my "perusal.") This guy had me on the phone for what seemed like an eternity, and while I was desperately looking for a way to end the conversation, he mentioned that he had been in a band about ten years ago. I politely asked what the band was called, and he stated, "Oh, you wouldn't have heard of us, we were called Young Marble Giants." I swallowed my gum when I realized I was talking to Stuart Moxham! The guy was surprised I had heard of him...

Stuart sent a cassette and later Signal Path was released -- a CD compilation of songs recorded on 4 track and 8-track over the years. Stuart plays almost everything himself, arranges, and produces -- pretty astonishing when you listen to it. Not only was Signal Path successful in terms of units sold, it opened the door on a number of other opportunities for Stuart. Last year he visited the States and played some shows, as well as produced the Lois album, Butterfly Kiss, and half of the Beat Happening album, You Turn Me On.

This year Stuart has three record deals -- one with Vinyl Japan, one with a French label that appears to be turning into a deal with Virgin International, and last, but not least, Feel Good All Over (he wrote and is recording separate albums for each of the labels). Stuart also scored a publishing deal with Virgin for his songs, wrote an entire album for Barbara Manning, got married, had a baby, and now he's back in the States (this time with his multi-instrumentalist brother, Andrew) -- recording his new Feel Good All Over album at the amazing Kingsize Sound Laboratories here in Chicago. Just a word in regard to Kingsize Sound Labs -- they are truly amazing. As a joke someone mentioned that Stuart wanted "a monkey with an organ grinder" for the album. Dave of Kingsize could get one, but was very apologetic that it wouldn't be a little monkey in a bellhop outfit, but instead a full-grown chimp wearing a blue tuxedo! The cost would be the same and we decided -- oh well, more for the money! (I am not making this up and would encourage any band to record at Kingsize.) They also managed to score: a theremin, a complete horn section, a string quartet, steel pedal guitar and player, fifty-two different guitars, stand-up bass, all sorts of bizarre percussion instruments, a sitar, a "Doctor Q," whatever that is, and by the end of the day pretty much every other obscure musical thingamajig we could even think to name. Knowing what the man is capable of, the anticipation of uses Stuart will conjure up for these noise-makers boggles the mind.

On a personal level, Stuart is a very classy guy with an array of talents. He helped animate the film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and until recently lived on a houseboat on the Thames. But in order to get a better handle on some of his more current projects I had to ask him a bunch of pesky questions:

I guess the big thing is, what's the word on the Nirvana remixes?

Steve Albini recorded an album with them and the record people weren't happy with it because they were evidently expecting something along the lines of Nevermind, or maybe even more accessible. So the record company brought some people to remix and re-do the tracks. Kurt is evidently a fan of Young Marble Giants, the Raincoats et al, I imagine he or Courtney heard the Beat Happening or Lois albums, and I "got the call," as they say. After this recording is over I'm flying to L.A. for a week to work out what needs to be done. It's very exciting for me. I've produced several records but obviously nothing of this magnitude.

Have you talked to Kurt or Courtney directly?

Nope.

Tell us what you've got in store for young and illustrious Barbara Manning.

As you know, she's bringing one of her own songs to record when she arrives on the 3rd (of July). in addition I've written twenty-three others specifically for her, and we're working on some covers -- "Summer's Over" which was done by Dusty Springfield, a John Holt song called "Strange Things," possibly a few more. She mentioned wanting to cover an Al Green tune. Andrew and I are going to work out the arrangements for some of these before Barbara gets here, record some basic tracks and then have her sing and add some guitar and bass as need be. We're playing some shows together. We'll see what works and what doesn't. Hopefully an album will come out of it. I am surprised she's not better known in England, I wasn't familiar with her at first. She's something I'd expect the weekly music papers to go gaga over.

How did the French label/Virgin recording go?

Really well. We recorded it in a very small studio that's normally used for jingles and voiceovers. We could just barely fit Andrew's drums in. Spike (from Weekend) plays on it, Andrew of course, Chris Ridgeway, who was on Signal Path, added harmonica, Louis Philippe added keyboards and synth. For a song called "Oh Boy," we found this woman named Cher Levis from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to sing a duet with me that turned out fabulously. (An interjection: "Oh Boy" is in fact the best song recorded so far all year, trust me on this: a light ragga beat, great vocal interplay, a beautiful melody and the most insanely catchy hook yet invented.) The album will be called Random Rules. It has several reggae numbers and also the closest thing to an out-and-out rock number I've ever recorded.

How do you take news of things like this tribute album (Landspeed Records' YMG tribute with tracks from the Magnetic Fields, Seam, Barbara Manning and others) and Sinead O'Connor doing "Knives (Always Fall)" (a Signal Path track)?

It's very flattering, a bit shocking really. I've heard Seam's track ("I Wonder Why") and Barbara's track ("Cakewalking"), and thought they were great. I wish Sinead would record "Knives (Always Fall)" and have a huge hit so I could retire to a country estate.

Why all the record company interest all of the sudden?

It's because of Signal Path mainly, it got the ball rolling.

I'm personally surprised -- you'd shopped that around for a while and no one seemed interested.

Well, the economy is rough in England at the moment and the labels where I had contacts couldn't afford to take risks -- it had been years since Embrace the Herd (the Gist album) and no one knew if there would be a market. I didn't shop it around very much to be honest. Then you called and once somebody makes the first move it makes it a lot easier for other people to pick up on it.

But Stuart, you called me!

Oh, you're right, I guess I did. Well, Mike (Appelstein) gave me your number because he knew you'd be interested, that's all it took really.

I'm glad it worked out, but I have to tell you that I was pretty offended when Geoff Travis (the head of Rough Trade) got interested in your music again after Signal Path came out -- considering he had dropped you in the first place and also rejected the same tracks that ended up on Signal Path when you offered them to him before you'd even heard of Feel Good All Over. Not to diss Geoff, he's responsible for releasing a great deal of the records that I love, but still...I just don't understand that attitude, you'd think he'd have learned that one's better off releasing music you like because you like it, rather than worrying about its commerciality. Look at what happened to Rough Trade.

Actually he never really rejected the Signal Path tracks at all.

I'm just going on a letter that you wrote to Writer's Block after they did that Young Marble Giants retrospective article in which you said that you took the tapes round to Cherry Red and Rough Trade and they weren't interested.

What really happened was this: I was going to release myself, press up a thousand copies. (Choice would have been a vinyl LP, about 85% of it turned up later on Signal Path, which included some Choice-era outtakes as bonuses.) I had the money and everything, so I went to Geoff to get distribution, since I couldn't do that myself. He offered me a manufacturing and distribution deal, and I turned him down since I was planning to do it myself. Subsequently, I was told by several people that this wasn't 1979 anymore, you can't just press 1000 copies of your own record and have people get excited about it. You need to make thousands of CDs and spend at least L5000 on promotion, which was out of the question for me. Also the pressing plant where I had test pressings done went into receivership and I had to have a friend break into it at night and steal the metal plates for the record. At some point I got into the money I intended to press the record with and spent it, don't ask me where, then the Rough Trade distribution system collapsed and I couldn't go through them. It was largely mismanagement on my part.

How is it that you can record four albums of original material in less than three months and still have songs left over?

I used to worry about having to come up with a song on the spur of the moment. I was worried about having something ready for the "Final Day" single because those YMG songs were written for Alison to sing and at the time there weren't any leftovers. Once you've written a couple hundred you come to know that they won't just stop one day. I could record ten or twelve good albums a year, I think, without any problem. In my notebooks there are eighteen or nineteen hundred songs, complete with lyrics and music, with some sort of arrangement described on paper. Some songs have nine or ten different arrangements in versions that I've recorded at home. (Another note: one of the best unreleased songs is "Here Comes Love," originally intended to be the fourth Gist single, which exists in a standard rock & roll version, synth pop version, folk version, and Pet Sounds-style version, complete with chimes and tubular bells -- these are just the versions I've happened to hear. Stuart claims he will be recording this for the FGAO album as a mariachi tune, complete with real Mexican backup musicians that the amazing Kingsize Sound Lab people "know.") I'm happy about the Barbara Manning record because I have lots of songs I wrote for a woman to sing; one of the ones I have for her is a Young Marble Giants song from 1979 that we never got around to recording. So it'll be good to clear out some of those.

Besides naming big pop stars who'd make you rich, what artists would you like to see cover your songs?

I have a song for everyone. It would be nice to hear Brian Eno or Bowie give one a try because I've been a fan of theirs for a long time. That group you played for me last night, Yo La Tengo, they had good arrangements and playing. That'd be nice.

Okay, last question. What'll you do when you get home?

It's straight back in the studio with Phil (Stuart's brother), Alison (Statton, both formerly of YMG), Spike and Andrew, to record the Vinyl Japan record. I'm going to work on a project with Lora Logic; write some more songs.