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Photo - Alessandra Sartore 1981
BLUE
BURNING SOUL
Helen Fitzgerald - 1981
Matt Johnson has been in various bands since he was eleven
and is the founder member of TheThe. His musical output
is considerable, but with the recent release of a thoroughly
magical solo album he has proved to be a contributor to the
small pool of contemporary music which reaches far beyond
the puerile levels which are all too prevalent at the present
time.
A Hypnotic collection of musical ideas and expression coupled
with lyrics so truthfully naive they make you wince. This
record touches parts others cannot reach. Its difficult
to explain the effect produced - did you ever read a paragraph
in a book and gasp with recognition at its exact description
of how you feel or have felt... and wish to hell you’d
written it? Forget Smirnoff ... Burning Blue Soul will
leave you breathless.
Matt is quietly articulate with a contempt for the ritualistic
herd syndrome of London night life, who admits that he’s
a depressive and takes off for days to write and work in the
Suffolk countryside where he feels more at home.
MJ: With The The I began to hate doing gigs - we got
banned from everywhere - the Rock Garden, 101 Club,
The Clarendon. I hated performing and used to get drunk
and smash things up - people would throw glasses, that’s
just the way things were then. Now we’ve all changed
a lot but I still hate the whole club scene - I used to go
out a lot, try and believe I was enjoying myself but now I
don’t feel as though I’m missing anything by staying
in. It’s like Soft Cell’s Bedsitland - a lot
of sad people live their lives anticipating their night life
... pretending to each other that they’re enjoying themselves.
HF: How did The The evolve?
MJ: I’d been in a lot of bands when I was
younger. Rock, heavy metal, punk - you name it!
I decided to advertise to try to form the kind of band I wanted.
We were originally a four piece, me, Keith Laws, Tom Johnston
on bass and Pete Ashworth, a photographer friend, on
drums. We played our first gigs with Scritti Politti
and Prag Vec. The The was the ultimate name we thought,
when other bands had elaborate and meaningful names, but like
I said at one point it just went over the top. Through
Tom, who was also our manager, we got to know Bruce Gilbert
and Graham Lewis who were then in Wire. They produced
a single for us and 4AD picked it up and released it.
We’ve broken up about five times, but Keith and I still
work together sometimes and we did a track for Stevo on the
Some Bizarre album last year.
HF: And The Gadgets?
MJ: Well, I was working for a while in a recording
studio, I was able to mess around with sounds and effects
when the studio was free. The Gadgets were just a studio
experiment - we all wanted to experiment with the type of
sound we could produce. They’ve had two albums released
- the last one, they just went into the studio and recorded
it live. It’s been pigeonholed as a very technical
studio band. On that one instruments were just passed around
and the whole thing was put down as it was. The Gadgets are
really just a side-line thing for me - I hate to be inactive
and I enjoy working. In a certain sense it’s unfortunate
that I had to choose music as a medium of expression as there
are so many vacuous people involved in the industry - people
who just project an image of their vacant selves to others,
dressing up is the only way they can express themselves.
A lot of the bands really amuse me too - as conforminst in
their non-conformity.
“But when you hide in your bed and you look in your
head you find you’ve gone deeper than you should - could
be your shallowness is your strength.”
‘DELIRIOUS’
HF: Burning Blue Soul seems to have been an exorcism of these
feelings - a renunciation of things past. All of your
lyrics are very definite and descriptive projections of your
own feelings and sometimes confused emotions... very personal
to yourself yet they touch a lot of people very deeply.
MJ: Yeah? I played it for friends first to see their
reaction, someone else said it was like a purge, a release.
A rejection of the music would have upset me -because there
is so much of myself on this record - it would have been like
when someone tells a bad joke and no-one laughs.
I was pleased that different people picked up on particular
rhythms or lyrics in various places, that there had been no
favourite track - I’d hoped to escape that pitfall.
HF: Would you describe your music as psychedelic?
MJ: No, its release unfortunately coincided with
the psychedelic revival - but that’s dying a death now. The
album was not meant to be part of that at all.
HF: But you cant deny the whole acid trip drifting feeling
the record evokes - even the title and sleeve contribute to
this idea.
MJ: Well, perhaps in retrospect it may have been the
wrong projection for the music - there probably is a 60’s
feel because all my favourite music is from that period.
I lived over a pub when I was growing up - music filtering
up through the floorboards - Tamla Motown, Donovan, stuff
like that. I suppose I must have been subconsciously
impregnated with it - I think my voice - the way I sing -
probably reflects those influences, all I’ve ever wanted
to do really is play me guitar.
This man’s album is not for those who function on an
emotional monotone. Songs like Time (again) For The Golden
Sunset, Bugle Boy and Another Boy Drowning express isolation
and despair that could never be just verbally articulated.
A self analysis that reaches a schizoid conclusion - a mixture
of inadequacy;
“I’m trying to tell something to the world but
my words are slurred and slow - have you ever been caught
in a dream where legs were froze, I was left along with my
thoughts and my guitar. But it felt helpless ike the
desire of the moth, for the star”
‘BUGLE BOY’
And a sense of distance and detachment from the vacant meanderings
of politics and the whole mortal coil;
“I think we should pretend that nothings going wrong
in our world tonight -
nothing we dont understand ... and I’m doing the best
that I can. Am I locked up forever in a picture of despair.
I’ve put my spirit onto paper and into words. I’ve
opened my eyes and I’ve realised. Who I really am.”
‘TIME AGAIN (FOR THE GOLDEN SUNSET)’
Theres a lot of anger too - East London saw its share of unrest
last Summer.
“There’s people on the streets throwing rocks
at themselves, coz they ain’t got no money and they’re
living in hell. But there’s animals down the road adding
fuel to this heat. It never did take much guts to be a sheep.”
‘Another Boy Drowning’
MJ: It really annoyed me - there were kids of eleven
and twelve being egged on by extremist organisations who were
capitalising on local unrest. And I hate it when bands patronise
these kids - writing songs about the dreariness and frustration
of life on the dole - but their own lifestyles are so far
removed from these realities.
Musically, the cacophony of instruments build up a woven sub-structure
of rising and ebbing rhythm that in itself evokes enough feeling
to please even the most dour heart. Gilbert & Lewis
contribute their unique style on The River - throbbing rhythmic
chanting which hypnotises the mind and gently carries it over
to the next track. The production is excellent, Matt
and Ivo (a patron of the arts) being mainly responsible with
some help from Bruce and Graham. I want to proclaim
the merits of this album to the world - but I covet it for
myself... I want to retire to my room and wallow in it alone.
HF: Well, what projects are unfolding at the moment?
MJ: The The could do something at any time (they
played recently at the Venue with Colin Newman) and Im working
with Simon Turner, an old friend, on some joint material.
Simons an ex-actor and pop star, he used to be in Tom Brown’s
schooldays! He works in an art gallery now and is producing
some really good music. We both feel that gigging is
a pointless ritual and were working on presenting something
in an art gallery perhaps. The main project at the moment
though is with Tom Johnston and Michael OShea. Michael is
an amazing musician - you might have heard him busking in
Covent Garden with his Zither - he’s just had an album
released on Dome Records and is producing some very unique
music. And of course Tom I’ve worked with many
times before. The resulting album should be ready for
release this summer - we’re not sure yet whos going to
release it ... you never know, maybe we’ll start our
own label!
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