Bands/Artists We Love – Michael Head/Shack
The
penultimate act in this series of ten (in no particular order) is the great
Michael Head, the man the NME once put on their cover naming him “Our Greatest
Songwriter”….followed by “Do You Recognize him?”. And that is in a few words
the story of Mick Head, a lost genius who is criminally underrated, not nearly
as famous as he should be, but a cult hero to all of those who like me have
been lucky enough to come across his music.
Mick has
had various incarnations during his career: The Pale Fountains in the 80’s,
Shack in the 90’s and 00’s, The Strands for one magical album in the 90’s and
this past decade it’s been Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band. I love all
of his music, to me it’s all Mick Head really, but if I had to choose a
favorite, it would be Shack and his new stuff with the Red Elastic Band.
I
discovered Mick’s music in 2013 after reading a Uncut Magazine newsletter in
which its author praised his recently released EP Artorius Revisited. That got
me curious so after reading about him (that NME cover really got me intrigued)
I bought Pacific Street (from the Pale Fountains) and HMS Fable (from Shack)
online. I listened to the Paleys first and loved it, but once I played Shack
for the first time, I was hooked forever….a truly life changing experience for
me.
Being the
obsessive music fan that I am, I started to hunt down every single release by
Mick I could find. This was not an easy task as many of his albums were out of
print on CD, I won’t even mention all the effort it took me to get his albums
on vinyl.
Mick’s
music is what I can truly define as beautiful music. He’s had to overcome many
problems in his life and that fragility shines in his lyrics. It’s thanks to
Mick that I have also discovered other artists I now love like Ian Prowse and
The Real People who were both recommended to me by a good mate from Liverpool
who thought I’d be into them since I liked Mick. A curious recommendation came
from someone in Germany who recommended another band on Shack’s former record
label after I contacted them regarding a Shack album I was looking for, that
recommendation was The Pearlfishers who are now one of my all-time favorite
bands as well.
I could
write and write about all his albums and how much I love them but I will only
mention one I haven’t so far and that one is Waterpistol (my favorite of his
work along with HMS Fable). Waterpistol is not only a thing of beauty (just
listen to Undecided and you’ll see what I mean), but it also has a story that is the stuff of a legend. The short version is: this was the album that was
supposed to give them their big break, they recorded it but there was a fire in
the studio and all the tapes were lost. They realize that the producer had
taken a DAT tape with the album with him to America so after he returns from
his trip, he realizes he left it on the glove compartment of his rental car.
They hunt it down with the car rental company and finally recover it only to
realize that their record company went broke….the story goes on until a few
years later a label from Germany (Marina) rescues this lost gem and releases it
finally. I might have gotten a few details wrong but that’s the story I have
after researching the subject. I truly hope this album is released again one
day and that a documentary tells the incredible story of Shack and Waterpistol.
Both Waterpistol and Artorius Revisited are amongst the most precious vinyl
records in my collection.
Before I
finish I have to mention that one of the reasons why I love Shack so much is
because it was a group effort, or a family effort if you may. Mick’s brother
John Head was the guitarist, occasional singer and songwriter on both Shack and
The Strands. His contributions were extremely important, just listen to
Beautiful and Cornish Town on HMS Fable and you’ll see that genius runs in the
Head family.
As usual I
will leave you with a playlist of my favorite songs from Michael Head’s career,
but unfortunately this one is incomplete as for some unexplainable reason,
Waterpistol, the Corner Of Miles And Gil and Zilch are not available on Spotify
down here in Ecuador (probably a geographical thing???!!!).
So here’s a
short teaser of a playlist, but please look into his other albums as you’ll be
hooked for sure:
Great post, Charles. The Artorius Revisited EP is perfection.
ReplyDeleteIt absolutely is!
Deleteyou still need the Pale Fountains Live LP!
ReplyDeleteWhich one is that mate? I do have the Always On My Mind vinyl/cd released in 2013 and I am now getting the Longshot For Your Love compilation on vinyl (already have it on CD). Am I missing another release???
Delete