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:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6vwzNxrf4muk78YGUgN9EY?si=d6_sUqNeT-q4M_mYoCD-_w