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Clive's Bands: Deaf School, Clive Langer and the Boxes
Deafschool - The Liverpool, England art rock band Deaf School turned to the Tin Pan Alley sound, not punk, as an alternative to the commercial music of the 70s. Formed in 1976 by Steve Allen (vocals), Bette Bright (vocals), Clive Langer (guitar, piano), Max Ripple (keyboards, accordion), Steve Lindsey (bass, piano, vocals), Timothy Whittaker (drums), Ian Ritchie (sax), Eric Shark (vocals), and Paul Pilnick (guitar, accordion, bass, banjo). Deaf School made their debut with a double album, 2nd Honeymoon. Influenced by Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, and Kurt Weill, 2nd Honeymoon was an ambitious anomaly in a late 70s U.K. pop scene caught in a wave of punk. Deaf School recorded two more LPs of damn-the-mainstream eclecticism, 1977's Don't Stop the World and 1978's English Boys/Working Girls, and then broke up. Allen, who was calling himself Enrico Cadillac with Deaf School, formed Original Mirrors with Ian Broudie of Care and the Lightning Seeds; Langer, backed by the Boxes, went solo; Bright released an album with the Illuminations (also featuring Langer and Broudie; and Lindsey created the Planets. Langer became more well known as a producer with his partner Alan Winstanley, working on records by Madness, Elvis Costello, China Crisis, Tim Finn, and Morrissey.
As Producer - with partner Alan Winstanley, Clive Langer was among the top British producers of the new wave era, helming records for Madness, Elvis Costello and Lloyd Cole & the Commotions. He began his music career during the mid-1970s as a guitarist in the band Deaf School, going solo with backing band the Boxes in 1979 with the album I Want the Whole World. With Madness' 1979 debut LP One Step Beyond, Langer and Winstanley teamed for the first time as co-producers, inaugurating a partnership which continued for several decades. After collaborating on Madness' 1980 record Absolutely, the duo moved on to the Teardrop Explodes' Kilimanjaro; a year later, they helmed Seven for the former group and Wilder for the latter before teaming with Costello for 1983's Punch the Clock, the album which launched his first American hit, "Everyday I Write the Book."A year later, Langer and Winstanley reunited with Costello for Goodbye Cruel World; they also produced Lloyd Cole's 1985 album Easy Pieces. China Crisis' What Price Paradise? followed in 1986, and as the decade drew to a close the duo's production schedule began to slow down -- their most notable new partnership was with the group Hothouse Flowers, for whom they produced 1988's People as well as 1990's Home. The new decade also saw Langer and Winstanley teaming up with Morrissey for his Bona Drag LP; a year later, they contributed several tracks to his Kill Uncle. Singles with Costello and Tim Finn were among the duo's most notable projects over the next several years, in 1994 they returned to the charts in style with Bush's best-selling Sixteen Stone.
Shipbbuilding is a song Clive originally wrote for Robert Wyatt but wasn't happy with the lyrics. He played the tune to Elvis Costello at a party hosted by Nick Lowe, and within days Costello had written lyrics he described at the time as the best lyrics he'd ever written.