For two brief years at the dawn of the 1980s Josef K gave the
Postcard label its sharpest cutting edge.
Although outlived - and
outsold - by labelmates Orange Juice and Aztec Camera, Josef K's
flame burned brightest, while their influence has touched bands
as diverse as Propaganda and the Wedding Present. Yet just as
interesting are the subsequent solo careers of all four members,
which include stints with Orange Juice, Aztec Camera and 4AD
outfit the Happy Family. Not to mention the undervalued body of
solo work produced by enigmatic frontman Paul Haig.
TV ART
Inspired by the heady punk summer of 1977, and later Pere Ubu and
the New York art-punk sounds of the Velvet Underground and
Television, Josef K came together in Edinburgh in mid-1978 as TV
Art. Initially a three-piece, guitarists Paul Haig and Malcolm
Ross and drummer Ron Torrance were briefly joined by bassist Gary
McCormack, later to find fame of another kind with the Exploited.
After David Weddell took over on bass early in 1979 the group
began gigging locally, joining a thriving Edinburgh scene which
also included the Associates, the Visitors, TV21, Fire Engines,
the Scars and Another Pretty Face.
At this point, Haig and Ross shared lead vocals, both apparently
being strongly reminiscent of Lou Reed. It therefore came as no
great surprise that their covers included the Velvet's Sweet Jane
and I'm Waiting for the Man, as well as Be My Wife (Bowie),
Psycho Killer (Talking Heads) and Marquee Moon (Television).
Summer 1979 saw TV Art change their name to Josef K, a reflection
of Haig's then-current fascination with Czech writer Franz Kafka.
Like another influence, avant punks Subway Sect, the group took
to sporting sharp monochrome suits - from Oxfam. Josef K also
recorded their first eight-song studio demo tape with the
intention of landing a deal with a credible label such as Radar
or Rough Trade, though these embryonic songs failed to elicit
much interest.
Of this formative period, Malcolm Ross would later comment:
"Josef K was like a gang. We would all hang out together. We
didn't like talking to promoters and such. It was
snobbishness to an extent. We just thought that they
weren't in the gang or on the same wavelength. I suppose we
were quite puritanical. We didn't like sexism or
laddishness... It was modernist. I was quite interested in
the original mod movement, and that was one of the
influences in wearing suits. Again, it was a reaction to
the whole dirty, long-haired thing that punk reacted to,
but punk wasn't too far off it either. Punks were just as
dirty. I didn't like that - I wanted some kind of dignity.
We were forward looking.
None of us had ever played in groups prior to punk so it
gave us clean slate. Whereas you could tell the bands who
had, because they would chuck in rock guitar cliches here,
there and everywhere. We never did. Paul and I were always
striving to be, if not experimental, at least not cliched."
ABSOLUTE POSTCARD
Meanwhile, a chance encounter with Steven Daly, drummer with
Glasgow band Orange Juice, lead to a loose alliance between the
two bands, who began playing out together, alternating headline
status on one another's home turf. After Daly set up his own
label, Absolute, Chance Meeting by Josef K became its first (and
last) release. Both sides were lifted straight from the earlier
demo, and although initial sales were modest on release in
November 1979, BBC radio airplay from John Peel afforded the band
a degree of national exposure.
Edwyn Collins and Alan Horne, singer and manager respectively of
Orange Juice, subsequently set up Postcard Records, to which
Josef K duly signed. Arty and camp, Postcard stood in stark
contrast to the colourless majority of independent labels of the
'cold wave' era. The second Josef K single, Radio Drill Time, was
recorded in April 1980 during a shared session with Orange Juice,
who cut Blue Boy. The flipside, Crazy To Exist, is credited as
'live', but was in truth recorded in a cottage in Fife. As well
as doubling up on studio time, both records also appeared in the
same sleeve, a double-sided wraparound affair, many of which were
arduously hand-coloured.
Radio Drill Time found favour with the rock weeklies, who now
ventured north to check out 'the Sound Of Young Scotland', a
phrase appropriated by Horne from Motown. In consequence Josef
K played their London debut in October, and one month later
released It's Kinda Funny. Easily their most relaxed and
reflective single, Funny earned them the kind of hyperbolic
reviews that in time came to weigh increasingly heavily on the
group. Interestingly, the song would also prove the most durable
oldie in Haig's solo live set.
DEBUT ALBUM
November 1980 also saw the band record their debut album, Sorry
For Laughing, a record which (until its appearance on CD in 1990)
quickly joined the pantheon of Great Lost Albums. Twelve tracks
were cut, test pressings made, and a deluxe silver sleeve proofed
- yet at the eleventh hour the release was cancelled. Over the
years an astonishing stock of rumour has attached to the record,
while even at the time no little hype surrounded its
cancellation. Horne claimed that the twelve-song set was too
well-produced (!), while rumours abounded of several thousand
finished copies being destroyed.
Later, the band would claim that the mix was unsatisfactory (as
in too bass-heavy and clean), and that it failed to represent
their blistering live sound. Certainly, most of the songs were
already old, and the album gave little indication of what th
group proved capable of delivering just nine months later with
the Only Fun In Town. Yet while many subsequently judged Sorry
For Laughing a more listener-friendly set than its successor,
it's an inferior piece of art. And collectors are warned against
paying hundreds of pounds for test pressings, it being rumoured
that rather more than the usual handful were pressed, with the
express object of producing saleable rarities.
Thus Sorry For Laughing would gather dust in a vault for a
decade. Ever uncompromising, Josef K were already displaying a
marked disdain for careerist notions, even going so far as to
boast of making only one or two albums before splitting in a
blaze of glory.
THE CREPUSCULE CONNECTION
In December 1980 Orange Juice and Josef K travelled to Brussels
at the invitation of Les Disques du Crepuscule for a New Year's
Eve concert at Plan K. The date also featured Brussels p-funk
enigma Marine, a jazz band and silent films. Manager Allan
Campbell recalls:
"The concert was invaded by a group of inebriated punks, one
of whom threw a plate of food in Edwyn Collins' face when
he was onstage. The OJ singer retaliated with a kick. By
the time Josef K appeared feelings in the crowd were
running high. A fight broke out in front of the stage and
the group had to stop playing while the promoters attempted
to sort things out."
Indeed, at a distance of twenty years, it is easy to overlook the
fact that Josef K considered themselves a live rather than a
studio band. Allan Campbell again:
"Since their early live shows with the likes of Echo and the
Bunnymen, the Cure, Magazine and the Clash (where they were
heckled for being 'mods'), they were now becoming
formidable live performers. In concert was the place to
truly experience Ross and Haig's sensational guitar work.
Ross' lead playing in particular was inspiring. Fiery,
committed and ringing, it was a key element in the group's
sound. Onstage was where Josef K made most sense.
It was becoming increasingly apparent that Josef K weren't
the serious young men that they first appeared to be. A
penchant for psychedelic shirts, the occasional kaftan and
liquid light projection was their tongue-in-cheek way of
repudiating their monochromatic image. Because Haig refused
to talk to the audiences (part of their anti-showbusiness
stance; neither would they play encores or sign autographs)
he would tape song introductions and play them over the PA.
Later, he and Ross would expand this to include their own
versions of some old Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis routines -
"Did you take a bath this morning?" / "Why? Is there one
missing?."
During the first visit to Brussels Josef K also re-recorded the
track Sorry For Laughing for single release. When Crepuscule
released the record in April 1981 it was rightly hailed as the
group's strongest offering to date, and established the
definitive Josef K style of circular rhythms paired with incisive
guitar angles. Indeed, the song became so highly regarded that
German sophisticates Propaganda later covered it (albeit blandly)
on their acclaimed ZTT album A Secret Wish.
CHANCE MEETING
Horne, upset that the groups' best single yet was to appear on
another label, pressed Josef K into re-recording Chance Meeting
for Postcard, thus triggering a frantic six-month burst of
activity. In March, several songs from the scrapped debut album
were donated to the BBC as a fake John Peel radio session, while
in April the band crossed to Brussels again to play several more
shows, and to record their debut album a second time. Chance
Meeting, released in June, was far superior to the Absolute
version eighteen months earlier and, complete with added brass,
saw Josef K beginning to sound like a bona fide pop band.
This overt commercial edge, together with a distinct funkiness,
was further developed that same month by their one proper Peel
session. Bearing in mind that these four songs were to prove
Josef K's last recordings together, their excellence makes the
demise of the group all the more heartbreaking. Heaven Sent and
Missionary were the new songs, two fine slices of looping punk-
funk, the latter heavily influenced by Life in Reverse, a single
by Brussels band Marine released on Crepuscule in April. However
the biggest surprise came with a charming Alice Cooper cover -
Applebush - sung by Ross's wife, Susan Buckley.
THE ONLY FUN IN TOWN - PARADISE BUNGLED
Although expectations for the 'debut' album were now running
high, it met with mixed reaction upon release in July. Although
praised in Melody Maker, The Only Fun in Town was roundly slated
by Sounds, while Paul Morley, writing in the NME, bemoaned:
"...an artificial paradise totally bungled. Fun is not much
at all chasing itself in dizzying circles. Somewhere
between the chunky echo beat and the wound down punk bleat,
through a large door and down a shady lane, in the hands of
a world famous producer, lies smart and shirty and
splenetic. The Josef K Sound that would present their songs
with class.
The precarious balance between reality and reverie is lost,
lost, lost, the reduced production degenerates rather than
glorifies the escapist desires and poetic fancy. Fun is
subdued not sublime: an errant substitute for what could
have been... Singer Paul Haig is brilliant. He acts rich -
as the group should do, as the production should be - but
he alone cannot stop Fun being scruffy. I am appalled. Will
there be a third time? Can they forget their past? Is
what's lost all? Josef K have cheapened themselves and
cheated the world: not bad for a first LP."
Barely half an hour long, comprising many familiar songs from
singles, and blessed with a hyper-bright production that belied
the six day schedule in a Belgian eight-track studio, TOFIT
arrived as a shock indeed to anyone expecting Josef K to turn in
the brand of sophisticated pop subterfuge that, say, the
Associates would produce a year later with Sulk.
Haig now reflects that:
"I think we committed commercial suicide. When we were
mixing the album, we wanted it to sound like a live
concert, because we were so into playing live. I purposely
mixed down my own vocals. God knows why. I regret that."
Nonetheless TOFIT remains a dazzling record, featuring ten left-
handed pop nuggets of undeniable genius, and while very much the
uncompromising 'punk' album both band and Horne had long
promised, it effortlessly topped the alternative charts for
several weeks. The album also stands as the only album that the
original Postcard label ever got around to releasing.
CRAZY TO EXIST?
By way of promotion Josef K set out on a lengthy UK tour during
July and August, with boy wonders Aztec Camera in support. The
last London show, at the Venue, is preserved on the 'Crazy to
Exist' CD. However, the final Scottish date at Glasgow Maestro's
would prove their last. The exact reasons behind the split -
principally Haig's decision - remain obscure, although it would
appear that a combination of too-great expectations, small
incomes, Haig's dislike of touring and unspecified disagreements
over future direction were primarily to blame. Rather fancifully,
Alan Horne saw fit to blame the NME. Whatever the cause, one of
the Great White Hopes of the decade had self-destructed after
just one album, thus fulfilling their own brash prophecy.
Interviewed by Johnny Waller in Sounds early the following year,
Haig confessed:
"I was pretty depressed for a week because it was the end of
an era, but after that I was really happy that we'd split,
because I could get on with everything I wanted to do. I
don't listen to any of those records now. It's all gone.
Nothing from that period interests me, except maybe Sorry
for Laughing. We didn't really get on all that well towards
the end. We didn't have anything in common, so there were
no jokes, no happy feeling. It was just down to doing a
job. Josef K weren't that famous anyway. We've split up, so
what? Everybody changes."
More tellingly, the singer revealed:
"I've lost alot of the ideals I had in Josef K. About not
wanting to be commercially successful, suffering for your
art and all that. Not that I wasn't sincere about it at the
time... But I got sick of it. I want to be signed to a
major and make a great record that will get radio airplay
and be a big hit, then make my own money from that. I don't
mind being manipulated to a certain extent in order to get
what I want, but in time I want to control everything."
It's an ideal which Haig, perhaps to his detriment, has never
strayed. But before going on to examine the subsequent careers
of all four members, it is worth jumping forward in time and
covering the many posthumous Josef K releases.
THE RECORDED LEGACY
First came Crepuscule's 'Farewell Single' in 1982, combining
Missionary (from the Peel session) with two instrumental takes
on the Angle (from TOFIT). Former manager Allan Campbell (who
also oversaw Haig's solo career until 1984) then took charge of
the back catalogue via his Supreme International Editions label,
issuing an ep featuring Heaven Sent (Peel again) as the lead
track, and a compilation album, Young and Stupid. The track
selection of the latter - undertaken by the band themselves -
left a little to be desired, presenting neither an accurate
overview of their career, or a complete collection of wallet-
withering single sides which had rapidly become pricey New Wave
rarities. Fortunately, in 1990 LTM collected every
Josef K song ever committed to vinyl (together with demo tracks,
the Peel session and the shelved album) onto two remastered
compact discs.
In Japan, the LTM CD releases were split into three, with the
addition of a 'Rare Live' set identical to the first 12 tracks
on the live album eventually released worldwide by LTM in 2000.
German label Marina released a fine 'greatest hits' set titled
Endless Soul on CD in 1998 (with great sleevenotes by Allan
Campbell), while the following year Creation offshoot RevOla
reissued the LTM CD coupling of Sorry For Laughing and The Only
Fun In Town.
In the years immediately following their breakup Josef K would spawn a
legion of imitators, a perhaps questionable legacy given that
their influence was chiefly mirrored in the shambling C86-stable.
The direct covers and tributes number just three: Sorry For
Laughing (Propaganda), It's Kinda Funny (the Confettis), and a
heartfelt adieu from the June Brides, titled Josef's Dead.
