In part two of the special extended feature on Saint Etienne and their legacy, Martin Gray continues his look back at the band’s music as they hit the second decade of their existence in the 2000s, focusing on some of the key releases that soundtracked his years during this period.
The onset of the new millennium – the lauded 2000s – arrived amid a great tidal wave of media (and social) hype. By this point seismic changes had occurred with everybody now connected via the internet and the gradual emergence of smartphones completely transforming the way we lived and socialised and documented our lives. It was also, for me personally, a more challenging period, a time of further change, unwanted transition, and, unfortunately, saw yet more trauma and heartbreak later on. But I could at least always count on one thing to turn to during such difficult times.
Out with the old and in with the new
One major regret that still rankles with me to this day is how – and this is before the era of digital cameras – I never managed to take many photographs of the countless concerts (including Saint Etienne) that I went to during the 1990s – even though I had both my Pentax SLR and compact 35mm film cameras that were pretty much still fully working. I took hundreds of pictures over the years of practically everything and everywhere I ventured, just not at live concerts for some reason. The only exceptions were at a couple of Stereolab gigs in 1996/1997 and one Saint Etienne show in 1998 (Good Humor tour). That was about it. Quite a meagre return it has to be said. And even then it was only barely a dozen shots. Unthinkable now when you put that into context against what people have been doing ever since the internet exploded and smartphones are now practically welded to one’s hands and regarded as extra appendages.
Even when I was enjoying the euphoric adrenalin blasts playing live with Goldblade between 2000-2005, going stir crazy and totally gonzoid nuts on stage, I never once took my camera to capture any of those moments for posterity. And, evidently, neither did many other people for that matter because – as I said – smartphones were not yet de rigueur and very little, if any, video footage even exists of the gigs we did that featured myself in the band’s line up. Suffice to say it’s with the greatest regret that all of those wonderful moments are forever destined to languish in the mists of my own memory having never been documented on film.
Lover Plays The Bass (France-only single, 1999)
52 Pilot/Garage For Gunther (US-only single, 1999)
Saturday/F32 (split single, 1999)
Built On Sand (Rarities: 1994-1999) (album [fan club release], 1999)
The Misadventures Of Saint Etienne (Japanese-only soundtrack album, 1999)
Places To Visit (US-only mini-LP, 1999)
Still in 1999 for a moment, just before the new decade came into being, Saint Etienne had already shown us just how prolific they were when they released not one, not two, but three new sets of recordings on various labels: a second fan-club only collection of more outtakes and curios titled Built On Sand – their first official release on their new label Mantra (having departed from the Creation stable after 1998’s Good Humor), then another Japanese-only release on the label L’Appareil-Photo, which contained the entire soundtrack to a film The Misadventures Of Margaret, now titled The Misadventures Of Saint Etienne. This resplendent dream-like soundtrack featured some of the most blissful and celestial numbers they had yet come up with. It’s still among my top five most played and adored Saint Etienne albums of all time. There is a surprisingly high quotient of exquisitely divine moments on Misadventures (Jack Lemmon, Saturday, Find Me A Boy, Edward Undecided, Do It All, and many of the pretty lone piano interludes). I’ve seldom ever played an album whose overriding transcendental beauty often moves me profoundly to tears of both melancholy and euphoria, but that is exactly what happens every time.
Intriguingly, there are also some recurring motifs (heard on the opening, mid-way and closing interludes) that already featured on the Continental album’s opener Shad Thames. Plus, Saint Etienne also have this uncanny knack for hiding on such albums absolute killer tunes* that would be a number 1 for sixteen weeks in a parallel and more enlightened universe. In this instance it’s The Way I Fell For You – the penultimate track on Misadventures. If a single pop song could simultaneously be the most huggable furry pet on earth as well as the most delightfully scrumptious dessert then that one would be it.
*see also: Sometimes In Winter and Lonesome, both on Continental.
As if that were not enough, in the US, on the Sub Pop label, they issued Places To Visit, a seven track mini-LP/maxi-EP again featuring unreleased new songs such as 52 Pilot, Garage For Gunther, We’re In The City and Sadie’s Anniversary (a lovely lilting ballad that could also have sat perfectly on Misadventures…). Then three different seven-inch singles (one a split with French artist Fugu where they remixed each other’s tracks) – again on other labels – followed in quick succession.
Places To Visit was an intriguing release, featuring as it did a motley assortment of styles and sounds, as well as varied contributors: Gerard Johnson again (a key Saint Etienne collaborator in years to come), the Trouser Enthusiasts, Sean O’ Hagan, Jim O’ Rourke and Dominic Murcott (with the latter three also having close ties with Stereolab). If anything this brief detour served as a timely forerunner for the forthcoming new Saint Etienne material that would arrive the following year in 2000 proper.
When a band are this prodigious in their output, sometimes you start pondering (not unreasonably) if that might come at the expense of quality control. Well, the truth is, one need not worry. Much like the aforementioned Stereolab – again very prolific in their releases especially during the 1990s – there is very little chaff among the wheat here.
How We Used To Live (EP) (single, 2000)
Tell Me Why (The Riddle) (Paul van Dyk feat. Saint Etienne, single, 2000) UK #7
Sound Of Water (album, 2000) UK #33
Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi) (single, 2000) UK #50
Boy Is Crying (single, 2001) UK #34
The first taster of the new album Sound Of Water (recorded in Berlin at the studio of German electronic band To Rococo Rot) was an ambitious nine-minute multi-part epic entitled How We Used To Live released in March 2000. The track was consciously named after the old 1970s ITV Schools and Colleges programme that some of us kids back in the day would regularly tune into. Much like the track Avenue before it, it is comprised of several distinct sections that touch on different styles, opening with a slow ballad arrangement with lovely sympathetic orchestration (arranged by Sean O’Hagan of the High Llamas) before transforming into a gently rotating mirror-ball illuminated 4/4 disco thumper, and then slowing down again for a reflective autumnal coda complete with birdsong to finish off with.
Two months later in May, Saint Etienne enjoyed their biggest UK hit by far when their collaboration with German trance DJ/remixer Paul van Dyk, Tell Me Why (The Riddle), hit the giddy heights of #7 in the charts. Twice they hit the top 10 now with a single not using exclusively their own name (the first was with Cola Boy’s Seven Ways To Love, #8 in 1991). That said, Tell Me Why was a generic and perfunctory club-friendly Euro-trance workout that – for me at any rate – offered comparatively little by way of interest.
The album Sound Of Water itself marked another change of tack – this time adopting a more subtle and restrained undercarriage (courtesy of To Rococo Rot contributing to arrangements) but co-produced by the band and Gerard Johnson as well as strings by Sean O’Hagan. It was a more reflective and far less poppier affair than its predecessor Good Humor and if anything bore very little relation to it at all, with only two songs, Boy Is Crying and Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi), immediate enough to both be released as singles and lending themselves to customary remixing. Tellingly, the sequencing of the album gave it a more progressive edge: it even began with a tug of the forelock to Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s Pictures At An Exhibition (crowd and feedback noises creating a deceptively rousing intro) before easing into the calming instrumental Late Morning. There were lovely contemplative moments too: Just A Little Overcome, Sycamore, Downey CA, and the tranquil closer The Place At Dawn – a perfect counterpoint to the opening track. The album’s lush, ambient charms were far more subtle this time, taking several plays before they inevitably wrapped around the listener like that comforting blanket I so love speaking of.
Saint Etienne toured their Sound Of Water album in 2000 as well, affording me the chance to see them a fourth time in Manchester. Aside from these enjoyable moments, the onset of the new decade for me, otherwise, was one of crushing anti-climax. It didn’t help that we had the whole new millennium shebang rammed down our throats for months beforehand and then, to make things more difficult, there was all that talk of the dreaded Y2K (Millennium) Bug – that fear whereby anything computerised and digital would have trouble recognising the difference between the ’00’ in 2000 and in 1900, and everything would theoretically (or hypothetically) fall apart, with video machines and other devices failing to work, even planes dropping out of the sky and all that far-fetched malarkey.
Come to think of it, given how the advances in technology have proceeded at a frankly dizzying and unrelenting rate since (remember we still had dial up 56K internet back then: mostly purchased from those free CDs that Freeserve and AOL would provide) all that scaremongering seemed small fry and now so trivial as to be laughable. I mean, compared with how oppressively terrifying and messed up everything about the world and humanity is right now, the fear of the ‘Millennium Bug’ causing one’s devices to stop functioning in 2000 was positively a stroll in the park. It’s sobering to realise just how fragile and precariously volatile things are currently now that we’ve been subsumed into an all-seeing, all-controlling digital dystopia with no means of curtailment or turning back. At times such as these, it’s the least I can do to just say to hell with it, put on my favourite music, turn the volume up, breathe nice and deep, and slam that metaphorical door firmly shut on the pesky outside world that gives me so much grief.
Interlude (compilation album, 2001)
Smash The System (Singles And More) (compilation album, 2001) UK #84
Other than post-Christmas single Boy Is Crying, released at the start of 2001, Saint Etienne were quiet again that year other than the fact that the intervening gap between albums was filled once more by further compilations. US-only release Interlude collected together B-sides from the Sound Of Water and paired them with unreleased remixes of Lose That Girl and further new tracks including Mountain Rain, Queen Of Polythene, Le Ballade De Saint Etienne and a cover of Brian Wilson’s Stevie, whilst the band’s second major greatest hits collection Smash The System (Singles And More) – this time also taking in B-sides and album tracks up to 1999 – was issued. It was a more comprehensive sequel to Too Young To Die and the 2CD version featured simple effective cover art that reminded me uncannily of a Neapolitan ice cream (strawberry, vanilla and chocolate) and probably as irresistible and delectable as well, no doubt!
When shit happens (again), music comes to the rescue
My tenure with the punk rock renegades Goldblade continued to gather momentum (making a start on recording the first singles and album with them after a solid year spent gigging in various cities and towns up and down the country). Then a new bombshell loomed in 2001 when my employer and workplace, Stockport Council, set about restructuring their staff by reorganising their divisional departments, and, worst of all, changing people’s job descriptions against their wishes, and making hundreds redundant to save costs as a result of their dubious ‘streamlining efficiency drive’. I can say with absolute vehemence that once an organisation as big and formerly respected as a local authority start fucking around with such pointless superficial fripperies as ‘re-branding’ and ‘reinventing themselves’, it’s a recipe for disaster.
And so it proved. Within six months I was out, forced into voluntary redundancy, despite standing my corner with UNISON like many others possessed of integrity. Along with a few hundred other employees, we settled out of office on dubious ‘compromise agreements’ whereby they pay you off with a substantial severance. Bollocks to that. I was furious. That was more than 13 years of decent settled employment trashed in one fell swoop and in whose interests was that benefitting exactly? From that point onward I lost all respect for my former employers and – suffice to say – when, in the 1990s they were regularly among the top eight of best performing councils in the north of the UK in every annual poll, they now plummeted down the rankings and out of the top 25. And deservedly so.
Picking myself up, I used some of the severance to pay off part of my mortgage (sensible thing to do) and buy my first ever Apple i-Mac computer with some of the remainder, and then of course treat myself to another autumn trip to my beloved Netherlands (Haarlem / Amsterdam) where I’d returned already five times since my inaugural two visits in spring and summer of 1999.
Goldblade were waiting for me to join them for some more gigs so I took to those with fiery relish – using the opportunity as a means of purging my anger at betrayal by my former employers. I trashed the drums at every show with such crazed delirium that I almost did myself (and the second guitarist) a serious injury. Exactly one week after me exiting my job, I marked the ignominious occasion with what was probably one of the most momentous gigs I ever did with Goldblade: supporting the mighty Motörhead at Manchester Apollo. Yes you heard – Lemmy’s indefatigable rip roaring rock ‘n’ roll legends! The gig in mid-June 2001 was an absolute blast. I was too star-struck to actually speak to Mr. Ian Kilmister after the show (the rest of the band happily chewed the fat with him in the dressing room), but my own personal proudest moment was actually standing on the same stage as him, watching from the wings as he thundered through his set as only he could. It was simply awesome and will forever be etched in my memory as one of the biggest highs of my time playing with the band.
Gigs were coming in thick and fast – and a good job too, otherwise I would have been bored to distraction given my newly unemployed status. I’d since hopped between several different short-contract jobs with various design and marketing/publicity agencies in Manchester and Stockport but none of these posts lasted more than 16 months at most due to my restlessness and unwillingness to commit myself long term for various reasons. In July 2002, I experienced my first ever Holidays In The Sun (now Rebellion) Punk Festival in Blackpool with Goldblade which would also prove to be a truly memorable weekend. By the time I came back down to earth, a new Saint Etienne single was out: Action, a co-write between the band and members of Xenomania, released in August. How nice and timely, exactly what I needed.
Action (single, 2002) UK #41
Finisterre (album, 2002) UK #55
Shower Scene (single [Spain only], 2002)
Asleep At The Wheels Of Steel (album [fan club release], 2002)
Soft Like Me (single, 2003) UK #40
The band’s sixth UK album Finisterre followed in October, and again was a bit of a departure from the previous Sound Of Water. In collaboration with Xenomania/Mr Joshua, Gerard Johnson and regular early helmsman Ian Catt, Saint Etienne now forged with their new record a more electroclash direction, with a decisively analogue approach based on vintage 1980s synths. Conceptually, Finisterre (derived from the Shipping Forecast location and meaning in Latin ‘end of the earth’) was another Saint Etienne record about London, albeit this time a post-millennium London reconfigured in the intervening three decades and distinctly different from the one that informed the vibe of their first two albums. Somewhat more downcast, ponderous, and reflecting on a future that once held so much promise and endless possibilities but was now being gradually infected by opportunism as opposed to opportunity. The lyrics and sentiments held a mirror to this (evident in songs like Amateur, The More You Know, and the title track).
Opener Action was nevertheless a gleaming and pleasing-on-the-ear Euro-dance number with added acoustic guitars, but tracks such as Amateur, New Thing, and B92 showcased this harder synth sound. There were still mellower moments too such as the evocative instrumental Language Lab, the swoonsome ballad Stop And Think It Over, and the bucolic Summerisle which indeed evokes Wicker Man Soundtrack vibes in its folky samples and use of gently picked guitars. In addition, there was also an intriguing spoken narrative from guest Sarah Churchill on the plaintive and oblique title song, and everything was weaved together with brief recitations and quotes from veteran British actor Michael Jayston whose consciously erudite pronouncements between every track divided some fans as they felt this was an incongruity too far.
The sweetly catchy but curiously child-like canter that is Soft Like Me – with a rap performed by another female guest Wildflower – was the second single later taken from the album, but several months later in March 2003. The pulsating, throbbing electro of B92 laments the fact that the city can sometimes be a claustrophobic unforgiving place but then counters this with a knowing quote from Foxbase Alpha: ‘And nothing can stop us now / Ooh, here is our wall of sound’, as if to imply that music will always be the thing that saves the day. Inexplicably, one of the strongest tracks, the brash club-friendly Eurodance thump of Shower Scene, was only issued in Spain as a single but not in the UK. Generally, as seen in the album’s cover and booklet art showing examples of Brutalist London with choice quotations about our society, Finisterre reverberated with a more topically urban edge than its predecessor Sound Of Water, which in turn came across decidedly more rural and pastoral.
Unusually for Saint Etienne, they embarked on some tour dates in September 2002 before the album Finisterre was released the following month, with special guests Broadcast, which made for a delightful double header of two wonderfully magical and bewitching bands who were of course cut from similar creative cloths. Hearing the pure crystalline tones of Trish Keenan’s singing as her colleagues conjured up an eerie whirlpool of fantastically cryptic retro-futurist psych-jazz synth-pop was a joy. And then to have that followed by the Etienne doing what they do best, well, that was unquestionably a perfect tonic like no other.
This time around – in keeping with the album’s electronic approach – Saint Etienne showcased a much more minimal and stripped down stage set up – with only Bob and Pete (and no other live personnel) accompanying Sarah and Debsey singing upfront, with the set’s backing tracks now all sourced from the laptops / controllers alongside their keyboards. Projected visuals on the screen behind were of course still an integral part of proceedings. Bear in mind too that at this point all the fans had not yet heard a lot of the new Finisterre material so these new numbers were completely unfamiliar to us.
After-show meet ups with both bands again made the evening complete. I’d already caught Broadcast playing Manchester University when they did their own brief UK tour just a few months earlier and at the time their bass player/founder James Cargill, on realising that I was then contributing second drums to Goldblade, asked me if I was interested in doing the same for Broadcast as they didn’t as yet have a permanent drummer to replace Steve Perkins and Keith York who’d both already exited the ranks. I was kind of gobsmacked initially, but then I had to be realistic and confess to him that the main logistical problem would of course be geographical, so that opportunity was sadly kiboshed! But there’s still a little part of me that, with hindsight, wonders aloud to this day: ‘Ah, if only….’
Listen to an extract of a 2002 live festival performance by Saint Etienne here:
Travel Edition 1990-2005 (US compilation album, 2004)
Post-2002 tour, there ensued another comparatively lengthy gap with little activity. A third fan club only release was also issued, a brief soundtrack album titled Asleep At The Wheels Of Steel (Music For Lost And Other Films) featuring mostly instrumentals. Elsewhere the gap was once again plugged with a new 2004 compilation, this time on Sub Pop, titled Travel Edition 1990-2005 – a chronological singles collection that compiled together an abridged version of Smash The System along with later songs from the Sound Of Water/Finisterre eras together with two more unreleased tracks, Primrose Hill (an acoustic instrumental refrain of Soft Like Me), and a further absolute gem titled Fascination (written by Sarah Cracknell, Lawrence Oakley and Mark Waterfield). This latter airily atmospheric number happily sits alongside some of their finest ever songs and once again perfectly demonstrates how effortlessly Saint Etienne can come up with truly majestic tunes that are not always necessarily released as singles.
New horizons and new opportunities
In 2004, I was still collaborating with Goldblade now and then but was playing fewer gigs due to my increasing hatred of the tedium of travelling between venues (and also my sheer boredom at the other things that are less enjoyable about playing gigs – soundchecks, the crashing on floors, the drag of ensuring decent food and drink, etc). By the time I was working at a print firm in Manchester, in November that year, I had already decided that two things were on the horizon: I was going to move away from my profession (been toiling away at the design lark since 1988) and also maybe rethink my future with Goldblade.
Things came to a head in my job in late February 2005 when the narcissistic manager who co-ran the printers wound me up the wrong way on one occasion too many, when he made a sarcastic dig that was totally unwarranted. I will not repeat any of it here suffice to say it was inherently racist. So – utterly fed up with his lickspittle-tongued lack of decorum – I quickly decided that was the perfect opportunity to tell him where to stick it. After enduring and putting up with his pathetic petty surliness and complete disrespect for three months into what was a six month contract, I kicked them into touch, and walked out of that job… and out of graphic design and printing altogether, unsure of where I was heading next.
As it happened, I took myself off on a trip to Whitby with one of my best friends – a photography lecturer at Preston University – for a few days to clear my head. Ironically it was almost fourteen years to the month that I first visited Whitby (March 1991) – then with my partner at the time, so very heavy emotional memories of that came flooding back, sending me into a bit of a maudlin moment given the tragic events which happened shortly afterwards. But the break did me some good anyway, just being in the vast open spaces and the very fine North Yorkshire coast, forever one of my favourite parts of the country.
On my return I decided to visit Manchester University’s Museum, and I promptly enquired within as to whether there were any opportunities for voluntary work there as I loved the place. To my surprise they duly said yes, and within a few weeks I was helping out there two days a week in the natural history and object handling sections. It was a great experience and it began my thirteen year long association with the University of Manchester, helping out at the Students Union and also presenting a few lectures on post-punk music during 2017-2018 at the neighbouring Manchester Metropolitan University’s Art and Fashion faculty.
Side Streets (single, 2005) UK #36
Tales From Turnpike House/Up The Wooden Hills (album, 2005) UK #72
A Good Thing (single, 2005) UK #70
Dance Remixes Volume 1 – Stars Above Us (US remix single, 2006)
By spring of 2005, Saint Etienne had returned with their Tales From Turnpike House album and the attendant singles Side Streets and A Good Thing. They’d left Mantra Records by this point and hooked up with Sanctuary Music. Tales was a concept album of sorts focusing around the day to day lives of a group of residents living in a block of flats inspired by the real life location of the eponymous Turnpike House in Clerkenwell, EC1, in London. The tracks were diverse too – rather like little separate interconnected musical stories. It was a clever concept for sure, and it was accompanied by a second mini-album called Up The Wooden Hills – which was intended as a storytelling record aimed at young children.
The first single, the leisurely-paced Side Streets, charted inside the top 40, but sadly, due once again to promotional and marketing ineptitude on the part of Sanctuary (mainly a label for reissues by 1980s acts), the album fared very poorly in the UK charts – limping in at an apologetic #72, the worst showing yet for any Saint Etienne album. Good Thing, the upbeat second single, fared little better – at #70, whilst the disco-tastic shimmer of Stars Above Us was mooted as a possible third UK single but sadly, it was not to be. Instead it was issued in the US on Savoy Jazz the following Spring (March 2006) under a completely misleading title Dance Remixes Volume 1! Vocal guests on the album included David Essex who appears as duetting vocalist on the track Relocate, plus backing harmonies arranged by Anthony and Tony Rivers. True to form, the album contained some other real gems – the winsomely pretty Milk Bottle Symphony, the moody Lighting Strikes Twice and the penultimate track, Teenage Winter, one of those half-sung / half-recited showstopping tracks that Saint Etienne truly excel at which really does tug at my heart strings.
The accompanying 2005 UK tour took place during a very hot June when temperatures were absolutely scorching and humid. As it transpired, after the stress and hassle of quitting my last design job, my dreaded ear problem had returned again for a few months causing me some serious issues. I’d developed the disorder Menieres Syndrome from the delayed trauma and shock of experiencing the 1996 IRA Manchester bomb (recounted here) and this debilitating ear condition would return on and off numerous times over the years. 2005 being the tenth year as such, it came back with a vengeance and almost spoiled my full enjoyment of seeing Saint Etienne in action at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM).
The gig was a dream though because it ended in a stage invasion when Sarah Cracknell dared the crowd to come closer and dance their way through the final number (Nothing Can Stop Us). Aptly titled or what? The deluge of fans swarming onto the stage caused alarm within the security but nothing bad transpired and no damage was done. For the first time ever, the elusive producer/fourth studio member Ian Catt was present with them and he took up the bass playing role within the live set up! After the show I caught up with everybody backstage again and got Sarah and Debsey to pose for a pic, whilst Ian Catt nearly ended up sitting on a cake as he tried to shuffle out of the way, despite me asking him to stay put for the photo!
Soon afterwards as we said our goodbyes I found myself walking up Oxford Road in the sultry, muggy night, with Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs en route to the Cornerhouse, chatting with them about Jonny Trunk and what we thought were his finest achievements from his uniquely quirky one-man ephemeral empire. It was a pretty delightful twenty minutes or so in their company and despite my awful ear problem (my hearing was distorted due to fluid build up, tinnitus and abnormal pitch perception as a result of the Menieres) I still persevered through adversity to enjoy the whole glorious night out.
Nice Price (compilation album [fan club release], 2006)
What Have You Done Today, Mervyn Day? (film and soundtrack album, 2006)
In March 2006, there came a further fan club release, the first on their new Foreign Office imprint specially set up for these interim instalments. Nice Price was a CD containing chronologically-sequenced alternative versions, rough demos (or long lost first takes) of many of Saint Etienne’s more familiar songs, B-sides and album tracks. On it, some welcome gems were finally unearthed – the original versions of Angel and Burnt Out Car being two, the latter recorded as a song for the X-Files (but never used). It was an eerily downbeat track played out to a tempo less than half of that of the by now more familiar danced-up Brian Higgins remixed version that was first heard on Casino Classics and then Continental. There was also an original take of the Cola Boy single 7 Ways 2 Love [here spelt as such] featuring a Sarah Cracknell lead vocal, plus a version of Who Do You Think You Are that only has Debsey as the sole lead vocalist.
Another film-related release, What Have You Done Today, Mervyn Day?, followed on its coat-tails in November the same year, this being the second item issued on the Foreign Office label. The soundtrack accompanied the film of the same name – Saint Etienne’s second such film project undertaken and directed by Paul Kelly after their debut outing Finisterre (2005). After this we encountered another lull in activity – in fact this was the longest break we had yet seen from the band between official studio albums. The silence would turn out to be an unprecedented seven years long before the arrival of another all-new Saint Etienne studio album.
Boxette (4CD compilation box set, 2008)
Burnt Out Car (single, 2008)
London Conversations – The Best Of Saint Etienne (compilation, 2008) UK #79
Method Of Modern Love/This Is Tomorrow (single, 2009) UK #56
Foxbase Beta (remix album, 2009)
A Glimpse Of Stocking (compilation album, 2010)
Saint Etienne on 45. Part One (6 x 7″ singles, 2011)
True to form, the gap was momentarily filled with further interim releases: in January 2008 a four-disc CD box, niftily titled Boxette, collected together for the first time the three fan club-only albums I Love To Paint, Built On Sand and Asleep On The Wheels Of Steel together with a bonus disc Eric Random, containing even more outtakes and unreleased extras. This was the fourth item issued on the Foreign Office imprint. Following in August that year was another double disc compilation of Saint Etienne singles titled London Conversations – The Best Of Saint Etienne, preceded by a reissued and tweaked version of Burnt Out Car – this time officially out for the first time as a single in its own right. Then the following year a further new single Method Of Modern Love/This Is Tomorrow was released in February 2009. This was intended as a stand alone item, although the shared A-side This Is Tomorrow had already featured as a ‘new’ single included within the track listing of the London Conversations best of collection issued the previous year.
In autumn 2009 another interesting new venture – a remix/reconfiguration of the entire Foxbase Alpha album was released under the title Foxbase Beta. This was ‘re-produced’ by Richard X – following the exact same track order as the original – and was available as a limited CD issue only, also featuring appropriately re-designed artwork. Listening to the two versions back to back it’s intriguing to see how the re-working injects a more contemporaneous edge to all the tracks. Happily, Richard X’s remix does not make any concessions to rearranging the glorious wide-eyed spirit of the original tracks, and if anything effectively updates the sound of the 1991 release, bringing it into a more sparkling, sharper 2009 context.
November 2010 saw a selection of Saint Etienne’s Christmas songs (and hit single) compiled together for a special CD release titled A Glimpse Of Stocking, issued on their Foreign Office label. This featured covers of seasonal favourites by Chris Rea (Driving Home For Christmas), Billy Fury (My Christmas Prayer), Randy Newman (Snow), The Doors (Wintertime Love) as well as many self-penned originals from their extensive Christmas fan club-only CD catalogue.
Lastly, 2011 saw the band’s first ever release for Record Store Day – a box set of six 7″ singles featuring versions of songs never previously issued on 7″ vinyl. Included among the tracks was the short edit of Avenue (never before released on vinyl), He’s On The Phone, Shower Scene (previously a Spanish release only), Lose That Girl, Boy Is Crying (edit) and How We Used To Live Part 1. This annual trickle of further SE artefacts was as welcome as anything to keep us vinyl junkies happy.
More ups and downs on the rollercoaster of life
If having to soldier on through an unprecedented seven year gap without the comforting delights of a new Saint Etienne album as a companion was already onerous enough for some of us, for myself it was arguably even more trying and testing in many ways. The five year period between 2007 and 2011 was by far the most difficult and traumatic I had yet encountered, if anything its sheer unrelenting run of tragic events (no fewer than four family bereavements: mother, second uncle, father and middle sister – in that order) surpassed even that of both the disappearance of my partner in late 1991 and also the Manchester IRA bomb of summer 1996 for its shattering impact on not just my own mental health but also that of my closest siblings.
The most cataclysmic trauma of all was losing my beloved mother in October 2007 mere months after her devastating diagnosis of Motor Neurone Disease which none of us were prepared for – and as a result of this awful loss my entire body went into a state of complete shock for several weeks. It felt like a huge hole had been blasted out of my body. The rest of my immediate family (three sisters and father) all took it very badly too. What was equally untimely was that in December 2007 I started my newest job at the Beatles Story Museum in Liverpool – looking so forward to it as well when I was offered a place back in September – just weeks before the crushing loss. My mother was made up for me getting that job too. I had to deal with that grief and carry on, instilling inside my fractured mind the thought that my mother would dearly have wanted me to succeed in this new much-coveted post as a part-time tour guide and welcome host working at weekends. Eventually over time I slowly regained my spirit and went on to love the museum job – for the next five years at least.
2008 was also Liverpool’s hugely enjoyable European Capital Of Culture Year and maybe it was just blessed timing that with so many major events and brilliant things going on in the city that year – as well as the latest Liverpool Biennial Arts festival – I had plenty to occupy my mind, stimulate, inspire and distract me from the, still very raw and painful grieving process. However, more sadness arrived the following year 2009 as my second uncle then passed away as well in summer, followed by my father suffering a stroke in September – again totally unexpected. He recovered eventually but gradually his cognitive abilities slowly began to deteriorate over the next couple of years and by mid 2010 the dreaded dementia started taking hold. His final three months were spent in a care home and the all too inevitable outcome of his decline started to become clear as, in January 2011 he passed away in his 90th year (20 years older than my mother when she passed). Again we were all grief-struck and utterly devastated and bereft at both our treasured parents now having gone – with a huge void remaining in our hearts ever since.
But that wasn’t all, because a week before my father passed I heard some truly sad and upsetting news that the lovely Trish Keenan from Broadcast had passed away from pneumonia due to complications from Swine Flu that she contracted whilst on tour in the far east. This was just too much to take in, given that less than ten years previous another beloved singer in kindred spirits Stereolab – Mary Hansen – had been killed in a cycle accident in London in December 2002 and that too was a total seismic shock to the band and all of their/her adoring fans, including myself.
It was painful to have to face these things, but the cruel hand of fate wasn’t done with us yet – as my middle sister Linda was diagnosed with aggressive uterine cancer in 2010 – mere months after my father’s stroke first incapacitated him. So we had both our father and now our middle sister to care for and to keep hoping and praying for their health. As it turned out, just ten months after losing our father, our sister was also gone – exactly 18 months into the prognosis of her survival prospects. She was only 53. Another life tragically and devastatingly cut short. By this point I was so utterly numb and flatlined with the recurring grief and shocks I couldn’t think anymore beyond the next day: I almost surrendered the will to live really. My work continued though, and I did my utmost best to keep my spirits up in my job, but it was bloody damned hard. I desperately wanted to disappear myself, as it was – by this point – twenty years after the disappearance of my partner. Suddenly, I had this longing to be with her, wherever she was….in the spirit world. It was only music and art and the usual distractions that kept my head together otherwise I would have long caved in.
I still had two sisters, three nieces and one nephew, left – and we would have to pull together and help one another overcome this utterly soul-destroying, heart-rending series of tragedies and find a reason to carry on. After a gap of five years, I decided to make a return visit to my own personal Eden – Amsterdam. So I went back over for a few days and as usual my absconding from the misery of the UK in the company of Dutch acquaintances was a much needed tonic and helped some way towards my gradual rehabilitation – and not for the first time.
Tonight (single, 2012)
Words And Music By Saint Etienne (album, 2012) UK #26
I’ve Got Your Music (single, 2012)
More Words And Music By Saint Etienne (bonus album, 2012 – reissued, 2020)
What at least put an end to the unrelenting darkness was the welcome news, in March 2012, that Saint Etienne were finally returning with a new single Tonight, followed by their long awaited new album Words And Music By Saint Etienne, which arrived in May. An upbeat, decisively breezy dance tune, Tonight was simply showcasing what Saint Etienne always did with such effortless ease. I guess it was the morale-boosting lift that I needed and craved. The parent album itself was the band revisiting themes of how music can indeed be the ultimate life tonic for us all. Much of the album was consciously a celebration in all its forms of just how important and special a medium music is, a universal language effectively, one which everybody can easily identify with, and one which always invariably unites us all.
The opening track – Over The Border – as previously mentioned, is a touching narrative about one’s obsessions with following the music charts and picking out favourite record labels and bands, then reflecting on getting older and still clinging on to these childhood and adolescent ideals. This track is virtually a close relative (a sequel of sorts?) to the equally poignant Teenage Winter from Tales From Turnpike House, although this time it’s delivered in the first person, rather than the third. On first listen, my eyes immediately welled up, partly because of the affecting way in which Sarah so beautifully narrates and sings the words, and partly because it invoked in me a nostalgic reflection of my own relatively carefree childhood and then placing that into context against all of the dramatic and transformational events of the past few years that have left such indelible impacts – and scars – on my life.
The immediacy of a lot of the tracks on Words And Music may not have the sonic ambition and diverse arrangements of the previous Saint Etienne album Tales From Turnpike House, but that does not make it any less prescient. Straightforward dancefloor tracks such as Tonight, I’ve Got Your Music, Popular, and DJ sit comfortably alongside more reflective numbers like I Threw It All Away and Heading For The Fair, and then there’s still space for beautifully symphonic tracks like Answer Song and the closer Haunted Jukebox. It’s a gratifyingly enticing set that is then further complemented by a companion album titled More Words And Music By Saint Etienne, a collection of extra tracks that, whilst they did not sit with the original album, nevertheless showed how Saint Etienne are still adept at eclectism, from gorgeous ballads You’re Not Alone, Jan Leeming and Lullaby, the pristine dance pop of Solid Gold and Valentine, amusingly brisk novelty ditties like Fairground Rock ‘n’ Roll, curiously off-kilter instrumentals Racing Car and Landscape, and even a sweetly affecting nocturnal take on Amy Winehouse’s Just Friends.
Words, music, camera, lights, action…. and lots of snow!
Words And Music saw Saint Etienne enjoy their highest UK albums chart placing since 1998 as it returned them into the top 30 at #26 – a distinct improvement on the previous album’s poor performance. That year, Saint Etienne took the album out on tour – twice! – with a series of UK dates. The spring tour in May saw their first return to Liverpool since 1993 – almost twenty years! – with a show at the charmingly unique venue The Kazimier which was a truly momentous gig as the place was like one huge party. I was so chuffed to bits that they played Liverpool after not having done so for so long, as that was the very first time I’d ever caught them in action in the city of my birth.
They then returned again later in the year in December for a winter tour, this time at the Manchester Ritz, with support provided by the legendary 1980s post-punk-turned-chart-regulars Scritti Politti. I remember the Manchester Ritz date very clearly. The band pulled into the city having travelled on the train down from their previous night’s date at Edinburgh (where they played Liquid Rooms), separately from the rest of the road crew. I actually greeted the four of them (Bob, Pete, Sarah and Debsey) as they arrived at Oxford Road Station as I myself had literally just arrived into the station minutes before from Stockport. It was so unexpected but so lovely to see them as they made their way to check in at the hotel opposite (The Palace) before heading to the venue. Bear in mind it was a good seven and a half years since I last caught them in Manchester at the RNCM that hot sultry June night in 2005, it really did feel like an eternity.
The show that evening was the usual celebratory affair and of course everybody took full advantage of the occasion, Saint Etienne playing a rapturously received set that touched upon pretty much every album. Scritti Politti were surprisingly very good too, given I was never much of fan of any of their various phases and never caught them live before. I found myself enjoying Green Gartside and his collected band assembled for these shows. He played a lot of their famous hits (Wood Beez, Absolute, The Word Girl, Hypnotise, Perfect Way, ‘Sweetest Girl’) but strangely omitted one that I remembered from my sixth form days: Asylums In Jerusalem. However, what we were completely unaware of as the evening drew to a close was that the weather had turned increasingly wintry outside. By the time of the curfew we were all ushered out of the venue… and into two inches of snowfall! Crikey! And it was still steadily falling! Nobody – least of all the city – saw that coming, as it wasn’t even mentioned on the forecast. Besides, it wasn’t even that cold or below freezing for a start.
Needless to say, once Manchester gets a slight dusting of snow, everything grinds to a halt, so it took me more than ninety minutes to get the train back home to Stockport – a journey that normally takes ten to fifteen minutes. But that minor hiccup aside, the night, as always, belonged to the good ship Saint Etienne and all of the united lovers who sailed in her.
Saint Etienne presents How We Used To Live (original soundtrack by Pete Wiggs) (soundtrack album, 2014; film, 2015)
Nothing Left To Talk About (Sarah Cracknell solo, single 2015)
Red Kite (Sarah Cracknell solo, album, 2015) UK #49
Take The Silver (Sarah Cracknell solo, single 2015)
Kites (Instrumentals) (Sarah Cracknell solo, album 2016)
In late 2014, a new release came in the form of a soundtrack composed and produced by Pete Wiggs to accompany the next Saint Etienne film, their third, entitled How We Used To Live. Issued on the Heavenly Films imprint in early 2015, specially designated for celluloid related releases, it was also screened in the usual art house cinemas around the country as part of the annual Doc Fest events that year, but I cannot be one hundred per cent sure if there was a showing at Manchester’s HOME.
During the down time by the band after the Words And Music tour, Sarah Cracknell released her second solo album Red Kite on Cherry Red Records in June 2015. Coming eighteen (!) years after her debut, it was produced with Welsh musical polymath Carwyn Ellis and featured twelve perfectly formed little vignettes played in various styles, from sixties-inflected ballads to acoustic pop to pastoral folk to plaintive lullabies. Immaculately arranged and produced, it’s a completely different sounding record from the lushly presented dance pop of her first album Lipslide, but despite a more consciously analogue approach, the record is completely timeless and could happily sit comfortably in any era you choose to place it in. I absolutely adore some of the tracks on here: the dreamy and evocative opener On The Swings, the reverbed chiming ambience of Underneath The Stars, the gorgeous baroque chamber pop of It’s Never Too Late and the almost womb-like contemplative rumination I Close My Eyes. Two singles Nothing Left To Talk About (featuring guest vocals from Nicky Wire of the Manics) and Take The Silver were issued either side of the album.
To the delight of everybody, Red Kite happily charted inside the official UK top 50 at #49. Sarah took the album out on tour for her first ever solo dates – and it was, as expected, an absolute joy to be treated to the sound of these songs performed live in a setting outside of the main band. Sarah played the Gorilla venue on the Manchester leg of her brief UK tour to promote the album. A year later, in October 2016, an instrumental version of the album, Kites, was issued, offering yet another different slant on all of the songs on the original release.
Home Counties (album, 2017) UK #31
Dive (single, 2017)
It was another five years on from Words And Music (but just two after Sarah’s second solo outing) that the next Saint Etienne album Home Counties, their most ambitious yet, was issued. This was released as a double album on vinyl – their first ever, not counting compilations – and also on tape cassette and CD as part of a limited edition bundle. Again it was gloriously diverse and multi-faceted, in keeping with the fact that a wide retinue of collaborators and arrangers (Shawn Lee, Carwyn Ellis, Nick Moon, Augustus Lobban, and Richard X) were on board to help helm the sprawling nineteen-track tour de force.
As suggested by its title, Home Counties presented a conscious (nostalgic?) glance back to the roots of all three Saint Etienne members, reflecting on how the suburban surroundings of their teenage years helped to shape and inspire them as they grew up. There were lots of knowing references and allusions to many real places found in the various narratives of the songs, and, inevitably, the individual characteristics of these geographical touchstones were complemented by a suitably eclectic soundtrack. From the quirky opener The Reunion which tips its hat to incidental Schools Programme intros through to the evocative 1970s-style disco shimmer of Dive, from the eerie spooky ambience of Heather to the charming harpsichord-prefaced electropop of Whyteleafe and the majestically atmospheric epic Sweet Arcadia. There’s all kinds of intriguing little detours going on here, right through to the whimsical spoken word interludes (most notable cameo being that of the voice of Greatest Hits Radio, Ken Bruce, on the self explanatory Popmaster – this album’s Richard Whiteley/Countdown moment no less) which naturally are an obvious nod to previous Saint Etienne albums.
The accompanying tour was as usual warmly welcomed by us all, and this time Saint Etienne returned to the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where they were supported by endearing electronic pop trio Kero Kero Bonito, themselves a London collective who are almost like a younger, more rambunctiously playful version of Saint Etienne. Comprising producers Augustus Lobban and Jamie Bulled as well as vocalist Sarah Midori Perry (another Sarah!), they charmed the pants off us with their kooky and entertaining set of deftly constructed electro-pop which flirted with all imaginable kinds of influences and bases – from Japanese (J-Pop), to Anime soundtracks, hyper-pop to Sega Megadrive / Super Mario-derived computerised crush collisions, dancehall, hip hop, garage, dubstep, and more. I fell in love immediately with their presentation and style – with all three protagonists seemingly let loose as if in a toy shop and careening all over the place – and their truly infectious sense of joie de vivre, and became an instant new fan!
Saint Etienne themselves delivered another sterling set matched with some impressive visuals that were based on the new album cover artwork – I just loved how their amusing slogans appeared on the projection screen in the same fanciful font that was deployed on the record’s sleeve art. A couple of them were direct references to iconic Manchester album titles – e.g. Perverted By Language (The Fall). Despite showcasing several new album tracks, as expected, much of the set was once again a celebratory greatest hits selection which came as little surprise. Suffice to say, the anticipated massed stage invasion that happened the last time they played here in 2005 didn’t quite materialise this time, probably because the venue security staff were already sufficiently forewarned on this occasion! But a few bold members of the crowd still managed to shimmy up on there to dance alongside the band nevertheless.
After the show a quick visit back at the dressing room saw me catching up with both bands and sharing a few amusingly-posed photographs (seen below), capping the end to another deliriously enjoyable night in the company of not one but now two great eclectic pop trios. Later that same year I caught Kero Kero Bonito playing a brilliant gig of their own in EBGB’s in Liverpool – the full review can be revisited here.
Part three to follow soon.
All reminiscences written by Martin Gray.
Album and single cover montages created by Martin.
For other special band features by the author check his profile
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