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What kind of record company would use as its motto the phrase "reversing into tomorrow"? Which record company would define its purpose, on its first compilation album, as "undertakers to the industry"? Which record company makes records that might be great, or might be awful, by artists like Wreckless Eric, Motorhead, Magic Michael and Elvis Costello, and then quits issuing them almost immediately after their release?
Stiff Records.
"Stiff. You know, a bad one, a stiff, a turkey," said Dave Robinson. Robinson and Jake Riviera are two former managers and producers who are the presidents and janitors, A&R men, and ashtray emptiers at the English record company which is engaged in a kind of guerrilla warfare against the way things are usually done in the music business.
"We got bored with the standard record company format," Robinson said as he was about to board a plane back home to London. "You know, signing an artist, building a career so that in three years it all comes together. That's a rut."
Instead, Robinson and Riviera record artists the week they decide to make a record. The singles are released almost immediately. "We like the instantaneous aspect," Robinson said. "We make records fast and cheap."
Robinson takes pride in his suspicion that Stiff Records has the highest quota of artists who have been turned down by major labels. "We try to avoid people who are taking steps up the ladder," Robinson said. "Our artists much prefer to go sideways for awhile. Or down."
Though most Stiff artists are signed when they walk in off the street and audition, the label does have three long-term artists it hopes to develop. One is Elvis Costello, an Irish computer programer. Another is staff producer Nick Lowe. The other is the punk rock band, the Damned.
"I still don't understand the Damned," Robinson admitted. "But I was fascinated by their non-cliche-ness. They abuse the audience. They didn't seem to care."
When the Damned made its American debut at CBGB, the Bowery rock club, a few weeks ago, the band threw pies and assaulted members of the audience. The band, which plays minimalist trash rock without much finesse, seemed satisfied that the audience responded by throwing cans and bottles.
"We like things that are most," Robinson said. "The most awful record. If there were such a thing, I'm sure I'd Love it. I love extremes."
Nevertheless, Stiff Records is not without talent — or success. Formed last autumn, Stiff has seen its first six singles releases sell 125,000 copies. That's hardly chart-busting, but it's enough to pay the bills. Though there is no American distributor, the Damned album and a compilation album, A Bunch of Stiffs are available where import records are sold.
Stiff's one great creative talent involved is artist-producer Nick Lowe, a former member of Britain's superb pub rock band Brinsley Schwarz. That group recorded in the U.S. for Capitol and United Artists, and though its records never sold well, its songwriting and playing, which sounded like the Eagles if one could imagine the Eagles as English Jews, won the approval of critics. Members of Brinsley Schwarz now make up the Rumour, the backing band for Graham Parker, another critics' favorite who appears to be on the verge of major commercial success.
Lowe is a very fast-working yet disciplined producer who has what sounds like a prime commercial sensibility, Yet there is something in that sensibility that is just a little too eccentric to sell many records right now.
Lowe produced about half the songs on A Bunch of Stiffs (SEEZ-2), which display the range of his peculiar abilities. His own "I Love My Label" is an inviting mid-tempo song about the joys of turning out self-consciously commercial-sounding records that don't quite make it. Elvis Costello's "Less Than Zero," is a kind of pop reggae with a melody and hook that could easily make it a hit record. Magic Michael's "Little By Little" is absurdly overstated, a spoof of bland British pop. Michael sings like a pub talent contest winner. The song sounds like 16th runner-up in the Eurovision Song Contest.
A Bunch of Stiffs also includes work by Dave Edmunds, a well-known English journeyman producer and artist who now records for Led Zeppelin's Swan Song Records. Edmunds' song on the album is a manic version of Chuck Berry's "Jo Jo Gunne."
"Edmunds has a room full of tapes he figured he'd never release," Robinson said. "So he said, 'Here, you want this?' The track is an experiment in phasing, which is recording with tape heads going at different speeds, then mixing it all together.
Edmunds also produced Jill Read's "Maybe," an accurate although superfluous version of the Chantels' 1950s ballad hit. Read was the girlfriend of one of Edmunds' roadies. He is said to have heard her humming the song. Edmunds, who spends most of his working hours recording almost anything that comes into his head, already had a track of "Maybe" with no singer. He simply added Read's voice.
Another worthwhile song on A Bunch of Stiffs, is "Food" by the Takeaways. The Takeaways are actually Lowe, Edmunds and Stiff artists Sean Tyla and Larry Wallis, and the song is a parody of Bob Dylan singing a love song about gluttony: "She's a roast lamb / I'm cabbage greens / She's coq au vin / I'm a plate of beans."
But strangely — or not so strangely when you consider the nature of Stiff — the best song on the album isn't listed on the label or jacket, and some of the best songs that Stiff has released aren't on the album. On the record, but not listed, is a hyper-kinetic version of Graham Parker's "Back to Schooldays" which compares favorably to the original. How'd it get there?
"I have no idea," Robinson said, muttering something about a mistake in the studio. My guess is that the version probably features Lowe, and perhaps the Rumour (Parker and the Rumour are managed by Robinson and Riviera). Another Stiff joke.
Some Stiff songs not included on the album include Lowe's "Heart of the City," and Sean Tyla's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre Boogie." Not only are those underground classics not on the album — they aren't available as singles anymore. They are, in record company jargon, deleted from the catalog.
"The way Jake puts it is, this is a record company, not a museum," Robinson said. "Maybe they'll show up again on the album." Among other album plans Stiff has forthcoming: An album by Lowe called Bowi, which it is hoped will be confused with David Bowie, and an album by the Rumour, called Rumour, which it is hoped will be confused with Fleetwood Mac's multi-million selling Rumours. Isn't that cheating?
"We always cheat," Robinson said. "It's a bit of fun. Indulge yourself, is the way we feel about it. That's why we put out records fast. It's no fun if you tell the same joke for a month. We try to get things out while we can still get a laugh out of it."
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