| A SECRET HISTORY OF PJ HARVEY "I like something that grabs you and shakes you around, makes you feel sick and gets in your stomach. I don't want something you can listen to or not listen to - take or leave." (Polly Harvey, late '92) A GIFTED, IF DISOBEDIENT, SONGWRITER WITH A PENCHANT FOR NOISE, POLLY HARVEY IS THE MOST UNPREDICATBLE TALENT OF THE DECADE MARK PAYTRESS PROFILES THE DORSET DAME In today's seen-it-all done-it-all rock culture, it's not easy to turn that 'queasy listening' mentioned in the quote above into something tangible. That's what makes PJ Harvey, once a three-piece band, now simply Polly Jean Harvey, such a thrilling proposition. By drawing on several sources - vintage blues, punk Celtic folk, the Dylan-led singer-songwriter tradition, Beefheart-inspired deviant rock - Harvey was almost guaranteed to excite the critics. But few could have imagined such a musical patchwork working so naturally, which is largely down to the strength of her songwriting; or have guessed that the architect of this work would become one of the decade's stars. What's most surprising is that there aren't more musicians like Polly Harvey. Ever inventive, and with a healthy disdain for offering glib soundbites about her work, she's sometimes depicted as an irritant on rock's chummy surface. Her unwil- lingness to ally herself to feminism, for example, aroused the anger of many who'd been favourably disposed towards her as an assertive and unquestionably frank role-model. This is part of a wider reticence that comes dangerously clos to 'my art says it all' mystification, a faintly precious standpoint that nevertheless does her no harm in public image stakes. She's enigmatic, you see. And, more's the point, a musical mischiefmaker of the highest order. Just when you'd made a friend of the twisted melodies and enriching hooks which graced her debut album, "Dry", issued early in '92, she called up rowdy ex-Big Black numero uno Steve Albini. Polly's perfect commander-in-(mis)-chief on 1993's "Rid Of Me", he helped bury any of the band's remaining subtleties under a thunderous hail of rock'n'roll brutalism. Now having exorcised her hardcore fantasies, she's back with "To Bring You My Love", an infinitely more relaxed and spacious record that adds luxurious textures to her still murky rhetoric of disquiet. TWO OR THREE THINGS WE KNOW ABOUT HER Polly Harvey was born on 9th October 1970, to parents who were probably still mourning the passing of Janis Joplin days earlier. She was brought up in North Dorset village of Corscombe, nine miles south of Yeovil, where the sounds of sheep, stone quarrying and tractors were complemented by her parents' rather splendid record collection: the Rolling Stones, blues, even Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica" to accompany the Sunday roast. Inevitably, Polly rebelled - by clapping along to Mud and Pan's People on 'Top Of The Pops', and briefly sporting a Bay City Rollers scarf. As she got older, PJ acquired farm skills, like ringing sheep's testicles and lambing; began to delve into her mother's mythology books; and had a teeny flirtation with Duran Duran and U2. She also took up the saxophone at her Plenistow secondary school and, at 15, became part of an eight-piece instrumental group. Called Boulonge, the ensemble (apperently not dissimilar to a latter-day Porthsmouth Sinfonia) was the plaything of future Mike Leigh musical collaborator, Andrew Dixon; his game was imperfection. By the time she'd passed nine O-levels and two A-levels, Polly had started writing songs on guitar. She formed the uncreatively-named Polekats, a folksy trio (with bassist and flute) which played standards in the local pubs. And the John Parish, a veteran of the South-West scene for several years, and his makeshift band Automatic Dlamini, entered her orbit. PARISH RECORDS Polly was the last of the four future PJ Harvey members - Rob Ellis, Ian Olliver, Stephen Vaughan and PJ - to join the occasionally productive West Country scene. Drummer Ellis has the longest track record which stretches as far back as 1980, when he was a member of New Series (alias Surface Tension, alias Strange To Behold) whil at Yeovil College. Conspicious for their penchant for flairs and crap names, the band included Mark Vernon, who'd later become PJ Harvey's manager. Leaving behind them two inconsequential demos, the pair formed Techniques Of Persuasion and upped sticks to London. No-one wanted to know, so Rob returned home and got a job in a Yeovil record shop. One of his customers was John Parish. Parish was then drummer with Thieves Like Us, an old fartish, turn-of-the-decade rock band who even made several unexceptional forays onto local Bournemouth patch, a space memorable only for the incomparable avant-punk of the Animal Haircuts. The pair formed the Headless Horsemen in 1981, with Ellis on drums, Parish on guitar and vocals, and Mark Vernon on key- boards. Vernon quit after a handful of gigs, but Parish and Ellis, together with bassist Dave Dalimore, persevered until the end of '82. Three appearances on compilations exist to prove that the Headless Horsemen were not a figment of someone's scrumpy-addled imagination: "A Glimpse Of Heaven" on "The Sheep Worrying EP", given away free with the Bridgewater-based 'Sheep Worrying fanzine; "Wet Lunch Hour", "Drive My Car" and "Hopeless" on the "Burnt Offerings" cassette; and "Junctions" from the "Magical Mystery Sheep" tape. After Dallimore's departure, Ellis and Parrish formed Automatic Dlamini, a group now better known for the absurdity of their name than for the music they made. I find it difficult to believe but authoritative sources claim that its origins lie in a trip to Swaziland where Dlamini is apperently a common surname. Chancing upon a fridge of Western origin while searching for a name for these new-born, one family of Dlaminis were smitten by the word Automatic... Back in Crewkerne, Somerset, Ellis and Parish, together with bassist Jamie Anderson, spent much of 1983 working on material, and in August, they taped a session with Dorset luminary-turned record producer Richard Mazda (ex-Tours). It wasn't until June 1986, when the debut "The Crazy Supper" EP (D Is For Drum DLAM 1), became 'Sounds' single of the week, that the group started to look beyond their immediate locality. (Parish in particular - he launched himself into production, working with the Chesterfields, the Becketts and the Brilliant Corners). Over the next few years, members came and went: 'Independent On Sunday' rock correspondent and soon-to-be rock's very own Nich Hornby, Giles Smith, who sat in on keyboards for several months; future PJ Harvey bassist Ian 'Olly' Olliver; and a young, enthusiastic Polly Harvey. In the late summer of 1987, while doing her bit to revive the folk tradition, she'd met Jeremy Hogg, then Automatic Dlamini guitarist and future slide player with Grape, at a party. Impressed by tales of Parish's growing stature as a local rock dignitary, she bombarded him with home-made cassettes. Her request that his group play at her 17th birthday party was left unheeded, but Parish had begun to take interest in those tapes. In July 1988, not long after Rob Ellis bowed out of the band, Harvey joined Automatic Dlamini - contributing guitar, sax and backing vocals - and stayed there for the best part of the next three years. It was hardly an active life, but the group did manage two European tours and several ventures into the studio in an attempt to follow up their 1987 "The D Is For Drum" album (Idea IDEALP 001). "I ended up not singing very much," she later told 'Melody Maker', "I was just happy to learn how to play the guitar." It can only be a matter of time before some bright spark puts together an "Early Polly Harvey" collection, but until then, you'll have to sample this work the hard way. Unfortunately, few of her recordings with Automatic Dlamini ever made it to the shops: a 1991 12" EP, "Water" (not that one) and the "Here Catch Shouted His Father" album (taped winter 1989, and including Polly duetting with Parish on a re-recorded version of the band's old "Johnny Pineapple" single), remain unreleased. Only the "From A Dive To A Diver" LP, issued in 1992 (Big Internation BOT 04; also on CD), exists officially: this features three songs taped with Polly in June 1991 for a session on Radio Orchard. This isn't her sole, pre-PJ Harvey release: she handled lead vocals on the chorus of Grape's extremely sought-after "Baby In A Plastic Bag" single (also available on the band's "Maths & Passion" EP [Vinyl Japan TASK 15]). She also sang backing vocals with the Bristol-based Family Cat on their "Colour Me Grey" single, and on "River Of Diamonds", both of which appear on the "Furthest From The Sun" album. Hopes that Automatic Dlamini might become more than percussion-mad Parish's low-life plaything were raised after the band shot three videos to accompany the abortive single and album early in 1991. They even managed a spot on TV, appearing on 'Tongue'n'Groove', TSW's concession to the local youth market. But Parish decided to take time out to produce Wall Of Voodoo, going on to play with Ensenada Joyride (whose "Hey Lade" later made it into one of Polly's 'My Top 10' listings). With songs like "Heaven" and "Sheela-Na-Gig" already fully-formed, Harvey's impatience and growing confidence got the better of her, and she joined forces with two - considerably older - ex-Dlamini men, drummer Rob Ellis and bassist Ian Olliver. Both had been playing as part of Big Vern, a band formed by Mark Vernon, who'd supported John Otway, got photographed with John Cale and seen their "Lullabies For Lager Louts" album (PRKA 2) die a death. Even Vernon packed it in to become the new band's manager. And so, after a convoluted and protracted gestation period, PJ Harvey was born. Manchester was still on its feet with baggy beats, London was shyly shoegazing, Seattle was grizzled and grungey. Trends came in huge, belching waves. Meanwhile, the idiosyncratic got lost in margins, that huge open space where, in the fullness of time, the lone bulls often live to enjoy anthor life, while the sheep are despatched into a hideous anonymous death. FROM YEOVIL It's exactly four years since PJ Harvey first took the stage at a Charmouth skittle alley. By the time they'd finished, there was no audience left - proof indeed, that they must have been doing something richt, something that would differentiate the group from a shallow sea of identikit contemporaries. Quite what that was became immeditately apparent to Too Pure label co-founder Paul Cox, when he received a demo cassette from the band during the summer of '91. "It was completely different to anything else I was hearing", he recalls, "Just not 'Indie' at all. I also liked the other instrumentation on it, the scratchy violins. "The version of 'Dress' was the one we used for the single; the second track was 'Sheela-Na-Gig', which they recorded for the second single. So in retrospect, it's easy to say, that this was obviously a band going places, but it was a gamble. We knew it was good, but we didn't know if anyone else would agree. I sent tapes out to friends in the business, and it just went crazy." Initially, the purpose of sending the demo to Too Pure was a secure a London gig. Cox booked them into his regular night at the Moonlight Club, West Hampstead, where they supported Moonshake, and shortly after, in August, they were back when Cox re-booked them at White Horse, Hampstead, supporting Midway Still and the Becketts - a show that prompted Laura Lee Davies from 'Time Out' to give the band its first major profile. Meanwhile, Polly, who'd completed her Foundation Course at Yeovil Art College, had secured a place studying sculpture at St. Martin's, Central London, and with that and an imminent recording carreer in mind, relocated to Tottenham. She never did take up that college place: instead, things just "went crazy". Too Pure couldn't wait to release "Dress" in October, and that same month, PJ Harvey won the first of countless awestruck reviews in the music weeklies. Four songs, "Oh my lover", "Victory", "Sheela-Na-Gig" and "Water" were recorded for John Peel (who'd made "Dress" single of the week in 'Melody Maker'), transmitted on 3rd November, and later released as part of the "Too Pure - The Peel Sessions" 10"/CD. The first 3,500 copies came with hand-painted artwork, carefully sculpted by PJ Harvey and fellow travellers Th' Faith Healers and Stereolab. Today, despite the fact that her latest album fully justifies a 'mother of invention' tag for Polly, public utterances like "My old stuff was done in a much more na!ve way. When you become an old hand, you think more about what you're doing and why" ('Select', 4/95) are perhaps cause for some worry. You don't have to be a long-in-the-tooth rock fan to know that greater knowledge, greater expertise or simply great thoughts don't necessarily translate into wonderful records. (Instinct and hunger are almost always better bets.) Everyone who first heard "Dress" back in winter '91, will recall how struck they were by its assuredness, its unique instrumental flavouring (drums/bass/guitar doing battle with occasional cello scrapes and breathy harmonium) its rad-fem lyric, its voice that soared like Mary Margaret O'Hara and smirked like it meant business. The cover shot - a grainy black-and-white, skipping female body - suggested 1920s surrealism and late-70s punk in one puzzling masterful stroke. The only hint of hesitancy was in the slightly buried vocal: shyness or producer's choice, take your pick. Otherwise, it was as great a debut record as you could wish for. Shortly after its release, bassist Ian Olliver left to rejoin a revived Automatic Dlamini, and was replaced by Stephen Vaughan and his five-string fretless bass. His arrival gave the group a new intrumental impetus, and by December's performance at the Camden Falcon, Polly admitted to actually enjoying playing live. It's a point worth mentioning, because Harvey's general public reticence and world-wariness - and, alright then, some haughtiness - has prompted heaps of "miserable old cow" cack-le. (I CAN'T GET NO) SATISFACTION Polly Harvey (as opposed to PJ Harvey, which she was at pains to stress was actually a three-piece-band) saw in the New Year back in Gillingham, Dorset, as part of Fabba, an ad hoc Abba tribute unit comprising Grape singer/guitarist Mark Barber, Bastie (bass), John Parish (drums), and herself on guitar/backing vocals. Convivial reruns of joyous anthems like "Waterloo" and "SOS" seemed a far cry from her own work, pained and exhilarating in roughly equal measure, but ther was another reason to welcome in 1992: several major labels had requested meetings with the Pee Jays, and Island were fast emerging as favourites for the signature. Too Pure's Paul Cox was understandably disappointed:"The agreement in the pub, on about our second or third meeting, was for a two singles/one album deal, but obviously we didn't hope not to be working with them after that. By the time we actually signed anything, which was months later, she'd already agreed to join Island." The buzz around the band's imminent hike to major label status inevitably rubbed an additional coating of glory onto the final Too Pure releases, namely the "Sheela-Na-Gig" single, issued in February, and the "Dry" album a month later. Like many artists working in an era which has witnessed the breakdown of so many certainties, Polly Harvey is left with little to write about with conviction bar her own and what she does with it. Wheter she's easing herself into a body bag ("Plants And Rags"), "Happy And Bleeding", or as she later sang coming on "Man-Size", body politics is written all over her songs, her sleeves and her carefully-sanctioned self-image (assisted by photographer friend Maria Mochnacz): hence the 'indie Madonna' tag. Topless and displaying har armpit hair for the 'NME' in April, she nevertheless managed to confound feminists and sexists alike, even more so by her unwillingness to be drawn into a debate. "I'm not going to explain it to people," Polly said at the time. "Either it's worked, or it hasn't worked at all... All I'm suggesting is that people think about things." To categorise is to expert power, which probably explains her refusal of the 'feminist' tag. As for whether it had "worked" or not, well, both "Sheela" and "Dry" charted immediately; on a spring visit to the States, she was heralded as "the most exciting arrival form across the Atlantic since Sinead O'Conner four years ago"; U2, David Byrne and the Cure all clamoured to share a stage with the band (but were turned down); and the group generated massive press interest wherever they went. Island were so impressed that they chose not to hurry the group into a second album, prferring to tread carefully with their mesmerising starlet. On a commercial level it "had worked" a treat. It was as if the music on "Dry" - which cost just £5000 to record - wasn't enough to explain why PJ Harvey were the most talked about act of '92. Almost. The exasperated sigh of "Oh My Lover" had all the immediacy of, say, the opening chords on "Brown Sugar". The beguiling and often shifting rhythms that underlay the songs were augmented by riffs that sounded as if they were on elastic. And the hands-off production approach allowed an unnerving rawness to jab through. Even more unpolished was "Demonstration", a freebie which came with early copies on the vinyl and CD. This reprised the entire album, as originally recorded by Polly at home - a couple of tracks from which had already been culled for B- sides. "I find them quite embarrassing, but then again I quite like that," she said. These are now as rare and desirable as a sighting of the Dartford Warbler. (While we're talking £££, the 400-only 7" edition of "Sheela-Na-Gig" was restricted to that number because lateness at the pressing plant compelled Too Pure to cancel the order.) This public airing of early song sketches only served to confirm Polly's auteur status, and it wasn't long before the precocious talent was admonishing her early work. Just three months after recording the LP, she claimed that she couldn't listen to it:"It was so far away from what I thought I wanted," complained the singer, who'd already been airing new songs like "Rid Of Me" and "Me-Jane" in concert. While unmistakably hers, one of the strengths of this early work was the breadth of its appeal: at gigs, you'd find balding ex-punks and the advance guard of Riott Grrrls, old Au Pairs fans and grunge-loving moshers. Next time, PJ Harvey would not be so musically magnanimous. It's a miserable fact of rock life that many of its stars only emerge after years of networking - sharing pints with the right people, dropping their trousers at the right party. An excess of conviviality helps to obscure the fact that, essentially, the song remains the same. Those who value their own space sometimes retire prematurely (Captain Beafheart) or die (Cobain). Or, if they have the right people on their side, they can assume some kind of control over their public life. So far, Harvey has succesfully pursued the latter course, but only after an anxious skirmish with emotional despair during the summer of '92. Prompted by the break-up of a relationship, the demands of new-found fame an city living, she came to a complete halt. Returning to a coastal hideaway in Dorset, Polly embarked on a rebuilding process, completed writing for her second album and took up singing lessons. Publicly, she was growing with confidence: witness festival appearances at Glastonbury, Finsbury Park and Reading, and abroad (check out the "Build Me A Woman" bootleg, recorded in Holland). Recording sessions were held at the Manor, in Oxford in June, but the band rejected the results. Island, unhappy that they had nothing on the shelves to capitalise on all publicity, nevertheless gave Polly more time: a projected October release date for the forthcoming album was put back. Some of the material for the record was already known: Polly had made a secret appearance on John Peel's show in May to play the stunning "Rid Of Me", while several other new songs, like "Ecstasy" and "Missed", had became concert regulars. They spent much of 1992 touring, but by final leg - America, late November/early December - there was a considerable carrot: on the 5th December, they began recording their second album with Steve Albini in Pacyderm Studios, Minneapolis. Impressed by his work, particularly on the Breeders' "Pod" and the Jezus Lizard's "Goat", Polly also admired his working practices. As she told Ann Scanlon in 'Vox', "Albini works quickly, and I like to work that way 'cos I'm impatient. I also think that you can ruin something by working on it for too long." As for the results, completed in two weeks, she was telling everyone that, "It's going to get so horrid that no-one will want to buy it." The year ended with another trip to the Red Lion, Gillingham, where, as part of Got Chocolate, she joined her pals for drunken renditions of "You Sexy Thing", "Every One's A Winner" but probably not "Heaven Is In The Back Seat Of My Cadillac" -not yet, anyway. As expected, the album, "Rid Of Me", was an exorcism of hardcore musical feelings and much emotional bile, although it was hardly the uneasy listening noisefest some made it out to be. It was probably Polly's reputation as a songwriter, with all its associations of delicacy and sensitivity, which caused the confusion. (Oddly, volume, directness, pace, abrasion - all much in evidence here - aren't always viewed as essential songwriting tools. You see, top tunesmiths whisper...) For the opening minute or so, you could be forgiven for thinking that the amps weren't plugged in, before the title track swang an old Beefheart lyric ("don't you wish you'd never met her") into shocking action. One of the finest paeans to love and rage ever recorded, "Rid Of Me" - premiered in demo form on the 'Vox Elite' tape, free with 'Vox' magazine a month before the album's release in April 1993 - continued to pile on the perversity, as drummer Rob Ellis falsettoed his way through a "Lick my legs I'm on fire/Lick my legs and I'm desire" refrain. Some imagined this was Harvey's way of humiliating him... If so, I reckon he had some kind of revenge on "Man-Size Sextet", for which he arranged a thoroughly modern string quartet. Instructing Polly to sing with her teeth gritted, his experiment briefly allowed a respite from the uncompromising Albini sound, but unlike "Plants And Rags" on the first album, it was too self-conscious to take seriously. Albini, who'd apparently proclaimed Polly a genius at the sessions, told her it should go on the album - and it did. Despite its wonderful 'in-yer-room' sound, Island still managed to find two singles on the album, the rap-meets- Motorhead "50 ft Queenie" and the band version of "Man-Size". They raised the profile of both LP (which went silver and Top 10) and band, but neither troubled chart compilers. The tie-in tours were hugely successful and Harvey's appropriation of Willie Dixon's "Wang Dang Doodle" tickled critics' backbones (much as her version of Dylan's "Higway 61 Revisited" did the previous year). Why, she'd even started to encore with the Stones "Satisfaction". "Wang Dang Doodle", together with new songs, "Primed And Ticking", "Claudine The Inflatable One" and "Naked Cousin", were premiered on the band's third Peel session in March, again revealing Harvey's musical impatience. Such was the response to the Dixon cover that this version was used as one of the B-sides for "Man-Size", together with the previously unissued "Daddy". I'M GONNA WASH THAT BAND RIGHT OUT OF MY HAIR Polly Harvey raved about the musical empathy of the band on that Peel session. "We've clicked", she told Q's Phil Sutcliffe. "Songs just work without having to discuss anything now. And personally... these two are the people I need when I'm having a bad time." Trouble was, Harvey's bad times were increasingly behind her. As the 'Reeling' video, shot on tour during May and June '93 shows, the "miserable old cow" had suddenly become a beaming, happy-go-lucky Ermintrude, having fun on the tour bus, in her underwear, drinking backstage, singing in the toilet. The fact that the film ends with "Missed" and its torture "I might as well be dead, but I could kill you instead," is easily overlooked. During the tour, the band looked forward to playing on each other's 'holiday' projects once the gigging was over. But by the time they'd supported U2 at Wembley (and Polly had been signed to their heavyweight management company, headed by Paul McGuinness), Ellis and Vaughan's holiday had been made permanent. Polly, who'd recently begun to tuck into juicy steaks again after a veggie spell, had other ideas. Like not pretending PJ Harvey was a band anymore. Like a solo career. "4-Track Demos", a self-explanatory companion to "Rid Of Me", albeit boasting six new songs (like the much-touted "M- Bike"), was the perfect vehicle to kick-start this new career orientation. Harvey spent time abroad, where she played a couple of solo showcases (with /de rigeur/ distortion pedal) to promote the mid-priced LP, before returning home to find herself a house to live in and start writing material for her third album proper. And for the next year or so, that's where she stayed. With her feather boas, mohair dresses and gold shoes, her Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Captain Beefheart albums, her man-size cherry red guitar and a dirty old keyboard, with 'East Enders' on television, the sea for inspiration and a garden to try out her latest batch of sunglasses, Polly followed that Garbo dream she'd once outlined to Gina Morris in the 'NME': "I naturally want to be on my own and not have to speak to people." When she joined Bjork for a version of "Satisfaction" at the BRIT awards early in 1994, there were little clues as to her next move - apart from the act that she was more than happy to enter the rock establishment, as long as it was on her own terms. With elements within that establishment (namely the BBC) slowly moving leftwards (witness Radio 1's recent embrace of indie music, a hipper Top Of The Pops), and the full backing of Island Records, who've not been hesitant about publicising her current album, it's likely that her new work - now richly textured but in many ways less commercial then the hook-laden ("You exhibitionist!") "Dry" - will receive far more exposure than, in strictly economic terms, if would normally warrant. "To Bring You My Love" is hardly like flinging "Trout Mask Replica" at an unsuspecting audience, but neither is it weighed down with the foot-tapping potential of Bjork's debut, which makes a crossover that much easier. Island are optimistic. "With this album, we feel she has delivered a record that will allow us to up the ante", label MD Marc Marot told 'Billboard' recently. But remember, this is the guy who signed My Bloody Valentine, a band who, three years on, have yet to give him anything he can sell. If he survives, then he's probably the most likely to become the Sam Phillips of the 90s (of sorts). For "To Bring You My Love", Harvey recruited a name producer, Flood (Nine Inch Nails, U2), and called in a variety of musicians, form Automatic Dlamini mentor John Parish (drums, guitar) to Tom Waits' sideman Joe Gore (guitar) and Nick Cave colleague Mick Harvey. However, according to Flood, it's a bona fide solo album. It's certainly drastically different from anything she's done before: keyboard-led, it wears its Cave/Waits/Beefheart influences with pride - "Clear Spot" aficionados will immediately recognise the guitar sound and the theme ("Let me ride on his grace for a while" is "her face is a blue million miles") on "Teclo". Not to suggest that the album is some hammy old rag-bag of borrowed ideas: the single "Down By The Water", ably confirmed that. No, unlike most everything else due to appear with '1995' stamped on the label "To Bring You My Love" is destined to stand alone. And unlike the murkiness of Harvey's previous efforts, the textures - of her voice, her guitar, various keyboards - are given full rein, allowing a more sumptuous listening experience than before. More than that, it leaves you as impatient for the next record as she probably is. A rare breed indeed.
Many thanks to Gavin Sharrock, former editor of PJ-zine, 'Daphne Dog', Dave Wilson, Lorne Murdoch and Paul Cox at Too Pure |
