Skip to main content

Epic Soundtracks by Peter Paphides



Not strictly a WANWTTS outtake (not at all one to be honest) here's a strange little article that appeared in the now defunct weekly music magazine Melody Maker on October 31st 1992. Epic didn't get a lot of press in the UK so this was a rare joy, yet you'd read the first 100 or so words and not realise that Paphides is effectively raving about Epic's very first solo album "Rise Above". Peter Paphides went on to be music critic for The Times, a job he resigned from towards the end of 2010, and currently writes for Mojo amongst others.

I'm running it as a prelude to the soon to be released 2CD set "Wild Smile", a CD of Epic Soundtracks' best songs and a CD of rare and unreleased songs. This will be on Easy Action Records and should appear in the Spring of 2011.

Thanks to Andy Bean for sending me this.

Little Big Music

Post-punk pioneer with Swell Maps, EPIC SOUNDTRACKS has taken 14 years to release a solo album. It's out now, complete with guest appearances by Sonic Youth and J Mascis, and it's cracking.
Peter Paphides reports

“I remember everything I say, right?”
“Sorry.”
“No it's just that I've been misquoted before.”
“Oh.”
“The thing is I'm having this affair with HRH The Princess Of Wales and she doesn't mind if I tell all, so long as you don't publish the bit about the orgies with Princess Anne, Fergie, Mother Teresa and Steve Sutherland”

Actually someone just added that bit while I was out of the office. In our pleasant Notting Hill coffee house rendezvous, Epic, so wary of being misrepresented, said barely anything worth quoting, let alone misquoting. What did transpire though, is here's a somewhat nervous man who'd been milling about on the periphery for longer than the Labour Party, who seems so surprised at being finally allowed to make a solo record, that he thinks someone's going to find him out and bar him from making another.

Fat chance. “Rise Above” is a work of pensive autumnal fragility and of such high quality, that it would be a monumental injustice to halt the fresh flow of Epic's muse. After nearly two decades as drummer for These Immortal Souls, Swell Maps and Nikki Sudden, a trip to New York in order to help out his old muckers Sonic Youth, led to Lee Ranaldo enquiring whether Epic had written anything they might return the favour on. Take it away, Epic
.
“Well, I showed them a bit of a song I'd written, and Kim (Gordon) asked me if I had a lot more songs like this, so I said yes, which was sort of...a lie. But Lee Ranaldo encouraged me to sing a bit more, and as I got more confident I wrote some songs and my voice improved.”
Strange that you should have ignored such an obvious talent for a really sweet melody for so long. “I wish I'd done it before now, but in a way it's what everything I've done has led up to. I'm into melodies. More people should be. I mean you might as well write a melody if you're gonna write a song.”



It only takes a cursory hearing of “Rise Above” to see that it's packed with that attitude. No song more so than the dazed grandeur of “She Sleeps Alone”.
“That's one of my favourites. It's just about a girl who's really attractive, intelligent and popular, but wants to be accepted for what she is, and the loneliness that comes with that. That one's not about anyone, but most of the songs are very personal. Sometimes I think, “My God! Am I really gonna put that out!” But in ten years time I'll be glad I let those feelings out."

“Rise Above” boasts a stellar list of guests, from the drumming talents of J Mascis, to Rowland S Howard helping out with guitars. It's emboldened by the inspired string arrangements of Primal Scream's Henry Olsen and the sly appropriation of the typography of The Beach Boys “Pet Sounds” on the sleeve. Between you and me, Epic's realised that there's no feeling in the world like recording your own songs. He wants to make lots more, but he's scared that we will ignore this one.

We wouldn't do that, would we folks?

Peter Paphides
Melody Maker
October 31st 1992


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Music That Moves Me by Epic Soundtracks

Late 1995 and through the post comes a package from Epic including a photocopy of his contribution to Rolling Stone magazine's "Alt-Rock-A-Rama" which was eventually published in 1996, and a note.... "Hey Chris Here's my piece Dig it Man! Epic" And here is that piece, together with "videos" of the tracks he selects....all bar one. If anybody has a copy of  Harold Smith's Majestic Choir - “We Can All Walk A Little Bit Prouder” single from 1968, it would be pretty cool if you could rustle me up an MP3 of it. Thank-you. And with that, we're back.... Music That Moves Me by Epic Soundtracks Epic Soundtracks (aka Paul Godley) began playing music in 1972 and made his first record in 1977 as drummer with the influential Swell Maps, which also included his brother Nikki Sudden. More recently Epic has re-emerged as a singer, songwriter, and piano player, recording solo albums that reflect many of the influences discussed below. The...
1 comment
Read more

Part Two: Alex Chilton by Epic Soundtracks

Mr Epic Soundtracks As described, the second part of the exhaustive Alex Chilton interview by Epic Soundtracks as included in issue six of What A Nice Way To Turn Seventeen. Let's get straight into it. The cover of What A Nice Way To Turn Seventeen Issue Six's magazine The next record to come out would've been “The Singer Not The Song” EP. There was an album that came out after that from all those sessions, “Bach's Bottom”. Did you have anything to do with the release of that? No, Jon Tiven had the rights to those tracks. How about the Chris Stamey single (“Summer Sun”)? Was there anything cut at the same time as that? Well we did four tracks of mine, but Ork Records could never pay for the tapes. Did the whole punk thing going on in the UK in '76/'77 mean much to you? Well, I think it's difficult to understand the English mentality that bred the Sex Pistols, because the social conditions must not exist in America. I always thought that Americans wh...
4 comments
Read more

Jerry Nolan by Nina Antonia

Billy Rath, Nina Antonia & Jerry Nolan backstage Lyceum 1983 (copyright Mike Thimren 2001) First post of 2011 and it's the first of two New York Dolls related pieces. I may be biased, but as far as rock biographies go, Nina Antonia's Johnny Thunders biography from 1987 "In Cold Blood" is hard to better. As to why I might be biased, a special issue of WANWTTS on Johnny Thunders by the very same Nina (though writing under the name Nina Valez Guido) pre-dated the book in 1985. "Private World - The Gratifying Chaos Of Johnny Thunders" was a 20 page magazine which Nina describes as "a form of preview to my book, to be published shortly, "Johnny Thunders - In Cold Blood" which is the official biography, covering over a decade in Johnny's life and career." It uses excerpts from the book alongside an otherwise unpublished narrative that reads at a thousand miles an hour. There's a selection of Nina's own photographs of Johnny and...
7 comments
Read more