Talulah Gosh :: Articles :: Record Mirror, 13 December 1986

Things are starting to get just a little out of hand. When Talulah Gosh formed in Oxford less than a year ago, their masterplan was fairly unambitious; they wanted to support the Pastels. In time this was successfully achieved, but now, with one of those ironic coups that happen occasionally in the pop world, these five young persons have outstripped any popularity that the Pastels have enjoyed in their lengthy career. For, in some quarters at least, Talulah Gosh are almost superstars.

But all this attention isn’t entirely welcome, especially the ‘totally wet’ tag that the cynics have been throwing around so much lately. And this is something the band are keen to deny. The original idea, they claim, was to combine a punky bluster with the more tacky elements of Sixties all-girl bands; to be sweet and syrupy, but to spice it all with a sense of humour. Hence the pink guitar, the hands coyly clasped to the front and the ‘Mmmm, mmmm, he’s so dreamy’ sentiments.

Yet what they had done was to touch on something that was potentially rather huge. Because a lot of people, it seems, were quite willing to swallow the whole twee routine minus the humour. People actually wanted a band that would be dootsy and shy, and would sing seriously about flying kites to the moon and holding hands. There was a fertile ‘anorak scene’ out there just looking for a definitive anorak band. And that band became Talulah Gosh.

Eager, sensitive types began to forward marriage proposals to Marigold and Liz. Drummer Matthew was recently asked to autograph a Smartie tube, and frothy fan letters describe how admirers sing the band’s songs on the way to school and eat loads of ice cream just because of them. One over-emotional pundit was even moved to kiss Elizabeth at one of their last gigs, to her intense displeasure.

And it is this same adament young lady who approaches me at the Bay 63, prior to the band’s onstage appearance.

“Listen, I won’t be able to make the interview tomorrow, so I’d like to get some things straight now. That piece on ‘cuties’ in your magazine was absolute rubbish. Do you think I’m in any way cute?”

Well…

“It’s just getting beyond a joke—you wouldn’t believe the letters we’re getting. What we do isn’t meant to be taken that way. I’m a big fan of bands like the Shangri-Las who had this camp, tongue-in-cheek appeal. I mean, you couldn’t take ‘Beatnik Boy’ at all seriously, could you?”

The song in question is one of a pair of Talulah Gosh singles that should already be gracing the shelves of your local record store. It contains lines like ‘You’re my beatnik boy, you make me jump for joy’, and has Liz strumming an acoustic guitar and singing in a most distinctive soprano register.

Flip this over, and there’s Marigold going ‘I asked you a hundred times, will you be my best friend—forever?’, with a vocal style that takes most of its influence from the school playground. Whether these songs do contain some camp humour is open to debate (even the band is divided on this one), but what cannot be denied is that this is one of the most remarkable indie bands to appear in 1986.

In tests, nine out of 10 rm writers are found to loathe ‘Beatnik Boy’ and its accomplice, ‘Steaming Train’. “This is drivel!” they howl. “Not that cutie crap again,” they protest as one of the records makes it way to the turntable again. Of course, raunchy rock and rollers and style moguls will always find this sort of thing offensive, but this kind of reaction also illustrates the kind of prejudice that gets levelled against the band. Which is based not so much on what Talulah Gosh sound like, but on what people imagine they are supposed to be.

The day after a quite impressive London gig, myself and three of the band members get to sifting through the various misconceptions that have begun to surround them. So where did all this ‘cutie’ stuff come from anyway.

Peter (guitar): “It was the first suggestion of a new cult, and of course, that’s what people like to read about. At the time, there were probably only 30 people who fitted into the description, but it seems to have caught people’s imagination a bit. Mainly in a megative way.”

Marigold: “The only cuties there are, are in the audience, they aren’t in the group. So the group’s getting really annoyed with the whole thing.”

Peter: “The actual derivation of the style is all these ultra-hip people in Glasgow, who were all hard, but they thought it was a really funny thing to do, to break away from other people’s fashion. That’s where people wearing anoraks and so on started.”

Chris (bass): “I don’t regret it at all, because I quite like the idea of getting up people’s noses. And if there’s one thing that gets up people’s noses, it’s other people pretending to be little children. In a way, it’s funny to dare people to like the records, even though the band’s got all this ludicrous publicity about them.”

But don’t you think you brought some of this on yourselves, like the girls (Liz and Amelia) calling themselves Pebbles and Marigold? It’s a bit Enid Blyton-ish, isn’t it?

Chris: “Not really. The point is that Liz isn’t Pebbles any more,” (Liz told me earlier that the bogus name had been an attempt to remain anonymous), “and Amelia is still Marigold, so we’ve kept a kind of balance in there.”

Marigold: “It was meant to be funny, it wasn’t supposed to be childish.”

Peter: “It was only intended at first for a limited circle of people. We all had a name at one stage.”

Chris: “Yeah, we didn’t know we were going to be famous then.”

So has all this attention put a lot of pressure on the band?

Peter: “I don’t think you have to worry about it and go ‘oh gosh, we’ve got to live up to our reputations’.”

Marigold: “It’s a bit depressing sometimes, when, because of all the build-up in the press, we get letters from people saying, ‘Why do you think you’re so good—prove it to me.’ We never said we were good, we never said anything of the sort; people said we were good. Obviously, we thought we were really chronic.

“We think we’re quite good now, but it’s probably because they keep telling us.”

So can you see Talulah Gosh developing into a long-term thing?

Marigold: “No!”

Peter: “If we keep coming up with the goods, I imagine we’d want to keep it going, but you can never tell how much you’re going to have in you. It might be that in six months we’re getting better, or it might be that we haven’t got anything new which will satisfy us.”

Marigold: “We haven’t really got a formula for writing songs yet, so we never know if we’re going to be able to write another song. It took about four months between the last two songs I wrote.”

Peter: “I don’t think long life is an important thing.”

Marigold: “Maybe if we were all unhappy in what we were doing outside the group, we’d f-e-e-e-l really tempted to jack it all in and just concentrate on the group. In which case, we’d be really upset when they slagged us off.

“As it is, neither me or Liz… Even if we don’t like university very much, we’re not allowed to leave. Basically our parents would kill us! Pete can’t leave his job, and Matthew can’t leave school,” (Marigold’s younger brother had to miss the interview because of a history exam). “So the band’s always got to take second place. I think that’s quite healthy.”

Does the softer side of the band have any relation to the fact that you come from a rural area? I mean, would you sound like this if you came from London?

Chris: “I hate London. Usually, when I come here, I get more intense, I can’t get out. All this trendy London bit, there’s no magic in any of the stuff. They’re all these clenched-buttocked models.”

Peter: “They could all do with a g-o-o-o-d spot of living in Steeple Aston, or somewhere like that.”

Marigold: “Steeple Aston’s got a really good goat on the village green!”

Peter: “There you go! If you’ve got a goat on your village green, you don’t fart around wondering what stupid hip hop record you’re gonna buy.”

Marigold: “The main thing is that some people think that’s all there is to life; going out at night, and going to discos and dancing and making cool talk.”

So what else is there?

Marigold: “Lying in bed… And going for walks… And books.”