The Servants was an indie band formed in 1985 in Hayes, Middlesex, England by singer and songwriter David Westlake. The Servants were on 1986’s NME-associated C86 compilation, and the greatly expanded 48-song reissue version in 2006. The Servants was the original home of Luke Haines (leader of The Auteurs and Black Box Recorder). As chronicled in an interview in US music magazine The Big Takeover (issue 53, 2004), Belle & Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch was a huge Westlake fan and was trying to locate him during the years that the older singer was dormant in the hopes of forming a band with him, before launching Belle in his school class instead.[1]
Contents |
The Servants (first line-up: David Westlake - vocals & guitar, John Mohan - guitar, Phil King - bass, John Wills - drums) played their first gig at The Water Rats Theatre in London's King's Cross on July 1st 1985. They were signed by Head Records, a new independent label started by Jeff Barrett, later head of Heavenly Records. The band's first single "She's Always Hiding" (March '86) is a disarming coupling of Dusty in Memphis with Davy Graham guitars. Well received by the press, the band's appeal was obvious, with Westlake's excelsior, urbane English song writing (that's English as in David Niven, or Rex Harrison) and John Mohan's assimilation of a suburban Zal Yanovsky. Inevitably the band were invited to record a Peel session (March '86). Inevitably the session was great; has anyone ever attempted anything like the Brit / Lovin' Spoonful hybrid that is "You'd Do Me Good"? An invitation by the then popular NME to appear on their C86 compilation was grudgingly accepted, though the band insisted on the track being the B-side of their first single - the wrong-footing Syd-alike "Transparent". Keen to distance themselves from the retarded "shambling" scene, the band earned a reputation for haughtiness. (Never a bad thing.) Unfortunately the NME compilation sold well and the Servants became known for one of their inferior tracks. Still, with Westlake's song writing becoming even more deft, the band recorded "The Sun, A Small Star" - described by future Servant Luke Haines as "a 24 carat 'Brown Eyed Girl' classic" - in August '86.[2]
Luke Haines was in the Servants' line-up when the band returned in '87. Out of the blue Westlake receives a telephone call from Hugh Whitaker, drummer with the hugely popular Housemartins. Whitaker feels his band have become too big. He offers his services to the Servants. He has made the right decision. By this time with Creation Records, the Servants return to the studio to demo new material, great songs including "Hey, Mrs John" and "Who's Calling You Baby Now", which has more in common with Vegas period Elvis than anything else going on at the time. At the end of the year Creation fearlessly drops the Servants. Goodwill from the music industry is low, and luck is thin on the ground. Mid '88 the Servants are thrown a lifeline by Dave Barker, owner of Glass Records. Glass promise a reasonable budget to record an album. The plan is to go into Elephant studios with John Brand producing (they even borrow a Yamaha DX7, keyboard du jour). At the eleventh hour they hear that Glass distributors Red Rhino have "gone bust". The budget is slashed. They go into the studio anyway (without Brand and thankfully without the DX7) and record a single, "It's My Turn". It is an epic. One of Westlake's finest lyrics: "The light at the end of the tunnel is a train headed this way / To remind me what love is . . .". They do some gigs and, quelle surprise, the record company forgets to release the record for about a year. The Servants eventually release an album in 1990 on Fire Records. It is called Disinterest. It is Art Rock. Ten years too late and fifteen years too early.[3]
With six bass players, three drummers and two uninterested record labels behind them, Westlake and Haines painstakingly record demos for one more Servants album, provisionally entitled Smalltime. "The demos are great," says Haines, "but the album never gets made".[4] The Servants last gig was at the Rock Garden, August 1991. With no room to manoeuvre and no opportunities left the band finally split.[5] Cherry Red Records released a 2006 retrospective of the Servants, called Reserved, the best place to begin with the band.[1] Reserved features all of the releases prior to the Disinterest album plus Peel session tracks and demos.
In new year '87 David Westlake recorded a solo record with Luke Haines, for the then fashionable Creation Records. Haines plays Verlaine / Lloyd lead interspersed with Steve Cropper chops on six Westlake compositions. (This was the short-lived era of the "mini-album". Cheap to record, impossible to market.) Five days in Greenhouse Studios using the Triffids' rhythm section and Westlake is a minor classic. Obviously, it cuts against the grain of the paisley psychedeliasts and inept Byrds tribute acts clogging up the Creation roster. Westlake, Haines and a Dr Rhythm drum machine undertake a tour of the sceptred isle. Unfortunately, the record company forget to release the record until six months later. Westlake receives decent reviews, but otherwise disappears to a howl of indifference.[5]
Play Dusty for Me (2002) is only Westlake’s second solo LP, and even this one was released, sort of, in a highly limited issue that quickly sold out but was still never repressed. London's Angular Recording Corporation issued a new, digital version in 2010, with bonus tracks. Interestingly, it is a highly reserved fare. The music has something in common with the “Pale Blue Eyes”/“Sunday Morning” Velvet Underground. Add in a wistful touch of Dusty Springfield (an old Westlake favourite, feted here in the both the album title and opening title track), and a general unhurried nature of an LP put out for pure love rather than commercial gain, and this collaboration with guitarist Dan Cross and two Moore brothers for the rhythm section, Cormac bass and Willis drums, just seems to lay there in its relaxed, prettied, cooing loveliness. Don’t pick any one track, though any of them would give you the overarching idea; sit down for the whole hour and 18 songs and take in the charming, lightly perfumed, but soulful air. And the good news is that eight years later, Westlake is still recording on occasion, as his Doin’ it For the Kids compilation track with the Moore brothers in 2008 showed.[1]
Singles
Albums
Videos