Ruby (band)

Ruby is the collaboration of singer Lesley Rankine and Mark Walk. Rankine relocated from London to Seattle to collaborate with the producer in 1994.^[1] Their music styles expanded across the genres of electronic, trip hop, noise, industrial, and jazz, among others.^[2] Between 1995 and 2015, the band has released three studio albums, three remix albums and various singles and EPs. The name for this group came about because Rankine and Walk both have maternal grandmothers named "Ruby".^[3]

Ruby members

Lesley Rankine

Rankine (born April 11, 1965)^[4] began her music career as front woman to London garage psych band The Grizzelders, recording one cassette-only release called "Making It Real Gear", before forming noise band Silverfish, leaving the group after the release of their 1993 LP Organ Fan and then departing for Seattle. There she joined forces with producer Mark Walk to create an electronic album which echoed the downtempo styles, especially trip hop, more than their noise backgrounds. She had previously worked with Walk on material for industrial group Pigface. The result was the album Salt Peter, which was released in 1995, with a remix album, Revenge, The Sweetest Fruit, appearing in 1996. She also appeared on the Toronto-based Monster Voodoo Machine's Suffersystem album recorded in 1994 at Chicago Trax; this album would win a Juno Award. Following the release of Ruby's debut album and the supporting tour that ended in 1996, Rankine with Tom Jones recorded a cover of the song Kung Fu Fighting,^[5] and later recorded a one-minute version of Lerner and Loewe's "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" for a Samuel Bayer-directed Mountain Dew commercial in which she also appeared.^[6]

Rankine then moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. The stay would be only six months due to events including a rash of car-jackings and hold-ups in the surrounding areas, and culminating with the murder of a woman in the garden across from her. When Rankine learned the killer had deposited the victim's clothing in her garbage as they left the scene, she left New Orleans within five days for Seattle to start recording Ruby's second album with producer Mark Walk.^[5]

Most of Short-Staffed at the Gene Pool would be finished by August 1998 and nearly completed by Rankine in her native Scotland throughout 1999. Rankine would spend the year 2000 dealing with the old contracts with labels WORK and Creation, and setting things up with Wichita in the UK, with the band's next two albums out in 2001. For a short time Ruby continued to collaborate with former Creation label members Mark Bowen and Dick Green, but by March 2008 no further recordings had been released. Rankine took a break from recording, returning to her home country.^[5]

In December 2012, Rankine announced on her Facebook page that she was working on new music and videos under the Ruby name.^[7] In 2013, she subsequently released the Revert To Type EP and Type 2.0 remix EP, together with singles and music videos.

Mark Walk

Walk had previously worked with Rankine on material for industrial group Pigface. As of March 2008, he resided in Los Angeles, USA, where in addition to collaborating on albums for both of the groups Skinny Puppy and ohGr, he has been writing and producing music for commercials as well as film.^[8]

Albums

Salt Peter

Ruby's first album, Salt Peter, was released November 1, 1995.^[9] The album would produce three singles, all of which would chart in the UK. It was made almost entirely using computers and without a band. The album's songs have been described as being driven by loops of drums and repetitious guitar/bass riffs.^[10] Rankine explains the approach and reasoning:

I didn't use a band on this record because I honestly believe that I was not put on this earth to share my life with a bunch of other people...^[10]

Salt Peter's first single was "Paraffin", released on November 7, 1995.^[11] The compilation New Voices vol. 3 from Rolling Stone Magazine had this song as its second track.^[12] It was followed up with Ruby's best known song, "Tiny Meat", which was also released in 1995.^[13] It would be the only song by the band to chart in the United States, reaching #22 on the Modern Rock Tracks list. This song was also included in the compilation MTV Fresh 2. Another single, "Hoops" came out in early 1996. Later in that year the promotion-only single for the track "Swallow Baby" was put out for radio play. An up-to-then unreleased song called "This Is" was on the soundtrack to the film The Cable Guy in May 1996. The CD single for the song "Paraffin" included a remix called "Harpie Mix" which was also on the soundtrack to the 1997 movie The Beautician and the Beast. All of Salt Peter's singles had music videos made for them.

In his review of Salt Peter, Troy Carpenter, co-director of nudeasthenews.com, considered the album promising but not ground-breaking musically, however "surprisingly original". Its music he considered "often less-than-stellar" but the lyrics were what caught his attention, and he sums the effort up by stating "Though Salt Peter leaves the aural palate dissatisfied, it brushes with greatness.^[10]

On April 8, 1996, a remix album called Revenge, The Sweetest Fruit: Salt Peter Remixed was released in the United States,^[14] followed by the UK version Stroking The Full Length on October 29, 1996.^[15] The third track from Stroking... is a "Ceasefire Remix" of the song "Flippin' tha Bird" and this version was part of the movie soundtrack to the 1997 film Nowhere. The Japan release of Stroking... was out on September 1, 1996, and came with an extra track the other remix albums of Salt Peter do not have. It was the "Mark Walk Mix" of the song "Tiny Meat."

Short-Staffed At The Gene Pool

During and after the tour in support of Salt Peter, the duo began early work on their next album; however several events would push its release well into 2001. Among these issues the largest were internal problems in the studio and the struggle then eventual folding of Ruby's label Creation Records in 1999, when the band (as with most of Creation's artists) was meshed into the parent label, Sony. Rankine described the situation and time frame in an interview from August 8, 2001, by Holly Day:

"Q: Why was there such a big gap between your last record and this new one?

A: Because of the people I was working with, really. I mean, the guy I had originally been working with didn’t want to give me my record back, and held onto it for nearly a year and a half. And then when I eventually did get my record back, the American record label, Creation, folded, and I was sort of absorbed into Sony, since Creation was owned by Sony. So then I had to wait around for a year to get out of the Sony deal.

Q: How long ago was the record finished?

A: My bit was finished all the way back in 1997. I didn’t actually get my record back until June 1999, and shortly thereafter the label went down the pot. So I’ve got quite a bit of new material to try out during this tour, all written while waiting for this new album to come out."^[16]

The album Short-Staffed At The Gene Pool would be the result, released on April 23, 2001, in the UK, and a day later in the US.^[17] It was on new labels for the group, Wichita Recordings and Thirsty Ear Recordings. The album produced three singles; "Grace" (released March 20, 2001), "Beefheart" (July 31, 2001), and "Lamplight" (released in 2002), all of which had music videos made for them. Ruby's last album to date (as of March 2008) was Altered and Proud, the Short Staffed Remixes, which came out on July 17, 2001.^[18] Neither the studio album Short staffed..., the remix album Altered and Proud..., or any of their singles would chart in the United States.

Revert To Type

On 1 February 2013, Rankine released a new single and music video, Waiting For Light.^[19]

This was followed by a 6 track EP, Revert To Type on 23 July 2013, which was produced by Scott Firth & Lesley Rankine, and included remixes by Scott Firth, Pumajaw & Engine7.^[20]

A remix EP, Type 2.0 was released on 18 November 2013, with remixes by Rozio, Geek Boy, John Davis and Michael Travis/The Difference Engine.^[21]

Further music videos for Last Life and Lush, from the Revert To Type EP were released in 2013.

1996 tour

Of the duo only Rankine went on the road; Walk did not participate in performing the live shows.<ref name="Section 3 - Ruby "Stroking the Full Length">""Section 3 - Ruby "Stroking the Full Length"". "www.section3.com". Retrieved 2008-03-30. </ref> With Rankine on vocals the touring band consisted of Chris Taplin on bass/guitar, Gavin Fawcett on drums, Sharon Dougherty on keyboard/guitar (replaced by Regina Chellew mid tour). Ruby performed at the Pukkelpop music festival, the Reading Festival, and Lollapalooza during 1996, in support of the album Salt Peter.

2001 tour

Ruby's North American tour supporting Short-Staffed At The Gene Pool started off with a huge hitch: lost effects equipment for a group that uses only effects to perform their music live. Rankine relates the story in the same 2001 interview:

"Q: So I heard something happened to your luggage?

A: Yes, it’s awful! The skycart didn’t put a tag on one piece. There were 15 pieces of luggage that were sent with us to L.A., but only 14 actually got here. The one that didn’t get the tag is apparently still flying around out there somewhere, or tied up at a different airport or something. The airline says we have no real recourse, that we’re somehow just as responsible for the missing piece as they are. It’s ironic, because that one missing piece contained all our effects units, all of our keyboards and connecting MIDI cables and power cables, and basically everything we needed to run every instrument for the tour. If they had lost any other piece of luggage we could have still pulled the tour off. If we’d lost one guitar, we’d still have another, and same with the double-bass—we have an electric that’d work just as well. But because that one piece of luggage got lost, this tour almost didn’t happen.

"Q: Will you be able to replace all that stuff?

A: Yeah, we eventually had to go buy everything we needed. We had to run around to Guitar Center and Radio Shack and some other place and buy all new stuff, so now I’m up to my eyeballs in debt. The equipment is all insured, so eventually we’ll get the money back—but still, not the greatest way to start our tour. If the equipment hadn’t been insured, I would have just turned around and gone home."^[16]

Discography

Chart performance

Singles

Albums

References

External links

• Official artist website (archived)
• Lesley Rankine Discography
• Ruby's page on Wichita website (archived)
• New York Times article from 2/26/1996 describing Rankine's on-stage performance