clive langer and alan winstanley : an appreciation thread.

the fact is, the music they produced for madness, sounds bloody fantastic.
they really stretched it for the magnificent 7, and recent remasters just prove how special the team up was.
the bass sax in 'nightboat to cairo', the sonic heaviness in the opening bars of 'cardiac arrest', the lounge groove of 'los palmas', the strings on 'our house' etc.
has there ever been a production duo as brilliant as 'langer & winstanley'
yet for all the importance they have in my world, I don't think I have ever seen a picture of them.
so please tell me stories of their other stuff, their history, I feel they are a lot more important in the success of my fave pop band than given credit.
that said, just how did they end up producing bush !!?

Can't say much about their production but I consider myself a big fan of Langer as songwriter/performer. I don't remember which Deaf School songs he wrote but I'm sure he was behind some of their great stuff. He wrote What a Way to End it All but I can't find songwriting credits for the rest of their stuff.

But his following solo stuff as Clive Langer & The Boxes is great and underrated. The EP I Want the Whole World should be HUGE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epF9BdWar44&list=PLx6ustRgJbZk3AhZcMOEq-qE1o7hbOGud&index=4

LP good as well. Enough respect to get a single on Creation in 87 or so?

Then he wrote the songs for the movie Brothers of the Head, a fake documentary about conjoined twins forming a rock band. I remember watching the movie and thinking whoah, these songs are really good, and then hearing one song and thinking...this sounds like a Clive Langer song!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDnBsH9z-JI&index=6&list=PLxbCq_CmAQWqHlhO1Yj5KTY7xIwOv_R8b

He co-wrote Shipbuilding with Elvis Costello and has recently performed solo and with Deaf School.

Sorry, not about the production!

He also produced all the solo stuff from Deaf School singer Bette Bright who retired after marrying Suggs, so there's that connection.

wish I could find the 7" version of this to share as it's fantastic, but here's a recent performance with Andy Mackay and Suggs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkGkNglzqAk

w/ Suggs and Bette Bright (and mackay?) doing Love is the Drug, fitting as Deaf School was one of those post Roxy Music art-school music hall glam bands that got lost in the punk rock explosion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Zca---opb8

They produced "Treason" and "Passionate Friend" for the Teardrop Explodes, but IMO Dave Balfe and Bill Drummond served TE better, production wise. Agree about their work for Madness though. TBH I assumed they were far more ubiquitous in the early 80s than Wikipedia suggests.

I was, and remain, floored by their work on Elvis Costello's <i>Punch the Clock</i>. They managed to give a rock album the spareness and precision of chamber music, without making it sound stifled

Your display name reminds me that they produced a track with Slim Gaillard - Selling Out from the Absolute Beginners soundtrack. Sounds a bit like a Madness b-side.

And yeah, Punch the Clock is a great album. And of course they did Goodbye Cruel World as well...

One of their strengths is arranging larger ensembles of 7-12 musicians and somehow getting a lot of space in the music. Also they are really good at using pianos - either for dramatic interludes, effects or just tinkling away almost unnoticed in the far background.

Here's a few from my singles box they produced:
Sandy Shaw - Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken
The Rockingbirds - Jonathan Jonathan
Alexei Sayle - Ullo John Gotta New Motor!
Primal Scream - Imperial (they only produced this one track but it's the best/only good song on the album)
A lot of the Absolute Beginners soundtrack including the title song.
Flowered Up - Weekender

Then there's Dexy's, TMBG's Flood, Lloyd Cole & the Commotions, Haysi Fantayzee (haha).

has there ever been a production duo as brilliant as 'langer & winstanley'
yet for all the importance they have in my world, I don't think I have ever seen a picture of them.
so please tell me stories of their other stuff, their history, I feel they are a lot more important in the success of my fave pop band than given credit.

If I remember correctly, Alan Winstanley was more the "engineer" of the two, responsible for the technical side of things, whereas Clive Langer was more responsible for helping to shape the material that the band had brought in, i.e. "you don't need that chorus there, cut that out", "change that bit to the bridge", "that bit isn't necessary, cut it out", "swap that bit with that bit", "that bit might be a better intro" etc. etc. and so on and so forth.

Alan Winstanley used to work at TW Studios, where The Stranglers did their early demos and their first three albums. In fact, Winstanley engineered on The Stranglers' first three albums while Martin Rushent produced (he helped Rushent build Genetic Studios, apparently), and co-produced The Stranglers fourth album. I think that might have been Alan Winstanley's first production credit, although I'm not entirely sure.

Clive Langer came into production from a songwriting background, Alan Winstanley came into production from an engineering background.

I remember hearing this story about when XTC attempted to record 'Ball and Chain' with Langer & Winstanley - while the band got on quite well with Winstanley, Partridge felt that Langer was trying to fuck with his art a bit and refused to change anything about the song, so Langer left the session and left them to get on with it. That version didn't come out until Coat Of Many Cupboards, I don't think.

They are very shy of publicity it seems. There's not many interviews with them out there but I just found this one that goes into their roles in detail and also answers the question about how they ended up working with Bush. Turns out they were a bit reticent about it but did some homework by listening to Steve Albini records!

that said, just how did they end up producing bush !!?

The eternal mystery (though thanks for that link there, everything!). And they ended up producing a least a couple of no-mark bands precisely BECAUSE of that. "Hey can you polish our turds too?"

Right, Symposium and They Gyres spring to mind.

I'd completely forgotten about Symposium, I think I only ever met one person ever who thought anything of them.

Oh yeah, Alan Winstanley also did one of the post-Hugh Cornwell Stranglers albums, About Time, in 1995. Langer & Winstanley also did Hugh Cornwell's solo album Wolf, although that's probably the worst production job I've ever heard from them.

Winstanley produced the self titled first album 4 Out of 5 Doctors which is a great power-pop record

kind of 'power-pop band try to go a bit new-wave (but not too much)' stuff, but really good with it

seem to recall there was a bit of press around the fact that they produced the album by 3rd tier Britpop band 'dogs die in hot cars', given that the band were crap, but had managed to get A&W in to produce it.

thanks for all the info/pointers/stories.

much appreciated.

Dogs Die In Hot Cars: tragically underrated imo, don't think that name helped

Yes, the worst band name ever...
Given that I've had former acquaintances of my family actually make the mistake of locking their dogs inside a car with the doors closed during a heatwave and killed them (this before it

was considered "reportable" by the media), and also that fucked up loser from L.A. who made a media spectacle in the late 90s by shooting himself in the head in front of live cameras on top of a bridge over a major L.A. freeway after setting his truck on fire -- WITH HIS DOG INSIDE IT! -- I find it hard to believe that any band would name themselves this and think "yeah, it's got a nice ring to it. I like it!" without a) being complete fucking idiots, or b) just not giving a shit.. both of which are very suspicious to me.

I wouldn't be nearly as livid had the band name simply been truncated to "Dogs Die", as at least that doesn't imply awful tragedy that's avoidable.

I am personally projecting a lot here, I completely admit. I'm sure many have similar reasons to be equally outraged at the band names Joy Division or New Order, for historic/religious reasons. So, who am I to speak?

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, May 25, 2005 6:44 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'equally outraged'

they took the name verbatim from an actual public awareness campaign

Yeah, idly walked past a public awareness poster a couple of months ago, thought to myself "Oh are they still going? Must be playing locally...."