clive langer and alan winstanley : an appreciation thread.

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...."