Talk Talk (RIP Mark Hollis)

I actually own a Belgian pop album that my musical namesake plays on:
http://houbi.com/belpop/media/melongalia.jpg

How to do a band interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrgA2gzN3AA&feature=player_embedded

how great is the video for "such a shame"? great concept and execution. it seems like they really didn't want to do a video and were taking the piss, but it ended up great anyway (and with a couple of lols too).

http://www.escuchar-musica-espagnola.com/Musica-De-Los-80/Talk-Talk/images/Talk-Talk-Such-A-Shame.jpg
http://content.internetvideoarchive.com/content/photos/381/016037_2.jpg

xpost That interview clip is awesome. I don't think I've ever heard Mark Hollis speak before, it kinda made me love him even more.

I think I finally "get" O Rang.

So Spirit of Eden/Laughing Stock producer Phill Brown has published his autobiography:

http://www.amazon.com/Are-We-Still-Rolling-Recording/dp/0977990311/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305859189&sr=8-1

Engineer, rather. Still, one of those v. important people in the room.

And having read the book, his accounting of both the album sessions was amazing stuff -- I knew some of the general details of how long/drawn out/involved both recording sessions were but man. Apparently after Laughing Stock was finally done and dusted he sat down his family to hear it so they could know why he'd been essentially gone for half a year (something they'd already gone through with Spirit of Eden which had driven his wife to distraction). After listening to it she removed it from the CD player and apparently has never referred to it or asked about it ever again.

Meantime, also reviving this thread since Ba Da Bing is reissuing both Laughing Stock and the Mark Hollis solo album on vinyl. (Brown talks about the Hollis solo in his book as being much less complex an experience to record but still a memorable one and regretfully mentions a falling out with Hollis afterwards which might explain in part why Hollis has quietly gone to ground.)

I think I finally "get" O Rang

Brown talks about that first album as well! He says it was initially meant to be more of a collaboration between all involved but as the album came together it turned back into more of a band thing with Brown slowly worked out of the picture.

Meantime, also reviving this thread since Ba Da Bing is reissuing both Laughing Stock and the Mark Hollis solo album on vinyl

Original vinyl copies of Laughing Stock are insanely rare since so few copies were pressed, fetching up to £250 on ebay. Not selling mine though obv.

Very excited to finally be able to have Laughingstock on vinyl (I found Spirit of Eden years ago)... That story about his wife is crushing.

Holy shit I am so buying that book! Missed your previous revive. Exciting!

omgz such good news!!!

Loved Brown's series of articles in Tape Op from a few years back (nearly a decade ago, now that I think about it). I would guess the book is an expanded-upon version of what he was writing about then. Going to go order it!

And excited about the Laughing Stock reish and new Mark Hollis

Well I see Tape Op is publisher of the book, so yeah

Okay that explains the somewhat choppy nature of the book! I kept wondering why he repeated a couple of points throughout.

That's great they are putting out his solo album on vinyl, would love to own that. I feel someone should tell the guy hoping to get £640 for it on Amazon.co.uk.

I didn't find it that hard to get Laughing Stock on vinyl earlier this year. It usually goes for around £30 on Ebay but I was lucky enough to find the red vinyl reissue in a shop in Manchester for just £15.

Holy shit I am so buying that book! Missed your previous revive. Exciting!

― Axolotl with an Atlatl (Jon Lewis), Thursday, September 1, 2011 6:00 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

Totally otm!

So I've given up speculating how Mark Hollis spends his time these days, but what the F are Harris and Webb up to?

Seem to have gone to ground. The Within Without fanpage had the last concrete update in 2008 saying that they were allegedly 'still recording.'

This might be the Lee Harris in question but I'm not sure...

https://www.facebook.com/mrleeharris

I wonder if they still have The Slug? (Recording space where the 'O'rang records were made...)

i love this picture of hollis from 2004, just dropping by the BMI office to pick up an award: http://www.bmi.com/news/entry/234221

Two to one says that's the only photograph of him from the past decade.

LOL "who was unable to attend this year's London Awards"

Would love to read that book - and to hear the Hollis solo album. I'm a relatively new Talk Talk convert - one of those "where have they been all my life" bands.

Ya gotta start somewhere. Think of it this way, sir -- you had Slint from the early nineties on to lock into, where I went for Talk Talk. (Obv. a lot of people went for both.)

I wonder how Hollis can actually afford to do nothing. Talk Talk weren't that huge were they? Surely you can't retire forever off the back of a few synth pop hits in the eighties?

He could just live very simply for all we know. They were certainly enough of a commercial success in Europe at least that if he squirreled away enough then he could take it easy, and it seems that he might well feel he's said what he has to say. See also: Bill Withers.

bill withers had HUGE hits in a much bigger country that are still on the playlists of many radio formats AND were sampled by many million-selling hip-hop artists. just sayin'.

gonna pull spirit of eden out tonight. break the headphones out.

Yeah, it's very feasible for Withers to be living off his royalties, a bit less so for Hollis. A few big European hits in the 80s might have netted him a few hundred thousand at most.

Like I said, though, dude could be living very simply! Or even just doing some quiet work somewhere at his own pace. My point re: Bill Withers wasn't in terms of comparative success so much as the latter point of my sentence before it -- if he's said what he's said to the extent he feels moved to, then his stepping away makes perfect sense.

I think No Doubt probably act as pension for Hollis.

yeah 'it's my life' is still on the radio all the time in the US in the talk talk version, plus the no doubt version...I'm sure he's doing ok.

I still hear Life's What You Make It quite often, too. The steady drip-drip-drip of PRS and royalty checks just from those two songs is probably enough for Hollis to live comfortably (if modestly); given the aescetic nature of his solo album one suspects he probably doens't live in a lavish penthouse anywhere.

Pretty sure Mark Hollis supports himself by writing jingles and adverts these days.

Josh, are you joking?

laughing stock and mark hollis s/t two albums i'm perfectly happy to own on cd. they sound amazing. i bought spirit of eden on vinyl when it came out and that sounds great too, but talk talk records - going back to colour of spring one of the first CDs i ever bought - sound great no matter how you slice them. if every cd sounded as good as laughing stock i might, uh, own a lot more cds!

^^ agree

I bought both Spirit and Laughing Stock on CD about ten years ago, because my vinyl versions were getting annoyingly crackly (especially LS). But if you're a vinyl freak, I suppose they're very tempting to own

xpost Yes, I was joking ... as far as I know!

feel like if he made another album it would just be one note on a piano for a few seconds followed by 69 minutes of silence.

it would be one perfect chord, resonating. Followed by a bowed cymbal.

It would prob be a lot like Morton Feldman

the joke will be on all of us when they regroup to tour "the partys over" in it's entirety

Two to one says that's the only photograph of him from the past decade.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, September 1, 2011 1:47 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

Third picture down:
http://talktalk.rmc.fr/8/

I think that's a pic of the french guy who runs that talktalk site... (although I love the thought of Hollis wearing a Marillion t-shirt on his birthday)

^^ yeaah!

Oh y'know, the usual influences... Tago Mago, Sketches Of Spain, Forever Changes... MARILLION

There's another pic of what looks like the same guy at the bottom of this page...

http://talktalk.rmc.fr/14

...where he appears to be presenting the TalkTalk story to a group of alcoholics.

A good read here:

http://thequietus.com/articles/06963-talk-talk-laughing-stock

That is a great read. He repeats the point of "but was it really a David vs Goliath struggle? One tends to think not!" a couple of times too many to my liking, but otherwise it's a very insightful and interesting read.