By Keith Walsh
Before establishing himself as a studio whiz and singer/songwriter creating electronic music around Los Angeles, Julian Shah-Tayler fronted a couple guitar bands in London. In 1997 he moved there from his college town of York, with bands Magic House and drinkme. It’s this latter band that concerns us now.
Just today, On the 20th anniversary of their conception, Shah-Tayler released a remastered set of drinkme’s The Creation Sessions on Impossible Things Records. The impossibly catchy 9 song collection, available on all streaming services, includes studio recordings as well as demos (though the demos are so well recorded that the difference is only nominal.) The first thing that caught my attention was the melodic nature of the songs, despite the noisy trappings. “I’m a pop writer, predominantly,” Shah-Tayler says.”Whatever context it might be, whether that be synth, or punky guitars, I don’t know how to write a song that isn’t (pop), if that makes sense.”
From the opener “Do You Wanna Get High,” then the insane earworm “Feeling Like A Boy,” through “Everything’s OK” and the rest, it’s a playlist featuring Shah-Tayler’s bratty guitar, passionate vocals by Shah-Tayler and Ruth Owen, and sharp production. Bass is by Owen, drums by Aidan Buccheri, and guitars by Scott Fairbrother and Emily Mann.
Shah-Tayler and I spoke about the recordings and their circumstances in a phone call last week. As drinkme was playing fashion shows and stylish venues around Carnaby Street and elsewhere in London, one might expect the sound to be glossy and slick, not the aggressive yet tuneful guitar-based sound presented on the album.
Saving Guitar Rock
Shah-Tayler told me: “The thing is, right about that time there was a big influx of bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Strokes and Interpol and all those guys, which was sort of reanimating guitar rock because the whole Britpop thing sort of imploded and a lot of crap stuff was around. And then The Strokes came along and made everything raw and cool and guitar-oriented again. They were being praised as, the guys that saved guitar rock… I was in a band called Magic House prior to that, which was kind of Muse meets Suede, I guess, is a good way of describing it as completely off the punk trip.”
Indeed, the vibe of the drinkme Creation Sessions departs from hardcore punk in various ways, with bubblegum chord progressions and melodies, though with some punkish lyrics about youthful rebellion and having fun. Some of the songs tackle social issues if only in the titles, but that’s in the spirit of rock and roll since at least the 1960s (“Automatic Pistol,”and “Gun Heaven” for example might appear on the surface as social commentary, but the songs serve as metaphors for youthful lust and misadventure.)
I asked about the lack of keyboards on the set. “There were no keyboards in Magic House (either),” Shah-Tayler said “I played classical piano for many years but I never incorporated piano or synths or anything like that into my own music until must have been about 15 years ago because it was all guitar. I yeah. Basically, I was a punky guitar player.”
Dressed Liked Fashion Models
The Creation Sessions came to be when label impresario Alan McGee heard Shah-Tayler’s cassette demo for “Do You Wanna Get High?” approached him with copious praise, and contracted him to record an album for McGee’s Poptones Records. The band was “put together,” as Shah-Tayler said, and started playing at posh places around London.
“We’d have a lot of shows with celebrity DJs like Boy George. And so we were a very good-looking band. We thought about the image very much and then the sound we made was quite powerful…I feel like we did actually rehearse a lot but you know the recordings are quite good.” Shah-Tayler said the demos near the end of The Creation Sessions were recorded live. Nevertheless, they’re still quite excellent.
The scene was quite complex, as drinkme played at legendary clubs around London and even on Carnaby Street during Fashion Week. “We played private members clubs,” Shah-Tayler tells me. “The Café De Paris is a very, very famous club, played by Frank Sinatra and all the cool kids – in the roaring 20s they used to go to the Café De Paris. And we were basically residents there, because the guy who ran it, a guy called ‘Mickey P,’ I think ‘Mickey Palance’ is his name, he was very old school – I don’t know whether he was gangster, he may have been in that category, and he booked all the shows. And of course we looked great, so we fit with burlesque. There was a very big gay scene there as well. So it was like, the gay and burlesque and celebrity DJ circuit shows. We would get the shows because I mean, we were good live – don’t get me wrong, we weren’t bad. But we also looked great. So it was this glorious racket coming from these punky kids, who were dressed like fashion models, basically.” In addition to Boy George, Shah-Tayler told me that the late Pete Burns of Dead Or Alive was a DJ at their shows.
Having Fun
I’ve always found it exciting when artists catch lightning in a bottle using whatever gear is available. When talking about drinkme, Shah-Tayler can’t identify the guitar brand or model he used. “I had one guitar. I had that blue sparkly thing and ..I may not even have had an amp at the time… I only played guitar because I had to — not because I was any good unless when drinkme came along. Most definitely I improved my guitar playing, you know, I worked on it very hard and I you know, everything I wrote was on acoustic guitar –grab an acoustic guitar–but then for electric stuff I just stuck it through whatever amp was available.”
Shah-Tayler is quite honest about the raw nature of the sound, and the brash youthfulness of his songs. “I’m revisiting the music for the first time in 20 years. So I’m realizing how skilled I was as a player—and how lacking in lyrical ability I was. I feel the lyrics I write now will be a lot more thoughtful and sophisticated, but the lyrics I was writing then were more visceral, but I wasn’t as focused.” It’s understandable, as he was only 20 years old or so. “And also I was trying not to overthink songwriting—I wanted to make a big old racket and get on stage and get it out there. ‘Cause it’s fun. I was having fun.”
Julian Shah-Tayler on LinkTree
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