64 Spoons

Infobox musical artist 2
Name = 64 Spoons
Background = group_or_band
Origin = Watford, England
Instruments = Keyboards, Drums, Bass, Guitar, Vocals, Trumpet
Genre = Jazz-funk fusion, Sophisti-pop, New Wave, Rock
Formed = 1980
Associated_acts =Jakko Jakszyk, Level 42, 21st Century Schizoid Band
Years_active = 1976 — 1980
Label = Freshly Cut Records
Members =Jakko Jakszyk
Lyndon Connah
Tam Neal
Andy Crawford
Ted Emmett

64 Spoons (also known as The Legendary 64 Spoons, or simply The Spoons) were a British rock/pop band active in the late 1970s and early 1980s, who utilised strong elements of progressive rock, jazz-fusion, punk energy and performance comedy. Though the band never met with commercial success during their lifetime, they were notable for their compositional and performance skills, for their underground influence on the British music scene, and as the launch-pad for the subsequent musical careers of all five members (most notably Jakko Jakszyk and Lyndon Connah).

Formation

The band was formed by Lyndon Connah and Tam Neal, both of whom played keyboards and drums, and had been writing songs since the age of 10. [Paul Colbert’s sleevenotes for ‘’Landing On A Rat Column’’, Freshly Cut Records, 1992, retrieved September 27, 2008 – [http://www.fine-boxes.com/pages/aboutme/spoons.html] ] Both were classical music students (at the Royal School of Music and Royal College of Music respectively) whose studies brought them into contact with Andy Crawford, a Royal Academy of Music flautist and classical guitar player with an interest in Early Music (but who also played bass guitar on the side). Coalescing around a line-up of Connah on drums, Crawford on bass and Neal on keyboards, the band began playing concerts in and around their home base of Watford, Middlesex in 1976.

One of their early audience members was Jakko Jakszyk (universally known as “Jakko”), who was intrigued by “the ludicrous complexities of a fifteen-minute number called ‘’Life Is Unsaid’’”. [Paul Colbert’s sleevenotes for ‘’Landing On A Rat Column’’, Freshly Cut Records, 1992, retrieved September 27, 2008 – [http://www.fine-boxes.com/pages/aboutme/spoons.html] ] Though still a teenager, Jakko had already fronted his own band Soon After, which his self-confessed “dictatorial tendencies” had ultimately reduced to a lineup of “two screaming lead guitars and a trumpet” playing “jazz/rock-inspired oddness.” Despite this, the band had reached the finals of the 1975 Melody Maker National Rock/Folk competition (coming third to a heavy metal band featuring future Clash co-leader Mick Jones and to a big band featuring future big-name saxophone sessioneer Gary Barnacle. Jakko subsequently toured with a “strange little band” and supported Camel, Stackridge, Judas Priest and others before joining a Tring-based Canterbury-scene-inspired/progressive rock band called Synthesis. [”Jakko – A Potted History” from Jakko’s homepage, retrieved September 27, 2008 – [http://www.jakko.com/life/history.htm] ]

Despite being “out of his musical depth”, Jakko was soon installed as 64 Spoons’ lead singer and guitarist, using his “insecurities and arrogance” to spur the band on. [”Jakko – A Potted History” from Jakko’s homepage, retrieved September 27, 2008 – [http://www.jakko.com/life/history.htm] ] Writing sessions were fruitful and the new line-up produced a whole set of material. However, Jakko quit after the first concert in order to join Warren Harry’s punk/pop band (which had a deal with Bronze Records). As his instrumental replacement, he recommended his former Soon After bandmate - trumpeter Ted Emmett, who’d also played with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. [”Jakko – A Potted History” from Jakko’s homepage, retrieved September 27, 2008 – [http://www.jakko.com/life/history.htm] ]

Live career and sound (1977-1980)

Jakko’s tenure with Warren Harry was musically unsatisfying and relatively short-lived (he’d done it mostly for the money), and he’d rejoined 64 Spoons by 1977. [”Jakko – A Potted History” from Jakko’s homepage, retrieved September 27, 2008 – [http://www.jakko.com/life/history.htm] ] Retaining Emmett and continuing as a five-piece, the band spent the next three years touring and playing around the British Isles in small venues, building up a reputation as an interesting cult act. However, with punk rock now in fashion, 64 Spoons had to work hard to “justify” their prog-styled virtuosity.

Jakko recalls “We somehow survived for a number of years by working our arses off and attempting to make our musical vision more palatable. We did this by making the whole thing theatrical. Ridiculous set pieces that involved various band members dressing up, coupled with an almost Dada-esque approach to audience participation.” [”The Last Days Of The Spoons” from Jakko’s homepage, retrieved September 27, 2008 – [http://www.jakko.com/life/spoons.htm] ]

Live gigs were animated affairs, with Neal and Connah frequently swapping roles between keyboards and drums, and the band employing any entertainment tricks they could to keep the gig going. Pete Goddard of ‘Facelift’ magazine remembers a show at the Palace Theatre in Watford as “one of the finest and most ludicrous shows I've ever seen”, with the band making full use of the theatrical facilities, up to and including flying themselves around on stage hoists. [ Collection of reviews of ‘’Landing On A Rat Column’’ – [http://www.jakko.com/reviews/reviews.html#64spoonsrat] ]

Studio and live recordings made at the time reveal a musically accomplished and highly eclectic band who merged “ten-minute collections of rich jazz chords, contrapuntal bass lines, and liquid guitar solos” [Paul Colbert’s sleevenotes for ‘’Landing On A Rat Column’’, Freshly Cut Records, 1992, retrieved September 27, 2008 – [http://www.fine-boxes.com/pages/aboutme/spoons.html] ] with a strong sense of pop and bathetic English comedy. The band’s progressive rock (Hatfield and the North, Egg, Gentle Giant, King Crimson, Allan Holdsworth), classical (Bartok, Delius) and avant-garde (Henry Cow, Frank Zappa) influences were mingled with disco, West Coast sounds, and various types of ‘60s and ’70s pop, often making 64 Spoons sound like a extended prog-rock version of contemporaries Madness or XTC, or a downbeat British version of the Zappa band.

Jakko remembers that “We played our, at times, complex compositions with a punk-like ferocity and made sure that the lyrics to the songs were consciously unpretentious. Indeed, they contained a level of wit and imagery that would embarrass a ‘Carry On’ scriptwriter. There were musical and visual jokes aplenty. Three years into our career and we were once memorably described as 'Stravinsky meets The Barron Knights." [”The Last Days Of The Spoons” from Jakko’s homepage, retrieved September 27, 2008 – [http://www.jakko.com/life/spoons.htm] ] Song topics included resistance to domesticity (“Plonder On”), various forms of social and sexual awkwardness (“It’s Only A Party”, “Aggressive Travelling”, “Dear Clare”), the frustrations of suicide methods (“Ich Bin Heidi”) and a surprisingly touching rumination on pets and the afterlife (“Tails In The Sky”).

Recordings

64 Spoons released one single during their lifetime – the bizarrely-titled “Ladies Don’t Have Willies”. This is now a collector’s item.

64 Spoons also recorded various sessions for an album. None of these were released during the band’s existence, but the material was eventually compiled for a posthumous album called "Landing On A Rat Column". This was ultimately released in 1992 on Freshly Cut Records, over a decade after it was recorded. (The album did not include “Ladies Don’t Have Willies”, apparently due to copyright issues as it had already appeared on a various-artists compilation album).

Decline and fall (1980)

Internal pressures and anxiety about success in the music business (which seemed to be at odds with the band’s ferociously active sense of music and humour) eventually brought 64 Spoons to an end.

Thanks in part to Jakko’s incessant promotion, the band had attracted numerous fans both in and out of the industry (including several of the band’s own heroes such as Bill Bruford and Dave Stewart). However, this did not translate into success. According to Jakko, the band also had “management, an agency; record company interest and we worked all the time. It just didn't go that one step further. Some kind of bad luck always seemed to befall us, just when we looked like getting our big break.” [”The Last Days Of The Spoons” from Jakko’s homepage, retrieved September 27, 2008 – [http://www.jakko.com/life/spoons.htm] ]

In 1980, the band went through several developments involving change of presentation (via “a series of haircuts that would frighten a gibbon”) [Paul Colbert’s sleevenotes for "Landing On A Rat Column", Freshly Cut Records, 1992, retrieved September 27, 2008 – [http://www.fine-boxes.com/pages/aboutme/spoons.html] ] , a change of name (shortened to The Spoons) and a change of line-up. Jakko recalls that “in another inspired piece of career based decision making, we… sacked Ted. We felt that the trumpet was a stupid, outmoded and ultimately unfashionable instrument to have in a pop group. Ted joined The Teardrop Explodes.” [”The Last Days Of The Spoons” from Jakko’s homepage, retrieved September 27, 2008 - [http://www.jakko.com/life/spoons.htm] ] This was a cruel irony, as The Teardrop Explodes were, at the time, enjoying the very success which the newly-rechristened Spoons were aiming for.

None of these efforts made any difference. Following a particularly disastrous gig outing to Oldham and Carlisle in May 1980 ( [http://www.jakko.com/life/spoons.htm described in hilarious but excruciating detail] on [http://www.jakko.com Jakko’s homepage] , the band played a couple of final gigs and then folded for good.

Jakko was later to comment “they say that success is largely down to timing. Well, we timed it perfectly. We were the wrong band at the wrong time.” [”The Last Days Of The Spoons” from Jakko’s homepage, retrieved September 27, 2008 – [http://www.jakko.com/life/spoons.htm] ]

Post-Spoons

All of the members of 64 Spoons went on to have successful careers within the music industry.

In addition to a lengthy sessions career (including work for the likes of Swing Out Sister), Jakko’s most public successes were his stint as Level 42’s guitarist (1991-1994) and his work with the 21st Century Schizoid Band, a collection of King Crimson alumni which Jakko motivated and fronted as singer and guitarist (putting him in the unenviable position, every night, of having to replace not only Robert Fripp but also Greg Lake, Boz Burrell and Gordon Haskell).

Jakko has also had a commercially uneven but consistently interesting solo career, producing a series of albums of original songs and instrumentals. As a project partner, he’s played in (amongst others) the jazz/songwriter/Indian music project Dizrhythmia (with Danny Thompson, Gavin Harrison and Pandit Dinesh ), the Henry Cow spin-off project The Lodge and been a valuable collaborator with his old hero Dave Stewart (both in Rapid Eye Movement and with the Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin project) as well as Tom Robinson. He is currently guitarist for British progressive rock band The Tangent.

Lyndon Connah also became a top sessions player (working with Squeeze, Thomas Dolby, Wham!, Take That, Joe Cocker, Sinead O'Connor, David Sylvian, Tom Robinson, The Human League and Prefab Sprout among others). He also spent five years as Level 42’s keyboard player (2001-2006), is currently a member of Go West, and now co-leads the band 3 Blind Mice .

Tam Neal went on to a career in theatre (including a stint as part of the backing band for The Chippendales) and is known for his original scores for plays.

Andy Crawford mostly abandoned bass guitar to concentrate on playing the baroque flute (he is a regular performer with the Gabrieli Consort and the London Handel Orchestra) and for a career as a wood craftsman. [Andy Crawford’s ‘Fine Boxes’ homepage, retrieved September 27, 2008 - [http://www.fine-boxes.com] ] . He has occasionally played bass for steel pan player/composer Rachel Hayward and has also been a member of the “Western gamelan” ensemble MetalWorks. [64 Spoons page at Level 42 ‘Forever Now’ website, retrieved September 27, 2008 - [http://www.forevernow.com/band/64spoons.shtml] ] [Andy Crawford’s ‘Fine Boxes’ homepage, retrieved September 27, 2008 - [http://www.fine-boxes.com] ]

Ted Emmett played on The Teardrop Explodes’s second album "Wilder" and was subsequently part of their touring band. He has also played with Joan Armatrading.

Reunions and collaborations

A one-off 64 Spoons live reunion was planned in the mid-1990s but never happened.

However, various members still keep in touch and work together. In particular, Jakko and Lyndon Connah are frequent collaborators (mainly on Jakko’s projects) and Tam Neal frequently contributes to Connah’s band 3 Blind Mice (playing everything “from maracas to house brick” [3 Blind Mice Fanclub MySpace page, retrieved September 27, 2008 – [http://www.myspace.com/the3bmfanclub] ] and piano).

Influence

In the sleevenotes to "Landing On A Rat Column", Vox magazine editor Paul Colbert commented that what he still found surprising about the 64 Spoons recordings were the presence of “1990s ideas being imagined, played and recorded in the late 1970s. There are twists and turns in this plot you will recognise in present pop music, present funk, present jazz and present rock.” [Paul Colbert’s sleevenotes for "Landing On A Rat Column", Freshly Cut Records, 1992, retrieved September 27, 2008 – [http://www.fine-boxes.com/pages/aboutme/spoons.html] ]

It’s feasible that 64 Spoons’ lively stage act, humour, musical audacity and extensive gigging was an influence, inspiration or encouragement to certain contemporary British bands (XTC, Cardiac Arrest) as well as to some which emerged or honed their sound in the 1980s (Cardiacs, It Bites, Loose Tubes) and 1990s (Space, Poisoned Electrick Head). The band was evidently an encouragement to a subculture of similarly skilled musicians of their own generation (and the immediately subsequent one) that then fed into the British musical underground and session musician world.

Discography

tudio albums

* 1992 – "Landing On A Rat Column" (Freshly Cut Records)

ingles

* (date unknown) – "Lades Don’t Have Willies" (label unknown)

References

External links

* [http://www.forevernow.com/band/64spoons.shtml 64 Spoons page at Level 42 ‘Forever Now’ website]
* [http://www.jakko.com Jakko’s homepage]
* [http://www.catsaway.com/ 3 Blind Mice homepage (Lyndon Connah)]
* [http://www.fine-boxes.com Andy Crawford’s homepage]
* [http://www.jakko.com/life/spoons.htm “The Last Days Of The Spoons”] – Jakko’s tragicomic account of the final end of 64 Spoons
* [http://www.fine-boxes.com/pages/aboutme/spoons.html Sleevenotes and photos from "Landing On A Rat Column"] (on Andy Crawford’s homepage)
* [http://www.jakko.com/reviews/reviews.html#64spoonsrat Collection of reviews of "Landing On A Rat Column"] from Jakko’s homepage