The years have been tragically kind to the Associates. Their sound was out of kilter with their early 80s heyday and has remained so. There were obvious touchpoints at the time. They were clearly Bowie fans but seemed to think the second side of Heroes and Lodger were the foundations of a decent pop career. On reflection, strategising wasn’t in their DNA, which blows the idea of a career out of the water. Impulse and chaos were their preferred environments. What does this sound like? What happens if I do this?
It helps to have something as romantic and gorgeous as Billy Mackenzie’s voice and personality. Billy died in 1997, a suicide at 40 after a depressive episode. As I’m writing this, I’m listening to the carefree hedonism of 18 Carat Love Affair:
“I don’t know which side I’m on but my friend John says not to care”
John was probably only dancing. Billy was confused. He never really knew which side he was on in so many ways – gender and sexuality being the obvious examples but arguably class too. Was he born for the glamourous life or walking his whippets on Balgay Hill, back home in Dundee? It was probably the latter but his talents made the former a tangible place to exist.
His partner in crime for those first three timeless Associates albums was Alan Rankine. Rankine was the more musically experienced, the alchemist who turned the madness to pop gold. He died in his sleep earlier in 2023, having worked in the music industry behind the scenes since he quit the band in 1982. They were about to tour Sulk and being courted by the big labels. This was probably the sliding doors moment. Billy carried on and made some wonderful music but things were different. Still fascinating but less “other”.
Which all brings to the home of musical improv and making up as you go along – Cafe Oto. It is the obvious place to celebrate Rankine and Mackenzie’s music. Partially Scottish owned and dedicated to giving musicians the space to explore. A bit like WEA Records did when they gave the band £60,000 to record Sulk and they blew most of it on room service in a Swiss Cottage hotel.
There were three contributors to the evening.
Triple Negative were a three piece who took rhythmic and melodic shards of Associates songs and created a whirlwind of madness. Spiritually, it was probably close to the spirit of Q Quarters and Kitchen Person, strange sounds from another planet.
Vindicatrix was a different proposition. Electronics, piano and voice, we got some of Billy’s vocal gymnastics and unique sense of melody and scale via some of the Associates own songs and other Vindicatrix material, including a wonderful bossa nova piece sung in Sicilian. This morphed into Sulk’s Nude Spoons (“euphoRIA!”) and the topical Matter of Gender.
Gluing this together was some spoken word pieces by Ash Reid and Jackson Burton. These were humourous, picking up the repetitive banality of the Smash Hits journalism of the early 80s (“What is your favourite colour of socks?”) to reflecting on Billy’s beloved Dundee. This was informed by a beautiful interview that he did with Lesley Ash for Channel 4’s the Tube, which showed all his impish humour.
What strikes me as I bathe in the Associates music the next day is how different and how much the same it could be if they were around today.
They still wouldn’t be easily marketed or pigeon holed. Their qualities would be evident but who would invest in them such that they’d be on prime time TV like Top of the Pops whilst still making albums involving blowing down bits of vacuum cleaner?
It is conceivable that Billy would be happier though. He would have had more support for his mental health and identity issues. He could have written and recorded with less time away from home.
The music still sounds glorious today. I feel blessed to have experienced it at the time it was made. I suspect Rankine and Mackenzie would have had a wry smile at the Cafe Oto show and said “Well aye – that’s one way of doing it”
BlackCountryRock 