260 Hello Sparks - This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us

Chart  entered :  4  May  1974

Chart  peak : 2

Number  of  hits : 13

Here  come  one  of  the  most  individual   and  unclassifiable  groups  in  chart  history. For  all  Mud's  clowning  around  these  guys  were  the  real   stars  of  Top  of  the  Pops  in  the  mid-70s. Lead  singer  Russell  Mael  leaped  around  as  he  sang  in  that  strange  half-falsetto  but  all  eyes  were  really  on  Ron  Mael  the  Hitler  lookalike  who  glared  balefully  at  the  camera  while  miming  the  keyboards  with  the  bare  minimum  of  fingering  movements. On  one  occasion  - I  think  it  was  for  "Get  In  The  Swing"-  he  blacked  up  and  wore  an  Arab  headdress. You  wouldn't  get  away  with  it  now. Sparks  are  also  pretty  unique  for  their  comeback; I  can't  think  of  any  other  group  who  resumed  their  hit  career  after  a  15  year  interlude  with  original  material  and  17  years  on  from  their  last  hit  you  wouldn't  put  it  past  them  to  pull  off  the  same  trick  again.

The  Mael  brothers  Ron  ( born  1945 )  and  Russell  ( born  1948 )  are  Jewish  boys  from  California. Their  father  was  a  cartoonist  for  a  Hollywood  paper. Both  went  to  the  University  of  California  . Ron  studying  Cinema  and  graphic  art  while  Russell  studied  theatre  arts  and  film. Disliking  the  whole  LA  folk  scene  of  the  late  sixties  the  brothers  favoured  English  psychedelia.

They  formed  the  band  Halfnelson  with  fellow  UCLA  student  Earle  Mankey  and  a  rhythm  section  of  Rolling  Stone's  John  Mendelsohn  and  bassist  Ralph  Oswald. They  recorded  a  demo  tape  which  was  soundly  rejected  by  the  record  companies. Mendelsohn  and  Oswald  quit  to  be  replaced  by  Mankey's  brother  Jim  ( later  of  Concrete  Blondes )  and  Harley  Feinstein. They  then  attracted  the  attention  of  Todd  Rundgren  who  signed  them  to  his  Bearsville  label  and  produced  their  eponymous  debut  although  Ron  has  since  said  that  they'd  driven  him  out  of  the  studio  by  the  end  of  the  sessions  because  his  input  wasn't  leaving  enough  space  for  their  own  ideas.

Much  of  the  album  sounds  like  the  missing  link  between  glam  and  New  Wave. "Wonder  Girl " ( which  became  their  first  single  once  they'd  changed  their  name  and  reissued  the  LP )  has  a  Glitterbeat  stomp  while  "No  More  Mr  Nice  Guys  "  sounds  so  much  like  Alice  Cooper  it  makes  you  wonder  if  their  song  was  an  act  of  retaliation. On  the  other  hand  "Fa  La Fa  Lee"  invents  The  Cars  while  the  weirdest  track  Earl  Mankey's  "Biology  2" could  be  the  B-52s. Elsewhere  there  are  the  warped  show  tunes  that  became  a  speciality  of  theirs.

Halfnelson  changed  their  name  at  the  suggestion  of  manager  Albert  Grossman  who  feared that  a  band  name  derived  from  a  British  wrestling  hold  had  no  traction; Sparks  was  a  pun  on  the  Marx  Brothers  but  the  latter  word  was  never  used. They  also  switched  labels  to  Warner  Brothers  before  releasing  their  second  LP  "  A  Woofer  In  Tweeter's  Clothing".

It's  hard  going. Again  much  of  the  music  seems  ahead  of  its  time. It  sounds  like  Peter  Hook  wandered  into  the  session  for  the  single  "A  Girl  From  Germany"  and  the  destruction  of  "Do  Re  Mi "  ( a  good  one  to  slip  onto  a  party  mix  tape )  is  the  sort  of  thing  The  Dickies  would  do  a  few  years  hence. Conversely  "Moon  Over  Kentucky"  (  a  male  virgin's  lament ) borrows  heavily  from  The  Green  Manalishi . But  it's  all  rendered  difficult  by  Russell's  vocals ;   their  frequently  off-key  blending  of  Marc  Bolan, Edith  Piaf  and  Billy  McKenzie not  only  has  a  chalk  down  a  blackboard  quality  it  makes  most  of  the  words  incomprehensible. You  need  the  lyric  sheet  to  appreciate  the  breathtaking  audacity  of  these  Jewish  lads  telling  their  parents  to  forget  about  the  war  in  "A  Girl  Called  Germany"  or  the  string-driven  lunacy  of  "Here  Comes  Bob"  about  a  man  who  introduces  himself  to  people  by  crashing  into  their  cars.

The  Anglophile  pair  decided  they  might  get  a  fairer  hearing  in  the  UK  and  went  over  , securing  a  residency  at  The  Marquee. Some  nights  they  were  booed  offstage  but  did  manage  to  start  building  a  following. A  spot  on  Old  Grey  Whistle  Test , where  Bob  Harris  deepened   his  musical  grave  with  a  less  than  enthusiastic  introduction, led  to  wider  recognition. Ron  and  Russell  decided  to  relocate  to  London  on  a  more  permanent  basis  and  parted  company  with  the  rest  of  the  band. The  brothers  recruited  to  fill  the  gaps  through  ads  in  Melody  Maker   which  produced   Adrian  Fisher  ( guitar ), Martin  Gordon ( bass )  and  Norman  "Dinky"  Diamond  ( drums ).

Sparks  were  signed  by  Island  and  began  work on  their  third  album  "Kimono  My  House". Roy  Wood  had  been  approached  to  produce  it  but  was  unavailable  so  they  settled  for  Muff  Winwood. This  one  was  the  lead  single  released  a  month  ahead  of  the  LP.

"This  Town  Ain't  Big  Enough  For  Both  Of  Us"  would  have  made  the  most  amazing  number  one  of  the  decade  but  it  was  held  off  by  The  Rubettes' Sugar  Baby  Love  , session  man  Paul  Da  Vinci  ( who  wasn't  even  in  the  band ) winning  the  battle  of  the  falsettos. Apart  from  the  title  line  I  had  no  idea  what  the  rest  of  the  lyrics  were  until  Siouxsie  and  the  Banshees'  so-so  cover  in  1987.  Now  I  get  it's  a  sexual  showdown. Ron  ( who  was  writing  most  of  the  songs  by  this  point )  takes  his  girl  to  the  zoo  but  has  other  things  on  his  mind  - the  meaning  of  "The  mammals  are  your  favourite  type" is  pretty  clear. That's  the  first  verse  then  its  on  to  nuclear  metaphors  -"it's  Hiroshima  that  you're  nearing" - about  releasing   his  payload   then,  oh  dear,  "they  need  their  protein  just  like  you  do ".  Then  it's  on  to  the  middle  eight   with  Winwood's  gun  shots, Russell's  orgasmic  scream  and  Adrian's  guitar  splurges.

This  could  all  be  a  bit  unsavoury  but  then  the  unexpected  final  verse  whines  about  looking  to  the  census  for  comfort  -"there'll  be  more  girls  who  live  in  town  not  enough  to  go  round". You  realise  he  hasn't  scored  at  all, perhaps  hasn't  even  asked,  and  the  song  ends  on  a  high  scream  of  frustration.

I  suspect  I  wasn't  the  only  person  who  missed  all  this  at  the  time  as  Russell  struggled  to  cram  the  words  into  the  bars  and  just  appreciated  it  as  an  original  exciting  record  from  that  calling  card  electronic  piano  intro  - replicated  by  Adrian  in  an  uncommon second  middle  eight -  onwards.

 Their  influence  is  still  debated. This  song  apart  you  don't  hear  them  much  on  the  radio. Morrissey  and  Siouxsie  were  huge  fans; Neil  Tennant  wrote  a  letter  to  Q  vehemently  refuting  Ron's  mild  suggestion  that  they  may  have  had  some  influence  on  the  Pet  Shop  Boys'  presentation. The  Banshees  didn't  release  their  version  as  a  single  but  the  song's  been  back  on  the  charts  twice , firstly  re-recorded  by  the  duo  themselves  in  collaboration  with  Faith  No  More  in  1997,  then  unimaginatively  ( as  Ken  Bruce  rightly  pointed  out  )  covered  by   Darkness  goon  Justin  Hawkins  ( whose   singing  style  certainly  is  influenced  by  Russell )  in  2006  when,  rather  depressingly - though   not,  I  guess,  for  Ron - it  got  to  number  6.

( This  post  is  a  little  landmark  for  this  blog. I've  now  caught  up  with  Music  Sounds  Better  With  Two  which  has  been  becalmed  for  some  time, mainly  I  guess  because  its  author  is  more  involved  with  Then  Play  Long  but  also  seems  to  be  fretting  too  much  over  the  Savile  thing. So  there's  no  more  links  to  that  site  unless  I'm  overtaken  in  the  future. )