Nico- The Immediate Label (1965) Part 1

(l to r: Tony Calder, Nico and Andrew Loog Oldham; taken from the booklet with 6CD box "The Immediate Story")

Nico was one of the many artists I included in a long list that I felt had been unfairly excluded from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while others with little connection to the music (and likely no desire to be associated with it) were inducted over the objections of confused fans. Most of the posts for this blog in the second half of 2011 were devoted to the Checklist of Shame (click on the "Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame" label on the right side of the screen), but I've excerpted her entry below:

1. NICO- Nobody's idea of a role model, certainly not going to win any 'mother of the year' awards, but definitely deserving of a permanent place in the rock pantheon. The minimalism of Talking Heads or Flying Lizards almost certainly can be traced directly to her post-CHELSEA GIRL solo albums, rather than Alban Berg or Erik Satie. Much of her personal history, marred by drug addiction and pathological lying, is a Gordian Knot of misinformation and contradictory accounts; I won't even attempt to address it here. For the curious, the only-- and I mean only-- trustworthy sources are the book "Nico: The Life & Lies Of An Icon" and the documentary film "Nico/Icon" it inspired. For supplemental reading, ex-band member James Young wrote a book that's been repackaged under a variety of titles by a variety of publishers and is filled with could-have-happened anecdotes from the early 1980's.

Rather than spend time on a disambiguation of her multiple biographies, I'll refer readers to the sources in the above paragraph and dive right into the music. After appearing in a number of films and television commercials in Europe, Nico turned up in England, dating Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. Their manager, Andrew "Loog" Oldham, was using his experience as a publicist for Brian Epstein's artists, to launch his own record label while the Stones were still signed to Decca. His partner in that venture, Tony Calder, had been a publicist for Decca and both had their reasons to believe they had learned from what they considered the mistakes of such major labels.

The first three releases from the label were scheduled to be released by Friday, August 20th, 1965. This was the same day as the Rolling Stones' new single on Decca, "Satisfaction". Oldham was no doubt hoping for some synergistic publicity.

The first catalogue number was assigned to The McCoys for a single ("Hang On Sloopy") that was actually licensed from the Bang Records label, located in the U.S. That label (formed by Bert Berns, Ahmet and Neshui Ertegun and Jerry-- or, for the purposes of his first initial, Gerald-- Wexler) was only a few months old itself and formed by producers and executives at Atlantic Records. Berns also had business in England producing the band Them and writing their hit "Here Comes the Night". He would later bring Van Morrison to Bang as a solo artist. The Immediate label would continue to license recordings from Bang, including by artists like the Strangeloves.

The other two singles featured original recordings. IM002 was the only release by The Fifth Avenue, arranged and produced by Jimmy Page. Page was a prolific studio musician before becoming the fourth lead guitarist in the Yardbirds (he was approached for the job when Eric Clapton quit and recommended Jeff Beck; he later played with them alongside Beck and stayed after Beck left). The two members of The Fifth Avenue were Denny Gerrard and Kenny Rowe. After this, Gerrard formed another duo at Immediate (Warm Sounds) which signed to Decca subsidiary Deram. Rowe met Brian Epstein client Tony Rivers and his band The Castaways when they recorded a one-off single for Immediate shortly before they left EMI/Columbia. After Epstein died in 1967, the Beatles formed the Apple organization, eventually leading to the Apple label in 1968. Three members of the Castaways were recruited by the head of the publishing division to form a band for an artist with a publishing contract. As Grapefruit (named after the Yoko Ono book) they were one of the first bands signed to Apple but their recordings were licensed to other labels before Apple started manufacturing their own records. For perspective, remember that the Beatles themselves continued to release records through Parlophone until August 1968. Rowe joined Tony Rivers to form a new version of the Castaways. After one single on Polydor, they refashioned themselves as Harmony Grass and signed to RCA.

The A-side of the Fifth Avenue single was a pretty faithful cover of the Byrds' arrangement of "The Bells Of Rhymney". It appeared on their first album, which had only been out in the U.S. for two months and would be released in the U.K. in August, close to the Fifth Avenue single. The Byrds never released it as a single in the U.S., although it made it to the Greatest Hits album in 1967. It the U.K. it was included on an EP in February 1966.
The B-side was a Jimmy Page original, "Just Like Anyone Would Do". Musically, it sounds like the hooks from four different songs patched together. Any one of them is hummable, but it makes the full song difficult to remember. And being difficult to remember could be fatal given the competition these initial three singles were wading into. The third single was, of course, Nico's debut. The next post will look at the A-side. In the meantime, below is a list of the top 50 singles in the August 19th, 1965 Record Retailer. Instead of listing them as they appeared in the chart, in order of their rank that week, I've listed them in the order that they were released to give a sense of how long they had been in the British consciousness at the time. I then note how long they eventually lasted with their last chart date and total number of weeks. After the artist and song title I give their peak rank (not necessarily their rank on August 19) and their label.

Frozen Warnings/A Given Voice

Well, it's that time of year again. The Bob Dylan Covers project I began last year will continue this year. However, the point of that project is that Dylan has become perennial and that his covers are ubiquitous. At the moment I have realized that there is something more pressing, at least to me.

Later this year will be the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Nico. It is unlikely to be observed in mass media. Although her music is widely respected by other musicians and fans of innovative music, it is not likely to ever be widely popular. I've written in this blog before about the mix of confusion and vindication I've felt watching music I had been told for years was "commercially unviable" becoming the soundtrack for actual television commercials. Ramones, Nick Drake, Joy Division, the Stooges and even Syd Barrett were licensed for ads in the last 20 years, but Nico, who was featured in a series of television ads in Europe before becoming a musician? Not so much. Wes Anderson soundtracks, maybe, but Nico wasn't going to get onto broadcast television unless it was in one of the three Velvet Underground songs she sang on or a track from her first solo album, "Chelsea Girls". Both sets of songs were released on the Verve label and the recordings would be licensed through UMC, presumably. But going through Warner Music isn't the reason TV shows and ads don't license tracks from "Marble Index". There's also the fact that however fascinating her life has been she had spent much of it as an unsympathetic figure. Heroin addicts and pathological liars are a dime a dozen on basic cable scandal shows but rarely get network retrospectives or tribute concerts.

Despite all of that, I still contend that Nico is overdue for a comprehensive career retrospective of her music. In fact, I felt that way over twenty years ago when I compiled the two-cassette, three hour overview that appears in the scans on the right. Like most of the compilations I made in the 90's it was a compilation of hits and rarities plus representative album tracks in roughly chronological order of their recording. In this case, 'hits' translates to anything released on a single or songs that became concert staples.

One should be aware that creating a compilation such as this, drawing on as many different sources held by so many different interests, for retail purposes is markedly different from me creating these tapes for my own enjoyment. Since I never sold these I never had to pay licensing fees or royalties. I also didn't have to locate the original masters from numerous points around the globe. These songs were all dubbed from standard store-bought CD's and vinyl. They were individually equalized and the volume levels had to be readjusted when changing sources, but the differences between formats of pre-recorded music are minor compared to trying to mix from one song to another from reels that have differing numbers of tracks recorded years apart on equipment sometimes separated by generations.

The expense of engaging capable engineers on top of the expenses of providing them with the original recordings in question all has to be balanced against the likelihood of the end results selling. Also, the more sophisticated and attractive the packaging, the higher the suggested retail price and the smaller the pool of potential customers despite its greater desirability.

Below are the final drafts of the notes for the compilation, handwritten on notebook paper (keepin' it classy). You should note that each side of the 90-minute cassettes are about the length of an LP and I saw fit to correspondingly give each side its own title as though it were a self-contained album. The particular selection of tracks allowed me to make a clean break between sides at points where Nico changed labels in different years.

In the coming months I hope to look at each track considered for this compilation and why they did or didn't make the cut. I'll also try to look at the releases made since these were compiled and consider how the retrospective might be expanded or improved. If I can complete these posts before the anniversary of her death in July, perhaps someone in a better position than I might assemble a fitting commemoration for her (likely) 80th birthday in October.

See you soon.