In my talks with Barry Andrews, he accidentally sent me Carl Marsh's
email address. I sat on it as long as I could, but I eventually lost my patience
and wrote to the Long Lost One. He turned out to be a very cool cat. I hope you
find his responses as pleasing as I do. -J.
Burk
How are
you? How is family life? 
I'm very well, thank you. Family life is extraordinary: I have a wife and two
boys who are wonderful... challenging and supportive on all fronts. And I get to
watch 'Toy Story' a lot.
What have you been doing since you left Shriekback?
Well, it's been at least 15 years... but as a synopsis for the movie...
I did a lot of writing and demoing with various collaborators - first and foremost Lu Edmonds (at one point we were The Crash Baptists) - and as a result signed a publishing deal with Blue Mountain (part of
Island). This lead to a solo deal with Polydor (solo because Lu had joined PiL by then), when I was
introduced to David Barratt as a co-writer/producer. We made 'Too Much Fun' in a three-month period during which I can honestly say we were never sober (for results and consequences see below).
After this I spent three or four months, er, researching a new direction' in New York, then came back to write and demo manically with David in London in the summer of 1990 before moving properly to NY
towards the end of the year. I then spent 6 months shopping the material around before
finalizing a
deal with EastWest as Happyhead in late summer '91. By this time David had also moved to NY, and we made the Happyhead album by early '92 (again, see below).
When it became painfully clear that things weren't moving on (to a second Happyhead album), I spent a lot of 1993 between NY and Washington DC looking for the way up... and not really finding it, though I did write and demo some good tunes. By this time, however, the record companies no longer required a smartarse
limey mouthing off over hippy-hoppity beats and crunchy rhythm guitars - when Happyhead got signed EMF had just had a massive hit with 'Unbelievable' and Jesus Jones were No. 1 with 'Right Here, Right Now', so I kind of sneaked in on the back of that; now they were all looking for another Nirvana.
And unfortunately, fantastically gifted though I am, I can't do Angst-Driven Young American With Heroin And Shotgun... so that was that, game over. Anyway, I came back to London to write with some other
people and generally have a month off... and met Liza, my wife: so I stayed. Liza is an actor and was on
tour for most of 1994, so I had a bit of a 'lost year' - again, wrote some good tunes, but without much overall direction or motivation. And a bit too much fun.
From then till now it's generally been very positive. I still work with David
Barratt; we've had tracks released in Japan and I write sleeve notes and press releases for his Yellow Note and Dubchek projects. I was aiming to get to New York this year to bang some tracks out, but hey, the Shriekback album gets priority. I've written a lot of material with Bill
Clift, who I met during the recording of 'Too Much Fun' - he was involved in
Happyhead, and I did a bit of writing on the two albums released by his band
Fuzzbuddy. We
also formed a band called Bloke a couple of years back, which was great - a rough, under-rehearsed six-piece with drums, bass, three guitars (yeah, three) , harmonica, loops, tapes, lots of vocals and
occasional sax. We did some gigs and demos, which I loved, but everyone was involved in other projects and/or day jobs and the logistics of getting us all in the same room at the same time just got too much. More tragic waste (a pattern is emerging...).
I've also formed a company called Big & Clever with Bill and a keyboardist and programmer called Geoff Woolley, who I've known since school (we were together in Out On Blue Six, my first 'proper' band). We
produce music for TV, commercials... and we're looking for films
(ain't everyone?).
I also lecture in Sound Engineering and Music Technology and work as a mentor in a scheme for 18-24 year-olds entering the music industry.
How do you feel about the success of your solo projects?
Ha! Well, 'Too Much Fun' was always going to be an interim album - it was a very diverse set of songs, ranging from tracks which had
'ex-Shriekback' written all over them ('Here Comes The Crush') through a
cover of a very early David Bowie song ('Let Me Sleep Beside You') to
wide screen C&W ('Once Is Too Much For Me')... kind of "look at me, I'm a versatile songwriter". And totally unmarketable, of course. Especially when you build a pretty respectable campaign behind the first single and then release 'Here Comes The Crush' on the same weekend that 96 people get crushed to death at a football stadium in the worst public catastrophe for decades... timing is everything,
innit?
In retrospect, although I think some things in there are very strong (the 9-minute 12" mix of 'Here Comes The Crush' still makes me smile),
'TMF' wasn't a particularly coherent statement of intent, and suffered
accordingly.
On the other hand, I still really love 'Give Happyhead'. I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to achieve with the record from the very beginning, and David and I really nailed it down, I think. I'm biased, of course, but I think it's smart and funny, has some classic guitar riffs, some great words and, lest we forget, a groove like a shaved pussy... hot, shiny,
slippy, deep, dark and inviting. 'Fabulous' is just a textbook pop single, 'Hurt, Dirt And Desire' is something I'd put next to anything else I've done. The record just seemed to go out and promote itself, getting some really good reviews and becoming a 'No. 1 Most Added' all over.
However: there wasn't a live band ready to go when 'Fabulous' was peaking, the record company didn't really know what to do with the alt.pop thing - their biggest acts were En Vogue and Das FX - and I guess I fell through the gaps. I said 'tragic waste' already, didn't I?
What led you back to the mothering arms of the Shriekback Beast?
Two answers. Check one box:
1) We were lured together by the yankee dollar, proffered by Emusic.com and snatched by us in vanity and greed. Since we had to meet to discuss contracts and remuneration anyway, and didn't have much
else to do, we figured we may as well run with it a mile or so more.
2) Listen, man: I realize now that the only way you really leave Shriekback is feet first in a fucking box. Everything else is just time out. It's genetic. Birds migrate blindly over thousands of miles of open sea to the same small lake on a distant continent, salmon expend their last energies leaping upstream to spawn and die... and some blokes who should definitely know better still gather to blow on the embers and raise
a flame in the dark...
There is no box for 'All of the above'.
Any words of wisdom you care to share?
Your children will write better tunes than you. Make sure you let them.
What can be done with 26 letters and a few punctuation marks is forever a source of joy and astonishment for me.
"Some days you get the bear; some days the bear gets you". (Is this from Hunter Thompson?)
Tuning is vastly overrated. Lingerie isn't.
Thanks, Carl. I will probably solicit a proper interview with questions from
the rest of the fans mighty chop-chop soon...
Yep.. I'd be happy to expand on any areas of interest, if you haven't all been sadly disillusioned by the above, of course...