“In all my years as a music fan, I can think of very few acts who managed to release so much consistently great music while achieving so little notice.” –– Acute Records label owner Dan Selzer on The Lines

Between 1978 and 1983, London-based post-punk combo The Lines released an impressive array of singles, EPs and a couple LPs, including a handful of songs that are arguably among the finest pop moments of the era (personally, I’m convinced it doesn’t get any better than “Nerve Pylon”).

Despite such excellence, The Lines never gained much notoriety outside of a small cult following. I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been for the band. Surely fans of Wire, Talking Heads, Echo and the Bunnymen and Television would revel in The Lines’ quirky charms––those gloriously unpredictable guitar spasms, the almost nonchalant backhanded choruses, and the moody atmosphere that often lurked beneath the surface.

Perhaps the unlucky hand The Lines were dealt was best explained by Zig Zag editor Kris Needs, who perceptively noted at the time: “The stumbling block for instant accolades seems to be the puzzling paradox that these are lasting pieces of work which require several listens before they finally take root in your soul.”

The good news is that music fans now have another chance at discovering this unjustly overlooked group. On May 27, Acute Records released “Memory Span,” a freshly remastered collection of The Lines’ singles, b-sides and EP tracks (they’ve even been kind enough to include a couple unreleased demos!). With the band’s two albums also expected to get the reissue treatment via Acute this year, the time may be nigh for the Supreme Court of Musical Justice to overturn a ruling or two.

For BYT’s feature on The Lines, I was fortunate enough to speak with the multi-talented Rico Conning. Not only is Rico the band’s vocalist, guitarist, trombonist (!) and chief songwriter, he is also something of a sound guru: following the disintegration of The Lines, Rico became a noted producer, mixer and re-mixer, working with such artists as Depeche Mode, Front 242, Wire, Laibach, Frank Tovey and countless others. Originally from Macclesfield, England, Rico now calls Los Angeles his home where he runs a successful sound production company, M62, and works regularly with friends William Orbit and Laurie Mayer.

BYT: So how did this whole Acute reissue thing come about? Did Dan Selzer just contact you out of the blue? I know he’s been a fan of the band for years. I actually heard him djing The Lines on WFMU a few years ago.

Rico Conning: Back in early 2002, Dan put out an internet call to anyone who might know me and my wife happened to see it. We started to communicate and I could tell he knew what he was talking about. When I saw the first couple of Acute releases I knew he was serious. So the long process began of finding and remastering the tapes. As it turned out, the guy who originally released our stuff had sold the masters to Jungle Records in London. They were happy to license the stuff to Acute.

BYT: Prior to Acute’s involvement, were there any other attempts to get your material out on cd? Was wondering if you or the other Lines members had ever pushed for it or talked with any labels…

RC: No, to be honest I had long concluded that the Lines were a lost cause…commercially that is. The fact is we have always remained good friends and still jam together (when I’m in London) and will probably one day make another record.

BYT: Nice! I can only imagine what your new material would sound like. Listening to “Memory Span,” I’m struck by how remarkably well these recordings have held up after all these years. I think time has been kind to the band.

RC: It’s funny, I was saying to Dan that in a lot of ways I feel more akin to the bands of today who have similar influences (krautrock, psychedelic garage pop, etc.) There are so many bands like that these days. There’s something about the way they mix it up that’s acceptable now, and back when we did it, it wasn’t so acceptable. We were also lucky that the old tapes transferred well, even though they had to be baked in an oven.

BYT: Hang on a sec––baked in an oven?

RC: It’s quite a common problem with old analog tapes that the oxide coating starts to liquefy. If you try to play a tape in that condition the tape machine will soon gum up and the signal will be lost. The solution is to bake the tape in a low heat for a few hours so that the oxide can re-harden. It’s amazing that it works, but the sound of our album is a testament to the process.

BYT: You obviously spent a lot of time re-listening to these recordings since you were involved with the remastering. What was it like for you to come back to this music after all this time? Did you find that your feelings about any of the songs had changed? Some of these tracks are over 30 years old.

RC: It was a bit spooky at first hearing it all so clearly after so much time. I think all in all the stuff sounds pretty good. There’s a definite progression in the arrangements and productions. The vocals bother me most…I couldn’t hear myself too well in our rehearsal space, so I tended to sing stuff an octave too high. As far as changing feelings, I guess I just feel kinder towards these recordings. I used to think we should have found a producer, but now I’m glad we did it ourselves.

Download mp3: http://www.zshare.net/audio/1339970913507d2a/

BYT: Your first single “White Night,” released in 1978, has a bit of a different sound than what we hear on subsequent releases. There seems to be a sort of “relaxed cool” about it for lack of a better phrase (the central guitar riff reminds me a bit of Television). I know you had a different line-up back then. What do you remember about making that single?

RC: “White Night” certainly was somewhat Television-influenced. Another major influence there was Kraftwerk. If you can imagine the main guitar parts played by sequencers, that was how I imagined it…but we couldn’t afford any of that stuff so we did it with guitars. That “electronic” aesthetic carried through to the more aggressive arrangements of our second phase, but the dreamy atmosphere was mostly sidelined for a while.

BYT: If I understand correctly, you essentially broke up the band following the release of “White Night,” came to America for a bit, then went back to the U.K. and reformed the group with a new lineup. Can you talk a little about this sort of purgatory period for the band? What led you to come to America?

RC: Well there was no Ziggy Stardust moment (laughs). The Lines began as a collaboration between me and bassist Jo Forty, and although I was “frontman,” Jo was always the creative anchor, and if he went off the boil a bit then not much would happen because I’m a lazy sod. After “White Night” first came out, (original members) Pete Harker and Hywel Philips disappeared, the record was ignored or misunderstood, and Jo and I both got new girlfriends. Then my girlfriend and I decided to join some other friends in the States, so I spent six months over here.

During that time Illegal Records approached us about doing a re-release of the single. They had distributed the original pressing and offered to do a new one with a picture sleeve. Having them release it got it all around the world. The reviews as I recall were even worse the second time around, but a couple of people like Slash magazine got it (Editor’s note: Slash aptly described the single as “subterranean rock for insomniacs on the prowl.”)

BYT: Your next release, the “On the Air” single, came out in 1979 and was the first with the reformed Lines and a slightly new sound. The Lines Mark II is more angular, displays a newfound tension and your vocals take on a greater urgency. How much of this different sound was an outgrowth of working with different people versus your own evolving vision of what you wanted the band to sound like?

RC: Nick Cash joining us in the summer of ‘79 made a crucial difference. He’s an aggressive drummer and was already a seasoned player, unlike the first two guys who drummed for us. Also, I came back from the States much energized by the experience, and you can certainly hear that in the ‘79-‘80 era songs.

BYT: After you put out the “On the Air” release, you guys added a second guitar player: Mick Linehan, who had previously played in a band called Alternative TV. What was it like working with him? How large of a role did he have in shaping the band’s sound?

RC: Mick totally fit in right away, it still amazes me in fact. At first he didn’t have too many places to cut loose, but by the time we made the albums the music part was a mostly democratic process.

BYT: That leads me to my next question: What was the personality dynamic like within the band at that point? How much of a challenge was it to agree on the musical side of things?

RC: Well, Jo is a communicator, Nick is a facilitator, Mick is a listener and I’m a nasty little control freak, as well as lazy (laughs). My production style was to try to batter them into submission, but they would subtly get their way. Or give up. (laughs)

BYT: Speaking of your production style, one of the things your post-Lines music career is notable for is your production work. You have produced, mixed and/or remixed a very impressive list of artists, including Depeche Mode, Wire, Laibach and many others. You even have your own successful sound company now. When did you start to take an interest in the production-side of things? Was this happening even in The Lines days?

RC: Yeah, tape recording was my hobby as a kid. I think I studied music just to find more stuff to record! Working with Eric Radcliffe at Blackwing Studios for the “Transit” and “House of Cracks” singles and our two albums took my studio knowledge to another level. Then I started part-time engineering to make some extra money. As The Lines wound down, the studio side took over.

BYT: Being a band from London, did you feel any camaraderie or connection to any of the other bands from that area? What was the scene like? Any like-minds?

RC: To be honest, the London scene was crap. For a vibrant music scene I’d have been better off staying in Macclesfield. The really great London bands were Throbbing Gristle and the Sex Pistols…both really hard to see, although I did catch the latter down at the 100 Club. I can’t think of any like minds, except for my friends Laurie Mayer and William Orbit, who I’m still working with. Of course, in London you had a constant parade of great bands from everywhere else. Talking Heads, Television, The Ramones…they all blew me away.

BYT: I must say that I really love the two demos (“Blisstability” and “Uneasy Affair”) that are featured on “Memory Span.” You recorded those in May 1980. Less than a month later, you were in the studio to record songs for the “Cool Snap” EP (one of the great unsung releases of the post-punk era and a personal favorite of legendary DIY archivist Chuck Warner). Was there ever any thought about including them on there, possibly turning the EP into a full-length? That could have been quite a debut album…

RC: Yeah, it should have been, and that demo was a complete run-through of our material to test out the viability of an album. In the end I think we just couldn’t afford the studio time or something.

BYT: A few months earlier, the band had its first Peel session. Can you talk a little about what that was like? How many sessions did you do and what are your memories of Mr. Peel himself? Will we ever get to hear these sessions at some point?

RC: Well, if you click on over to the Acute Records website (http://www.acuterecords.com/releases/acu010_thelines.html), you’ll find a whole album’s worth of free downloads, including a couple of Peel session excerpts. We did two sessions, in Januaries of 1980 and ‘81. Bands rarely got an audience with Mr. Peel himself. Apart from being somewhat shy, he spent nearly all of his waking hours listening to the mountains of music he was constantly deluged with. So we never actually met him. The sessions were at the BBC studios in Maida Vale (‘80) and Regent Street (‘81). It was a hard day’s work––you’d just go in and belt it out.

BYT: I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you about your trombone playing with the band. It adds tension and even a certain degree of insanity on the song “Cool Snap.” Where did the idea of using a trombone originate from? Did you play it at Lines concerts?

RC: I did indeed play it at concerts, through an echo box controlled by the sound guy, who hopefully wasn’t too drunk by that time. The trombone is actually the one instrument I was trained on, and I used to play it as a teen in the orchestra at King’s School, Macclesfield. However with the Lines I avoided classical technique as completely as possible.

Download MP3: http://www.zshare.net/audio/13399889b9c4a67c/

BYT: “Cool Snap” definitely started to show more of the band’s experimental impulses. But before diving deeper into abstraction, you guys recorded one of the great singles of the era, “Nerve Pylon.” Phil Wilson of The June Brides listed the single as one of his Desert Island Discs, calling it “a great neglected pop classic.” If I was forced to pick an all-time favorite post-punk single, “Nerve Pylon” would probably get my vote. It never ceases to exhilarate me even after all these years. What do you remember about making this historic single? Those high notes towards the end of the song come dangerously close to torch song territory…

RC: Wow, that’s really nice. “Nerve Pylon” had a weird evolution. It started out as our most motorik song and ended up the most dynamic and emotional. By “motorik” I mean the jangling guitar at the end. When we first wrote it, the song was just 5 minutes of that and pounding drums. Then I came up with this ballad-y part, and we merged them. I don’t think we did another song that was that dynamic and generally un-linear. That high singing is the thing that bugs me most though––what am I, fuckin’ Enrico Caruso? I should have shut up for a minute at least.

BYT: I’m so glad you didn’t! That’s my favorite part of the song. Ok, so your final two singles, “Transit” and “House of Cracks” are also striking, and while both are in keeping with The Lines sound, they also expand the musical vocabulary you were working with at the time. Can you talk a little bit about them?

RC: “Transit” was one of the many songs that came from a bass riff by Jo. He and Nick would hold down a groove, we’d try some guitar ideas, and then a song would evolve out of that. There were two versions of that song, the one that was released being a last minute rewrite. There’s an earlier Peel session version that had different lyrics and melody. I can’t remember why, except I got sick of the original.

“House of Cracks” and its flipside were experiments in multi-track percussion loops. We filled up 8 tracks with drums and percussion and then made a big loop of the 2 inch tape, set it playing on one machine and recorded it to another. That gave us the kind of semi- mechanized groove we were looking for.

BYT: How frustrating was it that such quality music was going largely unrecognized and unappreciated? Did that sort of spur you on to abandoning your pop inclinations later on?

RC: There wasn’t really frustration because we always did it the way we wanted to at the time. Obviously though you can’t do that for too long without earning a living, so we were forced to diversify and ultimately splinter. However, speaking personally, I’d say my later pop inclinations were well enough catered to from the other side of the mixing desk.

BYT: Any theories on why The Lines never broke through commercially? You certainly had the songs for it. Was it a case of poor label support, a distaste for doing press stuff, odd release times, etc.?

RC: It was all very DIY. Maybe if we’d tried to be more professional…I dunno…that era has very few survivors, my friend!

BYT: As I’m sure you’re aware, The Lines discography marks something of a strange reversal for the “typical” post-punk career trajectory. Bands such as Simple Minds, Human League, Scritti Politti, and Comsat Angels started out artistically bold and defiantly experimental, then gradually became more commercial, accessible and streamlined over time. The Lines on the other hand, started out as a pop band (albeit one that was smart and interesting), then gradually became more esoteric and less accessible as time went on. Thoughts?

RC: We wanted to start out that way, but we just didn’t think we were good enough. Those bands like Can and Neu! were really amazing musicians who made repetition sound fascinating. That actually isn’t so easy to do. We decided to put together a repertoire of songs as a way of tightening ourselves up. Then as soon as the last of those songs was recorded (“Nerve Pylon”), we stopped playing them and made our albums.

BYT: Thanks so much for taking the time to do the interview Rico. It’s been a great pleasure to learn so much about one of my favorite artists…

RC: You bet. Have enjoyed communicating with you, Rick.

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