Dubstar: NOT SO MANIC NOW GDR demo
Not So Manic Now, Dubstar’s third single, was released on 27 December 1995 and entered the UK Top 40 singles chart a week later. I’d forgotten that Manic had been a Christmas single; I assumed it had come out in January 1996, but no. Why would we release a single at such a peculiar time of year, when the music industry was either asleep or on its way to winter sun in the Caribbean?
Exactly for that reason. January was the prime time to release singles from acts that were ‘breaking’ or completely new, because there was almost no competition for coverage in the press or on the radio. You had a very good chance of interviews, playlists, TV slots… and under the guidance of Food Records we benefitted hugely from this hiatus.
THE GDR DEMO
As I’ve mentioned, we already had a version of Manic before working with Graeme Robinson, which he completely reworked for this demo. Essentially, Graeme (with Jon Kirby) turned the clock back, recreating the Brick Supply version they had previously worked on, but adding breakbeat drums, dub bass, Chris’s chiming guitar, and a star in the form of Sarah Blackwood on vocals. As usual, I disliked their demo intensely, feeling it had sanitised our approach, turning the song into a kind of Frankenstein’s monster. And not in a good way.
However, when we heard the final mix of Manic completed by Stephen Hague and Spike Drake, we were all blown away. This was a single — no debate required. This version is far better than our original, no question. Well done everyone, and hats off to GDR and JK.
The demo was recorded in the back room of Graeme’s house in the early summer of 1994. It was a cramped space — a small terraced house in the backstreets of Darlington — and entirely without vibe. The contrast between the three of us and Graeme and Jon was enormous. They were much older than us (although in reality it was probably only a few years) and came from an utterly different music scene. We were thriving in Newcastle, fuelled largely by alcohol and late nights. This older pair were fifty miles south on the Teesside scene and, crucially, didn’t drink. At all. Or do anything else.
Thirty years on, this distinction feels immaterial, but back then it was a genuine culture clash. Our repeated trips to Darlington were devoid of excitement. We were working on the most important recordings of our lives, yet spending hours sitting around in a stranger’s house, bored out of our minds, fifty miles away from anything interesting. We’d get home and end the evening in The Forth or the Barley Mow, trying to work out what on earth was going on.
This lack of cohesion mattered. Whenever Graeme and Jon entered the Dubstar world, they seemed like fish out of water. With Chris propping up the bar, me spinning vinyl and Sarah running around like it was Christmas Day when it was actually a Student Union on a Wednesday night in March… we were well suited to the music world of 1994. I think they found it exotic, but also completely mad.
I’m not best placed to comment on this but as we spent more time down south with the record company, Graeme and Jon seemed increasingly conscious of their Northernness in a way that Chris and Sarah simply weren’t. Maybe this was the difference between being ‘the talent’ and ‘the industry’. Sarah spoke to everyone in her broad West Yorkshire accent and called people ‘chicken’ or ‘petal’, which went down a storm with the press and everyone else. Chris, who is an inherently warm and funny man, also embodies the role of ‘the genial Geordie’ — and who doesn’t love one of those? Being Northern was, at worst, exotic and, at best, extremely likeable and a bit of a super power. This was the Britpop era, after all — the perfect time to be from ‘oop north’. But perhaps if you’re a backroom boy from Nowhere, North Yorkshire, with generations of chips on your shoulders, it feels very different. They never seemed especially keen on leaving Darlington, whereas Chris and Sarah relished every London minute.
Meanwhile, I wandered around sharing opinions and occasionally getting highly animated about how much I liked or loathed things. Standard Steve behaviour.
There was never a truly cohesive team between us and the Darlington crew. We got on well enough, but the alliance was never going to last. I suspect Graeme knew this from the outset.
THINKING BACK NOW
The Manic CD singles established the template for Dubstar releases over the next two years. One CD would feature remixes; the other would contain B-sides or bonus tracks. These were never-before-heard songs, recorded by me at the Arts Centre in Newcastle — not rejects from the albums, but simply ‘others’ that had bubbled up over time.
In this case, we had Chris’s ‘Excuse Me Father’, my ‘Song No. 9’, and our version of Stan Getz’s ‘A Certain Sadness’. There’s a pleasing balance to this selection: Chris’s sense of humour, my dagger-through-the-heart melodrama, and Sarah’s gentle vulnerability. These were also the last songs we recorded before the fame-and-glory years began, which explains the naivety that runs through all three. Delightful stuff.
Journalists often commented on Manic’s apparent sweetness, set against its more difficult lyrics. In many ways, this mirrors the gap between how we were perceived and what we were actually doing. There was the occasional remark in the Good Mixer suggesting we might be a ‘manufactured’ act like Shampoo, but the GDR demo — and many others on the Dubstar Archive — make it clear that the Dubstar sound had crystallised well before we travelled to London.
By the time Manic was released, we’d already achieved Silver Disc status with Disgraceful and had our option picked up for a second album. Both developments raised a few eyebrows around Camden. I didn’t care much how the scene reacted to us, but I was surprised by how much we flew under the radar given our level of success compared to our contemporaries.
Maybe this explains why Dubstar is so rarely bracketed alongside those acts? We never quite fitted in anywhere. I suspect there are other reasons too.
But thinking back now, Graeme Robinson handing me his original version of Manic at the Middlesbrough Arena set the ball rolling for our collaboration and eventual signing to Food Records, the release of Manic in late 1995 set us up for two and a half years of success. And although Manic has never been a particular favourite of mine, I remain eternally grateful for the opportunities it opened up for Dubstar.
This article includes excerpts from DUBSTAR.COM. Want more? You can find the story behind every Dubstar song ever recorded including dozens of unreleased songs right here at Dubstar.com
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