Interviews

Fanzines:

Bobbins
atomic
Oscar smokes the leftovers
Plane Truth
Quality Time
Totally Wired
The Biggest Library Yet
Chez Lester
Junction 27
Planet of Sound
Conform or Die

Mainstream music press:

NME: Tagliatelle Tubbies
Melody Maker: 10 Reasons to love Prolapse



Dave, Tim, Scottish Mick, Pat, Linda, Geordie Mick

---

from Bobbins fanzine, issue 8

Like the happy family from hell, or rather Kaos, Prolapse are a six piece in a whole combination of comedy double acts. As I didn't know anything about them I thought it a perfect opportunity to find out more when they played the Roadhouse. Oh joy! I am fed chips and share cough sweets. Prolapse aren't at all scary and make me feel at home.

'Prolapse is our band.' 'We started it, just me and you. We are the most integral members of the whole thing.' Say Mick and Pat. 'I'm the important one,' interrupts Linda, all bright eyes and good haircut. There's Mick, a 6ft Scots who sings, Pat and Dave (guitars), Mick Harrison (bass), Linda who also sings and Tim (drums). Originally a four piece from the start in 1991 they've released some singles: Crate ep, Pull Thru Barker, Doorstop Rhythmic Bloc and the album Pointless Walks to Dismal Places. Which is great. Touring with the album has received a mixed reaction. 'Shite.' 'No, it's all right.' 'Absolutely amazing.' 'It goes up and down.' 'It's sold out every gig.' 'Except the other five.' 'We've only done five dates.' On the whole a better reception comes from London 'because there's just more people there' Linda says, with the audience fluctuating elsewhere.

'We played Folkestone and it was pretty empty apart from a lot of metal heads which was brilliant.' 'Tell her about the total maddy story'. Prolapse audiences seem to have their unfair share of mental types in attendance.

'This man came in, he had about six potatoes and we had to sign each potato in a different colour. And he wanted to be reincarnated as a patch of lichen.' It was his first gig since the Sugarcubes, about five years ago.' 'He also said 10 year olds should be shown snuff movies to scare them away from killing and that kind of thing.' 'Which I agree with.' 'We asked him what he does for a living and he said he was between lives.'

Your live shows are described as avant garde. But with six of you onstage how do you all fit? Linda: 'To be honest I get frustrated. I've got four square inches to move in. I've been kicked by Pat and elbowed by Mick.' 'And what happens is all the instrumentalists jump up and down? 'I keep pulling out Dave's leads while he's doing a really important bit. Then it'll all stop.' 'Yeah but it's on purpose.' And when Mick and Linda fight on stage: 'It hurts. He's going Aaargh (pulls hair) and I'm going Eeeg (animates pained expression) and he's doing the same to me. But you can't tell.'

Is the album doing as well as you want?

'It's a bit odd cause the amount of press doesn't tally with what it's doing in the indie charts. HMV picked us out , and we had this massive thing in MM.' 'That's because it's crap.' 'When I heard it I thought... it's too well produced.'

Mick and Pat, those integral band members, decide to split from the band and go their own way under the title Rusty Grifter. 'Rusty Grifter' Mick speaks into my dictaphone.

Who thought of the album title? Mick: 'That was me.' Linda: 'No. I said dismal. It wouldn't be what it was if I didn't say dismal.' 'OK, we've go 50-50. That happened in Glasgow. I was trying really quickly to show them somewhere nice so I took them on this crap walk and we just ended up in the middle of Glasgow and it was really boring and putting us off... the dismal places... the bland places... '

You changed production for the latest releases. Steve Mack produced this album, but you've also worked with John Robb. 'It worked really well with John Robb. On the last ep there was this track which was completely improvised.' 'John was walking round with a mic behind the radiator to get an ambient sound. I'd have loved to do the album half and half, a kind of mixture. ' 'But it's a very different way of working. John Robb is very much laid back , but Steve Mack was more "go in and do it again".' But we haven't cleaned it up too much .It would be stupid if we sounded like Genesis on record, then Huggy Bear live.'

Influences? '1-2-3 Stereolab.' 'People used to say The Fall which is fair enough, most of us in the band like The Fall. But you only have to play something repetitive and people'll say The Fall.' 'But people used to say Huggy Bear a lot but we're not really.' 'We're not as makeshift. we've no got the same politics.' 'Not in any way whatsoever.' 'In the MM Everett True said we'd stopped listening to Huggy Bear and started listening to Stereolab too much. But a) we haven't been listening to HB and b) we've always listened to other bands and perhaps not even as much as... well personally I've been listening to the sources of Stereolab, the German noise sort of bands. People just pick on things for an easy point of reference.'

'I like Linus.' 'There's not many new bands around I like. Spoonfed Hybrid.' 'Long Fin Killie, and lots of the Too Pure stuff, Laika. Gorky's Zygotic Mynci.' Bringing in the subject of regional accents, very obvious in Prolapse's music. Mick: 'I like that. There should be more of them.' Linda: 'You've got to let your own accent come through because it's an important part of yourself.' Has anyone wondered about Sonia, her from Liverpool. Her accent is so strong, but where she sings, an amazing transformation happens. Sonia can be understood. 'She's a complete pain in the arse. And bands like Teenage Fanclub, cause they're Scottish but they sound like Americans almost. I don't know how they do it and keep a straight face.' 'I think the regional accent thing is great, like Oasis from Manchester but I can't listen to things like Blur or Carter, it does my head in. I'd prefer if they sang in a northern accent.' 'But that's just regional bias.' 'I know it is, but I still can't stand Carter.' 'But The Jam sang in a London accent.' 'Yeah, OK.' And that, is more or less, that.

Live, Prolapse give an energetic, exhaustive, mesmerising show, one of the best I've seen in a while. Mick jumps on and off stage, Linda struts and snarls, they occasionally wrestle each other to the ground. Things sound on the verge of collapse... but not quite. If this band play your town go and see them.

Back issues available for 35p plus sae to Kai, 15 Rushton Drive, Bramhall, Stockport, Cheshire SK7 3LB

Linda is not a happy camper. This interview has been put back so many times that I'd begun to lose faith. You see, Linda has wisdom tooth problems and needs a lot of rest. Mercifully she is able to drag herself from her sick bed to talk. Anyone listening to Prolapse's music would have to be excused if they came away a nervous wreck, for their sound is the sort of thing that makes you toss and turn in your bed, a wonderfully monotonous drone, with Linda and her rival Mick vying for shouting space. Linda explains some of the key points as to why many people find their music disturbing.

'Obviously there's Tina this is Matthew Stone. I can't actually listen to it because it reminds me of things I don't really want to remember. It's difficult to say, because there might be people who live very happy lives who can't identify with the song.'

Tina this is Matthew Stone, I should point out, is the last song on Pointless Walks, a sprawling epic of a song which near the end degenerates into a scene of domestic violence between Mick and Linda. She continues, 'They might have been through a really bad relationship split up, so that I think that they can relate to it, and therefore I think that potentially our music is quite disturbing,' she says almost with relish. Linda then goes on to tell me exactly who Matthew Stone is. Apparently he's a character from a 1970s William Shatner film that so enthralled Linda that she fell asleep half way through. On thing that won't make you fall asleep is the vocal attack of Linda and Mick. Like two fighting school kids they spit out their words on to the hapless listener. You've never quite heard anything like it before.

'When Prolapse started I wasn't in the band,' she admits. 'Mick always improvised his vocals on stage, which he still does from books and just makes things up. Prolapse have always been a bit odd and I've got a friend who's my height and looks a little bit like me. Someone came up with the idea that we should stand up on stage like the Brady twins in The Shining and just stand there throughout the gig and psyche out the audience.'

Things get curiouser.

'It came to the night of the gig and my friend didn't turn up, so I got up on stage anyway and improvised vocals as well as Mick. It got such good feedback that everyone said I should come back next time. So I did it again and again and eventually I stayed.

And it is, without doubt, that Prolapse are better for Linda's sardonic screams, but surely all of your lyrics can't be planned.

'We try to keep everything really fresh. When you start recording stuff you go over it so much that when you record that song it puts you in a certain mood, and that mood seems to trigger the same word, so as we perform songs more and more the words tend to stick. Psychotic Now has got its own set of words that people can sing along to and it's really nice to look out in the audience and see people singing along to your songs.'

It's hard to say where Prolapse fit in. A punk Chumbawamba maybe, but then again maybe not. Listening to too much of Prolapse's material you can't help but be attracted to the insistent nature in which they play. So, I give you The Fall...

'Everybody in the band apart from myself and Geordie Mick the bass player are manic Fall fans and have got loads of records by them. Every influence within the band maps on to a few, but not all of the members in the band, and I think that's why the sound is quite hard to pin down.'

For the uninitiated Prolapse are a scary prospect and their gigs are downright surreal. But you can't fail to love a band who put on a good show and Prolapse certainly do that. 'People go to a gig and the band stand on stage, play their music and you check out the singer and the rest of the band to see if there's anyone you fancy and you look around the room a bit and it's all a bit dull,' says Linda without pausing for breath. 'I always have loads of energy on stage and Mick always has loads of energy, so use that energy don't waste it,' says Mrs Motivator. Linda goes on to tell about her and Mick's relationship and that Prolapse wouldn't be what it is without it being 'quite colourful' and also compliments me on my northern accent, which is a first. But then Prolapse are the first band in a long time to come along and present something truly original, so I suppose being leaders of the pack is nothing new to them.

Available for 60p plus A5 sae from Andrew Friendly, Flat 1/1, 425 Sauchiehall St, Glasgow G2 3LG