Stefan
Kassel remembers the very first time pop music had an effect on him that was
physical as much as emotional.
“My
mother had a copy of Dione Warwick’s album, I Know I’ll Never Fall in Love
Again,” says the co-founder of the Hamburg-based Marina Records of Warwick’s
1970 collection. “I heard it as a kid and got goosebumps. That never went
away.”
Given
that the record Warwick’s spine-tingling interpretations of songs by the likes
of Jimmy Webb and composer of its title track, Burt Bacharach, Kassel’s
response sealed his love of classic pop song-writing forever after. It was the
same when a decade or so later he first heard the bands whose records were
being released on Alan Horne’s Glasgow-based Postcard record label.
“My
gateway into Scottish music was listening to John Peel on British Forces
Radio,” says Kassel. “The first time he played Blueboy by Orange Juice and Pillar
to Post by Aztec Camera, that was goosebumps too.”
This
is presumably one of the reasons why Kassel and Marina’s other co-founder Frank
Lahnemann called their label’s twenty-fifth anniversary two-CD compilation
album after the same sensation Kassel felt all those years ago. Released last
September, Goosebumps also heralds the end of an international cottage industry
which over the last quarter of a century has championed a plethora of
post-Postcard wave of artists from Scotland as well as fellow travellers in
Germany and beyond.
Many
of Marina’s Caledonian roster will this weekend be taking part in Goosebumps –
25 Years of Marina Records. This last live hurrah for the label was pulled
together by kindred spirit and founder of the Creeping Bent Organisation
Douglas Macintyre as part of this month’s Celtic Connections festival in
Glasgow.
“Douglas
wanted to have a farewell concert,” says Kassel, “so we invited everybody, and
remarkably everybody said yes. That’s really exciting for me, to bring together
so much talent from Scotland’s musical history in this way, especially as I
haven’t been in Scotland for a long time. It’s a nice way to go out, to bring
everyone together from when we started.”
Marina’s
first releases back in 1993 were a 12” by Glasgow band Gazelle, and the debut
album by Chris Thomson’s post Friends Again vehicle, The Bathers. Thomson and
co released several albums on Marina, though not as many as The Pearlfishers, David
Scott’s Brian Wilson tinged ensemble. There have also been albums by Roddy Frame,
a Josef K compilation and two solo albums by the Edinburgh quartet’s guitarist
and co-songwriter Malcolm Ross, all packaged in Kassel’s distinctive retro-chic
design.
Records
by the likes of Cowboy Mouth, Sugartown, Adventures in Stereo, Jazzateers and
Paul Quinn and The Independent Group chart an umbilically linked Scottish scene
sired or inspired by the first wave of Postcard bands. More recently, Marina
released an album by Edinburgh jazz trumpeter Colin Steele and his quartet.
As
well as many of those already mentioned, also on the bill will be The
Kingfishers, The Magic Circles, Starless, featuring Love and Money’s Paul
McGeechan, and BMX Bandits frontman Duglas T Stewart. To keep thinks slick,
these will be backed by The Marina AllStars, a supergroup of sorts made up of
Macintyre, former Aztec Camera bassist Campbell Owens, Pearlfishers driving
force David Scott, guitarist Mick Slaven and drummer Jim Gash.
“I
never planned to start a record label,” says Kassel, who was working as a music
journalist in Germany when he was first invited to Scotland. “I made
connections in Glasgow very quickly, and I heard all this music and thought it
should be released. One thing led to another and it just happened, but as soon
as I heard Gazelle on that first demo tape I fell in love.”
As
the label developed, Marina released barely heard material by Liverpool
maverick Michael Head’s first band The Pale Fountains, as well as putting out
Waterpistol, the great lost second album by Head’s next band, Shack. Tracks by
both appear on Goosebumps, alongside cover versions by The Pearlfishers - here
cunningly disguised as The Pale Fishers – and Saint Etienne chanteuse Sarah
Cracknell.
The
Marina catalogue’s best-seller over the years has been Caroline Now!, a
compilation of songs by Brian Wilson and The Beach boys, which featured the
likes of Vaselines vocalist Eugene Kelly, Belle & Sebastian guitarist
Stevie Jackson and Katrina Mitchell of The Pastels in a duo with Bill Wells.
Kassel’s
favourite release from the Marina canon, however, is You Can Make it if You Boogie,
the only solo work to date by former Orange Juice guitarist James Kirk. This is
despite the record’s somewhat protracted creation.
“James
is James, and it was a nightmare to finish,” Kassel jokes now, “but we got
there in the end, and everyone plays on it. I still can’t believe James is
playing the show, but I’m delighted.”
Despite
his and Lahnemann’s devotion to Marina and to music in general, Kassel feels it
is good to go out on a high.
“Nobody
buys records anymore,” he says of the decision. “That’s just the way it is.
When things went to downloads you could still make some income, but right now
it’s all about streaming, and there’s no income at all. We’ve had a really good
run with Marina, but it’s over. That’s just something we have to accept. It
would be great to continue, but the truth of the matter is that things are over
for the way we bought, sold and enjoyed music. These are different times now.”
As
for the future, Kassel remains philosophical, and if something new came along
that gave him goosebumps the same way Dione Warwick did, one suspects it might
prove irresistible.
“Marina
will always go on in a way,” he says. “The music is still available, just
through different platforms, so the label isn’t dead. And who knows? We might
get a demo that totally blows us away, but let’s see.”
Goosebumps
– 25 Years of Marina Records (Krach Auf Wiedersehen!), Mitchell Theatre,
Glasgow, January 18.
The Herald, January 17th 2019
ends
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