Echo and The Bunnymen - 1979 (the 'Echo' days)

Year 1978. After the very short-lived The Crucial Three (with Pete Wylie and Julian Cope), and the equally short-lived A Shallow Madness (with Cope), while the latter group metamorphosed into the Teardrop Explodes, Ian McCulloch quit (or, more appropriately, was fired by) the band and teamed up with Will Sergeant and Les Pattinson. Both Sergeant and Pattinson were in other bands at the time. Sergeant was in Industrial Domestic with Paul Simpson – an guitar noise act, which left very few traces of their production, among which a version of the Stones’ Satisfaction sung by friend Julian Cope (see the Teardrop post above) – and was now alone after Simpson had left to join, yes, the Teardrop Explodes. The anti-Teardrop sentiment was the primary and natural bond between Sergeant and McCulloch. Pattinson, too, had already been in the Jeffs (a.k.a. Geoffs) and the Love Pastels. No trauma for him when it came to disband both groups, since they were purely the product of Pattinson’s fervid imagination. Pattinson’s inclusion to the line-up was due to the urge of having at least another member on stage for the band first gig, supporting the Teardrop at Eric’s. He came-up with the ‘right’ bass-line for one of the songs the duo were rehearsing for the gig, ‘Monkeys’, and got the job as a stable member of the yet nameless band. As to the name, they “had this mate who kept suggesting all these names […] like The Daz Men or Glisserol and the Fun Extractors. Echo and the Bunnymen was one of them […] and was just as stupid as the rest” (Liverpool Explodes 1982) but ‘weird’ enough to stick into people’s mind. “On the fateful night, the three [Bunnymen] walked onstage and switched on the drum machine which came to be known as ‘Echo’. […] Mac stood centre stage, flanked by the other two […] There weren’t many people there, maybe thirty, all the local hip people standing ina line. [They] played the riff of ‘Monkeys’ for fifteen minutes and everyone was transfixed” (ibidem). So much so that the song was properly recorded and would be released on the compilation ‘Street to Street vol. 1’ in September 1979 (see post above). “This version (misspelled ‘Monkies’ on the album’s sleeve) was markedly different from the one that eventually emerged on the Bunnymen’s debut LP. Minimal, tinny, and monotonous, it was virtually identical to the group’s debut performance – albeit about sixteen minutes shorter. And the lyrics would undergo some dramatic rewriting before the definitive versio was heard” (Turquoise Days, 2002).

For the record: Jamie Farrell (later Ellery Bop) was in an early incarnation of the Bunnymen. Here's the Farrell's memories of that experience: "I was a friend of Mac, Will and Les so they asked me to join...I recorded Monkeys with them in Open Eye studios sometime in 1979 then that was it... Probably was a member for 2 months. We used to rehearse in Yorkie's [Balcony, Space] house. I originaly was taught to play guitar by Pete Wylie on a guitar given to him by the Clash's Mick Jones... It was a fun time." (Personal thanks to the man himself: Jamie Farrell)

Apparently Cope recommended the band to Bill Drummond and Dave Balfe, who decided to release the Bunnymen first single on their Zoo label in March 1979.

Pictures on My Wall (1979)
- Pictures on My Wall
- Read it in Book

.

Rumours had it that the B-side was written by McCulloch and Cope during one of the few Crucial Three rehearsals, and would also be recorded (as ‘Books’) a couple of years later by The Teardrop Explodes as the B-side of their single "Reward" (McCulloch denies any contribution by Cope in the writing of the song). After a TV appearance on Tony Wilson’s show ‘What Goes On’ on Granada Tv, in August 1979 Echo and the Bunnymen played their first Peel Session. With Dave Balfe helping on keyboards:

1st Peel Session (August 15, 1979)
- Read in Books
- Ashes to Ashes (early version of Stars are Stars)
- I Bagsy Yours
- Villiers Terrace

The group gigged sporadically, mostly in Liverpool, Manchester, York, Leeds and Middlesborough. Here’s one of the group’s performances at Eric’s (September 15, 1979), and one of the last as a three-piece.

Live at Eric’s (September 15, 1979)
- Going Up
- Read it in Books
- Stars are Stars
- Pride
- I Bagsy Yours
- Villier Terrace
- Pictures on My Wall
- Happy Death Man

Echo 1979