The La's are an English
rock music band from Liverpool
, consisting of frontman Lee
Mavers (vocals, guitars) and John
Power (bass, backing vocals), plus a
rotating cast of guitarists and drummers. The band's best-known song is
"
There She Goes", which has been
released as a single four times.
They formed in 1983, and had effectively broken up by 1992 after
recording one album,
The
La's, in 1990. A new La's line-up (featuring Mavers, but
not Power) played a few gigs in 1994 and '95; Mavers and Power
reunited in 2005, and The La's again commenced playing occasional
live shows.
Early days: 1983-1987
The La's formed in 1983, with original member
Mike Badger claiming the band name occurred to
him in a dream, as well as it being
Scouse
for "lads", and having obvious musical connotations. The band
existed briefly as an arthouse/
skiffle-type
outfit with a few tracks included on local compilations.
Lee Mavers joined in 1984 as rhythm guitarist,
eventually gaining songwriting prominence and emerging as the
band's enduring figurehead. Longterm bassist
John Power joined the group in 1987, having met
Badger on a council-run musicianship course. Badger however was
asked to leave the group in late 1986.
The La's
attracted the attention of several record labels after a series of
performances in their home town of Liverpool in 1986, and Bootleg demo tapes copied from a session
at the Flying Picket rehearsal studio in Liverpool began
circulating. Several record labels heard these and offered
recording contracts. The band chose to sign with
Go! Discs.
The band's first single ("Way Out", released in October 1987 on Go!
Discs (GOLAS 112)), was mixed with
producer Gavin
MacKillop, but attracted little notice. It broke in to the top
100 and was praised by
The Smiths'
frontman
Morrissey in the music magazine
Melody Maker, but otherwise
went generally unnoticed. Five thousand copies were pressed, making
it a sought-after item for La's record collectors. This was the
beginning of The La's music career, which would last for little
more than four years until the band slipped away from the limelight
in 1992.
The band continued to perform shows around the UK and gained
success as a live act, drawing comparisons to
The Beatles due to their origins, vaguely
Merseybeat sound, and Mavers' expressive
lyrics.
There She Goes: 1988
"There She Goes", (from the Woodcray recording session), was
released in 1988 with the
B-sides "Come In
Come Out" and "Who Knows". The song garnered moderate attention and
airplay, but performed poorly in the charts. The
music video for "There She Goes" features The
La's scampering through run-down Liverpool streets and was filmed
in an afternoon on a handheld camera. The song has been used on
several
soundtracks, including the films
So I Married an Axe
Murderer, The
Parent Trap and
Fever
Pitch and was later re-released.
The La's: 1989-1995
After working with producer
Jeremy
Allom at the Pink Museum Studio in Liverpool in May 1989, the
band were set to release "Timeless Melody" (GOLAS 3) as a single.
While it became a "record of the week" in the UK magazine
New Musical Express,
Mavers was unhappy with how it sounded and it remained commercially
unreleased. B-sides included a version of "Clean Prophet" that is
still not officially released to this day, and a
blues jam entitled "Ride Yer Camel". This record is
extremely rare, as only a handful of test pressings were
completed.
The group then spent two years fruitlessly recording and
re-recording their intended album, with a constantly changing band
lineup, where only the core of Mavers and Power remained the same.
Discarded producers included The Smiths' producer
John Porter,
John Leckie, and
Mike
Hedges. Both Leckie and Hedges in interviews have been very
complimentary about the band's songs and their respective
sessions.
The previously volatile band lineup settled in 1989 with Lee`s
Brother,
Neil Mavers as the drummer, and
Peter "Cammy" Camell as lead guitarist. The group then entered
Eden Studios, London in December 1989
to again attempt to record the debut album with
Simple Minds and
U2 producer
Steve Lillywhite. Despite this
lineup being arguably the strongest, and press interviews from the
time painting them as extremely confident, the sessions still did
not satisfy The La's. In one instance Mavers rejected a vintage
mixing desk, claiming it did not have
the right sound because "it hasn't got original Sixties dust on
it". The Eden sessions would become the band's final attempt at
recording their album, and the frustration of not achieving the
right sound and mood in their songs — as well as general friction
with Go! Discs, who had spent a considerable sum of money on
recording sessions for the band — led to them simply giving up on
the sessions, leaving Lillywhite to piece together their recordings
into what became the actual released album. The band, particularly
Lee Mavers, were not pleased with this decision.
Among the band's complaints were that Lillywhite used vocal
guide tracks on the LP and that he
didn't "understand" their sound. According to Mavers himself, the
band had played poorly deliberately during the sessions in the hope
that the material wouldn't be released, as they didn't gel with
Lillywhite from day one.
However, recognition, at least critically, came for The La's in
1990 when the self-titled album,
The La's, was released. The album
reached #30 in the UK charts and received a Silver certification,
but the album did not fare as well overseas. The album only reached
#196 on the
Billboard 200 and to date
has sold fewer than 50,000 copies in the U.S.
The album included, among new material, re-recorded versions of all
the previous singles, including a remixed version of "There She
Goes" which was then re-released as a single. This time around, the
song reached number 13 in the
UK
singles chart and remains the most visible and enduring of all
the band's songs.
The lineup for this song features: Mavers (guitar/vocals), Power
(bass guitar), Byrne (lead guitar) and Sharrock (drums). Chris
Sharrock (previously of
Icicle Works)
subsequently went on to drum with
Lightning Seeds and has more recently played
with
Robbie Williams and
Oasis.
John Byrne, an established classical
guitarist who had recently qualified at the Royal Northern
College of Music
at the time of the "There She Goes" recording, now
performs and teaches on the Channel Island of Guernsey
.
Additional singles from the album included the LP versions of
"Timeless Melody" and "Feelin'". Both sold reasonably well,
reaching chart placings around the
top 40.
"Feelin'" also saw a small box-set released, which included
stickers, and remains a collector's item. A short promotional tour
proceeded, accompanied by minor television appearances on shows
such as
Top of the Pops,
although the band appeared unhappy, were visibly unkempt, and front
man Lee Mavers was vitriolic on the subject of their record and
came across as generally uninterested in the music business by this
point. Press interviews conducted during this period were generally
confused in tone, owing to the fact the critics generally adored
the album yet Mavers was assuring journalists that he "hated" the
album and it was "like a snake with a broken back".
1991 promotional tour dates were fulfilled in the UK and Europe,
including a few festivals, a well-received US tour, and a handful
of 1992 dates. Bassist
John Power left
the group in 1993, frustrated with having played essentially the
same set of songs since 1986, and resurfaced a year later with his
Britpop group
Cast. Power's departure
was essentially the
de facto end of The La's, as at that
point the band seemed to vanish from the public eye.
Rumours that Mavers had vowed not to record any new material until
after the first catalogue had been re-recorded to his satisfaction
circulated, much to the frustration of fans and journalists who
didn't especially see a problem with the released album.
No releasable studio work was completed on a second album, despite
Mavers' reportedly numerous unreleased songs and, according to
local sources, endlessly recording them by himself in the privacy
of his own home. In 1995,The La`s had broken up.
Exile and resurfacing
After his split of the band, John Power had success with his band
Cast. Drummer Chris Sharrock (who was a
band member only briefly) also had high-profile post-La's gigs as
an official member of
World Party,
The Lightning Seeds,
Robbie Williams' backing band, and now
Oasis. Other ex-members of the band
generally pursued their own musical directions, though none
achieved the same sort of success as Power or Sharrock. John Power
has now moved back to his roots and has been producing some Captain
Beefheart bass heavy sounds. He has also recently been involved in
songwriting workshops, most notably in Stoke with various local
musicians such as Preston & Gilbert of The One Percent.
Lee Mavers himself, however, never appeared comfortable with media
attention or with the results of all his recording sessions, and
did not reciprocate interview requests made by music journalists
after the band broke up. His uninterested attitude to the press no
doubt contributed to the "Mavers as recluse" personality as
portrayed by music publications, and rumours persisted about him
that were left undenied in his absence, ranging from perceived
eccentricity to
drug abuse.
However Mavers and an impromptu configuration of The La's did play
some low-key shows again in the mid 1990s. Mavers played
hastily-organised, short-notice support slots with
Dodgy,
Paul Weller
and
Oasis in 1994 and 1995, although he
has since claimed this was to raise funds owing to a merchandising
debt from their 1991 US tour, as opposed to staging a full-blown
comeback. After these dates, nothing concrete was heard from or
about Mavers for a number of years, and it was unknown what, if
anything, he was going to do with his unreleased songs.
In 2001
The La's was re-released in the UK, under the
Universal label. It featured the album, plus previously available
B-sides "All By Myself", "Knock Me Down", "Clean Prophet", "IOU
Alternate" from the jettisoned Hedges sessions, and "Over (Live in
a Stable in Liverpool)", yet the release is missing many B-side
tracks that most La's fans found essential.
Following a reunion between Mavers and Power, in June 2005 The
La's, with yet another new lineup, played six dates in England and
Ireland ahead of an appearance at the
Summer Sonic festival in Japan and sundry other
festivals, with the lineup of Lee Mavers (vocals, guitar), John
Power (bass, backing vocals), Jay Lewis of Liverpool band
Cracatilla (guitar) and Nick Miniski (drums).
Miniski
was replaced by Lee Mavers' schoolfriend Jasper by the time The
La's played their fourth reunion date, the 13 June 2005 Sheffield
Leadmill gig, and by the time of the Glastonbury
Festival
2005, Jasper had become the full-time
drummer. This was televised in part by the
BBC.
The set lists were the same as ever, although the encores consisted
of one unreleased (but a popular bootleg) song "I Am The Key" and
an unreleased and unheard song "Gimme the Blues" (the former having
been played live from as early as 1989, but having yet to appear on
a record). One other new song, "Sorry", was played at the Cork,
Ireland show.
The group played festival dates late Summer 2005 such as Oxegen
(Ireland),
T in the Park (Scotland), V
(UK) and the aforementioned Summer Sonic festival (Japan), and
embarked on a short tour of Japan, which saw them play songs by The
Who such as "
My
Generation".
Since then it is believed that Mavers is again working on The La's'
elusive second album. When interviewed in August 2006, John Power
explained that Mavers was still "tinkering with something that's
majestic" and of the release date, "I can’t tell you where and when
. . . 'cos whatever he does, whether it’s in this lifetime or the
next, it can’t be rushed".
[47329]
A compilation of The La's radio appearances for the BBC was
released on 18 September 2006, called The La's -
BBC In Session.
Rumours have surfaced that Lee Mavers may be working with the band
Babyshambles to rehearse and record a
second La's album, and Mavers has performed with Doherty in some
recent shows, including Doherty's tour ending show at the Troxy in
East London.
It was announced The La's would be playing Sheffield's Tramlines
festival, which ran from 24 - 26 July with Drew McConnell of
Babyshambles and other new members. As per The La's mythology, they
pulled out of the gig a few days before.
Discography
Studio albums
EPs
- Fever Pitch (Contains "There She Goes" and
"Fever Pitch" amongst songs by other artists including The Pretenders) chart
position(s):
Compilations
Singles
References
- Steve Jelbert, "Pop: The One and Only" The Independent
(London: 26 January 2001, p. 16)
Bibliography
In Search of
The La's : A Secret Liverpool by MW Macefield, 2003 (Paperback,
Helter Skelter Publishing; ISBN 1-900924-63-3)
External links
Wikis
Quiz
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