First Third Books, the London-based book publisher who put out that excellent coffee table monograph about the life of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Sheila Rock’s Punk+ book are back with a new volume tracing the nearly 25 year history of Saint Etienne. The book contains over 150 images of the band annotated by Sarah Cracknell, Pete Wiggs and Bob Stanley.
The Saint Etienne book comes individually numbered in a run of 2,000 copies. There’s a special edition of 300 copies with a different coloured linen binding signed by the trio that includes a 7” single of two unreleased songs, but that has already sold out.
Over email, I asked Bob Stanley a few questions about the new book, collecting collectibles and fandom. This is probably as good a place as any to mention that I’m a huge Saint Etienne fan myself and that there is a pressed flower Sarah Cracknell knelt down and handed to me after the group’s concert at Limelight in New York in one of the books on the shelves behind me as I type this…
Saint Etienne will be premiering their soundtrack to Paul Kelly’s film The Way We Live live at the close of this year’s Sheffield Doc Fest on June 12th. (I’m going to be at the Fest, sadly we’re leaving that very morning…)
Dangerous Minds: Obviously this is a volume for the Saint Etienne superfan. How did you approach the curation of the group’s history with an eye towards turning it into a product that a superfan like yourself would want to own?
Bob Stanley: We had the nod over which pictures to include, but Fabrice and Lora at First Third did most of the work on the book. The Felt book they put out was off the scale, really beautiful, so we knew they’d do a good job. Our input was really to give them a couple of new songs for a limited edition 7”. I like the idea of rarities - I’m a collector, and tracking down first pressing of albums, obscure singles and first edition books is the rather pathetic hunter and collector instinct in me. I’d be happier saying that, stranded in a forest, I could build a wood cabin with my bare hands. Instead, I can only say I have a recording Walkman that belonged to Florian Schneider.
Music, as a commodity, isn’t consumed so much anymore in its corporeal form by that many young people. The “object”—be it an album or CD—has always been the foundational fetish item of pop music fandom. A rare record is like a hunter’s trophy as far as collectors are concerned. What replaces that in the future? Is it books like this one? I guess what I mean to ask is, don’t people need something to hold in their hands, or to display on their coffee table or bookshelf for true “fandom” to germinate? People our age worship records. They make them feel closer to the creators. A digital file provides no such satisfaction. What replaces that with younger fans?
Bob Stanley: There are two things at work here, I think. One is the celebration of music - having something to hold, the ritual of dropping the needle on the record, or the satisfying click of closing the door on a Walkman. I think this helps the music to envelop you; at least it makes you concentrate. On the other hand, there are still objects that a fan can buy to feel close to their heroes. When I was growing up, that meant buying records. You can buy a lifesize cardboard cutout of Katy Perry, but you can’t buy her records on vinyl. Quite possibly a Katy Perry superfan would rather have the lifesize cardboard cutout - I mean, that makes more sense than having a round piece of plastic with her name written on it. I happen to love the look and feel of records, they’re like art pieces to me. But I don’t think younger music fans are any less devoted if they don’t collect vinyl. It’s pop. It should be ephemeral. If you’re the kind of person who wants to devote his life to it and glory in its history, that’s fine too.
What sort of relationship do you have with your own fans? I have an image of you as someone who might find that your fans are people you’d hang out with—crazed record collectors who might even be able to turn you on to things you don’t know about. Am I right?
Bob Stanley: I’m sure they’re not all crazed record collectors, but there’s definitely a kinship. That makes sense to me - you’re sensibilities are bound to come out if you write or make music. I love social history, so I always find I want to dig deeper, whether it’s picking up a great Roy Orbison b-side, reading about the history of Basildon new town in Essex county archives, or discovering that Hendon FC once played in front of 100,000 people at Wembley. Some of our fans are similarly intrigued by London history, for instance - hauntology, psychogeography or whatever; our relationship with time and place. I know a few of our fans are non-league football fans as well, because I bump into them at matches. But I don’t know how many are interested in the 1946 Town Planning Act. That might just be me.
After the long hiatus Saint Etienne went through until Words and Music by Saint Etienne was released in 2012, the band came back sounding totally invigorated creatively and bringing brand new elements into the music. What have you been listening to lately that you just can’t get enough of and are you working on new Saint Etienne material at the moment?
Bob Stanley: Thank you. We’ve been working on some new ideas. I find I’m being drawn back to late nineties electronica - people I’d forgotten whose records I bought at the time, like Osaka and Isan. There’s an Iranian bloke at the moment who goes under the name of The Waterfront - he’s made a lovely Durutti Column-influenced atmospheric album. It’s quite random, discovering new things. I was in Bergen a couple of months and saw a girl called Vilde Tuv who I thought was phenomenal. Originality is hard to come by, but she’s great, just guitar and bass drum, very intense. Female vocal jazz from the fifties… I really love Jeri Southern at the moment, her album The Southern Style. And I listen out for things I might want to reissue on my Croydon Municipal label - all public domain recordings. Me and Jonny Trunk are in a race to find things and release them. It’s a friendly race, of course.
Below, the video for 2012’s “I’ve Got Your Music”—I find this song utterly breathtaking. Pure pop perfection, I could listen to this on repeat all day long.
Covering Michel Polnareff’s “La Poupee Qui Fait Non (No, No, No, No, No)” on Later… with Jools Holland. If you don’t like this… you don’t like pop music: