Talk Talk frontman Mark Hollis has passed away suddenly at age 64. Progarchy sends its sincerest condolences to his friends and family.
The BBC has an obituary for him here: https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/entertainment-arts-47373897
Tag: Mark Hollis
Talk Talk’s MARK HOLLIS: 20 Years Later
Mark Hollis, MARK HOLLIS (Polydor, 1998). Tracks: The Colour of Spring; Watershed, Inside Looking Out, The Gift; A Life; Westward Bound; The Daily Planet; and A New Jerusalem.
If Mark Hollis wanted to show that he was no longer a member of Talk Talk, nothing could be quite so revealing as the album design of his first and only solo album, MARK HOLLIS. Gone was anything resembling James Marsh’s lush psychedelic landscapes, aching with sacramental if surreal beauty. Gone, too, were the hand written lyrics. Instead, if you find it attractive, the minimalist cover looks like something Apple might design as a part of its product line. If, however, you find it not so attractive, it looks like the label of some kind of generic grocery store product from the late 1970s: “Beer.” The white background supports a bizarre black and white photo. I’ve stared at this photo many times, and I still don’t have a clue what it is. Frankly, it looks a bit like roadkill on display in a museum. The label on the cd booklet merely states “Mark Hollis” in a plain font. On the actual jewel case, there are two stickers. One states “Made in the U.K.” The other states “Formerly of Talk Talk. 537 688-2.” I presume the latter stick refers to Hollis, not to the U.K.
As with LAUGHING STOCK, MARK HOLLIS came out on Polydor. When Hollis had originally signed to the label, the agreement was for four albums total. Considering that MARK HOLLIS came out in 1998, twenty years ago exactly, the chance of Polydor getting two more out of him seems more and more remote. As to what Polydor thinks of Hollis, it’s impossible to state. Clearly, the label knew what it was getting after SPIRIT OF EDEN. If they didn’t, they were fools, and I’m guessing they’re not fools.
Seven Sacraments to Song: Talk Talk’s LAUGHING STOCK (1991)
Even for those die-hard Talk Talk fans among us, the band’s final album, LAUGHING STOCK, gets only a rating as “SPIRIT OF EDEN II.” It’s not that folks don’t absolutely love it. They do. But, when it comes to the history of Talk Talk and the history of rock, 1988’s SPIRIT OF EDEN is better remembered as the innovating album, the heroic but not so polite one in and on which Hollis told EMI and the commercial world where to go and what to do when they got there.
Begin obsessed with Talk Talk since 1986’s THE COLOUR OF SPRING, I, too, am guilty of ranking LAUGHING STOCK somewhere in the band’s top three, but never number one. Of course, I’ve always loved LAUGHING STOCK. No question there. What’s not to love? Yet, it’s always been—at least in my mind—a kind of final moment, a release, an innovative remake of SPIRIT OF EDEN, featuring the core that made the 1988 album so successful: Hollis; Friese-Green; and Brown.
I first purchased the CD of LAUGHING STOCK (even before I owned a CD player) at Waterloo records in Austin on the day it came out. Craig Breaden (also of Progarchist infamy) and I were attending a history conference there, and Waterloo was across the river from our hotel. Stunningly, when it came to the band, I actually knew far more than Craig. Believe me, this is important, as no one knows the history of rock from the early 60s to the early 90s better than does Craig.
Continue reading “Seven Sacraments to Song: Talk Talk’s LAUGHING STOCK (1991)”
Mark Hollis, Part II: Aching for Grace
Yesterday, I had the grand fortune of spending a serious amount of time listening to and writing about Talk Talk. There are few subjects in the world that give me so much pleasure as does TT. For years, one of my closest friends (and a friend since the fall of 1986), Kevin McCormick (a fellow progarchist and progarchy editor) and I have talked about writing a full-length book on Talk Talk. We even have a rather strong and detailed outline. The publishing venues, sadly, are not as easy to find as one might imagine. While Talk Talk has a loyal following, it is a small one. A few years ago, we submitted a proposal—which, from my biased perspective was really good—to 33 1/3 Books (Bloomsbury). Sadly, they not only felt no enthuasiam for our project, they deemed it unworthy, even of comment. Just a simple “no thanks.” But, Kevin and I are nothing if nothing if not persistent and enthusiastic. Indeed, some might even say “obnoxious!”
So, if there’s anyone in the reading audience who would like to publish a roughly 60,000 word manuscript on the significance and influence of Talk Talk, please let us know! We could have a completed book to you within a year or less.
A Prog Faith: Mark Hollis, Part I
For all intents and purposes, Mark Hollis disappeared twenty years ago.
No, not entirely.
Since releasing his last full album, MARK HOLLIS, in 1998, he has appeared, from time to time, on the work of other artists–most particularluy on the work of Phill Brown, Dave Allinson, Unkle, and Anja Garbarek. All of these collaborations, however, took place before 2002.
Ten years later, in 2012, Hollis again emerged, writing a stunning piece of music for the Kelsey Grammar TV series, Boss. That piece, “ARBSection 1,” lasts a full 54 seconds. No one in the music world has seen or heard from him since.
Not too surprisingly, Mark Hollis’s absence has only heightened the interest in him.
For those of us who love Talk Talk, there’s something unlrentingly fascinating about the trajectory of the band. As is well known in musical circles, Talk Talk had its origins in punk but quickly became an MTV showcase of glam rock and pop, producing one clever synthpop song (and video) after another–Talk Talk, Hate, Today, It’s My Life, Such a Shame, and Dum Dum Girl–between 1982 and 1984. They became a standard of the first half of the 1980s–easily lumped in with Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cure, Thomas Dolby, New Order, and Duran Duran—as part of the second British invasion of American pop culture.
Yet, even from their beginning, the band was different from all of their pop companions, even if many in the music scene of the time dismissed (or missed) those differences.
Second Spring #4: “April 5” by Talk Talk
I suppose one could accuse me of being just a bit too obvious regarding this fourth installment of Second Spring. After all, it is April 5. I even contemplated using another Talk Talk track for this fourth part. Then, I put “April 5” on, and I realized immediately how right it is for today. After all, it’s following yesterday’s Big Big Train track, “The Permanent Way.”
Big Big Train is as close to perfect as the world will allow. Still, Mark Hollis joining BBT would make the band just a bit more perfect. . . .
Meditative Prog: The Genius of Nosound’s LIGHTDARK
Ten year ago this fall, the brilliant Giancarlo Erra was in the studios writing, recording, and mixing what would become his magnum opus, LIGHTDARK, one of the first releases from the then-brand new KScope Records. Nothing Erra writes and records is unimportant, of course, but nothing he has done has quite matched the flawless LIGHTDARK, in its composition, its harmonies, its reach, and its flow. Never could this be wallpaper music. It is music that demands full immersion. As with T.S Eliot’s Four Quartets, Erra’s LIGHTDARK demands that we the listener stand within the art itself, seeing the world form the perspective of the art. As such, Erra is a genius, bringing us fully into his music.
As with some of the best composers of the past century, Erra eschews all forms of bombast as he whispers longingly toward the true, the good, and the beautiful. He is not afraid of silence, knowing that the notes that surround silence, do so affectionately and even passionately.
Imagine Mark Hollis writing music for Pink Floyd while serving as the backup band to Arvo Part, and you might get close to the genius and talent of Giancarlo Erra.
When Pink Floyd was a Classic(al) Band
Over the past several months, I’ve been rather taken with Pink Floyd. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved the band. . . as far back as I can remember, their music was a part of my life. Certainly, in my little town in central Kansas, I could hear someone or some station playing Floyd at any time. As I’ve had the chance to mention before, our local planetarium played lots of Laser Floyd. I heard them so much and so often that I started to take them for granted.
Several months ago, I picked The Wall up after years of not listening to it. There was a time I thought it was a masterful work of art. I still think it’s brilliant, but it’s way too depressing for me to pick up casually. If I’m in a good mood, I certainly don’t want to be brought down by the album. If I’m in a bad mood, I don’t need it to bring me down any further.
There’s no doubt, however, that its message of anti-fascism and anti-conformity influenced my own thinking on the world profoundly.
PET SOUNDS, 1966-2016: Fifty Years of Prog
Though I’m sure someone could make the case for either REVOLVER or SGT. PEPPER’s being the first prog album, I’ve always turned to PET SOUNDS by the Beach Boys. I’m sure there’s a bit of the American in me that desires this to be so, so I can’t completely claim to be unbiased. I know English proggers–understandably–think of Prog as one of their many national gifts to the world, somewhere above the Magna Carta. And, it is! Still, it’s conceivable that it came about in California but then was perfected by the English. Maybe. Maybe not.
As Brian Wilson has noted, he found his own inspiration for the album in RUBBER SOUL by the Beatles. Is it possible the influence went both directions across the Atlantic? Most certainly.
Regardless, PET SOUNDS is fifty years old. And, what an extraordinary achievement it is. Though one might regard it somewhat probably as a Brian Wilson solo album, it came out under the name of the Beach Boys, and it carries with it many of the trademark Beach Boy sounds and touches.
Continue reading “PET SOUNDS, 1966-2016: Fifty Years of Prog”
Taking Stock: Talk Talk 25 Years Later
A personal journey, Part I.
Twenty-five years ago this fall, progarchist editor Craig Breaden and I were in Waterloo Records, Austin, Texas. There it was on the shelves—the final Talk Talk album, LAUGHING STOCK, in all of its James Marsh-esque glory. Of course, I purchased it as quickly as possible. After all, it had just come out, and Craig and I were living in pre-internet days in northern Utah. We had a music store nearby, but however good it was—and, frankly, it was pretty good—it wouldn’t have dreamt of carrying anything by a band so strange as Talk Talk.
So fortunate we were at a history conference in Texas at the same moment as LAUGHING STOCK’s release.
Craig and I were not only officemates and apartment mates, but we were best friends and music mates. How many hours flew by with Craig and I devouring music—old and new—and then discussing and analyzing every bit of it. I still cherish these nights and even weekend-days as some of the best of my life. Though I’d grown up in a house that respected nearly every form of music, I had never been introduced to some of the great psychedelic and experimental rock acts of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Unless it was by Yes, Genesis, or Jethro Tull, I really didn’t know it. Craig played Procol Harum, Soft Machine, Spooky Tooth, and Traffic for me. I fell in love with each. As the time Craig and I (and another close friend, Joel) were spending so much time together, the music scene itself was going through a bit of a psychedelic revival—with World Party, Charlatans, and others—and this only added to our excitement.
As soon as we returned from Austin, I recorded the full album of LAUGHING STOCK on each side of a double-sided TDK cassette and enthusiastically played this tape over and over and over and over. . . . Even though Craig and I had shared many enthusiasms with each other, this obsession with Talk Talk seemed more than a bit too enthusiastic to Craig.
Understandably so.
By sheer force of will, I fear, Craig had to accept this or our friendship would suffer! Of course, here we are, a quarter of a century later, still very close friends and co-editors of progarchy. . . . You know the story ended well.
For nearly thirty years, I instantly answered the question of “what is your favorite band” with Talk Talk and Rush. If pushed a bit more, I would add Tears for Fears and, depending on my mood, Genesis or Yes or XTC. This rote answer became almost proudly knee-jerk on my part.
When challenged about this opinion, I rather haughtily pointed to THE COLOUR OF SPRING, SPIRIT OF EDEN, and LAUGHING STOCK. After all, who could top fourteen months a shot, recording in dark, deserted churches, challenging every single bit of corporate conformity in the music business.
Mark Hollis, Tim-Friese-Green, and Phill Brown were not just three more musicians in the industry, they lingered as demi-gods at the very edge of Valhalla itself, ready to release Ragnoräk at any moment. And, power to them! As far as I was concerned, the music industry needed and deserved a revolution.
Recently, I’ve realized that Talk Talk no longer holds top spot in my mind when it comes to bands (Big Big Train has finally replaced Talk Talk in my mind and in my soul), but it will always be in the top three for me. For too many years, Talk Talk was my go-to band, my comfort and my first love in the world of music. To this day—and, I presume, to the end of my days—the final three albums the band made will always be the three by which I judge every other release in the music world. Few albums or bands, then or now, can measure up to such heights. But, such is my mind and soul.
Part II to come soon. . . . In the meantime, enjoy 19 minutes of Hollis talking about LAUGHING STOCK.
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