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Charlie McLenehan - guitar, vocals
Martin Ruth - drums Paul Martin - bass |
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featured on Vaultage 80
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Have You Seen My Friend?:
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 Outside the Attrix Records Shop |
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The Relatives The origins of the Life Size Models (LSM) lay in the dissolution of the short lived band Siren (which lasted for the Summer of 1979). When that group split, I (Paul Martin) became the bass guitarist for a revamped version of The Molesters and guitarist Charley McLenahan, joined up with ex-Molesters bassist Mark Gresty to form The Relatives. They were a three piece unit completed by drummer Rick Durant, who would join Life Size Models in its later stages as a second keyboard player. The Relatives were an excellent pop group. Gresty was an erudite and inventive bass player who could play impressive and unusual bass lines whilst singing a more than respectable lead vocal, something which made me both envious and respectful of his talent as I could never manage to do both at the same time very well. He was a self-effacing individual who did not see his talent as anything special and assured me I could play just as well and just as easily (well I tried!). Gresty wrote the lyrics and the musical structure and Charley McLenehan co-composed the music which they arranged collectively. |
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Bass player Paul Martin
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Charlie’s guitar playing developed considerably during this period, I have no doubt, due partly to Mark Gresty’s encouragement and pointers in harmonic inflection. Durant’s drumming was solid and reliable and as a group, they were energetic and sparkling to watch and hear. This line up lasted from October 1979 – November 1980. Gresty was a natural for pop song writing; catchy tunes and deceptively simple structures were used as platforms for experimenting with bass lines that deliberately sought to avoid root notes and reach for unexpected points on the fret board. Charley was never comfortable with playing lead guitar breaks and from this point developed his playing style to focus on intricate and myriad chord variations from which he plucked telling and sometimes unusual harmonic figures and rhythms. He became, by the high point of The Life Size Models, a very original sounding and adept guitarist and perhaps influenced by Gresty, also tried to find a different path from the root note, often using discordance to reinvent a chord and make it sound original. Many guitarists he encountered often asked him about his ‘trade secrets’! Interestingly, after LSM split in late 1982, in his new band ‘Vi Model’, he abandoned guitar altogether and took on keyboards instead. The set list for most Relatives gigs was as listed below. It is relevant to make this list as it is important to the early development of LSM |
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Have You Seen My Friend? My Body, Myself Living In The Sixties Beat of The Street Let’s Rip off The Black Man (a song written for and played in the Molesters and carried over) Campsite Just A Phase Scandinavian Kids Helping With Enquiries Secret Police Machine Guns On The Corner Siren’s wailing Living At The Plaza Young And Rich Send You Home Modern Noise Zero Hour Organisation |
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Just writing the titles down brings the songs back to life in my mind and I feel it is a real pity the Relatives did not (as far as I know) make any studio or even live recordings as many of these songs were highly infectious (not to mention socially aware) and a very good LP could have been made from some of them. In the event, Gresty, whose day job was working at American Express, decided he wanted instead, to got to Athens and work as a TEFL (Teacher of English as a Foreign Language). As a result, Durant decided to give up drums and learn keyboards as his interest in the emergent synth led groups was beginning to grow at this point. Charley wanted to find another group and the version of the Molesters I was in had just broken up. I mentioned earlier that Gresty was self-effacing. |
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He was also a left-wing socialist and did not regard his music and songs as any kind of property over which he wanted to control via intellectual property rights (a concept not phrased as such at the time). He therefore gave the entire Relatives set to Charley to do with what he wanted. Charley had of course, co-composed many of the songs and had his own stake to claim in them and the continuation of the band, but Mark did not see any problem in letting him do this. So it came to pass, that in the run up to his leaving, I would play bass in the sound checks for the group during the final gigs that Mark played with the band and learned the set at the same time. Subsequently, this left Charley and I as the band in search of a drummer. We wanted to put something down on tape asap, and coaxed and coerced, Rick Durant into coming over to Brighton (he lived in Southwick or Shoreham at that time) to be the drummer on three Relatives songs we wanted to lay down at Laurie Pore’s ‘Ally Pally’ 4 track studio at the Seven Dials. These were ‘Have You Seen My Friend’, ‘Beat of The Street’ and ‘Secret Police’ on 3rd and 4th September 1980.. Charley manfully sang the lead vocals on these and didn’t do a bad job either, with me chipping in on backing vocals. The result were three perky up-beat recordings which is a testament to Gresty’s song writing skills. I copied his bass lines off pat, they were just great! Having got something down on tape, we went in earnest about getting a new drummer and a new name, even though we would continue to play the old Relatives set for quite some time and indeed, a number of those songs endured until the end of the group. In October 1980 Charley and I also appeared as The Relatives on BBC Radio Brighton to discuss the recent destruction of the Resources Centre and the dilemma this gave bands in terms of rehearsal space etc. Extracts from our recent demo tape were also played. The Life Size Models Mk. 1 Life Size Models mark 1 lasted from December 1980 to March 1981. This consisted of Charley McLenahan on guitar and lead vocals, Paul Martin bass and backing vocals and Martin Ruth on drums. Martin was a nice guy and a competent drummer but always had a problem with the group name. However as we all failed to think of anything better than ‘Life Size Models’, we stayed with it. In this period we were playing about two thirds of the Relatives set but uprgraded or revised several of the songs. These included ‘Zero Hour’ and ‘Have You Seen My Friend’ (the slower version that was included on Vaultage 80). In this early stage we sounded like Charley and I’s former group, Siren, only with better songs! |
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The Life Size Models Mk.2 The line up expanded in March 1981 to include Rick Young, who came in as a strong lead vocalist, but who was also a quite a gifted (if undeveloped) multi -instrumentalist. Rick had a good voice and Charley took on backing vocals instead which I dropped altogether. Rick was formally a guitar player in local youth band Body Heat. He was younger than the rest of us, and I suppose you could say he had at that point yet to attain a level of experience that would give him the equilibrium he needed to establish his own direction. At this time, he was youthful, enthusiastic and keen to play bits and pieces on as many instruments as he could! He did become very keen on the newly emerging synthesisers at the time. To this end he invested in a second-hand ARP Odyssey synth, which he experimented with all the time. That machine had a sad end. At a gig at the Richmond, it fell off it’s resting place mid - song as a result of the vibrations caused by the band’s movement on stage. It fell forward off the stage and various coloured slider knobs and other metallic stuff cascaded across the floor! In the interim however, the ARP helped us write new songs and embellished or changed the older ones. This was early on in the synth revolution (I really can’t be doing with synths myself these days, I find them unlistenable most of the time which is odd, I prefer real strings or Roland, Hammond etc keys). New songs added at this time included ‘Why Don’t You Listen To Me’, ‘Shades of Green’, ‘Free The 60,000,000’ (an instrumental), ‘Earthward Bound’, ‘Clouds’, ‘Facades’ and ‘Think Nought’ (another instrumental). We recorded a number of these songs at a Radio Brighton session which were then broadcast that year. We began playing up and down the south coast at this point. One memorable early gig was in Hastings when a gang of skinheads invaded the club and started attacking another gang of skinheads already there. In the middle of this melee was a ‘token’ long-hair who just kept swaying and bobbing his head to the music as we kept on playing it and no-one touched him or indeed threatened us! It was a rather surreal moment that! |
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The Life Size Models Mk.3 In July 1981, Martin Ruth decided to leave the group and joined (I think) Carved To A Noise, who (if I remember rightly) were much more akin to the darker kind of band I would join after LSM split in October 1982, Venus In Furs. In his place came Ian Hills, who had also been in Body Heat with Rick (and would form another group with him after LSM split). Ian was much more of a pop drummer than Martin and was keen on his rota-toms, until he eventually traded his real drums in for an electronic kit towards the end of the group’s days. We wrote more songs such as ‘New Day’ and ‘Girl On A Motorcycle’, ‘Life After Death’ and we also did the Dr Who theme!! In this line up we recorded demo tapes at both Dragon Studios in Hastings and South Coast Studios in Worthing. By 1982 we had acquired a manager in the form of one of Rick’s uncle’s friends, Tony. Rick’s uncle provided us with a large bar space to rehearse in for some time until we moved to someone’s garage oput at Shoreham and Tony arranged a glitzy video shoot. This was at disco-ball nightclub ‘Barbarellas’ which he hired for the purpose. We also did another one at Falmer, with a group of Sussex University film students. Both were interesting to do and watch, as this was our own little promo shoot and it was weird seeing yourself on screen like that back then. I wonder whatever happened to those videos! We played a number of parties, which we enjoyed and which paid well, but were also coerced (by Rick’s dad) into playing a street party for Diana and Charley Windsor’s wedding. I cringe at the thought of it, being both then and now an avowed Republican. However, it was quite an interesting experience playing on someone’s front veranda with all our kit plugged into a plug board running off their TV socket in the front room and out the window! On a couple of occasions we visited the London offices of CBS records who expressed interest in our demo tapes and press pack etc. Not quite interested enough to sign us though. We travelled and slept in Ian’s escort van overnight in car parks whilst visiting publicity agencies in London and kept practising. |
Paul Martin Gigs played in Life Size Models 1980-82 Supporting: April & The Fools – Alhambra 18/10/80 |
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The Life Size Models Mk.4 Sometime by mid 1982, Rick Durrant, The Relatives drummer, re-appeared on the scene playing a kind of bass synthesizer. He wanted to join LSM in this context and both Rick Young and Charley were keen on this as they were moving more in this direction. I was less enthusiastic partly because I was moving towards a darker and less pop inclined musical spectrum (as our original drummer Martin Ruth had done some time before). Also, Rick Durrant was not, unlike Rick Young, that proficient on his instrument and wanted to stick to low rhythms and root notes. This had the effect often of simply duplicating what I was doing on bass, although I played a lot more melodically and even played lead lines (as in ‘Girl On A Motorcycle’). These though became muddied sound-wise by Rick Durrant’s bass synth really and both these elements decided me to leave the band. However, before I could do so, the rest of the band decided to split anyway around September 1982. Before this however, we made one more recording session, paid for by Tony. This was a big 24 track studio, Wickham House, in Croydon. We recorded some new songs there on 6th / 7th July 1982. These were ‘Boys’ and ‘Write Me A Letter’ which were produced by Phil Nash. The overall sound by this point is best summed up by the word ‘panache’. Slick, glossy, immaculately produced and I hated the sound. Both Ricks and Charley were very much inured of the group Japan at this point. Whilst I admired them, I didn’t want to sound like them. ‘Write Me A Letter’ had overtones in its rhythmic structure that alluded to Japan’s syncopated rhythms and wasn’t so bad perhaps, but ‘Boys’ was just awful commercial old tosh to my ears. By September I had had enough, but so had the rest of the group and we all decided a meeting to call it a day. |
LSM: Studio recording details Have You Seen My Friend? (fast version) The Secret Police Beat of The Street Recorded at Laurie Pore’s ‘Ally Pally’ 4 track Studio (ie his front room!) at Seven Dials on 3rd & 4th October 1980. We were still calling ourselves ‘The Relatives’ at this point, just for the sake of the tape. Personnel: Charley Mclenehan – Guitar, lead vocals; Paul Martin – bass, backing vocals; Rick Durrant, Drums. It was just Charley and I really, we pressured Rick into coming over from Shoreham to drum on the session, he wasn’t rreally interested. I think might have even paid him to do it actually, just so we could get some tunes down on tape! Thereafter we found Martin Ruth as a drummer and changed the name to Life Size Models so we could start playing live again Have You Seen My Friend?
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The Life Size Models - Summary I enjoyed my time in the Life Size Models, apart form the last few months. I liked how the sound progressed but still stayed pop and feisty for the most part. We practised like slaves to our instruments, we drank, ate and slept the music and as a result, we were a very tight band. Charley would often stay up all night experimenting with chord structures and picking unusual melodies from them and Rick Young was seldom without an instrument in his hand or singing to the air around him, or practising front-man poses in the mirror. I think a fair amount of the earlier stuff we did still stands up as pop music, though the later stuff wouldn’t to my mind. Charley was the sort of person who was not backward about coming forward and was known by the group as the ‘cheeky chappy’. Once in London we stopped in a restaurant for a coffee, and when asked by the waitress if he wanted anything else, Charley said, ‘yes, somewhere cheaper’! On receiving an indifferent audience response for a song at a Siren gig, he piped up ‘don’t burn your hands will ya’! I think for a local Brighton band we had a fair crack at it. I went on to join Venus In Furs, Charley formed another keys and synth based unit called ‘Vi Model’ whilst Rick Young and Ian Hills formed a similar type of unit for a while. I’m proud of what I did in the group and don’t regret a moment of it really given that most of use were unemployed in those days and the music gave us a sense of purpose, direction and ability that was lacking elsewhere for us under Thatcher’s dark regime. I think in retrospect, especially from the kind of ‘neverwas’ band environment in which I operated, this is a reassuring feeling. Just as a coda, I have to admit to not having thought in this kind of detail about my musical past for donkeys years, until I discovered the PunkBrighton website and was kindly asked to do so. All power to Punkdaddy Phil, for keeping this website going, just so old lags like me can get a platform to make meaning from their long ago discarded past activities and digitise their disintegrating scrap books. It has been a useful exercise and I’ve enjoyed re-remembering, even if inevitably it has been selectively!. |
Recorded at Radio Brighton, basement studio 1981. Session was broadcast a week after redording. Personnel: Rick Young lead vocals, Arp Odyssey synth, Charlie McLenehan guitar, backing vocals, Paul Martin, bass, Martin Ruth Drums Clouds Why Don’t You Listen To Me Organisation Recorded at Dragon Studios, Hastings, 1981 (8 track). Personnel: Rick Young lead vocals, Arp Odyssey synth; Charlie McLenehan guitar, backing vocals; Paul Martin, bass; Ian Hills, Drums. New Day Earthward Bound Girl On a Motorcycle Recorded at South Coast Studios, Worthing, 1981(8 track). Personnel as above Only Time Will Tell Never Understand Recorded South Coast Studios, Worthing 1982 (8 track)Personnel as above Write Me A Letter Boys Write me a Letter (white dub) Recorded at Wickham House 24 track studio, Croydon, 6th-7th July 1982. Produced by Phil Nash in a computer designed studio! Personnel: Rick Young lead vocals, lead synth, Charlie McLenehan guitar, backing vocals; Paul Martin bass, Ian Hills Drums, Rick Durrant (aka Rick Rack) bass synth. Female additional vocals by Rosina, Rick Young’s then girlfriend. |
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