All images courtesy of Love Tractor/Propeller Sound Recordings


By Andrew Daly
andrew@vinylwriter.com

If you know, you know.

I’ve found that a lot of music is like that. Sometimes, the music we love is subject to immense exposure, and other times, it’s a bit more under the radar. Regardless, exposure does not equal quality, nor influence. And when it comes to Athens indie rock staples, Love Tractor, if one thing is certain, they’ve got the latter two in spades.

As indicated, if you know, you know, and in this case, I urge you to take a deep dive into the diverse, and culturally significant 80s era of Athens rock-related music. Sure, you all probably are aware of mega-band, R.E.M., and perhaps even the B-52s, but when it comes to inventiveness, and otherworldly instrumentals, Love Tractor is your ticket.

To that end, recently, I dug in with Mark Cline, Mike Richmond, and Armistead Wellford of Athens’s favorite instrumental juggernaut to dig into their upcoming reissue of Themes from Venus, a Mitch Easter-produced affair that’s sure to light your senses on fire and tickle your eardrums in ways you just might not ever imagine.

Andrew:
I appreciate you all taking the time today. It’s a pleasure to have you back for another round with us here. How have you been holding up?

Mark:
Thanks for asking, we’ve been busy readying the Themes from Venus rerelease. It sounds amazing and looks amazing— it has all new packaging — it looks like Joy Division met Parliament Funkadelic in a Chinese restaurant for congee. We have a huge backlog of unrecorded material which we have started recording, some of the songs date back to our first album. For me, writing and recording is my happy place, and we have Around the Bend remastered and queued up for rerelease, in 2023.

Armistead:
I am fine. It feels great to be making music together again.

Mike:
I’m doing fine. Isolating and doing a lot of reading and listening and playing music. Taking long walks as well as trying to keep fit.

Andrew:
As Mark said, you’ve got a reissue in the works for your seminal album, Themes From Venus. Tell us more about it.

Mark:
This is one of my favorite Love Tractor records. We decided to rerelease it on the heels of our first album rerelease as both albums artistically bookend each other. Each is complete work, meant to be listened to as one work, created by the same band but they are polar opposites in terms of musical direction. I have a fondness for the contrast between the two.

Armistead:
We have been wanting to reissue our catalog for a long time. We had great success with the reissue of our first album, it reminded people that Love Tractor was an integral part of the early Athens sound. The music is as fresh today as it was in 1982, and to young listeners, it’s brand new and original. We decided to do things a little differently and not release our catalog in order. We chose Themes from Venus because like our first record our fans continue to reminisce about it fondly.

Andrew:
Why do you feel this record in particular resonated so much with fans, and critics alike?

Mark:
In my opinion, it is a very mature record. We are at the height of our writing and performing skills – we spent a lot of time and energy demoing the record to flush out the songs and the sound we wanted to achieve on the album – more so than on any previous record. I think something that influenced the record was we were touring constantly, and that allowed us a chance to really road test the album prior to recording it. There is also a sense of nostalgia built into the record, we were pulling a lot from our teenage influences: Roxy Music, Bowie, Eno, Pink Floyd, Chic as well as literary and artistic influences such as J.G Ballard, William Burroughs, Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters. I think those influences subconsciously come through.

Armistead:
I feel Themes from Venus maintains Love Tractor’s standards for originality while mining new territory. This was the case for all our albums. The material on Themes From Venus was already well-rehearsed and seasoned before recording. We were constantly on tour, performing these songs live. They were well received, even though they weren’t available yet. We went into the studio and recorded as a live band.

Mike:
Instrumental rock music has a very limited following and those that play it are limited to a cult-like audience at best, with no exceptions. Themes is full of great vocal songs. As soon as we started singing we became dramatically more popular although we are still known to many as an instrumental band. The album also plays really well as a whole and it has an intensity that never lets up.

All images courtesy of Love Tractor/Propeller Sound Recordings

Andrew:
In a nutshell, is that what led you to revisit Themes from Venus after all this time?

Mark:
In our liner notes, the music writer/critic Annie Zelenski captured the reason: “Themes From Venus presaged the future: Tame Impala’s blissed-out electro, thrumming 90s post-rock, the success of freewheeling pop merchants such as Pixies. The title track’s zoned-out keyboard zaps, velvet saxophone, and psychedelic vibe shapeshift like a colorful kaleidoscope; “Venice” channels the dark-light dichotomy of early Psychedelic Furs; and the beginning of “Satan” is a motorik churn, Kraftwerk revving a motorcycle. In the 70s, alt-rock’s self-serious vibe was part of its charm.” Simply put the album was way ahead of its time.

Armistead:
We knew we were going to have to learn songs from Themes for our live shows. Originally, I thought we should reissue our catalog in order. But revisiting Themes from Venus has been very exciting. I knew I always loved our songs on that record but forgot how much.

Andrew:
Take me through what happened with RCA Records. How much of an effect did that experience have on the recording, and production of Theme From Venus?

Mark:
We were on an RCA subsidiary called Bigtime Records, the roster included really-great bands (many of them friends): Love & Rockets, The Dream Syndicate, The Lucy Show, Redd Kross, Jazz Butcher Conspiracy, Dumptruck, Hoodoo Gurus, and Alex Chilton. We had great relations with the label, they served us well and did an excellent job of promoting the records, RCA was a huge help, RCA loved the record and really got behind it. As to what happened, apparently, they ran out of money, or over-spent – who knows.

We were on a mini tour warming up the songs for Themes for Venus, and I got a call from management saying that Bigtime was dropping all their USA bands and had gone belly up. They had a very successful roster so we were really surprised RCA didn’t simply step in – but we weren’t privy to their deal with RCA. The real bummer was we had absolutely everything queued up to record Themes from Venus: Studio time, we were deciding on Ian Brodie or Laurie Latham to produce or both, and the songs were in tip-top shape. We had to pivot quickly as for us it was key, no matter what, to get an album out as soon as possible. Momentum is how a band grows an audience.

The RCA experience was a real learning experience in many ways, it taught us what kind of band we wanted to be (certainly not a trend-following pop band), and we also learned a lot about songcraft. Our friend Pat Irwin produced This Ain’t No Outer Spaceship, and he really made us look at song arrangements in a new light, he put a strong emphasis on getting the right performance so he really prepped us for what we wanted to do on Themes From Venus.

Armistead:
We were so excited to be attached to a major label, RCA. We were so frustrated when our fans were having a hard time finding our records. Now you could find them everywhere and on cassette and CD no less. Then with the popularity of our Bigtime/RCA release, we chose to work with Ian Brodie who produced Echo and the Bunnymen, and we were happy he wanted to work with us.

Finally, we had strong financial support. Then all of a sudden unexpectedly Bigtime went under. This put us back to square one. Something we were used to, doing everything ourselves. Thank goodness we had DB to put out the record we were ready to record. We had always produced our own records, and although This Ain’t No Outerspaceship is very Love Tractor we could feel the major label pressures to be less than ourselves, conforming to less originality. You can really hear in Themes From Venus that we had artistic control over our music.

Andrew:
What message, and emotions were you trying to convey? What did you want your listeners to take away from the record?

Mark:
I have to leave this to Mike, as I know he was experimenting with different ways to formulate the lyrics, I can say this: in my opinion, there is no real narrative to the lyrics.

Mike:
For me, the biggest influence on my lyrics is actually the music of Love Tractor. We started out as an instrumental band but on the second album, I was adding in lyrics. We still wanted to keep our instrumentals thing going so these are not your typical singer-songwriter type songs. I wanted to write lyrics that were as odd as our music. By the time Themes From Venus was recorded, we were doing lots of singing. Sometimes people will say the lyrics don’t make sense and this is intentional for the most part and I will work and re-work the words until I get them right. For me, they are right when they are emotionally satisfying and also convey the kind of imagery that I like. They are probably closer to poetry than say story-telling in the way someone like Gordon Lightfoot writes songs. As far as influences for the lyrics on Themes from Venus, the sci-fi writer J.G Ballard was huge, as also William Burrough’s cut-up technique. I didn’t actually use the cut-up technique but had it in mind while writing/re-writing lyrics.

Armistead:
Being an instrumental band originally, vocals were introduced as another instrument. Lyrics were usually shaped and molded during live performances. Mike is pretty good at shaping words, sometimes out of band conversations in the van. But playing live the lyrics would come together and become songs. One of my favorites is “Venice.” Mike talked about his time in the navy and how much he liked Venice and his adventure there. I’d never been there so as the song developed it was important to me that the phrasing worked with the music. But a few years later I went to Venice and our song was playing over and over in my head and a lot of the lyrical imagery was coming to life. I can’t wait to play it live again. And also we used to court our poet friend John Seawright for lyrics he thought were appropriate for Love Tractor even when we were a fully instrumental band. He lived across Meigs street from me and one day he waved to me from his house we met in the middle of the quiet street (never much traffic) and he said he had a poem he thought would be good for us. That poem was “I Broke My Saw.” It took us a couple of years to write the music it was perfect for. By that time John had recited it in the movie Athens Ga inside/out.

All images courtesy of Love Tractor/Propeller Sound Recordings

Andrew:
Themes From Venus is a record that I feel needs to be listened to as a whole, or not at all. It’s an experience album, so to speak. Going in, was that the goal? Did you have a specific intent when you walked into the studio or did things develop over time?

Mark:
It is always our intention to write an album as an entire work to be listened to in one sitting, yes we understand the commercial constraints that we need singles, but every Love Tractor album is one complete idea.

Armistead:
We all grew up listening to albums where you were captivated with the music as soon as the needle hit the vinyl. And then at the end of side one, you had to have more so you flip it to side two and it’s just a great journey. I’m proud that all our albums are like that, every song works together as a whole. We had little patience for albums that offered you the hit song, usually the first song side one, then the rest of the record is junk. I always felt cheated if I bought an album for a song expecting the rest of it to be good or interesting and it was just cheap filler. During the 60s and 70s, you could buy the 45 and avoid that.

Mike:
Yes, it was intentional. We all grew up in the age of prog-rock concept albums, and I still think this is the best way to do an album versus just a collection of songs.

Andrew:
Also of note, the legendary Mitch Easter produced Themes From Venus. How did you get in touch with Mitch? What led to you ultimately choosing him to produce the record, and how important was his influence on the end result of the record?

Mark:
Mitch was an obvious choice, we were pals, he had worked with our friends, we came from the same school of rock, and he understood every single musical reference. As I like to say, he was, “Picking up what we were putting down.” During the sessions, Mitch became part of the band and engaged us in a way that encouraged us to explore every idea and direction. If not for Mitch, the record would have been a very different record. He gave us the liberty via his expertise to really expand our sound he knew where we wanted to go. For us, Themes from Venus needed to be like nothing else out there. He helped up realize that vision.

Armistead:
Mitch is close to our age and he got what we were trying to do. He was a big part of making that record, and I would love to work with him again.

Mike:
After we were freed up from Bigtime, we wanted to work with a producer. We were used to producing ourselves with an engineer and had only worked with Pat Irwin on Spaceship, which we enjoyed because we could relate to each other’s music. We wanted someone that we could relate to and could relate to us and Mitch’s name came up. We thought he was someone that could understand a band like Love Tractor and we were right. He was a dream to work with, he could find the sounds we wanted, and suggest sounds that the music was calling for. He just got us and we fell in love with him and his production skills. It’s funny, after his success with R.E.M., he was so sought after we never considered working with him. Our close association with R.E.M. made us want to cut a different path. We early Athens bands were inspired by each other but always wanted to sound different from each other. As hard as we tried, there’s still an Athens sound amongst the B-52s, Pylon, R.E.M., and Love Tractor. Anyway, none of that mattered when we started working with Mitch. It was a family affair and we got to do it in the famous Drive-In Studio in his parent’s converted garage. Glad to have had that vintage experience because soon after Mitch upgraded his studio in Kernersville, NC not far from Winston Salem.

Andrew:
After the release of Themes From Venus, Love Tractor hit the road with The B52s. If you can, take me through what that experience was like.

Mark:
Well, we had already toured the record by ourselves, while on tour we were told by management that the B-52s, especially Fred Schneider wanted us to be the opener on their Cosmic Thing Tour. So, we finished one tour and immediately went back out with our dear friends Kate, Keith, Cindy, and Fred, we had toured previously with New Order but never with a band whose album was blowing up while on tour, the venues became larger, dates were added, it was very exciting and thrilling to see our friends finally get the recognition they deserved. We were so thankful to them for including us and introducing us to their audience. It was an intense tour, to say the least. They were at the top of their game and they constantly coached us on stagecraft. Such great pals, such wonderful music, and such amazing people.

Armistead:
Touring with the Bs was a dream come true for me. They set the precedent for the next group of Athens bands to be original and unique. Mark and I were huge fans of Keith and Ricky’s musicianship and musical compositions. We were so thrilled when we won their approval as a good band. After all, the B-52s inspired John Lennon and Yoko Ono to record again. But when Fred told us how much he loved our first album, I think I was floating a couple of feet off the ground. We were starting to tour Themes From Venus when Cosmic Thing came out. I was so thrilled and excited for them. I remember we had toured Themes out west and Midwest and after we were up in New York State touring. Doing a radio interview in Albany, they played “Topaz” from Cosmic Thing. It sounded so good it made me melancholic because I wanted to tour with them but wasn’t sure a band like us on an independent label would qualify even though we were on the college charts.

Then, dream come true, a couple of weeks later they called and wanted us to open for them in the southeast. We were beside ourselves and fortunately were still working on Themes so we had an album to push. Fred Schneider had a big part in getting us as an opener, he has always been so supportive of Love Tractor, suggesting which songs to play and how to work a big crowd from a big stage. Well, the southeast shows worked out great but we weren’t shy about letting the Bs know we wanted to tour the country with them. They took us and I will forever be grateful to them in this life and beyond. And his kindness didn’t stop there, because their last song of the set was “Love Shack,” and every night Fred would introduce the song like this: “You know love is in the air and we’d like to thank our good friends Love Tractor for playing with us tonight, so now it’s time to go down to the Looove Shack.” Then the audience always went wild.

Also, Cosmic Thing was blowing up during the tour and on New Year’s Eve 1989 we played at the sports arena in San Diego-13,000. Red Hot Chili Peppers were on the bill that night as well. When I went out to the audience to watch the Bs set I noticed people were going wild on “Roam” (the people in front of me gave themselves a hi-5 at the end of the song). The next day I sent Robert Waldrop a postcard and described people’s reactions to “Roam.” Robert is a silent 6th B-52. He wrote “Hero Worship,” “Dirty Back Roads,” “Legal Tender,” and a few others as well. Robert was living in Virginia Beach and said he had no idea how “Roam” was being received until he got my postcard. It was the next single and MTV video. Also, thanks to the Bs we got to play Radio City Music Hall for three nights. After our show, I was out in the lobby and a few people came up to me with their Bronx and Brooklyn accents saying, “Hey, I really liked your band!” That made me so proud. And on the third night, during our version of “Got to Give it Up,” we were joined by the Soul Train dancers, our friends from the Now Explosion, Lahoma and Judy Lagrange, and also our friend RuPaul who was getting down. He wasn’t in drag, but his cut-off blue jean shorts were too cool.

Mike:
It was interesting. We played for huge audiences. The B-52s are great friends and they were awfully kind to have us on tour for sixty-some shows.

All images courtesy of Love Tractor/Propeller Sound Recordings

Andrew:
Ultimately, what do you hope fans take away from this reissue? What will the reissue bring to the table for old, and new fans of Love Tractor alike?

Mark:
I hope people love it as much as we do, music is such a flat space (because of streaming) in terms of eras – that I hope people look at it as a timeless work, and simply enjoy the album.

Armistead:
Ultimately, I want people young and old to love this record. I still get compliments on it from older fans that know it and older fans that were turned onto it later. And when I’ve told younger people about Love Tractor they look us up and always with a big smile say, “‘Broke My Saw’ is really cool.” I do want the younger folks to hear it in album format as well so they can get the full album experience.

Mike:
Hopefully, it can reach a wider audience, which it deserves. It sounds much better and it has beautiful new album cover art.

Andrew:
What’s next on your docket? Do you plan on hitting the road
in 2022?

Mark:
Yes! We played in Athens, GA at The 40 Watt club on March 18th and 19th, with more to come.

Armistead:
We are already writing songs and recording and looking forward to a new release and supporting our re-releases. We do plan on doing some touring and festival shows. We were always known to be a great live band and after all these, I was told at our latest shows that we’re even better live. That was exciting to hear.

Mike:
Recording a new album is what I am looking forward to!

All images courtesy of Love Tractor/Propeller Sound Recordings

Andrew Daly (@vwmusicrocks) is the Editor-in-Chief for www.vwmusicrocks.com and may be reached at andrew@vinylwriter.com

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