WHO WERE THE VIVIDS?

The Vivids were an avant-garde rock band from Formby, North Liverpool who in their intense production phase recorded 8 albums during the late 1980s and early 1990s.  

Originally a 4-piece set-up consisting of Graham Forbes (guitar, vocals), Ben Murphy (vocals), Bob Shalliker (keyboard) and Matt Whitty (drum), with occasional appearances by local session musician Andy Forbes (guitar) the band began recording in 1988. Graham Forbes’ prolific song-writing skills (honed when tasked with preparing songs in the minutes leading up to Friday night recording sessions at the Freshfield Road studios) eventually led to over 80 pieces covering varying subjects of the human condition such as melancholy, trepidation, girls, persecution, bitterness, ennui, and soul-searching for deeper meaning, together with the somewhat artificial light from alcohol, drugs and music.

ALBUMS

NASCENT PERIOD

Whistow Village

This was a very basic attempt at recording with some very basic instruments and equipment, including an up-turned plastic home-brew beer barrel as percussion and an ancient Spanish guitar. The album included a cover version of the Velvet Underground’s ‘Some kinda Love’.

Linger On

The first album proper gave light to the group’s song canon, demonstrating as it did the short, punchy nature of early Vivids’ songbook. The songs ‘My Brother is a Hippy’, and ‘Short Beige Camouflage’ were typical of the tracks laid down at the time. Forbes penned ‘Linger on’ in its entirety.

Ale

Building on the themes developed during the recording of Linger On, the Vivids began to realise their talent and commenced recording Ale with a new-found belief in their ability. Forbes relentless song production line and perfectionism evincing such classics as ‘Lazy Joe’, ‘Satisfied’ and a reworking of ‘How Do You Treat Me This Way’ originally recorded on Linger On.

Live and Lethargic

Live and Lethargic saw the introduction of the twin-guitar style of the Forbes brothers which formed the backbone of the album. ‘Down by the Riverside’, with lyrics by Graham Forbes and music by Andy Forbes was a prime example of this. The punchy riff gave an up-beat feel to the ensuing songs. The eponymous title song reflected in its lyrics the light-hearted approach typical of the Nascent Period.

GOLDEN PERIOD

Bitter Experience

Bitter Experience was widely acknowledged as the group’s first coherently produced, accessible and commercial release, Forbes song-writing style now moving into top-gear and his classic style reverberated across the album.  Forbes was a genius writer, inured to working under unreasonable pressure and invariably coming up with the goods. ‘Fool out of You’ with music by Andy Forbes was the most accessible of the album’s songs and evidenced the majesty of Shalliker’s unique Keyboard sound. The album opened, however with a lyric by Robert Shalliker, ‘Man of the World’. The instrumental ‘Bitter Experience’ evoked a sadness borne from exactly that. The Album was played on Saturday afternoons at the JJB Sports shop in Southport to entice shoppers to buy the latest Adidas tracksuits. Another Velvet Underground cover version, ‘Sister Ray’ finished the album in epic style.

The End

The End was the first Vivids album to contain little or no contribution from Andy Forbes. The lyrics to the eponymous song ‘The End’ was extemporised during its recording. Another instrumental titled ‘Whiteout’ showcased the revolutionary use of editing and devil-may-care approach to convention which nevertheless resulted in a coherent track slipping in and out of a wall of white noise.  

‘Going Down’ was a melancholic introspective review of life at a snapshot, and was a Forbes solo effort in its entirety. It was covered by another North-West band based in Chester. In a similar vein Forbes wrote and performed ‘What is it all about’.

A Forbes solo instrumental, ‘Stop’ recalled Bowie’s ‘Heroes’, although this wasn’t widely acknowledged within the band. The song came from an original song about 10 minutes long. Whitty stumbled upon a chunk of previously forgotten recordings that felt right for inclusion on a studio album.

The album saw the inclusion of more of Murphy’s songs as his song-writing muse caught light.  Murphy’s songs were more formulaic and prosaic than Forbes’, following a familiar chord-structure borrowing heavily from Pachabel, and a ‘verse-chorus’ vocal shape stressing the songs’ meanings in the refrain, viz ‘Something’s Gone Wrong’, and ‘Beaches’.

Last Train Home

Last Train Home was released in the summer of 1992. The album, opening as it did with the pulsating ‘Another Day’, with its widely acclaimed Andy Forbes’ guitar solo signalled the end of the early Vivids’ freestyle methods   as they moved into a more deliberate style of song and album production. The eponymous song ‘Last Train Home’ was a tour-de-force of the Forbes/Murphy writing partnership, Forbes penning music and the bulwark of the verbal content, and Murphy contributing to the final libretto.

Another Forbes solo classic, ‘Why does it always end this way’ continued the regular appearance on Vivids’ albums of Forbes’ solo work.

RETROSPECTION PERIOD

The Lowlight Times

As the 1990s evolved, it was Forbes and Murphy who drove on the Vivids project, recording as a pair almost exclusively. The album ‘The Lowlight Times’ stood testament to this and heralded a darker hue to the band’s previous levity. ‘Your Eyes Shoot me down’ and the formidable ‘Blue Angel Rising’ were exceptions to this,  parading an upbeat sheen rising from the  overall melancholy atmosphere generated by the band on the rest of the album.

Missing album - ‘The Sugar Baby Sessions’

During this period, there were occasional opportunities for the classic line-up to gather and  to create songs such as ‘Rotunda’, ‘the Sugar Baby’ ,’The Darkness of your eyes’, which didn’t reach publication. Mystery still surrounds the exact circumstances as to why the music at the end of the Vivids project did not form an official album.

LIVE ALBUMS

The band recorded two live albums, humorously titled ‘Coronation Street Job’ and ‘Screaming Lesbians’. ‘Screaming Lesbians’ included a cameo appearance from Bananarama, performing their hit cover version of ‘I’m your Venus’. Neither of these 2 live recordings included anything as conventional as a song-list as the band swerved in and around a selection of their early hits, and cover versions of Lou Reed and Muddy Waters songs, in the freestyle riffing  style of Reed’s ‘Take No Prisoners’.

COMPILATIONS

An early-career compilation, ‘The Ultimate Collection’ was produced by Matt Whitty around the time between ‘Ale’ and ‘Live and Lethargic’.

‘The Best of The Vivids’, released in 2005, was an accessible collection of the bands work and demonstrated  the full gamut of the talents of the band from all eras, with a stunning and captivating piece of writing in the liner-notes by long-time Vivids’ fan Keith Wright the bard of Ormskirk positioning the compilation where it belonged in rock culture.

INFLUENCES

The Vivids’ were not ashamed of their influences. Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground weighing heavily around their oeuvre, particularly in the early albums. In fact the title of their first album ‘Linger On’ was a direct reference to a lyric from the song ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ from the Velvet Underground’s 3rd album. The VU’s songs ’Sister Ray’ and ‘It’s all right the way that you live’ were covered on the album ‘Bitter Experience’.

The Byrds’ jangly guitar sound could also be detected, particularly in the songs ‘Take me Home’ and  ‘Bitter Experience’ from  the album of the same name.  

WRITING

Occasionally keyboard player Bob Shalliker would pen a lyric, which Forbes would put to music much in the Dwight/Taupin and Rice/Lloyd-Webber tradition of song-creation.  The Vivids were not scared of employing independent writers. Stephen Johnson contributing ‘the World is your Oyster’ to the album ‘Last Train Home’.

Drummer Matthew Whitty wrote the evocative lyric to ‘Early Morning Panic’ on the album ‘Live and Lethargic’.  

RECORDING

All of the Vivids’ recordings were made at Freshfield Road studios, with basic but functional equipment. Post recording refreshments were usually taken at The Railway Hotel, next to Formby station, handy for Murphy to catch the last train home to his parents’ house in Hightown. The vicarious experience of this led to Forbes formulating the idea for the song and album ‘Last Train Home’. The Railway was also equidistant from Forbes’, Shalliker’s and Whitty’s residences around Formby.

The Vivids’ search for perfection saw several songs being re-recorded many times. ‘Satisfied, a song about rejection and redemption, appeared reworked on The Lowlight Times after the original version on Ale.

INSTRUMENTS/VOCALS

Murphy’s deadpan vocal style married perfectly the tone of the lyrics to the emotion of the music and often shaped a difficult lyric to the continuing rhythm of the music being laid down inexorably by the Forbes brothers’ guitars  and Shalliker’s organ.

Murphy became more proficient on the guitar after teaching himself using a guitar lent to him by his maths teacher, Bruce McGrath. He played rhythm on Last Train Home.

Forbes’ finger-picking style underlined the melody of the group’s canon and complemented the vocal styles of the songs.

It could be argued the Vivids’ unique sound benefited from their imperfections as musicians and of the instruments they had at their disposal. Although their influences were clear, they made their own music in their own way, self-taught and primal. That said, as they became more proficient and the standard of equipment improved, one was left to wonder about the music that might have followed had they continued.