As the Servants Neared Retirement...

I hope everyone has been enjoying JC's Sunday series on the Auteurs. You will find only 'New Wave' and 'Now I'm A Cowboy' on my shelf, meaning things are about to get really interesting for me at the (new) Vinyl Villain as we move beyond that era. Being a fan of '80s indie pop, it probably won't surprise you my interest in Luke Haines has more to do with his connection to the Servants than the Auteurs, Black Box Recorder or his vast solo work. Even I realize this is ludicrous since his time with that band was so brief and, let's face it, the Servants were much more the vehicle for the brilliant David Westlake.

If you know the Servants at all, chances are your in was either hearing "Transparent" on NME's 'C86' comp or picking up the singles "She's Always Hiding" and "The Sun, A Small Star," both minor indie-chart hits in 1986, peaking at No. 25 and No. 47, respectively. Through the years, it's "The Sun, A Small Star" that has become the band's signature tune, appearing on comps and even getting a 7" reissue last year on Optic Nerve Recordings. The point I'm trying to get around to is Haines didn't appear on any of those recordings. He didn't come around until after the band's lengthy recording hiatus ended in 1989. One footnote: Westlake did release a largely ignored solo album put out on Creation in 1987.

Here is Westlake and Haines together. This 1989 single was done for Dave Barker's Glass Records in both two-track 7" and four-song 12" forms. Glass didn't have many releases, but the bands they did work with during this period were epic, the Pastels, Jazz Butcher and Apartments being among the best of the bunch. Barker would shutter Glass shortly after this one and revamp as the excellent but also short-lived Seminal Twang label in the early '90s, but here I go on another tangent. Let's listen to the "It's My Turn" single in its entirety.

It's My Turn
Afterglow
Faithful to 3 Lovers
Do or Be Done

In 1990, the Servants would release a single and the 'Disinterest' album for Paperhouse. As Haines wrote in the liner notes for another of the band's releases, the label was just that, disinterested, as they had all their eggs in the Teenage Fanclub basket at the time. There was another album after 'Disinterest' with quite a different sound that upon completion Westlake and Haines felt would probably get shelved. They were so right. 'Small Time' finally saw the light of day two decades later via Cherry Red. Haines called it the Servants' best album, adding that "it's a strange and wonderful thing, and we're lucky that it is now in the world." Here's one from 'Small Time.'

Everybody Has a Dream