If it hadn't been for the ICI chemical works in Northwich, NME Poll-toppers The Charlatans might never have existed. But destiny beckoned and now your very own Best New Band are eclipsing their own spiritual trailblazers in the post-Madchester void. But, as they tell a chillin' Andrew Collins, it takes more than 19 fags to make a packet of 20. Skating on thin ice: Kevin Cummins.
"I'm not gonna go!" swaggers Tim, "I feel like a feather!" Ominous cracking sounds skate across the frozen lake, a mere inch of January ice separating this year's NME Poll-winners from a full-scale aquatic incident. What is it about The Charlatans and water? Are they simply divine, or actually diviners?
"What a dickhead!" sums up beleaguered manager Steve Harrison. Tim Burgess may feel like a feather, but he looks like the maddest kid at school, as he races further and further inlake, (d)icing with death in the name of the scam. "The Charlatans walk on water!" Steve cries, with a grin in his wily old eye, "What a headline!" TOP MOD BAND PERISH UNDER FROZEN LAKE IN NORTHWICH! - yeah it's got a nice ring to it, Steve.
The last time we met The Charlatans they were up to their Top Man tops in a lake in Hulstfred, Sweden. Now they're well and truly on one. For the time being….
"Did you get any good shots?" asks concerned drummer Jon-boy Brookes.
"In theory, I suppose things could get a little more unexciting now" reflects Tim, "but we'll always find a way….to be more exciting! We're just juveniles and it's a really juvenile thing, isn't it….to still get excited about everything?"
In the space of one NME year, Tim, Jon, Jon, Martin and Rob have risen from the general malaise of post-Madchester opportunism to actually eclipse their own spiritual trailblazers. This time last year, it looked as if no-one could top The Stone Roses, but, nestled inside a cosy early February 'On' page were a Northwich five piece, 22 gigs old with a new singer, who claimed to "be the most danceable band in the world".
Their debut single, 'Indian Rope' on their own Dead Dead Good label, a prime groove with tune attached, sold rather more than the anticipated 100. Now deleted, it actually shifted more like 25,000 units, going Top 100 at the time, and worrying just about everybody.
When NME ran it's first full-size, full colour feature on The Charlatans (Feb 17 issue) they were still ropey copyists to many; foppish moptops trading on all the right geographic details. 'Helpful' Roses support slots on the CV didn't assist their case much in the kangaroo courtroom. Cheats. Conmen. Frauds. Imposters. Phonies. Pretenders. Quacks. Swindlers ? Roget had plenty of words for The Charlatans, but they were more than a match for the hecklers.
Live they were rapidly proving themselves to be a dynamic and feverish act. By May, their first single for Beggars Banquet 'The Only One I Know', had done a three-week hop, skip and jump into the Top Ten. It went on to sell in excess of 100,000 copies. The proliferation of Charlatans T-shirts at Spike Island in June should have been omen enough....
Issue Five of Charlatans fanzine Looking For The Orange One by long-time (in fact all-time) fans Steve and Andy Wood, sold over 1,000 copies around September/October (after which, ironically, it packed up, because, the two writers claim, the band had grown away from the 'zine'). Meanwhile, a 19-date UK tour (with warm-up in Paris) cemented The Charlatans' following, with the single 'Then' having hit Number 12 in September (another 100,000 seller) and the debut album 'Some Friendly' crowned the summer glory by going straight into the LP charts at Number One.
"RIGHT OUT, Tim! Go on! Further! We'll chuck you a Polo mint!"
Bassist Martin Blunt is encouraging Tim to re-enact that creepy scene in The Omen II where the geezer gets his during an ice hockey game. Meanwhile, a 'soothing' soundtrack of seagulls over the ICI works lends the afternoon the air of an RSPB field trip. Jon-boy dubs it a Northwich Safari . . . "And here we can see the lesser-spotted, out-of-work steel erector . . ."
"Pretty decent, isn't it, Northwich?" exclaims Tim, with or without irony, who can tell. "A bit like Sweden really."
Northwich is The Charlatans' spiritual mecca. Manager Steve runs a record shop, Omega Music, in Witton Street here, above which his tailor-made label Dead Dead Good was set up. Tim - a Mancunian by birth - lives here, as does Midlander Martin. The rest of 'em reside in Wolves and Walsall.
That they are the least Mancunian of all 'Manchester' bands can only have worked in The Charlatans' favour. On first meeting the five of them, your well rehearsed, authentic greeting of "Top! Nice one! Ey opp! In the area! Nish! Clish! Banging" is met with a rather blunt chorus of Pop Will Eat Itself impressions. Imagine Terry Christian fronting a band containing Benny from Crossroads, Noddy Holder, Barry from Auf Wiedersehen Pet and Jasper Carrott. Voila! This year's Best New Band!
"Thanks to all the people who noticed The Charlatans in 1990!" goes Tim's heartfelt acceptance speech, when presented with those Readers Poll results in full.
"We'd like a prize actually," demands Jon-B.
"Do you actually count them all?" Tim enquires.
Not me personally, no. Sorry.
"Did we get in Hype Of The Year or anything?" Mart asks, hopefully.
Tim: "Spack Of The Year?"
Tim, 21, is full of childish slangwords. "I didn't realise it was all sinky underneath!" he whoops whilst on ice. "Martin's the greatest faller-inner aren't you, Mart?" Tim cannot be contained. He defies you not to regress along with him.
In search of that difficult second photo-location, we motor around the crisp Cheshire countryside. 'STEAM VAPOUR FOR ONE MILE' promises one road sign, as we approach a glum-looking ICI factory that must've earned one or two Doctor Who location-scouts their stripes back in the'70s.
"My Dad works there!" Tim pipes up, excitedly, " Hiya! How ya doin'?"
What do they make there?
"They make, erm, dunno. Chemicals, I think."
It's a key place in The Charlatans' history, this grey ICI chemical plant. If Mr Burgess hadn't jobbed here in the'70s, sonny Tim would never have taken up hanging round the counter of Omega Records, and he'd never have auditioned for Steve's nascent Midlands combo when singer Baz 'O Lucky Man' Kettley left in late'89.
"Some sort of separation, I think . . ." Tim is still trying to remember what his Dad does, "I'm not that well up on it."
Talk turns to star signs ("I'm a Gemini. Is that an air-sign? I know it's a double-Dutch one, split personality"), accents ("Mine's more of a Cheshire drawl, isn't it?") and Man City FC ("I'm not into football anymore, I'm into bird watching, turn left here!"). Each conversational twist reveals yet another quickfire confessional from Tim, the mouth that roars.
I think all three British tours were f-ing great," he assesses, as the band crouch down, Bunnymen-style, in some suitable reeds. "We haven't ventured much further than England because we don't want to. We had a great year in England - and one good time in Sweden - apart from that, we don't want to talk about poncy other countries at the moment. This is where the nitty gritty is, isn't it? So thanks to everyone that voted for us! Hey, this is pretty good - Charlatans in Vietnam!"
And are you really part of the threatened Mod Revival? Jon: "What do you mean? Ministry Of Defence? Yeah. We're gonna go and sign up!"
"IT TAKES more than one band," reflects a philosophical Martin, when the thank yous and blushes are over. They're evidently chuffed that you people voted them in, but not swollen enough yet to make a meal of it.
"It takes more than six days to make a week!" parodies Tim (he's off again)."It takes more than 19 fags to make a packet of 20".
We leave The Charlatans on home soil, skating on the surface of their own success. Currently picking their first single for the New Year (due in early March), Tim says it'll "more than likely" be a new track rather than a readymade cull from 'Some Friendly'. Why? "Because that'd be too easy. We'd rather make it a bit more difficult - get more of an erection out of it!
"Hahahahahaha!"
NME Readers Poll 1990 Details
Single
1. 'The Only One I Know' - The Charlatans
2. 'Step On' - Happy Mondays
3. 'Taste' - Ride
4. 'Groove Is In The Heart' - Deee-Lite
5. 'Kink Afro' - Happy Mondays
6. 'This Is How It Feels' - Inspiral Carpets
7. 'There She Goes' - The La's
8. ''Come Home' - James
9. 'Groovy Train' - Farm
10. 'Kill Your Television' - Ned's Atomic Dustbin
New Band/Artist
1. The Charlatans
2. Ride
3. Ned's Atomic Dustbin
4. EMF
5. Deee-Lite
6. Lush
7. Five Thirty
8. Carter USM
9. The Farm
10. Teenage Fanclub
Band
1. Happy Mondays
2. James
3. Ride
4. Pixies
5. The Stone Roses
6. The Inspiral Carpets
7. The Charlatans
8. The Wedding Present
9. The Fall
10. The Cure