Martin Rushent (RIP June 2011)

Human League

League Unlimited Orchestra - Love And Dancing (quite astounding)

Hearing the word that Rushent has passed on.

http://louderthanwar.com/blogs/martin-rushent-rip

Oh no!! That's absolutely horrible news. He was a genius producer. I transcribed the Rushent interview that's in Simon's book 'Rip it Up'. Just hearing him talk about all of the tape edits in those early Human League remixes he did was inspiring--I remember him talking about measuring them out with a ruler!

I was just listening to the League Unlimited Orchestra 'Love and Dancing' LP yesterday and remembering how great it was.

yeah that interview is brilliant. i love how he says that after he made Love And Dancing he felt like an astronaut who had gone to the moon then gone mad when they came home!

RIP :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHXYurnMovM

"When it was all finished I had four or five remixes. Phil wasn't sure about releasing them on an album and left me to make Love and Dancing on my own. It was mixed on a board, so I had the multitrack of Dare feeding in, a Harmonizer on send one, delay lines and phasers everywhere and I'd flick it about. I'd do a section and if I liked it I'd make a tape cut and splice it in. There were thousands of edits on the master and it took forever to do."

this article should probably be posted in this thread: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb07/articles/martinrushent.htm

Some thoughts and memories:

http://nedraggett.wordpress.com/2011/06/05/rip-martin-rushent/

wow ned, you've already managed to write that much?! nice work.

i'll try to write something later today and post it on my website.

I had the time and the thoughts were in my head! Much thanks.

listening to the 'Love and Dancing' LP once again, what a classic

The master tape of 'Love and Dancing' had something like 2,600 edits--Rushent couldn't fast-forward or rewind the tape, because he was worried about it breaking down completely

Good god, now that's obsessive detail.

Sad news - Was an obsessive Human League fan in the 80's... and playing around with tape recorders making my own edits of human league tracks after hearing the Love Action remix on Love and Dancing was my first foray into music making..

A big influence on me....

RIP Martin..

a legend, through and through. and let us not forget he was an engineer on t. rex's 'electric warrior' (produced by tony visconti) - not exactly a minor record.

I never realized the extent to which he'd impacted my own personal canon until I just took a peek at his full resume. SO MANY wonderful things I will love forever were birthed with him behind the board.

RIP

totally gutted. rip.

Blasting Love and Dancing in your honor. RIP.

Love and Dancing!!!!!

RIP

List of examples posted by Ned over there is pretty amazing.

Simon Reynonlds' book has the definitive Rushent interview. RIP.

so i guess the Pipettes album was the last major thing he did? i guess there are worse ways to go out..

this guy was a sonic genius with magic ears. RIP.

Nice memories page going on Facebook set up by one of his kids (at least one other one is also posting):

https://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_216490505038835

His son Tim on "Mirror Man":

Early one morning in the Autumn of 1982 I was woken up excitedly at about 3am ... dragged out of bed ... a told to listen to the finished mix of this off a C30 chrome tape cassette! He even asked me if I though there should have been a bridge between the end of the first chorus and the second verse.

I was 9!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Completely forgot he recorded Fuzzbox's "Love is the Slug"!

And Flop's Whenever You're Ready as well. Crazy, crazy resume.

i still think the first 2 altered images records are two of the best sounding records of the decade

A lot of the personal details on the page make it seem like the guy had a real joie di vivre from start to finish. Love this story:

The first time I met Martin I was a young lad working a summer job at a supermarket in Pangbourne. Being a Stranglers obsessive since the age of about three, I instantly recognised him as he approached the till. "You're Martin Rushent!" I exclaimed with youthful excitement, to be met with "You bet I fucking am" with that classic glint in his eye. He then produced his credit card, just to make sure I was in no doubt as to who I was dealing with! I told him I was a fan of his sons band, and he promised to give me a copy of their then-unreleased first record. Well, that copy never materialised but I always loved bumping into him as he'd gladly indulge my geeky Stranglers tendencies with the aplomb that only Martin could deliver. Fast forward about 8 years and I end up falling in love with a young lady in Reading who happened to mention her famous uncle.......I find myself in Martin's company again. He remembered me from all those years ago, but this time I was lucky enough to be welcomed into the Rushent household and experience what can only be described as a legendary christmas dinner. Of course, a visit to Martin's would be peppered with as many insults as one person could take, all delivered with authority, humour and warmth. I knew then that I must be ok in his book! We all know and recognise the imprint on popular music that Martin left, I was one of the lucky ones that managed to spend a bit of time with someone who was genuinely a bit of a hero of mine. But despite all this, the one main memory i'll have of Martin is what a great family man he was. Musical genius aside, i'll remember him as a great bloke that always had a moment for you, and gave support and kindness to anyone, even a spotty 15 year old kid on the tills. Now, whenever I put on one of my Stranglers records i'll always hear those immortal words in my mind - "I produced three of your favourite ever records son, now go to the shop, and get me some f***ing beer!"

A bump for the week proper -- also because there's a great story his son James posted on the Facebook group about Rushent and Grandmaster Flash which is well worth the reading and spreading around, so if you're not on FB, it's been republished here:

http://skrufff.com/2011/06/grandmaster-flash-on-martin-rushent-r-i-p/

that grandmaster flash story is one of the best things i've ever read. just awesome.

Horrible news :(
For a long time, he was the only one who made Human League sound great. Him and Andrew Gold in a short time = a sad week for pop music.

RIP

That Grandmaster Flash story is just so great, genuinely funny and made me well up a bit.

It sounds like he had a great life and was a great guy as well as being a visionary record producer. I would have loved it if he'd wrote his memoirs, I reread the interview in 'Rip It Up...' and he was clearly quite a character, I'm sure there must be some fantastic stories which will go untold now.. I've got to echo what Ned wrote on his blog, which was fantastic btw, in that 'Dare' was a gateway drug for me and changed my perception of what music could be and for that he'll always be in my affections.

Thanks Billy. The memories page now has a good slew of comments from all sorts of folks -- Steve Strange/Rusty Egan, Ian Gomm, the Stranglers, Liam Howlett of the Prodigy, etc. (Haven't seen anything from the Buzzcocks yet but I might just be missing it -- or from the Human League, now that I think of it!)

Another great story:

One of the first I have is one of the strongest – nothing to do with music.
Martin gave me a job... first day at work; I set his kitchen on fire... just a small fire on the hob. Martin comes in, I think cos the kids were screaming, he gets a blanket (fire he thought) chucks it over the hob and it then sets alight. He then chucks the burning blanket on the floor. We now have quite a big fire burning, Jo Jo is now screaming – martin then disappears and returns with a fire extinguisher - puts out the fire and covers the entire kitchen with a film of chip-pan-grey yuk – he then points at me...
I think, oh shit! I am going to get fired. He smiles and says “You’ve got a bit of cleaning up to do and leaves the room.
Postscript: I work for him for the next five years and shortly after the fire a state of the art gadget deep fat fryer arrived

From one of his sons as a comment:

xxxxxx This is our childhood life in a nutshell. I always tell people it was like a cross between Dallas and The Osbornes!

And let us not forget about the genius of 'Homosapien':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhNL9PRO4mo

Just had to share this, http://www.league-online.com/

There was a surreal moment when he told me how much he loved this site and I couldn't quite get my head round it considering the amazing things he had achieved in music. My fondest memory though was back in 1988 when I was working for Our Price Music in Maidenhead long before the birth of Secrets Online in 2001. Martin walked in and grabbed over twenty CDs including a copy of 'Dare'. It took me a while to pluck up the corage to talk to him but I held up his copy of 'Dare' and said 'This is the best album ever recorded'. Martin smiled, put his finger to his lips and followed it with a 'Shhhhhh' and a cheeky grin on his face.

Man, this guy knew how to accept a compliment gracefully.

Great post here:

http://www.thecmuwebsite.com/article/eddy-says-the-first-and-the-last-martin-rushent-we-salute-you/

Cool. For a second I thought that was by xhuxk

Just listening to a great old Optimo mix from a couple years ago--there's a part where 'Things that Dreams are Made Of' (the 'Love and Dancing' remix version) floats in, in the most surreal way possible, on top of the arpeggiated bassline from 'I Feel Love', right after Liaisons Dangereuses. Sounds utterly perfect too.

xpost -- Haha I know, I was wondering the same myself before I clicked it.

I did a double take at the end when I saw 'X eddy'

First time I saw his name was on the back of Gentle Giant's Octopus LP. The domestic copy I have right now spells his name "Rushant." Don't know if they all did. He engineered that one. Dude got around! R.I.P.

As Geeta noted, if you're in the room when Marc Bolan and Tony Visconti are recording Electric Warrior, you know from great pop.

Always felt it was a bummer he didn't produce more synthpop. His work for Human League was so great I am sure he would have done an excellent production job for other synth acts as well.

this is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B18h7zRmBhY

only just found out he worked on stuff with mr. fogg, which is really good

in 1983 this was one of those tracks that set the bar for what the word 'remix' could mean

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPR3sorBchk

yeah, and the 'fascination' improvisation was supposed to be three minutes longer! oakey made rushent cut the last three minutes off it cos he thought it sounded too 'wanky'. i would have loved to have heard those last three minutes

here's an 'instrumental' version rushent did for pete shelley in 1981, some incredible sounds, parts of it sound like conrad schnitzler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMFCr1UGRC4

For a while there I almost confused Martin Hannett with Martin Rushent, not surprising given the timeframe and the fact that they sometimes worked with the same group at different points, but they each had their own clear stamp; one was not the other.

Ahem.

Ah, here's the part I was remembering about the ruler he made for the 'Love and Dancing' LP, from Simon's interview:

"I made myself a special ruler which read out in milliseconds how long a piece of tape was. So then I'd say, 'OK, this thing's at 120 beats per minute, so one beat is that long, a quarter of a beat is that long, and so I want to cut that little piece of tape by this length.' That would be the first bit of Phil going 't'. And then I got another copy of 't' and I glued them all together and got the stutter effect: 't-t-t-t-t-t.'"

The Fascination! EP is probably my favourite Human League thing. The guy was a genius producer, with great taste and also some right place/right time luck. But to be honest I find that stutter/jump cut thing on L&D to be pretty unimpressive.

Context is all -- at the time, especially in the explicit huge pop context the League had found themselves in, it was very WTF.

Have pretty much enjoyed every story Ned, geeta and others have posted here or I have read somewhere else.

Ok ya gotta draw the line somewhere. Those Dare demos are godawful, like most demos. Blech! Only listened to the 2nd disc after which it promptly went to my trash. Will not be enjoying the 1st disc.

The Stranglers sucked too.

But Dare proper, Love and Dancing, the Fascination! EP - all eternal.

The Stranglers sucked too.

With all due respect (and it is due) - you're so goddamn wrong!!!

I find that stutter/jump cut thing on L&D to be pretty unimpressive

they are definitely impressive because of how they were made, whether you like them or not is a different matter.

Okay, I can see that. I appreciate the huge effort to make this. And I know that is not the only piece of League lore about Rushent taking on complex and time-consuming editing or programming tasks.

I only just found out that he produced the Rezillos' Destination Venus/Mystery Action single. What a guy!

the edits aren't just in obvious places like the stutters and jump cuts--there are lots of non-obvious edits too. there's an average of one edit every half-second on that record.

He was trying to beat the previous record set by Delia Derbyshire in recording the Dr. Who theme.

and the awesome drum sounds this guy got--"I would spend two or three hours perfecting exactly the right bass-drum sound so it fit the record like a glove, and I might use three bass drum sounds throughout the song. You wouldn't notice the bass drum changing--you weren't supposed to--but it fitted that part of the record." On 'Sound of the Crowd' the beat isn't a Linn Drum at all: "'Sound of a Crowd' is little bursts of noise that I made myself and triggered on the MicroComposer, a technique I learned doing Homosapien."

transcribing this Rushent interview for Simon, back when I was working for him in 2003, was a big turning point for me in the way I thought about how records are produced. I transcribed lots of interviews for that book and ended up with a photographic memory of all of these tiny little details, because I'd literally listen to these interview tapes over and over while I was transcribing them.

Ed Stasium posted this on the memories page yesterday:

I'm very sorry to hear about Martin, my condolences to the family. I admire much of Martin's work, especially "Don't You Want Me" which is a standard on several of my playlists. However, back in the day I recall an interview with Mr. Rushent.... I believe in the Rolling Stone rag where he predicted that the Linn Drum Machine would be the dominant force with drum tracks on recordings in the future, replacing humans. This infuriated me and I immediately tossed the issue in the trashbin....... as I reflect on that moment......he was correct, right down to "Beat Detective" in Protools. Like it or not, it's a fact! ...... RIP Martin Rushent ...... a visionary.

I actually had a Martin Rushent playlist on my iTunes, with songs like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftTfVI0o-Ss

I only just found out that he produced the Rezillos' Destination Venus/Mystery Action single. What a guy!

that single is one of my very favorite things in the pop/punk realm, thanx for the info!

yep - Jo ("Luke Warm" from the Rezillos) was in the Human League, so there's that connection too

And apparently he was not happy that Rushent all but eliminated guitars from the Human League. It's quite amazing that Rushent was such a master of the guitar/bass/drums sound as well as it's exact opposite.

The Lefsetz e-mail labeled Mailbag just included several letters about him and his work with Gentle Giant, the Yachts, and more.

It's not archived yet on his website-- though that does include a letter from Rushent's son

http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

letters= cut and pasted e-mails I mean

i finally wrote a little tribute to Rushent--here it is:

http://www.theoriginalsoundtrack.com/2011/06/martin-rushent-a-tribute-to-the-league-unlimited-orchestra/

right, back to work!

Wonderful stuff, I sez!

aw, thanks ned!

ditto

WFMU did a three-hour tribute to Rushent last night, which you can listen to here:

http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/40643

Forgot about that Ian Gomm album.

Loved your post, geeta.

thanks, alfred!

i've been getting responses from all over the world today...though it's a bit strange to see yourself being discussed on the djhistory forums as "the girl who transcribed for Simon"! (i have my own career as a writer, you know! and i'm in my 30s--i haven't been a 'girl' for some time now!) so typical, though--it's hard to be one of the few women out there who writes about this stuff

The Stranglers sucked too

When I was 16 years old I hated them because of stuff like 'Peaches', which I just thought was sexist, hateful garbage. Thank goodness I learned about bands like X Ray Spex at around the same time, who were much more empowering. But I've revised my opinion on the Stranglers as I've gotten older. 'Get a Grip on Yourself' is right after 'Peaches' on the second side of that album (Rattus Norvegicus) and it's totally brilliant--the sounds on it are so great

(ps: hi kevin!)

Minimal Wave tribute show (the June 12 2011 episode, i can't link directly)

http://www.eastvillageradio.com/shows/nowplaying.aspx?contentid=1280&showid=25914

Hey Geeta! Long time!

Here's Love and Dancing in all its glory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd7pIZcwVU8

After reading your awesome tribute, geeta, I remembered I wrote on the Love and Dancing vs. Nightdubbing thread about my own favorite part of the album:

I much prefer Love and Dancing although I love both bands. Just about my favorite sound of the 1980s was that percussive effect that hangs in the middleground of "Things That Dreams Are Made Of" about halfway through and then comes to the fore with the "New York, ice cream..." bit as everything else drops out. It has a tough, rubbery sound, like a Tupperware container being perpetually opened. Like all great dubs/remixes/whatnot, it really fucks with notions of fore/middle/background, top/bottom, melody/beat, etc. and where you place yourself in the mix.

ha ha! that is a great description of 'things that dreams are made of'. there's a lot of space in that track.

i really like this quote of Rushent's, from simon's interview: "...I learned that the most important element of music is silence. To me music is silence punctuated by bits of noise. As opposed to bits of noise punctuated by silence. While that sounds like the same thing, it isn't. You shouldn't be afraid of silence; you can use silence as part of your music. It's probably the most effective instrument you've got...[don't] clutter your arrangements; keep your parts simple and vocal, as though someone's singing. You may be writing a string line or a brass break, but phrase it like a voice would sing it. That's what I applied to the Human League's arrangements. They're very simple, there's lots of space in them, and all the parts, you can sing them. Every bit sticks in your head and they're all phrased so that you can sing them."