In 1988, after a short break, Ed Ball (TV Personalities, The Boo Radleys) restarted his project - the Times - essentially as a solo project on Creation Records. Until then he had released a handful of mod pop/rock records every year since 1982. Ed Ball's band had recently broken up, Creation boss Alan McGee arranged for his own band Biff Pang Pow! as a backing band to record “Beat Torture”. Ed Ball returned the favor by participating in their fourth album “Love is forever”. But big changes were coming: acid house and the second summer of love came to England and had a huge influence on his work. E for Edward, released in 1989, was his 2nd album for Creation.
„From here, it was just a short magic bus ride to ‘E for Edward’ 1989 Times album, by which time I’d been working at Creation for about a year and was in the froth and thrall of it’s Ecstasy culture.“
If you look at his activities in the following years, the man couldn't have slept more than 2 or 3 hours a day. His output was so enormous that he could no longer and would not put his ideas on the Times albums alone. And so we got wonderful albums as Love Corporation and Sand (a project that hardly anyone knows about anymore), which I will also write about. However, dance beats were no reason for him to put down the guitar. His album as Teenage Filmstars, “Lift off/Stars…” sounded to me like a melodic version of My Bloody Valentine and “Loveless”. However, I ignored his activities as Conspiracy of Noise (a violent rock collaboration with the singer of Extreme Noise Terror) (similar to KLF vs. ENT).
„If there’s any period that has a particular resonance with me, then its ’90 to ’93. There was an unspoken “licence” that existed at Creation by Alan’s decree. Any artist could make as many records as they liked, the prerequisites being you recorded inexpensively, quickly and could guarantee 5000+ sales. It benefited the label by filling the release schedules resulting in turnover. This privilege had briefly been in the hands of two or three other notable writers. I applied for the “licence” and had it for a year on probation. It prompted one weekly music paper to describe me as “the only artist in music today who uses and abuses his label” – for the next forty-odd months I made 12 albums, variously as The Times, Teenage Filmstars and . . .“
Looking back, you can say that his Creation Records years, where he also worked under Alan McGee, were the years that were the most interesting for me personally, but when “E for Edward” came out in 1989 I didn't know anything about any of that. The Berlin Wall fell at the end of the year and there were thousands of records, books, films and other things to discover. Money was tight, the Internet had not yet been invented and people had to rely on newspapers and magazines. Sometimes it led nowhere, sometimes it was a direct hit. I can't remember exactly, but I think I discovered "E for Edward" after "Pure" (1991). So there can be no question of chronology. The album has its big hit with “Manchester” and further wonderful moments with “French Film Bleurred”, “No Love On Haight Street” & “Snow”.
„In keeping with the album’s drug-oriented title, the record closes with “Acid Angel of Ecstasy,” a character study hissed over oscillating tremolo guitar. From there, it was only a drop, trip and a thump to the Love Corporation, a nom-de-dance under which Ball released a 1990 acid-house EP.“
- Ira Robbins -
And, and so on….and….that Ed Ball is a big New Order fan should have been clear at least since the Blue Monday cover version “Lundi bleu” with its many versions. The previously unreleased “Truth Faith” appeared a few years ago on a compilation that included my 3 favorite “the Times” albums “E for Edward” (1989) “Et Dieu Créa La Femme” (1990) & “Pure” ( 1991) were re-released on CD with further additional tracks. For me, “Manchester” is basically a New Order anthem without Hooky’s bass.
„So we're sitting in the snug bar waiting for Jase the Ace
Hooky's by the jukebox doing his splendid to entertain
Look at Tony Wilson live on Channel 4…“
And then there's the matter of the back cover.
“Technique” was New Order's Ibiza album, the last for Tony Wilson's Factory and was released one year earlier. “E for Edward” is more than a clear reference.
Interview Passages taken from creation records. Part2 will follow.
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