Kilimanjaro - The Album

Version One 

Ha ha I'm drowning / Sleeping gas / Treason / Second Head / Poppies in the field // Went crazy / Brave boys keep their promises / Bouncing babies / Books / Thief of Baghdad / When I dream

Released October 1980 - "Tripping Fools" cover

Version Two

Ha ha I'm drowning / Sleeping gas / Treason / Second Head / Reward / Poppies in the field // Went crazy / Brave boys keep their promises / Bouncing babies / Books / Thief of Baghdad / When I dream

Released April 1981 - "Zebra" cover

Version Three

Ha ha I'm drowning / Treason / Suffocate / Reward (US version) / When I dream // Went crazy / Brave boys keep their promises / Sleeping gas / Read it in books / Thief of Baghdad / Poppies in the field

Released 1980, American edition, same cover as version one.

In a way, this blog has already said a lot about how "Kilimanjaro" came about, by analysing all the songs involved and following their journeys from singles, Peel sessions and live favourites to become the Teardrop Explodes' debut album. So what more is there to say? 

Well for a start let's discuss the elephant in the room. Is there an album called "Everybody wants to shag The Teardrop Explodes" and can we hear it? The answers are yes and no. The first attempt at the Teardrops' debut album was recorded at Rockfield Studios in March 1980, not long after Echo and the Bunnymen had finished recording "Crocodiles" at the same studio. Whereas the Bunnymen album was financed by their major label deal via Korova / Sire / Warner Brothers, Bill Drummond had to remortgage his house to afford to pay for the recording of "EWTSTTE", which is quite an act of faith. Major labels weren't interested in the Teardrops, so it made logical sense for Zoo Records to issue it's first album and "EWTSTTE" was given the catalogue number of Zoo 1. By all accounts the sessions didn't go well and nobody wanted to issue the album. The only song to slip out from the original sessions is the version of "When I dream" on "To the shores of Lake Placid" and it's all the aural evidence you need to know the album would have been a poor release. 

In the few months following the recording of "EWTSTTE" there was a lot of activity. Firstly Mick Finkler was replaced as guitarist by Alan Gill from Dalek I Love You. Secondly Phonogram Records signed the band, with their A&R mogul Dave Bates claiming Julian Cope could be a pin up. Thirdly Cope played David Balfe a number of albums to give him ideas of where Cope wanted the band to go - these included early Scott Walker albums and "Forever Changes" by Love. While the rich string arrangements of Scott were out of the question for the Teardrops (though we'll come back to that at a later date) the righteous horns of Arthur Lee's 1967 masterpiece were far more feasible. In 1980 brass instruments were almost fashionable - the soul warfare of Dexys Midnight Runners, the mournful sax of UB40, Madness' jokey air... But the Teardrops used the trumpets differently. They were used as fanfares and melodic devices, but kept out of the way of Cope's vocals. The trumpets added an extra level of interest and excitement to the band - compare the Zoo version of "Read it in books" to the album version, there's something special there. Post punk has become something else, something unique.

With the major label backing the band returned to the studio with a new attitude. Some of Finkler's guitar parts were replaced with Gill's more psychedelic fretwork. The trumpets were added, tracks were reworked and rerecorded, and Cope made his vocals more of an event - singing in a Lawrence Of Arabia outfit. Did I mention drugs? Yeah, there were drugs involved too.

Suddenly, the jokey title "Everybody wants to shag the Teardrop Explodes" didn't seem suitable, especially if Cope was going to be a pin up. Something more heroic was necessary and Les Pattinson of the Bunnymen provided the new title. "Kilimanjaro". What did it mean? Who knows. It's part of the enigma of the album. But it works. 

The initial album release campaign occured during a turbulent time for the band. The initial rush of LSD evangelism had made the album but was destroying the band. Everybody argued with everyone else. The Daktari tour to support the album involved the band splitting up on stage at least once. It was open warfare, but still a hugely creative time (see forthcoming blog posts). But Phonogram put the money behind them to play bigger places, they got album adverts into the music press via HMV discount promotions, and the strange cover gazed down from shops across the country. 

That cover was a bit of a disaster to be honest. It was the same team who had created "Crocodiles" for Echo and the Bunnymen - Bill Butt and Brian Griffin. Whereas the Bunnymen transformed a wood in Rickmansworth into a moodily lit dreamscape, the Teardrops were photographed in a studio, with a strange array of lighting around them. Gill looked distracted, Balfe was hiding behind a military jacket, Dwyer was lit brightly and Cope was in the foreground, looking slightly evil. Cope would call this cover the "tripping fools" edition. The font used for the band name wasn't great, the colour choices on the inner sleeve made it ridiculously difficult to read, and just to confuse matters even more the lyric sheet included lines, phrases and titles* not actually in the recorded songs. It was a mess, but then that accurately reflected the band who made it and were trying to promote it.

When the album was released in October 1980 it received mainly positive reviews from the music press. A common complaint across most of the reviews was that four songs had already being released, even if some of them were rerecorded. Hardcore Teardrops fans would know almost every song from the album if they'd been following the Peel sessions.

Record Mirror review

Record Mirror were torn on the album, they seemed to like it enough to give it four stars but called it barely psychedelic and considered it to be a dead end. Smash Hits thought it was dreamy and highly recommended it. 

Smash Hits review

The Face review was to the most positive of all the reviews I've found so far. Generally the reviews liked the album, picked up on the unique lyrics and the trumpets and sound. Paul Morley reviewed the LP for NME and I'm not sure if he liked it or not. He seems pretty positive. It's hard to say really. 

The Face review

NME review

But the most unequivocal review is from Dave McCullough in Sounds. Although he gives the album three and a half stars out of five the review itself is quite dismissive, complaining about so many old songs being rerecorded, the brightness of the production, how the songs seem to be overarranged, and McCullough lays the blame firmly at Dave Balfe's door. He would echo these thoughts in an interview with the band shortly after the album's release, making some pertinent points which would change the future of the band forever. But we'll get to that shortly.

Sounds review

In a way I can see his point. He had been a supporter of the band from the very beginning and had relished the primitive post punk stumble and accidental beauty of the early Zoo singles. Also note that in his review of the "When I dream" single (which he called "worrying") he states that he's been listening to a tape of the album for six months, which means that he had access to the original version of "Everybody wants to shag the Teardrop Explodes" since it was recorded in March. And from what little we know about "EWTSTTE" and the evidence of "When I dream" on "To the shores of Lake Placid" it must have been a very different album to "Kilimanjaro" - no trumpets, a primitive production, plodding rhythm tracks and poor vocals (according to Cope in "Head on" anyway). But it probably was more "post punk" than "Kilimanjaro" turned out to be. Hence McCullough 's sense of disappointment. Placing the blame purely on Balfe is unfair really. The trumpets were Cope's idea, just actuated by Balfe and Drummond as producers. Meanwhile the bright clean production was a reflection of the times and the major label backing behind the band. And if McCullough really wanted to hear the "real thing" then he still had the six month old tape of "EWTSTTE".

Hang on a minute... So the album does exist after all? Well let's have it in the all encompassing box set that was due out this year please. Also... If the band were so unhappy with "EWTSTTE" then who let Dave McCullough hear it? Surely not the band? Maybe someone at Zoo? The mystery deepens.

Meanwhile "Kilimanjaro" was released in October 1980 and started a very strange chart history. On initial release it charted at number 35 on the 18th October, then over four weeks slipped down and out of the charts. This was typical "cult band" behaviour which is to be expected. There weren't any big hit singles at this point, only a few TV appearances, so there were the sales of the initial fan base, probably a lot of sales concentrated around the North West of England, a few curious purchases lured in by a discount at HMV and not much more. Probably a good start to a career, and no different from any other provincial band newly signed to a major label, such as The Distractions or U2. And that may well have been where the story ends. 

Only it didn't happen like that. The album returned to the charts on 14th March while "Reward" was climbing the singles chart (it was at number 13 that week, climbing into the top ten the following week) and meandered around the forties and fifties of the LP charts until it disappeared on the 18th April. Then it reappeared on the 9th May and started a 25 week run in the charts, never rising higher than number 24 in the middle of June (after "Treason" had become their second top 20 single and while the band were touring the UK). But "Kilimanjaro" remained in the album charts until 24th October, which was the week "Passionate Friend" dropped out of the Top 40 singles. 

What caused this run on "Kilimanjaro"? The answer isn't difficult. The Teardrops had become a band with hit singles under their belt and some power with their record label. Dave Bates wanted to add "Reward" to the album and include the remixed "Treason", Cope wanted to lose the "tripping fools" cover photo and remix some tracks. As we've seen through the previous blog posts some of these changes were more obvious than others and in a "Readers Q and A" in Smash Hits Cope explains why the album changed and what changes were made. 

The new sleeve looked more interesting - big mountain, big sky, zebras - and the only photo of the band was now Cope in his jodhpurs and leather flying jacket. The Teardrop Explodes was Julian now. 

This is the version of "Kilimanjaro" most people recognise now. "Reward" was slotted into the running order after "Second Head", the sudden edit which closes that song leading straight into the blasting trumpets of the hit single, making the contrast between that song's crescendo and the double paced reggae of "Poppies in the field" more drastic. I cannot imagine it in a more appropriate place on the album, and hearing it for the first time there in 1985 it made total sense and didn't feel out of place at all. Almost all CD issues of "Kilimanjaro" have reverted to the original 1980 running order with "Reward" as an extra track (the 2000 single CD reissue) or on another CD with other singles (the three CD deluxe edition from 2012). What's also interesting is that even though these reissues use the original running order they don't use the original mixes of songs like "When I dream" or "Went crazy". If you want the original mixes on CD you need to hunt out the American Skyclad CD of "Kilimanjaro"...

Only the American version of "Kilimanjaro" is a very different beast to either of the familiar versions. The track listing is all over the place, the side closers are transposed, "Sleeping Gas" is moved to side two and there's two different songs on there - a unique version of "Reward" and "Suffocate", a song which would not be issued in the UK until after the demise of the group. We'll deal with each of these songs in due course on the blog but quite how and why they ended up on the American edition of "Kilimanjaro" remains a mystery. 

One more aspect regarding the running order of "Kilimanjaro" - it's pretty much perfect with or without "Reward". Each side starts with a bang, then moves into a groove, then a single, then a stomping stormer (or two), before the band stretch out and get mellow as the grooves move towards the centre label. In a way. I see parallels between side two of "Kilimanjaro" and side two of "Compass Kumpas" by Dalek I, the two longest and more experimental (in context of the album) songs at the end of the side. Maybe Dave McCullough had a point - maybe Alan Gill's influence was more than the casual listener had noticed. 

When the dust had settled on the career of The Teardrop Explodes "Kilimanjaro" became their default album. It had the hit singles on it, after all. When I discovered the band in 1985 the album was available as a mid price release (pretty sure I paid £2.99 for it in May 1985) and that was the only Teardrops I could find in the record shops. It's reputation has only increased over time, it is now considered a classic album featured regularly in any number of listicle space filling articles or blog posts. BBC 6 music even broadcast an hour long documentary on the album a number of years ago, which is well worth hearing (though there may not be any revelations for readers of this blog). Whatever Dave McCullough's complaints, "Kilimanjaro" had stood the test of time and is rightly regarded as a perfect example of early 80s psychedelic pop. I wonder what he thinks of it now.

* "Sleeping Gas" was subtitled "Kwalo Klobinsky's lullaby", a title which would gain a song later in the band's career. Kwalo Klobinsky was a character in an episode of "The outer limits" called "Soldier", about an alien who comes to earth on suburban USA. Apparently the band watched a video of this episode over and over while tripping during the album recording sessions. It'll turn up on Talking Pictures TV soon enough. Dog dog dog dog dog...

Huge thanks to Paul Gigsy, PAF, SoundsClips and NothingElseOn for the scans.