"The record is adventurous
simply through complete ignorance" says David Cunningham, producer and
conceptualist behind the Flying Lizards' "Money", which was recorded in
one day in his living room for only fourteen dollars - the price of the
tape. "We were hardly able to control the mix, work the tape recorder,
play the guitar or anything. It was all completely intuitive. You'd probably
get more records like it if you got rid of all the studio engineers."
A Top Five hit in England
and a mid chart single in the U. S., where it's become a New Wave cult
classic, "Money" is an updated version of Berry Gordy and Janie Bradsford's
1960 soul hit for Barrett Strong. But in it's new version the lyrics aren't
sung, they're haughtily recited by a very proper sounding young Englishwoman
over a rhythm track that suggests slamming doors.
Just exactly who are
the Flying Lizards? Cunningham shrugs and smiles slyly. "There's no group.
The name's just an unlikely one I made up. I wanted it to sound cute, since
I reckon 'cute' is 'in' in the Eighties." Except for the voices and piano,
all the sounds on "Money" were made by Cunningham. The reciter is Deborah
Evans, a former art school classmate of Cunningham's. In 1976, she collaborated
with him on the prototype of "Money", a spoken version of Eddie Cochran's
"Summertime Blues". After the song was rejected by twenty record companies,
Cunningham had it distributed independently, and eventually it was picked
up by Virgin Records.
"Originally, I wanted
to do a big Ike and Tina Turner version of 'Summertime Blues', but that
proved impossible," Cunningham explains. "I wasn't
a producer, and even though Deborah wanted to do it like Joni Mitchell,
she's just not a singer. So we used her normal speaking voice. She's quite
'finishing school' and all that."
The modest success of "Summertime Blues" - it reached 170 on the English
charts - helped Cunningham find other production gigs. He's worked
with the Electric Chairs, the Modettes and others, and has put out an album
of his own experimental noise, Grey Scale, on his tiny Piano label.
A prematurely graying
twenty-four-year-old Irishman, Cunningham developed his deadpan dadaism
at Maidstone Art School in Kent, where his specialization if film and video
sound got him interested in experimental music. For a time, he was a devout
student of structuralist aesthetics, but he soon rebelled, embarking on
a "program of reform" that involved forcing himself to sit through "the
most dreadful rock concerts." Cunningham's intuitive approach to record
producing evolved out of his collaborations with other students on film
soundtracks and performance art pieces.
The Flying Lizards
are really a performance art concept carried out into the recording studio,
the premise being that anyone can make a pop record. Cunningham's only
aesthetic dictum is that the sounds be "interesting." The Flying Lizards
LP, though it includes "Summertime Blues" and "Money", consists mainly
of sound collages that have nothing in common with the two singles.
Though the Flying Lizards
may be a dadaist joke, the success of "Money" has given Cunningham at least
temporary freedom from drudge jobs, and he talks vaguely of someday bringing
the Flying Lizards concept to the stage.
"Two weeks before I
did 'Money', a friend of mine who knows nothing about pop music said that
if you make a record about sex or cars or money, it will be a hit. And
he was right," Cunningham laughs. "'Money' was ousted from it's highest
position on the British charts by Gary Numan's 'Cars'".