It’s Immaterial, 1987
"This rock'n'roll life, it's a bit weird.”
Itsy, as we used to call them in Liverpool, were pop stars at this point, even if they didn’t act like it. Driving Away From Home had gone top twenty the year before. Later in the year they released their debut LP, titled beautifully Life’s Hard And Then You Die. (Reissued on vinyl last year.)
This was a benefit gig for promoters Earthbeat, to cover the costs of the previous summer’s Sefton Park festival.
I don’t know why I called them the two Johns. Well, I do, it was a pun on a band around at that time called the Three Johns. But I don’t know why I thought they were both called John. One of them was (is) called Jarvis.
And do you remember when ‘slides’ were considered arty?
IT'S IMMATERIAL
Pickwicks, Liverpool
Melody Maker, April 4, 1987
ITS Immaterial play their first gig in over a year amid the slides, prattish comperes and arty paraphernalia of an Event (a benefit for adventurous promoters Earthbeat). But the arty eclectic ambience fits It's Immaterial anyway. And no-one takes it too seriously.
Reminding yourself of words from a piece of paper, supping beer on stage, and forgetting where the microphone stand is are not things popstars are supposed to do. It’s perfectly true to say stardom hasn't changed them a bit. The two Johns look exactly the same as always. The singing John looks modest, abashed, and not sure whether to laugh.
But have they changed? Well, the group is a six-piece tonight, "Driving Away From Home" is breaking the speed limit and turning into rock'n'roll, "Rope" rides waves of rhythm, snatches of synthesised shanty, fragments of mad piano, other songs retain the beatnik-monologue mode, all paltering percussion, echoes of rain, throw away one-liners and sad laughter.
Something says shambling but there are these loud confident competent noises coming off stage, almost funky at times, people are dancing and heckling even though you can't see anything resembling a pop star. There's something deceptively casual about the whole thing. It's music, it's words, it's character - you could call them all unique. "This rock'n'roll life, it's a bit weird " You said it, John.
Watch It’s Immaterial
Here’s a great bit of archive footage – It’s Immaterial rehearsing Rope in 1986. According to the YouTube notes, it was recorded in “one of the many large Victorian mansions around the Sefton Park area”. All the best people had flats in those houses. Echo and the Bunnymen. Me.
More on It’s Immaterial
It’s Immaterial supporting Wah! at the Royal Court, Liverpool in 1983
Pete Wylie and The Mighty Wah!
I said I’d do requests, and someone asked if I had any early Pete Wylie in the archives. Well, early-ish: these two reviews date from the “God-given leisure” Thatcherite days of the early 80s. Weirdly, I didn’t actually interview Pete until I started writing for the Liverpool Echo, although I’d known him a lot lo…
It’s Immaterial at the Liverpool Irish Centre in 1984
Marshmallow Overcoat, Mel-O-Tones, It’s Immaterial, 1984
Proof that there were lots of Liverpool bands that might not have gone down in history but were still worth your notice.
I so loved Driving Away from Home. Don't remember their track Rope, thanks for the video – think they worked in a little bit of Green Onions by Booker T and the MGs towards the end there!
I loved their second album “Song” even more than the first. An LP that always felt like a complete piece, to be played from beginning to end. With one of its songs “New Brighton” being as good as anything ever written about actual places round here by any of our local bands.