Last week, the indie-pop lifers in Comet Gain arrived in the U.S. for three mid-Atlantic gigs (D.C., Philadelphia and New York), the London band’s first stateside visit in eight years. The music world at large barely blinked, but among the faithful, the sold-out shows were a ragtag British reinvasion and a reclamation of the DIY pop aesthetic. Part indie-scene godfather, part Peter Pan, David Feck has led Comet Gain since 1992 as its arbiter of good taste (many of the band’s songs presuppose a certain affection for books and films—see song title “Jack Nance Hair”) and its wayward soul (the stage surname Feck being shorthand for “feckless,” after all). If any of this begins to sound twee, you’ll have to consider the actual music: a combination of low-budget, hastily recorded guitar pop, pill-popping mod rock and Northern Soul, with Feck and Rachel Evans trading and pairing vocals that are charmingly off-key in a John-and-Exene kind of way. On recordings such as 2002’s Réalistes and recent singles collection Broken Record Prayers, Comet Gain hits raw nerves that its contemporaries and acolytes (the Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, et al) might gloss over, all in pursuit of the perfect mistake and the business of being the consummate anti-professional band. MAGNET shared a pint with Feck before Comet Gain’s show in Philadelphia.
“You Can Hide Your Love Forever” from Broken Record Prayers:
“Just One More Summer Before I Go” from City Fallen Leaves:
MAGNET: Comet Gain has been around for a while, but there’s still such an enthusiasm and a hopeful, searching quality to the music. Is it difficult to keep it that way?
Feck: No, not at all. We’ve never had a manager or any kind of structure. It’s almost a deliberate course of being as wayward and inept as possible. So it’s manageable. We do gigs whenever we want and people pop in when they can. As we all get older and have our own lives, it’s a chance for us to get together as friends and hang out.
It’s like a social club.
This whole mini-tour is sort of bizarre, because everyone (in the band) is exactly the same. Even though some people have children or whatever, our lives are saved by the records and books that we like. It doesn’t go away. After that initial spurt of angry youth and defiance, everybody is settled down—that whole thing about socialists become right-wing when they get old—I guess because we live in a bubble, we live the same kind of lifestyle that we always have. The reverberation of the stuff that is important to us hasn’t gone away.
Has anybody ever tried to come in and hook you up with a big producer to make a polished record?
There have been times, yeah. You almost regret [saying no] for a few seconds, then you breathe a sigh of relief. Geoff Travis from Rough Trade was interested at one point, after (2002’s) Réalistes. At first it was exciting, but then it was like, “He’s going to make us go on tour all the time and make videos.” We all work, we have jobs. We have to survive. We have jobs to pay the rent; we do this so we can breathe in and breathe out, properly.
A lot of the songs celebrate such a youthful point of view.
Well, no one wants to hear an old man whinging. There are some ideas when I started Comet Gain, ideas I wanted to sing about, and I’m doing exactly the same thing. It just shifts and changes or you find a better way of saying exactly the same thing. But I’ve never been satisfied with the way anything has come out, which is probably a good thing.
You haven’t been satisfied with the recordings?
Everything. Recordings, songs. One of the things I always wanted to do was try to get emotions into words, and it’s impossible. It’s intangible. It’s this melancholic feeling or nostalgia or whatever it is. So it’s a constant attempt at doing something you’ll never be able to do. The fact that Comet Gain is a failure in many respects is kind of the point of it. To stand for that is good enough for me.
But somehow, the imperfection of Comet Gain is what makes it so worthwhile.
Yeah, I’m aware that most people who like us—the handful that do—that’s the thing they like. I have no interest in making some fantastically sounding, clean pop-rock masterpiece. That would make the whole previous Comet Gain tenure worthless.
Your stage surname, Feck, actually came from Peter (Momtchiloff) from Heavenly. What was happening in that scene at the time when Comet Gain started?
There were so many weird little scenes. There was all that riot-grrrl phase that was influenced by a handful of people that were visiting at that time. All those people from that time sparked things: Nation Of Ulysses, K Records people. We met all of them, and we came from a totally different background of records. They were into the hardcore punk thing and we were into the Jam and the Specials and Dexys Midnight Runners and Orange Juice. It was the same kind of idea but in different ways. We all met up when those bands came to tour in England, and it was a fantastic thing of us playing them records they’d never heard before and them telling us stories and telling us about bands.
So it was kind of like that American Northwest scene meeting the London scene.
It was a weird re-education for each of us, and it also ignited this comradeship. We were from North London, which was kind of a psychedelic scene, with the early Creation records. I was into all that stuff. I’d go out and wear a paisley shirt and take speed and see some Creation band. But we listened to a lot of soul and this and that. Bands now seem to be in kind of one box. Though I don’t really know.
From experience, I think you’re correct. But at the same time, for bands coming out now who are into Creation bands, it’s a generation removed. So it’s not that obvious.
So many bands I loved I thought were just completely lost in time forever. Like the Shop Assistants, the Clean and the Chills. Now these young bands are into it and talking about them. I thought those bands would totally just disappear. There were a few of us who had those records, gloating about them. But it’s great, it’s a fantastic thing.
You’re also a big fan of Dexys Midnight Runners. Most people only know “Come On Eileen.”
Yeah, I know. There’s a lot of things like this. Like the Jam. Or Julian Cope. No one knows Julian Cope. If people do know him, it’s the (Teardrop Explodes’) “Reward” song.
It’s funny, a band I interviewed recently, we were talking about the ‘80s and they explicitly mention the Teardrop Explodes as an influence.
We’re doing a Teardrop Explodes cover tonight, a song called “Sleeping Gas.” It was their first single; they re-recorded it for their first album, but the 45 version is kind of like krautrock, like a weird pop song that’s also like Can or something.
This tour is a rare appearance in the U.S. for Comet Gain.
As a band, we were last here seven or eight years ago. I have no idea why it’s taken so long for us to get back here. We just like being in our pajamas too much.
—Matthew Fritch
