Tuesday 15 January 2008

Mark Beer "Pretty" (Rough Trade, 1981)


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I was posting on Westway the other day, extolling the virtues of Record Fairs, and declaring my love for old Rough Trade 7"s. Well, here's another one of those Rough Trade singles, and it's one that has never had its moment in the spotlight.


Mark Beer is one of those artists that never quite made it: a handful of singles, what looks like a self-financed album, and that's about it.There is a connection via one of those singles to Thomas Dolby, and another one of his collaborators was Jean-Marc Lederman, who played in Jules et Jim, with Julianne Regan, from All About Eve. Along the way, he seems to have picked up a tiny number of curious fans and he's been rewarded for all his years in the wilderness by having one of his songs: "The Man Man Man", turn up on a compilation of DIY UK post-punk releases. So, there are tantalising links to other bands, to other careers, to other lives. But when you try and find out what happened to Mark himself, there's nothing. No myspace, no CD's on Amazon, no website, nothing. Very odd.


This single itself is a bright little piece of pop, though in its rush for acceptance, its message seems to become somewhat muddled. Mark sings about how being pretty is his salvation, the "antidote to my despair". Yet later in the song, he's musing that being pretty is merely "a type of superficial grace". He seems to have a love/hate relationship with the process of self-examination and evaluation, and this sense of confusion and fragility really comes across in the track: the song is always on the edge of becoming over-wrought and merely theatrical, a heartbeat away from losing its integrity to base vanity. It also has the delicious prospect of a "dub" on the b-side, though in truth it was just a chance to give the echo box a workout.


Despite it's lo-fi sound, and, at times, simplistic production, Rough Trade obviously had high hopes for the single. My copy came with a plugging sticker on the back, which means that it was sent off to compete with all the pop heavyweights of the day, when in truth, it probably never had a chance. And in that one moment of pure hope, is the reason why I really loved Rough Trade: they never let common sense get in the way of their dreams. They were adamant that their records deserved a chance, no mater how slight that chance was. The sheer optimism and pride of record labels in that first flush of the Indie boom has been somewhat forgotten, and this single serves as a timely reminder of just how important it is for a label to believe in their artistes, and to follow that belief through, all the way.

Mark Beer "Pretty" (mp3)

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

free music downloads

So It Goes said...

Hey guy, lovely to see you back in the swing. I applaud your sentiments about independent record labels: the time for people taking chances in the marketplace are long gone.

Iain Baker said...

Thanks fella, it's nice to be back :)

Anonymous said...

Agh! The link seems to be dead already...is it too soon to beg for a re-up? Pur-leez?
(And if you might, by any chance, have a copy of Martin Pig's "Lovely Rita"...)

Julian LZB87 said...

Hi, I was sharing a flat with Mark throughout the time he was recording Pretty and the his album "Dust on the Road." At that time he also started a band "Sneezes in China Deaths in Paris" who played a handful of gigs.
He's on http://www.discogs.com/Arnold-Lane-Blatant-Secrets/release/1308228
in 2005 cheers

Anonymous said...

Mark also worked with Rob Doran of Hard Corps before they became known on a project called Silent Types. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNqd53k3--k

Unknown said...

Hello my friends , I am Mark Beer . The music being mentioned here was recorded between 1977 and 1981 . Since then , I have been working on becoming a good guitarist, developing an unusual technique . If you want to read about my life over the past 30 years , go to my profile on google+, though I realise getting there requires that you are ok with labyrinths. I's tere though . Recently , I have written some songs . I will start recording again soon . Nice to know that anyone is interested in my work . All the best , m .

Anonymous said...

Mark, if you read this, will you post the lyrics to the song "Pretty"? I find some of the lines hard to decipher. And the song surely deserves to be understood right!

Unknown said...

It's August 2020,and the world is gripped in a pandemic. I am playing Mark Beer's Dust on the Road. I love it๐Ÿ˜Ž

Chingachgook the parrot said...

Mark is about to release ‘Lonely Soldier’. Watch out for it!

Anonymous said...

According to their newsletter, Tiny Global Production will release Mark Beers catalogue in 2022:
„ We'll be releasing the slim-but-masterful Mark Beer catalogue. Mark was one of very few self-released artists in Zigzag's 1978 Independent Labels Catalogue and he would have been a major figure if not for his constant experiment, lack of distribution and stubborn artistic vision. Although he collaborated with Thomas Dolby as well as members of Metabolist, released a great 7" on Rough Trade ("Pretty"), and made what's surely one of the top ten albums in the vein of pre-punk weirdos such as Kevin Ayers or Robert Wyatt in Dust On The Road, he's largely unknown. So we expect a bit of shock at his talents having remained hidden for so long.“