V: What is now on the Quartet...
Ted: Yes, but the point is: that material is almost a year old. We recorded that in april last year, but nothing happened since then. That's how they work at Factory. Eventually we released a single ourselves, last year's summer, because if you haven't released anything as a band, it's important to do so rather quickly. You'd expect Factory to react after releasing the single with a "fuck off!", but actually there was hardly a reaction at all.
V: How about the relation with other Factory stablemates?
Ted: We've toured with A Certain Ratio. By the way; that Factory tour at the end of last year was intended for us to join, but five days upfront we got the message it's not going to happen: Factory had "forgotten" to inform the management that Blurt was in the package. So, that's how things work at Factory, leaving us for two weeks without work.
V: You did the production yourself for the Quartet side.
Ted: Jake has experience with the knobs and sliders and he's got a Teac 4-track machine. You can record directly without a mixing desk, which is completely different to recording in a studio with an engineer and a producer
who might dictate the sound that gets committed to tape. I prefer to work like this and keep control and let the sponaneity thrive. No intimidation by surroundings, no worries over time and money...
If the material on the Quartet LP is a year old it shouldn't be a big suprise to find that Blurt is even a lot better live than on that record. It swings like hell, actually, but the audience barely moves, probably distracted from the grooves too much by the performance of the frontman.
V: Somehow you remind me a bit of James White...
Ted; Well, the first time I heard that comparission I had never heard of White...So I went out to get his record and, yeah...a little bit, yes, like he plays his horn sometimes. But maybe what I do is very different still, everybody develops in his own way.
I don't want to be associated with anything, basically, also not with jazz, no. I understand perfectly why people don't like jazz or don't understand it. It's too academic, and the unbelievable display of virtuosity and technique goes to the expense of emotional content. Although the truly great jazz artists, as in the blues, never loose that emotional contact, you can't deny that...
But I would never, or could, as well, perform in a jazz band. The structures are completely different...But you can take things from it and employ them in another setting.