We don't do Maneater live any more, besides we can't put it on the demo because of copyright. I suppose we might do a version of it to give away extra though...
By the way does the myspace player keep stopping halfway through songs? I found it did when I was listening to them.
MacKenzie, Rankine and bass player Michael Dempsey moved into the Swiss Cottage Holiday Inn in north London. MacKenzie booked an extra room specifically for his pet whippets, and began feeding them on smoked salmon from room service. On one occasion, MacKenzie later recalled, he bought "about 16 cashmere jumpers and put them on the bed and rolled around on them".
Vast quantities of cocaine were, inevitably, involved, MacKenzie and Rankine's enthusiasm for the drug apparently undiminished by an unfortunate early experience in which they ended up in hospital after ingesting seven grams of amphetamine, believing it to be one gram of cocaine ("If you snort 40 lines of speed in one evening," notes Rankine sagely, "you're not going to be very well").
Party Fears Two was its centrepiece, offering an oblique melody, puzzling lyrics, an astonishing vocal performance from MacKenzie and a piano hook so irresistible that it ended up as the theme for the Radio 4 programme Weekending. It reached No 9 in the singles chart, prompting the first of a series of Associates appearances on Top of the Pops, where the band managed to carry the Sulk sessions' atmosphere of extravagance and rule-breaking audacity into British living rooms. During the first, Rankine sported a fencing suit, samurai make-up and chopsticks in his hair, while MacKenzie sang gazing not at the camera, but at his own image in the TV monitors at the side of the stage.
On a subsequent appearance, Rankine played two guitars made of chocolate - "by Harrods," he remembers, "costing £230 each" - one of which he fed to the audience as the song progressed. "It was just to make it more interesting, less boring. We'd actually planned if we got on Top of the Pops again, I was going to be playing the guitar inside a portable Turkish bath, with my arms sticking out." He laughs. "Why, I've no idea. "
