A Short History of Aztec Camera

Aztec Camera, namely singer-songwriter Roddy Frame, released their debut album in 1983. It was called 'High Land Hard Rain' and it was influenced by northern soul, Scottish country and western radio, and the quiet songs by the Velvet Underground's first album. When Frame was just sixteen he was playing the tough, uncompromising working men's clubs of northern England. The audiences were made up of working people, pensioners and children. He mainly played traditional folk and contemporary pop. All a very long way from the in-yer-face punk that was spreading across most of Britain at the time.

Frame had been a punk of course. He played in the Forensics. They were the normal loud and fast punk band that was so common. This was followed by a time spent sounding like Joy Division in Neutral Blue. Then he got together with Campbell Owens and David Mulholland and found the niche he was looking for. Some of the fledgling Aztec Camera songs ('We Could Send Letters', 'Just Like Gold' and 'Mattress Of Wires') were heard by Postcard Records boss Alan Horne. He loved them and signed them immediately to join the likes of Orange Juice, the Go-Betweens and Josef K on the label's roster.

Postcard Records became an influential label for around a year or so yet Aztec Camera only ever released a couple of singles on the label. It was Rough Trade who released their debut album 'High Land Hard Rain'. The release was to mark a defining moment in Rough Trade's history also. Until then they had concentrated on reggae, punk and industrial music. Roddy Frame went against convention when he chose Mark Knopfler of Dire Straights to produce Aztec Camera's second album 'Knife'. Not a cool thing to do at the time. Especially for a band on the cool Rough Trade label amidst a puritanical musical climate which defined the success of alternative albums in how difficult they were to listen to. At this point in time Knopfler was 'all-things-mainstream' so Frame could not have chosen a more unsuitable producer if he had tried. However the album was failure. The songs and the sound were a pale follow-up to their excellent debut. The third album, 'Love', was a classic.

The album includes latin, jazz, folk and a genius touch in the finer art of pop. Frame's pop is barbed and cynical though. 'Walk Out To Winter' and 'The Boy Wonders' deal with the death of punk and an apathetic social climate; 'Faces of Strummer that fell from your wall and nothing was left where they hung'. It includes the pop classic 'Oblivious' and the final track 'Down The Dip', which is partly about Frame's local pub 'The Diplomat' and life is all downhill, but at least you have someone to share your future life and a night out with. This is something which punk never quite got to terms with - optimism in the face of adversity.

Some may call Frame the lyricist of his generation. See 'Spanish Horses' ('and her eyes, like Spanish horses danced alive as language died'). The band released 'Somewhere In My Heart', which is one of the greatest summer-soul records ever. But Aztec Camera simply add up to a great pop band releasing great pop records and remaining cool in spite of what other people were calling them. Now that's alternative.