PHOTOCOPIER
PHOTOCOPIER (a cappella mix) 2004
PHOTOCOPIER (album version) 2004
PHOTOCOPIER (alt intro) 2004
GENERAL INFO
The fifth song on Gary’s second album, Face
Academy
RECORDING VENUE & DATES
Walthamstow, East London: January 11 - June 6,
2004
INSPIRATIONS
The early, all-male incarnation of The Human League
- most especially The Black Hit of Space, though
musically it’s more reminiscent of Almost Medieval,
and there are references to Boys and Girls, A Crow
and a Baby, Empire State Human, Tom Baker and
The Sound of the Crowd. The anti-mainstream
theme is probably inspired by Adam Ant’s work
around 1980-81, most notably Antmusic and Stand
and Deliver, but it might have been subconsciously
influenced by his 1979 single Zerox and, with its big
tribal drumming, maybe even Kings of the Wild
Frontier.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
A photocopier that grows to such an enormous size,
it manages to photocopy the entire universe.
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Unusually for a Gary Le Strange song, I stated the
subtext outright by having Gary explain the song at
the end. He tells us that “the photocopier is a
metaphor for our corrupt consumer society, which
insatiably regurgitates the same old trash over and
over again while feebly trying to convince us that
everything we see and hear and taste is new.” This
strikes right at the heart of Gary’s ‘Face Academy’
concept, positioning him totally at odds with the
mainstream, Adam Ant style, ready to wage war on
modern British culture (and its endless parade of
musical talent shows) with his own brand of 1980s-
style fashion pop.
But that’s just what Gary thinks. It’d be
extraordinarily hypocritical of me - a guy who was
scraping a living making pastiches of other people’s
work - to complain about people copying things. I
think, like a lot of the stuff I did as Gary Le Strange,
it’s about me taking ideas for a spin and seeing how
they sound in his mouth. And here I might just have
wanted to see how it sounded when he got political
about something.
Then again, I’ve never really been much of a fan of
mainstream entertainment, and Pop Idol really did
make me physically sick, so in many ways Gary’s
thoughts were actually my own. I’d also spent most
of my career thus far deliberately avoiding copying
other people - trying to forge my own path,
whatever that meant - and it hadn’t exactly been a
roaring success. Only to find myself suddenly
successful when I stood up and said “Hey, does
anybody remember the New Romantics?” So I
suppose I found myself caught between these two
extremes - viscerally hating the endless rehashing of
other people’s ideas, while simultaneously selling
myself as Britain’s foremost 80s nostalgia merchant.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying this song
might be an almighty expression of self-loathing, in
which I used Gary Le Strange to tell everyone how
much I hated Gary Le Strange. Or maybe I was
aware how silly it was and just thought it would
make a good piece of comedy? I don’t know any
more.
ALT VERSIONS
There was an earlier, sillier song I wrote for Radio 2’s
The Day The Music Died called Invasion of the Pop
Snatchers, which pitted itself more outspokenly
against TV talent shows - referring to them as a “pop
photocopier”. But that used the same backing track
as one of my other songs, so it’s not really a version
of this. I did however find a vocal-only mix and an
alternative intro (which is actually the first attempt
at doing an intro for the live show - I went with
something else in the end).
ANECDOTES & TRIVIA
I only ever sang Photocopier live once, at the Albany
pub on Great Portland Street. But it was too difficult
to sing and I couldn’t remember the words, so I had
to read them from a sheet of paper and even then
didn’t manage to get half of them out of my mouth. I
was also perilously close to having to get the live
Face Academy show on the road. So, despite having
conceived of it as the stunning centrepiece of my
show, I made the practical decision to drop it from
the set list. And that’s just one of the many reasons
why Gary Le Strange ultimately failed.
THOUGHTS & FEELINGS
I was very, very chuffed with this at the time and
gutted that I couldn’t do it justice on stage. It’s got a
great sense of melodrama that would have helped
make the live show more dynamic. But I just found it
way too uncomfortable to sing. So it’s remained this
unknown song, hidden in the middle of the middle
album. I’d do it differently these days - I wish the
bass was more electronic and the rhythm’s pretty
clunky - but it’s bold, confident and, despite its
obvious inspirations, somehow manages to be its
own thing. Whether it’s funny is another matter, but
I’m not sure that’s what I was aiming for. Lyrically,
this was me trying to blend funny with serious and
see if anyone was still listening by the end. Musically,
I just wanted to see if I could take some samples
from a PlayStation and make them sound like a sci-fi
apocalypse. Somehow those two ambitions came
together to make this the best track on Face
Academy.