* (restored)
Official
‘Originally formed in 1970 by Los Angeles brothers Ron and Russell Mael, Sparks’ music is often accompanied by intelligent, sophisticated, and acerbic lyrics, and an idiosyncratic, theatrical stage presence, typified in the contrast between Russell’s wide-eyed hyperactive frontman antics and Ron’s sedentary scowling. Starting with their masterwork, Lil’ Beethoven in 2001, the band began performing their albums in their entirety. 2008 saw the band perform all 21 of their albums in successive nights at the Islington Academy and Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London.
‘Though the band’s long career has seen them successfully pioneer many different musical genres; including glam pop, power pop, electronic dance music, mainstream pop and most recently chamber pop, Sparks have created their own unique musical universe. While achieving chart success in various countries around the world including United Kingdom, Germany, France, and the United States, they have enjoyed a cult following since their first releases. Sparks have been highly influential on the development of popular music, in particular on the late 1970s scene, when in collaboration with Giorgio Moroder (and Telex subsequently), they reinvented themselves as an electronic pop duo, and abandoned the traditional rock band line up.
‘Their frequently changing styles and visual presentations have kept the band at the forefront of modern, artful pop music. They are held in esteem by such peers as Morrissey, Kurt Cobain, Franz Ferdinand, Arcade Fire, MGMT, Sonic Youth, Ramones, Bjork, Depeche Mode, New Order, The Pixies, Ween, Suede, New Pornographers, Morrissey, and Radiohead, who all cite Sparks as a major influence.
‘On August 14, 2009, the band premièred the radio musical The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman, commissioned by the Swedish public radio (SR) and featuring the Mael brothers themselves and Swedish actors Elin Klinga and Jonas Malmsjö, both of whom worked with Bergman in his lifetime. The musical, partly in English, partly in Swedish, tells the story of Bergman’s supposed relocation to Hollywood after his breakthrough with Smiles of a Summer Night (1956), and the surreal and discomforting encounter with the movie capital. The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman is currently being adapted as a feature film by Canadian avant-garde director Guy Maddin.’
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Personal
‘Early on we thought that what we were doing was something unique, and that the term rock wasn’t essential to what we were doing. It was just we had a special way or viewpoint of pop music and music in general. So we always had the kind of aspiration not to be going down the straight and narrow path of pop music. We’re concerned with creating something that is less specific and maybe harder to figure out where it’s coming from. It’s something we are proud of, the fact of being able to create music that doesn’t really fit neatly into any specific genre.’ — Russell Mael
Sparks is indisputably one of my two or three favorite bands and makers of music in general of all time. They have an excellent official website, including streamed chunks of all of their videos, mp3s, games, galleries, shops, a members only fan club, and a worthy recounting of their 35 plus years of existence.
Five favorites
‘The Rhythm Thief’ (2002)
‘At Home At Work At Play’ (1974)
‘Music That You Can Dance To’ (1986)
‘Happy Hunting Ground’ (1975)
‘Mickey Mouse’ (1982)
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There are certain countries in the world where Sparks are appropriately considered to be major artists. One of these countries is France, where they’ve had a number of huge hit songs and albums, and one of its many cultishly loved pop stars who owe Sparks a huge debt is Lio. Ron and Russell Mael rewarded her devotion by writing the lyrics for the English language version of her first album.
Les Rita Mitsouko & Sparks ‘Singing in the Shower’ (1987)
Lio ‘Le Banana Split’ (1984; lyrics & music Sparks)
Gran Popo Football Club ‘La Poesie cést fini’ (2000; music & lyrics Sparks)
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Sparks w/ fan Desi Arnaz
‘Igor Stravinsky was always such a big fan of Sparks and our use of tonality. Especially in the later albums.’ — Russell Mael
Hardcore Sparks fans tend to have high IQs, poor or overly developed social skills, and suffer from bouts of bitterness and agony that the band has never been sufficiently appreciated by mainstream audiences and critics. Typical in some way of these fans is this guy.
‘The Story of Little Russ’
THE ALMABOOBIES – This Town’s Not Big Enough For The Both Of Us
Sparks – Russell Mael Interview (Generation 80)
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Jacques Tati w/ Sparks
‘We were supposed to be in Tati’s film Confusion, a story of two American TV studio employees brought to a rural French TV company to help them out with some American technical expertise and input into how TV really is done. Unfortunately due to Tati’s declining health and ultimate death, the film didn’t get made. If we had to pick the greatest disappointment of our entire career, all thirty-seven years, with all its ups and downs, it would be not doing the film with Jacques Tati.’ — Ron Mael
Just before he died, the incredibly great French film director Jacques Tati was in talks to collaborate on a film with Sparks tentatively entitled Confusion, a project so theoretically perfect and mouthwatering that its demise is still painful. Tati may be dead, but he has a wonderful website.
Reconstruction of Tati’s ‘Villa Arpel’
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‘Sometimes people tell us we could have a career in litigation. We could sue Queen for copying my vocal style on Bohemian Rhapsody and The Pet Shop Boys for, oh … almost everything. They say that so we don’t get the law-suit against us, but I have to agree. We once thought about pursuing a class action against the entire New Wave movement. It would be: ‘Sparks versus The New Wave your honour’. All of the bands would have to answer the charges. I josh.’ — Russell Mael
In their early years, Sparks were contextualized within the Glam Rock genre where, at least in the eyes of the public and some rock critics of the day, they functioned as a kind of thinking person’s Queen. But they were much more.
Sparks in Concert 1974, part 1
Sparks in Concert 1974, part 2
Sparks in Concert 1976
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‘In retrospect, Ron’s moustache was probably another mistake. He probably regrets it. When he did it, he was quite naive – he thought he was copying Charlie Chaplin. We went to France to do a TV show and the presenter refused to go on with us so we had to pull out. At that point he changed it to a pencil-style one. We like controversy and provocation but not in that way.’ — Russell Mael
Sparks’ work and publicity have always made much of Ron Mael’s Hitler-esque moustache, including this slight, somewhat diverting, amusing, flash-requiring little visual puzzle.
Ron Mael shaves his moustache
Ron Mael tap dance
Ron Mael’s snowglobe collection
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‘Working with Giorgio opened up new ideas for us. For one thing it showed we weren’t tied to the guitar, bass and drum format and it showed you could work in other ways in a non band context. Although it was commercially fulfilling and we really liked the album, it was critically tough at the time cos people thought it was puzzling for Sparks to be doing what they perceived to be Disco. We saw it as an electronic album where the synths had replaced the aggression of guitars, and really that album was about the songs.’ — Russell Mael
In the mid-70s, Sparks coopted Euro Disco for a short time, producing the excellent and groundbreaking albums No. 1 Song in Heaven and Beat the Clock with the cooperation of disco schlockmeister Giorgio Moroder.
‘The Number 1 Song in Heaven’ (1979)
‘Beat the Clock’ (1980)
‘Modesty Plays’ (1982)
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‘We were always more accepted in Europe than the US. Maybe, maybe it was because of the art rock side of our work, but also things are transmitted around Europe in a more centralised kind of way and things get disseminated in Europe much easier. In America it’s more fragmented, there’s no centralised radio to cover the whole country so it has different things.’ — Russell Mael
Sparks has never had the popular success and critical acclaim in the US that they have achieved in Europe and Asia, but they got the closest with a string of albums in the early 1980s including the great Whomp That Sucker and Angst in My Pants, and the less great Sparks in Outer Space, the last of which, thanks to guest vocals by a member the then-hugely popular Go-Gos, launched their biggest American hit, the subpar (for Sparks) song and music video ‘Cool Places’.
‘Tips for Teens’ (1981)
‘Upstairs’ (1981)
‘I Predict’ (1982)
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‘Our recent music has been a reaction to everyone else’s lack of adventure. Everyone else is very safe and very reflective. It’s all too tame. We wanted to do an album that is for the people who like Sparks and new fans that would be jarring and genre-defying. We hope it elicits a reaction from people – even if they don’t like it. We’re tired of people following pop conventions and clichés. You listen to songs and after two bars you know where the song is going because it follows so many conventions.’ — Ron Mael
I defy anyone to name another musical artist or band who have been putting out records since 1970 and are doing their best work now as evidenced by 2002’s brilliant Lil Beethoven and the superb more recent albums Hello Young Lovers and Exotic Creatures of the Deep (2008).
‘My Baby’s Taking Me Home’ (2004)
‘Sherlock Holmes’ (1982)
‘Waterproof’ (2006)
‘Perfume’ (2006)
‘Lighten Up, Morrissey’ (2008)
‘Photoshop’ (2008)
Sparks’ 10 favorite songs
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p.s. Hey. ** ⋆˚꩜｡darbbzz⋆˚꩜｡, Hi. I did recognise it as Tetsuro, and, I agree, the tattooist did an excellent job. She’s gifted for sure. How great about the Portals magazine club! I was one of the editor of my high school literary magazine, and it was both fun/instructive and somehow helped cement my identity as a writer for me. Just being around and working with other young writers or people who were interested writing made a huge difference. That’s very exciting! And that’s supportive teacher too and maybe even most of all, needless to say. I had one of them too. You’re in a great position to cement your writing and build a world around your writing and creativity, and that’s everything you need really. I’m so happy for you, my pal. No, I hope/plan to go to a furry convention here in Paris the next time it happens, but not yet. ** Alice, Hi, Alice! I’ve been pretty good. Sounds amazing: your new abode. Congrats! I’ve never played a ‘Final Fantasy’ game even though I’ve always wanted to. I think that’s because I’ve always been a Nintendo system only guy, and ‘FF’ games weren’t available on that platform for a really long time. Time to catch up, clearly. Excellent that you found good system to help you focus on your writing. Journal -> prose and how that limbers you up, that makes sense. I’m anticipating the new Boards of Canada too. Good to get to speak with you too. Carry on, and enjoy London. ** _Black_Acrylic, I like Schütte too. There was a big show of his stuff here recently, and he seems to still be firing on all cylinders. ** Bill, That’s true: doing ghosts on May Day is kind of like respecting the work stoppage, I guess? Interesting that there’s so much butoh happening there. I can’t remember the last time there were any butoh performances here. I wonder why. The French are usually pretty hungry for poetic spectacle. Enjoy, obviously. ** jay, Hi. I like the flowy but precise look of ghosts, but I don’t believe in them. So I guess I just skim that world. There was a gay porn film back in the 70s called ‘Ghost of a Chance’ where the set-up was that some twink died and he had lusted after his friends when he was alive so his ghost came back and fucked them. Which involved a bunch of twinks bouncing around on beds trying to act like they were being fucked by invisible tops. It was unsurprisingly quite ridiculous, but, also unsurprisingly, it still has a little following for that reason. Yes, Tony Tulathimutte and I were interviewed onstage at an event at the Los Angeles Festival of Movies. He’s super nice and cool. His last book is such a viral thing, it’s interesting. He’s a very good writer, and the book is well worth reading. I do think he’s a little verbose, but it’s worth the occasional schlep. ** julian, Me too. I thought I saw a ghost when I was a teen, but in retrospect I’m sure it was because I was very stoned at that moment. My mom believed in them. She believed a giant ghost shaped like pumpkin used to hover above her bed at night and tell her stories about the world of the beyond. She was … eccentric. What’s the project where you’re transcribing those interviews? Or is just to do that and see what happens when they’re isolated and in print? ** Steeqhen, Me too, but the idea of ghosts is just completely implausible to me, and I can’t beyond that. Thank you re: ‘GJr’. xo. ** HaRpEr //, I took your use of that word as complimentary for sure. That adjective is always a positive to me. Amazing about your realisation of the framing device! That’s big. I haven’t read ‘Circus’. I need to. He’s very good: Wayne. And an Ashbery blurb no less. And presumably an actual praising one. Ashbery did a lot of tricky, backhanded blurbs in his time that seem positive at a skim until you actually parse what he wrote. ** Laura, Hi, Laura. I’m so sorry to hear that about the symptoms onset. May they die in the crib if not even in the womb if it’s not too late. As always, I’m so chuffed that I don’t remember my dreams. Gosh, I’m happy that ‘Try’ is having that particular effect. Have a very healthy weekend on every front possible. ** Carsten, Hi. It didn’t lead to a beef at all. I probably misphrased the interaction. It’s very good that you mentioned that because I might not have found out for a while. The producer in question is not our monstrous ex-producer. He was legally removed from the film, and we have nothing to do with him anymore. This was our good producer who we really like. He just made a mistake, no big. I hope you get to see the film before it dies, but if not, c’est la vie. Have a rich weekend. ** Okay. You lucky people get to spend the weekend with the masterful Sparks. See you on Monday.
Now available in North America 
Sparks are really cool. I know this is weird and funny but their song “Mickey Mouse” always makes me kind of emotional for some reason. “Lighten Up Morrissey” is really funny considering that Morrissey is on record as being a big Sparks fan. What kind of shape did the ghost you saw as a teenager take? Your mom’s ghost story is really cool in a surreal sort of way. Yeah, the project is mainly to see what happens when you reduce it to just words on a page without any description of the acts beyond what the performers are saying. I’m interested in what they feel the need to verbalize in order to heighten everything for themselves and the audience. The concept is admittedly pretty similar to Peter Sotos’s Pure Filth, even though I actually started the project before I ever read any of that book. I guess the fact that I’m focusing on pretty vanilla gay porn rather than extreme straight porn sets it apart, but I’m still trying to find a way to set it further apart.
d-
i’ve tried with sparks and i just can’t find an entry point. kimono my house makes me think of solo art-rock eno, of which i’m not particularly a fan either. it just feels too affected or something. i guess that’s really the only sparks i’ve tried, though. what’s a good sparks album that will get me into them?
yeah, i don’t mean for you to fully explicate the book, just wanted to know i was on the right track. is it like full sections, or just sort of asides that slip into the playroom? that’s the biggest thing, i think, that keeps me reading that book, is that it’s so densely layered and it’s so easy to feel like you’ve missed something. there’s this boy i picture as being like a stand-in for serge all the time. when i’m on my laptop, i’ll see if i can find a pic of him.
yesterday’s ghosts were quite thrilling. i have never been a believer in the paranormal exactly, but then i do read tarot and throw i ching so i guess maybe i am? i’ve always looked at tarot and other forms of divination as being more akin to meditation, though, which is why i prefer the real imagistic, open-ended ones like tarot or the poetry and hexagrams of the i ching as opposed to using like a pendulum which can only give binary answers. real binaries so rarely exist in life.
ok, well i’m gonna finish watching this episode of bojack horseman and then probably go watch some porn. will pop in later i’m sure. talk soon.
-c.
Oops, sorry, I think I’m tending to mini-vanish around escort day and slave day, probably because I’ve gotten in the habit of blog-commenting on my work laptop in the office, and maybe they wouldn’t be fans of, you know, so I hold off a little. I thought there was something very The Simpsons-y about ‘After 8 months of regular hard deep fisting am now wheelchair bound and seeking progressive anal, rectal & lower colon destruction.’ I’ve had some napping and other forms of rest in the meantime, I can report. And helping my friend Victoria out with her new short film.
The Fred and Rose book is making me think of the interiority-exteriority stuff we were talking about before, off the back of Closer — it’s well-written and there’s so much detail, but there’s still this spectator effect I’m getting from it. Maybe it comes down to me not actually reading much non-fiction, relatively speaking, and when I do I’m reminded that real life is much less knowable than the version of it in my head.
Not overtly related, but writing dialogue drives me crazy and I’m in a permanent state of jealously at people who can do it half-competently. Is there some trick to it? I think I see it as a problem-solving exercise, where I just have to get from A to B and one possible combination of lines is a less inexpedient way of doing so than all the others. Perhaps that’s not the best way of looking at it.
Calling Moroder a schlockmeister is heresy! I do feel that collaboration has spawned the brothers’ best work, whether it’s the diso masterpiece No. 1 in Heaven or 2021’s Annette film with Leos Carax.
How was your weekend? I had dinner with a friend in Queens last night.
I had the impression one or both of the Mael brothers are gay, until THE SPARKS BROTHERS documentary, er, set me straight.
I’m in the middle of a very interesting TV docu-series, CONBODY VS. EVERYBODY. I frequently walk past Conbody, a gym on the Lower East Side that advertises it’s staffed by ex-cons. After weed was legalized, they opened a dispensary. I didn’t know the full story behind it, but it was opened by a former drug dealer after he’d served a 7-year jail sentence, with the intention of employing other felons who’d get rejected by most employers. You can see how the carceral system is designed to maintain as much control over former prisoner’s lives as possible – absurdly, one Conbody employee spent 53 days in jail for breaking his parole by leaving Long Island in order to go to work at the gym in Manhattan. At the same time, they opened up a pop-up in Saks 5th Ave., inside a mock jail.
My latest “Radio Not Radio” show is up on Mixcloud. It starts with country, swerves left into metal, and takes several more turns. This one features Ashley McBryde, Adeem The Artist, Emmylou Harris, Ashley Monroe, Andrew Sa, H. C. McEntire, Deafkids, My Heart, An Inverted Flame, Warning, soulless, Bekor Qilish, Emaciate, DJ Massive 100% Dynamite & MC Lipex, Marta Sanchez, OOIOO, Aster, mui zyu, Little Annie, Anne Clark, Yasmine Hamdan, Takkak Takkak, the Last Poets and Tyshawn Sorey. Link here: https://www.mixcloud.com/callinamagician/522026-radio-not-radio/
Great to see the Maels here again, of course.
I wouldn’t say there’s a lot of butoh activity here. But on the rare occasion when I find something, I jump on it. Inkboat for example used to have more shows (and more butoh-oriented ones) years ago. I’m surprised there’s not more in Paris. I think NY used to be a hotbed for butoh, partly because the Japanese Society was (is?) so strong.
Have you seen The Hyperboreans, the new movie by the Wolf House team? Quite different, but very nice. It’s available online, but a little tricky to find. On that note, I can pull together a Dark Animation post (a few of the usual suspects, also Robert Morgan, John Frame, Christine Cevgaske, Joe Hsieh etc) if you’re interested.
Bill
Hey Dennis. Hope your weekend went well!
Nice to see Sparks here. What is your favorite album of theirs? Having discovered them just recently and not listened to all of their albums, I guess I would choose Kimono My House at this point, apparently an obvious choice but it’s very addicting.
Anyway, have a great week!
Hey Dennis! Staying at my friends today, my tour of the house from my manga was great. I could’ve gone inside, but I preferred the idea of hanging around the outside, because it felt pretty similar to the house from said manga, whereas the inside would’ve been different. Super cool, it’s always nice when artists are big enough on detail to actually map out areas. Was the playhouse in the Marbled Swarm inspired by any real place, or was it just a crazy mishmash? I remember being pretty unnerved by the descriptions of that place. I haven’t reread TMS for ages, but I think about it basically every day, haha. Hope you’re well – it’s back to London to see the rest of the manga sites tomorrow. See you, lots of love, happy Bank Holiday (if you’re somewhere that celebrates.)
Ah good, OK, now I get it (re. the Vimeo VOD). I didn’t realize the producer-from-hell was out of the picture & thus imagined a very different kind of text exchange.
I was still able to watch RT before the rental expired. Beautiful work, my friend. I feel that, as a friend, I owe you an eloquent response, yet to me the film is chiefly a triumph of tone & mood, aspects so cinematic they resist easy articulation. What’s easier is just to tell you some of the things I especially dug: I love how you guys bookend the film. The opening alone, with the industrial soundscape & that long pan through the dark: remarkable. What you do with location, both structurally & in terms of composition, carried most of the film’s weight for me. You know I’m a fellow desert-lover. The way you use it makes it the bones of the film’s emotional architecture. Partly through the way you bounce light against dark; partly through the almost jarring, unexpected close-ups thrown in; partly through the disorientation of both the ghost POV & the final home haunt tour. It’s the contrasts & juxtapositions that, strangely, pull it all together. I feel like the very muted acting style you guys use works wonders with the artificiality of the home haunt’s decor. And thematically, to me at least, it’s all about the creative-destructive axis, yet handled in a way that is so very You.
Besides RT I spent my weekend out & about with friends. Hope yours was a good one too. Oh I saw that Anthology is doing a series called “Robert Creeley on Film”, which features some Bresson & a poem of his about Bresson which I thought you might get a kick out of: https://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2026#showing-61290
Hey!!! You know how I feel about Sparks! They’re tied with Pavement for my second favourite band (No. 1 will always be The Velvets for me). I guess Ron Mael and Stephen Malkmus are my favourite living lyricists. ‘Lawns grow plush on the hinterlands / The perfect little setting for the one night stands’ God, I wish I wrote that.
My favourite Sparks albums would probably be: ‘Indiscreet’, ‘Propaganda’, ‘No. 1 in Heaven’, and ‘Angst in My Pants’. Following ‘Annette’ I’ve heard that they’re making a film with John Woo! That should be wild.
‘Circus’ was initially published as ‘Moira Orfei in Aigues-Mortes’ but the soft skull edition I have changed it, presumably because publishers don’t think people will want to buy books with names they can’t pronounce. Just like ‘Mawrdew Czgowchwz’, the way to say it is spelled out phonetically on the title page. I finished it today, it’s a new favourite for sure. It’s Firbankian and Nabokovian but is also written in fragments and doesn’t linger on anything.
Btw, this weekend I’ve heard a lot about this play that Sam Max has just published in book form called ‘Double Serpent’. I went to order it but it’s sold out at asterism. Have you heard anything about it?
And yes, I’m very excited about the next novel now that I’m honing in on the framing. I’m planning to type up old drafts and writing and to see if I can do something interesting with it, a sort of intertextual thing. I’m going to leave it until I finish the current book, though. I really want to spend a long time just thinking about it and letting ideas form.
Hey Dennis,
Haha yeah ghosts are pretty implausible, but I hold out hope for the supernatural, mostly because if one was to be proved real, it changes life itself, ya know? Like life would be more than the drab mundane cycle of days leading to nights leading to more days leading to death. If ghosts were real, well them everything we knew about reality and life would be up for question. And I think I prefer living in a world where all things have an air of mystery. Keeping childlike wonder and innocence alive, and it staves off the depressing ‘reality’ of living a bland life.
Decided to forgo the 33 1/3 book because I just couldnt motivate myself to write the drafts and such. A bit of it is laziness and depression, but I think part of it is this anxiety of having to “start” a career, and feeling ill-equipped. I’m sure it would have been better to just work on it and submit it, but I can always submit to the next opening with the work I’ve started, and maybe keeping it simple and out of the potential spotlight is better for me.