Music Reissues Weekly: Chapterhouse - White House Demos

Quoted in an early music press article on his band Chapterhouse, singer-guitarist Stephen Patman said their ambition was “to have our records on sale in 20 years’ time. To leave something behind when we die." That was September 1990, in a piece tied-in to their soon-to-be-issued debut single.

Setting aside the pessimistic proposal of a two-decade lifespan, the ambition has been achieved. And then some. White House Demos is a four-track, 12-inch EP collecting previously unheard demos the band recorded on 15 January 1989, by which point Chapterhouse had played only four live shows. His band’s records are on sale a further 15 years beyond the 20 specified in that aspiration.

In the feature, for music weekly Sounds, the Velvet Underground and Stooges were mentioned along with contemporaries Ride and Swervedriver. The latter – due to a mutual fondness for the wah-wah pedal – repeatedly cropped up as a comparison in coverage of Chapterhouse. Like Slowdive – whose Rachel Goswell sang backing on their debut album Pearl’s title track – Chapterhouse sprang from Reading. Naturally, Chapterhouse were lumped in with shoegazing.

White House Demos may not alter this, but it does highlight an introductory chapter which has been missing from the Chapterhouse-as-shoegazers story.

That 1990 Sounds piece noted that they had been going since 1987. For their first show, Chapterhouse operated under the name Incest. By the time the band first played London, as support to Spacemen 3, they were Chapterhouse. The Spacemen 3 connection is telling. The first time Chapterhouse made it to vinyl was on an EP accompanying the March 1990 issue of Sniffin’ Rock magazine. Spacemen 3 were also on it. In 1991, a Chapterhouse flexi-disc included their version of Spacemen 3’s “Losing Touch With my Mind.” The label Chapterhouse signed with in 1990 was Dedicated, also home to Jason Pierce's post-Spacemen 3 band Spiritualized. While Chapterhouse were being shoehorned into shoegazing, Spacemen 3 were never far.

The four tracks on White House Demos were recorded at Weston-super-Mare's still-extant White House Recording Studio (Slowdive would also record there). They were the only band originals in their repertoire at his point. Otherwise, they played Stooges covers (as did Spacemen 3) and Sixties garage-rock songs: including Kit and The Outlaws' '”Don't Tread on me.” On the new record, “Die Die Die” is familiar as it was re-recorded and included on the bonus 12-inch coming with their first album. “Guilt” was shortened and redone for the album proper. Mistitled “Guilt,” an alternate version of “Ecstasy” was on the Sniffin' Rock seven-inch (as well as being the drug, the word ecstasy also cropped up in a Spacemen 3 title). “See That Girl” was never revisited and had left the band’s live set by the time they began attracting attention. None of these four tracks are on the 2023 Chronology six-CD box set. They were disinterred subsequent to its release. Each track features their original bass player Jon Curtis.

“Ecstasy” is Track One, Side One of White House Demos. Wah-wah pedal to the fore, it’s eight minutes of guitar-centred psych rock with a pungent Spacemen 3 aroma. Brilliant. Next up, “Guilt” prefigures the very early Ride, when they were still discernibly drawing from Sixties folk rock and putting it through a My Bloody Valentine filter: the juddering, stop-start middle section is very MBV. Side Two kicks off with seven minutes of “See That Girl.” It is fantastic, also has that early Ride-predicting flavour but is fuzzier, and more about pummelling than Ride ever were. “Die Die Die” is rougher than the version which would be released. Harder-edged and more angry.

So there it is. The shoegazers who were ploughing a choleric, psychedelia-indebted, garage-rock furrow before they were categorised as shoegazers. Had the four tracks on White House Demos been issued shortly after they were recorded in January 1989 – who knows? Perhaps they would have been seen as brethren of Thee Hypnotics as well as Spacemen 3. Instead, things swiftly moved on and Chapterhouse found themselves incorporated into a scene which didn’t exist when they were recording for the first time in Weston-super-Mare. This is indispensible stuff.

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