No Strings Attached

Pop-kid sweetheart KIRSTY MacCOLL is now a grown-up mother of two. Back with Kite, a tantalising album for the 'old enemy' Virgin Records, STEVE LAMACQ meets his personal Morrissey. High-flier: HARRY BORDEN.

Ten years on from her teenage debut, the erstwhile princess of New Wave pop is married to her prince Steve Lillywhite and a mother of two nursery school Michael Jackson fans. Kirsty MacColl, the impetuous girl who made the first ever Stiff Records picture disc, who released the first ahead-of-its-time Elvis Is Alive record (remember There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop...) is now your not so typical housewife and a mistress to the pop biz to boot.

Outside the Family Life of The Lillywhites - just average stars next door with a home recording studio-her solo musical career is making something of a comeback. It's time for a spot of promotion - the one music industry ritual she's never happily come to terms with. I'm here because meeting Kirsty MacColl is like all you meeting Morrissey. We are talking locked-jaw admiration.

From the breathless, naive days with Stiff ("signing to Virgin was like joining the enemy") through an unhappy spell with Polydor, which nonetheless produced her Chip Shop hit, she's bounced in and out of obscurity with the characteristic stoicism and delight of an earthy Londoner.

Kirsty has always been around, learning from her mistakes- "I once mimed to Chip Shop at a sales rep conference, never again!" - choosing her work with precision and keeping one eye on the Top 40.

"When I was young it used to worry me that I wasn't more fashionable," she says. "But because I've never been fashionable I haven't got anything to live down. I always stuck to basic rock 'n' roll, making records with guitars, because guitars are where it's at."

"If you can't busk with what you're playing it's a real drag. Guitars are sexy because you can move around with them. I always wanted to be a guitar hero when I was a kid, y'know. 'I want to be that man onstage'.. . I never thought of myself as a girl."

Sexy guitars are everywhere on Kite, her new LP, and Free World, the preceding single which has gained attentive radio play and minor chart success. But the best thing about Kite is the formidable lyrical content. It's the flrst non-disposable Kirsty MacColl record. In a charming way that makes cutesy pop records like Chip Shop just pieces of bubblegum, Kite is that bit more serious; something more to get your teeth into.

It's anti-Bimbo, anti-Yuppie, but 100 per cent positive pop. From 15 Minutes, a jazz tirade against starlets who kiss and tell to the Sunday papers, to Innocence, taking a swipe at the 'I'm alright Jack' mentality, Kite paints a surprisingly vicious picture of Thatch's Britain while still finding room for tender moments like Mother's Ruin and The End Of A Perfect Day. Even Free World has defied the play lists with its left-of-centre political portrait. It's a long way from her teenage angst beginnings.

"I don't think the record'II surprise people who know me," counters Kirsty. "It'll surprise people who've only heard Chip Shop, but time goes on y'know, values change. Things that worried me when I was 19 seem trivial now."

"It's better than anything I've done before, It's bound to be more more mature, because so am I. Your life changes when you have kids. I feel more politically aware since I've had the children because you're more conscious of the effect everything has on the future. I'm not saying you should go away and become Mother Theresa but there are ways of bringing about change without burning down the House Of Commons."

Kite is the sound of Kirsty MacColl coming out of her shell, albeit from her safe family home. It's a sharp album, an astute album. But before you get the idea that it's a Class War companion, which it's not, let's go back to 15 Minutes -one of the tracks that targets shallow, brazen and superficial personalities.

15 Minutes could be about Pamella Bordes, or the girl from the Burton boss sex scandal whose name nobody can remember anymore. It could be about Sam Fox's crap videos. We'll never know. "It was written after a specific incident which I don't want to expand upon. But it could be about anyone really. The song was a big breakthrough for me, because I hadn't written anything for about two years and then this almost wrote itself. It gave me the confidence to goon and write the next lot. Before then I was getting really worried... 'Am I going to become a housewife, SHOCK, HORROR'."

Are you? Were you?

"l am now and again, but I don't get a big fulfillment out of opening the junk mail and doing the washing. I don't mine cooking: cleaning's quite therapeutic but I try and avoid it. I like gardening! Anyway, I don't think you really work for NME because we've been here half an hour and you haven't mentioned Morrissey yet."

We're just coming to that. Having worked on backing vocals for The Smiths, Kirsty has kept up her relationship with main men Morrissey and Marr. She can be heard on Moz's new 45 Interesting Drug while Johnny Marr has co-written songs on Kite. In fact, while Kirsty, with her pinny on, was worrying over the possibilities of tumbling into domesticity it was Marr's polite badgering on the phone that helped her start song writing again.

"He suggested I do Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby (the Smiths cover featured in the film She's Having A Baby) and we worked on Talking Heads and Billy Bragg albums together, and he was really encouraging - saying 'Why aren't you doing anything, get off your arse'. He's a very energetic, up person to be around."

"With Interesting Drug Morrissey just phoned up and asked me to go along. I think it's a really funny song, he's a very humorous writer, very articulate. Wit is essential because if it ceases to have any fun value - and you can be fun and intelligent at the same time-then people think 'Oh sod it, give me Kylie instead!"'

The matured Kirsty MacColl isn't low on ideas or enthusiasm. Kite (produced by hubby Steve of course) proves this, as does the tangible energy in her voice, the erupting explosions of her laugh.

"I see myself now as a songwriter first, a recording artist second and a backing vocalist third," she says. "And somewhere in there I'm a mother too, though you can't compare the feeling you get off your kids with your work - they're both important. Obviously the children come first but I think they're quite happy having a mother who's happy working. They think everybody's mummy makes records, they haven't quite sussed it out yet."

"I have noticed one thing - all kids recognise Michael Jackson, Bananarama and Boy George. I was sitting in the car the other day with the kids strapped into the backseat and I'm chatting away to them trying to have a meaningful conversation and Louis turns round and goes: 'Can you turn the radio up so we can listen to Michael Jackson.' Charming, y'know."

The kids are all right. Their mum's doing fine.

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No Strings Attached

Pop-kid sweetheart KIRSTY MacCOLL is now a grown-up mother of two. Back with Kite, a tantalising album for the 'old enemy' Virgin Records, STEVE LAMACQ meets his personal Morrissey. High-flier: HARRY BORDEN.

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