Payola - Money For Hype/ Top Twenty

 

Incredibly silly DIY post-punk record by mysterious "group"

Label: NB Records
Year of Release: 1980

Payola was actually a relatively big scandal in the late seventies and early eighties, breaking out of the pages of the music trade press and becoming the topic of national headline news. So numerous were the cases that Frank Bough ferociously grilled a music business executive about it on "Nationwide", and the chart positions of some records in the official BBC chart - my legal friends have advised me not to name the group The Pinkees at this point - were called into serious question. 

While fiddling chart positions might feel like small beer compared to unemployment, the Cold War and city riots, there was a certain justification to the outrage. The charts are supposed to be a fair barometer of the popularity of both major talent and up and coming acts, irrespective of the label they sit on or the budget they have. If a clumsy punk recording on Single Sock Records happened to be popular enough to get inside the Top 75 despite being distributed by a low key organisation, then it should be allowed to do so and the group in question should get that promotional leverage, not be knocked out of the official chart by a group a major label had bribed record store owners to create false sales for. 

Perhaps it shouldn't be any big surprise that the artists most likely to produce an irritated satirical noise about this sort of thing were those in the DIY/ punk set, then. The mysterious Payola here (who are almost certainly nothing to do with the Canadian group The Payola$, despite other sites suggesting they are) deliver two sides of fumbling post-punk faux-irritation, so childish in its mocking that you can almost hear the giggling and glee in the studio. Both tracks are backed with a basic metronomic drum machine, some funky guitar lines, and lyrics pretending to be all for the joys of hyping - although the single created such a weak impression in the Tuesday rundown that I highly doubt any money exchanged hands to this end.

It's one of those low budget DIY singles that feels as if it exists because some individuals woke up one day and realised it could, therefore why not? In these days of YouTube, streaming and instant access to any idea somebody just had that afternoon (including my wittering on this blog) it's sometimes hard to appreciate that there were days where having a basic creative idea and getting it exposure was actually hard work which involved a certain financial outlay. In that context, "Money For Hype" is the sound of some people sat firmly outside the music business doing everything they could to poke it in the eye with a shitty stick. I highly doubt it made anybody at the major labels have a long, hard think about just how they'd behaved, but it probably helped to bolster the outsider's reputation of the indie sector.

Reupload - Paul Dean and the Thoughts - You Don't Own Me/ Hole In The Head

 

"Sorry Pen". It's an angry song by Paul Nicholas telling his partner what's what and what's not.

Label: Decca

Year of Release: 1965

Paul Nicholas is one of light entertainment's most flexible characters. From pop singer to stage actor to comedy actor to director, the man has jumped on every opportunity going, and impressively enough, managed to succeed at all of them. While the British public are most familiar with his charming but flawed character Vince in "Just Good Friends", his career actually began in the recording studio.

"Paul Dean" was one his early aliases, and "You Don't Own Me" is a very unexpected cover of a Lesley Gore near-hit. In Lesley's hands, it sounds like the defiant cry of an independent young woman who doesn't want to be saddled with a serious and possessive relationship. At the point of its 1964 release, it must have sounded like a fairly radical and powerful piece of work. Paul Nicholas swaps the gender roles around for his version, and it just sounds sneering and boorish, and at the point of Paul protesting that he doesn't just want to be an attractive piece of fluff on his woman's arm, slightly unusual (though he is Paul Nicholas, I suppose). It's hard to imagine female record buyers being attracted to it, and judging by its low sales, the men didn't bother either.

Sweet Chariot - Angelina/ Young At Heart/ America

Extraordinarily high quality vanity pressed Salford progressive rock 

Label: TOG

Year of Release: 1977

Back when I first started writing this blog fifteen years ago, I quickly became suspicious of seventies vanity pressings. While they have a reputation for being bottomless gifts of both glorious tack and untapped potential, the reality is they're usually just some pedestrian cabaret band singing tepid covers of show tunes. 

Once every so often, though, you chance upon something so professionally produced, confidently written and arranged and punchily performed that you find yourself wondering why no proper record label wanted to go anywhere near it. This is one such example which is starting to get a little bit of attention in record collector's circles, though this is mainly for the flipside, a glorious mash-up of Paul Simon's song "America" (channeled through Yes's cover of it), Bernstein's song of the same name (channeled through The Nice) and, perhaps most unexpectedly of all, "Land Of Hope and Glory". All six minutes are as simultaneously daring and preposterous as you'd expect, and the group come across not necessarily as original thinkers - this is pretty much undiluted prog rock which owes a debt to the performances and interpretations of others - but certainly a powerful group. By the time "Land Of Hope and Glory" bleeds into the final moments, you're both laughing at the sheer audacity and applauding them. What daft, brilliant sods. 

The original material on the A-side is also noteworthy, though, with "Angelina" in particular sounding like an FM rock hit. In another dimension, those drum fills, fruity keyboard lines and impassioned, woebegone vocals would be heard regularly on late night local FM stations, interrupting everyone's cab journey home. Besides the more proggish elements, the group are clearly dining at the same messy bistros as Sad Cafe and having the same tough heartaches as Foreigner. 

This wasn't Sweet Chariot's only effort to grace vinyl; the group had a long history, starting as Dave Barron and The Chariots in 1962, before becoming Jackie Richmond and The Chariots in 1967, then morphing into Sweet Chariot by 1970. 

Their first recorded effort under that name was, somewhat bizarrely, a library music LP for the De Wolfe label in 1972 which consisted of vocal originals on Side A and instrumental versions of the same songs on side B. One of the tracks "What Would Your Momma Say" has worked its way on to YouTube and shows that all the components were neatly in place by then, though it seems unlikely their tracks got picked up for commercial use.

Mandy Montgomery - In My Fantasy/ Sail Away

 

Geoff Gill turns his studio skills to actress/singer Mandy Montgomery

Label: Rocket

Year of Release: 1982

Let's all take a brief moment to drink in that sleeve, shall we? The fascination with all things Futuristic in the late seventies and early eighties saw some interesting styles and designs being used which dated quickly despite everyone's best intentions. The calculator styled font on this sleeve would be one prime example, then there's the clothes and backdrop for Montgomery herself. I'm not sure I quite understand what's happening here - did someone have an interesting premonition about a Dyson hoover? - but full credit to her for managing to rise above it all and seem extremely charismatic and confident. You notice Mandy's powerful gaze before you really look at any of the other "stuff".

Of course, it's the contents inside the sleeve we should be more concerned about, and perhaps also another credit on the label. Geoff Gill was an ex-member of sixties group The Smoke as well as a house musician at Morgan Studios in London, cropping up on all manner of celebrated popsike ditties of the period. Later, he would go on to write "Heartbreaker" for Pat Benatar as well as see his sixties psych classic "My Friend Jack" covered by Boney M, both of which must have kept him in reasonable royalties ever since.

This is an interesting outlier in his later career, though, which is seemingly an attempt to score a synth-drenched rock hit with an aspiring young performer. "In My Fantasy" wants to have its cake and eat it, filled with soft rock hooks and flourishes, but also a lot of synthetic space-age whooshing noises and propulsive bleeps. If it has an obvious influence, it would probably be Kim Wilde, but interestingly a middle-eight hovers into view which sounds faintly like the Blake's Seven theme (which would remain untouched again until Pulp used it as a reference point in the nineties). It's a reasonable piece of work, just not quite good enough to cut through the piles of innovation occurring throughout 1982, probably one of pop music's finest years. 

Community - Louisiana/ Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast

 

Fernando Arbex of Los Brincos does his bit for the Community

Label: Spark

Year of Release: 1973

I've always found it perplexing how many non-American acts have chosen to sing full-heartedly about US towns, states and cities they can surely have only had a fleeting relationship with. Two factors seem to be at play here - the fact that the US has often been perceived as a land of exotic promise, therefore a topic likely to appeal to casual record buyers, and the distant hope of a transatlantic smash.

No luck here on either count, sadly, but a very interesting person does at least seem to have been involved in the process. The author of the A-side Fernando Arbex (confusingly credited on the label as two different people) was the leading creative force in Spanish pop group Los Brincos, as well as their drummer. Their tracks "Passport" and "Nobody Wants You Now" are two of the finest sixties offerings from that country, showing a group who had the maturity and ability to become a truly global act. Not for nothing was their LP "Contrabando" regarded as their "Sergeant Pepper".

By the time the Los Brincos jig was up, Arbex formed a short-lived act called Alacran, then finally relocated to Britain to form Barrabas, who managed to release nine LPs of a largely funky Latin flavour between 1972-1983. Not wishing to rest on his laurels, he also put his songwriting skills to use elsewhere too, perhaps most famously (and least credibly) for Middle of the Road, for whom he penned the hit "Soley Soley".

Reupload - Izzy Royal - Coronation Street/ Dub

 

Proof, if proof were needed, that there's been a reggae cover version of everything...

Label: WEA
Year of Release: 1985

I don't know why so many reggae artists have a penchant for covering well-known but unlikely songs, but the habit runs deep. Beatles fans will be aware of the Trojan box-set of reggae Fabs covers, and readers of this blog will doubtless remember such gems as "Rupert The Bear" and "Space Oddity".

To say I was surprised by the existence of this 45 would be an understatement, however. The soap opera "Coronation Street" is familiar to just about anyone with a British birth certificate, but its bluesy, world-weary instrumental theme - perfect for singing "Oh Coronation Street" along to over and over again if you're that way inclined - wouldn't seem to translate well to any other genre at all.

This single proves that a lilting reggae beat was just waiting to be dropped on to the song after all, as the whole thing hangs together astonishingly well. The cheeky dub version on the flipside even manages to give it a thunderous, clattering, stoned atmosphere.

Paul Henry - Benny's Theme

 

Paul Henry, aka Benny off Crossroads, treats us to a vinyl monologue

Label: Pye

Year of Release: 1977

If a North American wanted me to give them an unequivocal example of the cultural differences between our societies, I've sometimes wondered if some video clips of Benny from the soap opera "Crossroads" would do the job. While I've no doubt that Americans have had close equivalents to Benny in both TV and film, it's rare for the innocent idiot of any soap to capture the American public's imagination to such a degree.

And capture our hearts Benny did. True, the character weaved his way into the popular lexicon in ways which weren't always positive - being called a "Benny" at school was far from a compliment, for example - but there was also a sense that he was held close to the pinnies of most of Crossroad's mature female audience, his harmless boyishness resulting in huge public affection. 

Paul Henry, who took on the role, obviously spent a lot of time considering how the character should be played, but his guiding principle remained straightforward. Benny, he once claimed, was someone so breathtakingly stupid that if somebody walked into a room claiming that it was "raining cats and dogs outside", he would assume that canines and felines were literally being dropped from the sky. Ignorant of metaphors, similes, irony, duality of meaning or even a life beyond that of being a simple handyman, he was an innocent abroad with woolly hair, puppy eyes, a bobble hat and some simple needs and dreams.

This being soapland, Benny had his fair share of disappointments and tears, of course, and this record gave him a chance to air his doubts and miseries simply and sweetly while Simon May weaved a tear-jerking orchestral tapestry behind. Inexplicably, the track wipes the syrup off the table halfway through and suddenly develops a more optimistic discofied edge, before jerking straight back into keening strings and misery again without explaining why. Henry does his best with the material available, sounding like nothing so much as a distressed abandoned Labradoodle if it could talk. 

It is, of course, remarkably bad. I try to see the good in just about any record I upload, but there's no disguising the fact that this record was just a horrible misconceived idea - but one that's so out-of-whack with any other novelty pop hits or trends that it's miraculous it found its way out. It even sold in reasonable enough quantities to slip into the Top 40 at number 39, such was Benny's ubiquity at the time. 

All The Cats/ Carole Jenner/ Neon Barbs/ Radio Cairo - The Stand

Edinburgh label's eighties showcase compilation

Label: Logical Step

Year of Release: 1984

"Can a group of devoted penniless people succeed in their painful struggle to gain attention, recognition and success?

Well, if there is to be a new-wave of enthusiasm to overcome the nonsense it begins with you, and movements like ourselves progressing together within the realms of trust and respect for the creation of music.

Logical Step is endeavouring to provide an opportunity for talent to flourish in an atmosphere of co-operation and consent and you are the stand."

Oh man, I love a mystery. Logical Step were an Edinburgh based label who volleyed three records out into a savagely competitive marketplace in the early eighties, namely the Neon Barbs single "Break Your Chains" in 1981, and two records by Synthetic Dreams, "Obsession" (1981) and "Sulphate Suicide" (1982). As back catalogues go, this is slender pickings and hardly justification for a label sampler. Just as well that "The Stand" wasn't really a sampler in the traditional sense, then, and seems to have been a way of attempting to get fresh work from as many new artists on to record store shelves as possible. We've all heard of cash-strapped indie bands shoving out split seven inch singles together; this LP appears to be the work of four performers splitting two sides of 12" vinyl, presumably in the hope they could make a bigger splash for less outlay than four singles. 

That didn't happen, of course, and the trail they've all left behind is actually borderline non-existent. Neon Barbs are probably the best known artists here, as their "Break Your Chains" single has gone on to attract a fringe cult following among those who are fascinated by eighties esoterica. The rest? There's nothing out there. All The Cats, Carole Jenner and Radio Cairo arrived with this release, then subsequently disappeared again.

Fascinatingly, the record seems to evidence some kind of micro-scene up in Edinburgh, filled with antiseptic synthetic washes, anguished vocals and sulky moods taking priority over sharp hooks. The opening track from All The Cats, "Landsend", is yet another example of how much the mid-eighties were filled with minor groups for whom Talk Talk and Japan were bigger inspirations than Orange Juice or Human League. The track sails its way through misty atmospheres instead of hitting the listener with big choruses, grooves or mission statements. For all its subtlety, it's surprisingly memorable and haunting. 

Carl Simmons - Angel/ Hold On Ruby

Opportunistic pop-glam from rock and roll stalwart

Label: Antic

Year of Release: 1974

Sometimes it's hard to make a judgement call on whether an artist is opportunistically jumping on a bandwagon, or whether the world around them shifted and enabled them to be sucked into dominant trends. By the early seventies, Carl Simmons was already making something of a living by putting out fifties rock and roll covers on budget labels like Forest and Avenue - then by the time glam rock hit its peak, he suddenly added a glittery thump and thwack to his work. 

In doing so, he didn't really do much more than tinker around the edges of his existing style, bringing him close to the likes of Alvin Stardust in making the noises and poses of deepest rock history relevant for the seventies. Glam rock was always fascinating in this respect; finding room for the weird and wonderful (Bowie, Roxy) as well as revivalists who just wanted to take the best of the past and squeeze it into a spacesuit, hoping the kids could be tricked into eating up a side order of rock and roll if it was painted to look like the future.

Generally they could, but unlike Alvin, Glitter or Roy Wood, Simmons had no luck with his seventies recordings and most ended up in bargain bins as unwanted items. You can hear on "Angel" that he could have been a contender - this is catchy, wiggly glam at its plastic catchiest - but he probably needed something brighter and bolder than this, and ultimately it didn't cut through. 

Prior to this period of career, he had been a drummer in the Ember signed act Count Downe and the Zeros whose solitary release can be heard here. They later morphed into Peter and the Headliners who became the resident group on BBC2's "Beat Club".