One-off EMI 45 from Ska revivalists
Label: Parlophone
Year of Release: 1980
This record acts as a good consumer trap if you think a record seller is lying when they claim their discs are "play tested". If they list it as an "early 45 from everyone's favourite computerised TV host!" then you know there's no damn way they've listened to more than three seconds of the thing (and also, zero points for their music trivia knowledge. Max Headroom the host was born in 1984. This record was released in 1980).
The only real comparison you could draw between the two is the bad joke that surrounds them - Max Headroom is, after all, what used to be written on all car park signs with a height afterwards to denote who would or wouldn't be able to get away with parking their vehicle there. Sometimes two people coincidentally make the same joke in public at around the same time and the fame of one eclipses the other.
So this record offers no glitchy computerised showbiz irony, but is in fact a piece of surprisingly raw ska. The A-side has been compiled elsewhere and remains available to buy on various mp3 sales sites, but the B-side "Rhythm & Blue Beat" is arguably better and remains under-exposed, consisting of hard hitting rhythms and sweet, simple melodies. It takes no liberties with the tight ska revival template and there's no particular reason the group should have been given another release on EMI after this one flopped - but there are worse examples out there from groups who went on to become ever-present fixtures on the scene.
(breaking news - Steve Spedding contacted me on Facebook to say that these two groups are actually NOT the same, which means there were three Max Headrooms in circulation in the eighties, and two groups called Max Headroom and the Car Parks. I'm tempted to say this disproves the notion that the decade was filled to the brim with great wit and endless imagination.
This means I have absolutely no clue who this Max Headroom and his Car Parks was. If you can help, please do leave a comment).
The Bob Clifford credited on the label as both writing and producing the songs is a bit of a mystery to me, then, although somebody of that name did work at EMI Music Publishing for awhile - it's not completely impossible that this 45 was a pet project of his.
After "Soldier" failed, there appear to have been no more releases from the group.
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4 comments:
Many years ago I played in a band called Hibi Yaki. Our only minor claim to fame was a track on a Red Stripe Lager compilation LP, and a 2 page spread in Melody Maker.
record is https://www.discogs.com/release/2379814-Various-Red-Stripe-Playback-Volume-1
I only mention this because we once headlined at the Rock Garden in Covent Garden, in about 1984, and one of the support bands was Max Headroom and the Car Parks. Not the ska band, for sure.
That's a pretty good claim to fame, though. Ah, the Rock Garden. So many memories of that place as I followed bands from either Southend or Portsmouth up to London to watch them try to impress the London media (or so they hoped, often the London media didn't show).
@23 Daves
We had only travelled down from Golders Green and Hendon. A later addition to our group, replacing the drum machine, was Shane Meehan, the son of Tony Meehan of The Shadows. He was about 16 at the time, somewhat younger than me in my early thirties!
He was a very good drummer.
Here's a clue: re the personnel in the Liz Owen band
Bass guitar: Dave Meaden has been involved in music for far longer than he cares to remember, with an early sighting on “Ready, Steady, Go” in 1963, sporting a Johnny Kidd eyepatch. From trad jazzers “The Syncobury Canterpaters” in the 60s to R&B stalwarts “Max Headroom and the Car Parks” in the 80s
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