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. 

Flight - Overnight Sensation/ It's Only Money

Satirical sneering at the Glam Rock swindle

Label: Buk

Year of Release: 1975

Some years ago a friend of mine found a pop music history book with a publication date of 1973 in a local charity shop, and sat and sniggered to himself about the perspective from that frozen point in time. The closer the narrative got to the year it was released, the wonkier (or less accepted by modern day standards) the perspective got. In particular, the end chapter looked forward to the future and made bold claims for Glam Rock, stating that it was the pop sound of the future with far-reaching influences, a sound that would reverberate throughout the ages and flex the pop sound into brand new shapes. 

I'm a lover of Glam myself and don't want to casually dismiss its influence, but in retrospect it's apparent that there were rumblings, whinings and bleepings going on in the world of electronic music at that time which would hit much harder on the future of pop music than the thud, chant and thwack of glam. David Bowie has unquestionably been a huge influence on numerous 21st Century artists, but even his most ardent fans would have to admit that it's his Berlin era albums (when he had one ear on influential and forward looking German sounds) and "Scary Monsters" that sounded more futuristic and prophetic than the adventures of Ziggy.

These are the perils of trying to predict the future with confidence. It's far too easy to become a cheap and careless soothsayer and predict that in the year 2076 we'll be listening to the music generated by our houseplants. And anyway, even at the time not everyone agreed with the more forgiving mainstream assessment of glam, with many (particularly prog fans) seeing it as little more than tinsel and tat, a circus filled with aged opportunists and their dodgy managers, a cheap passing craze no more relevant than skateboards or hula hoops. 

In 1974, First Class stuck the boot in with "Bobby Dazzler", a brilliant, sardonic and faintly bitter single about ageing rock stars hitching a ride on the glittery comet trail. "What they trying to do to you?" they sang. "They tell you what to wear and how to comb your hair/ and everything else you do". Alvin Stardust might have winced if he hadn't been too busy to hear it (presumably). 

Then in 1975, just as the glam party was truly on the wane, Flight spat on the dying patient by putting this one out, a 10cc-esque sneer at the pop tat around them. The band adopt a Bay City Rollers chug and sing "We're the latest and the greatest to be born" through their teeth. "We're our manager's creation/ and we love the adoration" they add, just to hammer the point home. 

Precious Little - Ain't Got No Balls/ Lonely Nights

Label: DJM

Year of Release: 1979

DJM is probably most famous for being the label which Elton John found fame and fortune with, churning out a phenomenal volume of LPs and singles for them in the seventies. Elton was their only big hitter, however, and once he departed to release records through his own Rocket label, it was exposed for what it was - a small label lacking a cohesive vision. Their discography consisted of bits of library music, punk records (Slaughter and the Dogs), records by the Village People before they were famous, rock & roll revival records -  a total mish-mash, and perhaps more importantly a generally unsuccessful mish-mash at that. 

This single stems from those weird and underachieving years, and in common with many DJM records of the period, is a rather odd pop record. You could possibly call it Lily Allen before her time if you plugged your ears slightly, but it's a weak comparison I'll probably regret making within five minutes of this post going live. It has a very plastic reggae rhythm and snappy female vocals, but feels very tight, clean, airless and artificial somehow. A bit more vim and chaos and it may have been a hit. 

The lead singer for this record seems to be Trisha O'Keefe, who went on to produce Sue Wilkinson's hit "You've Got To Be A Hustler If You Want To Get On" for Cheapskate Records. 

The record is also very notable for being a creation of Geoff Gill and Cliff Wade, who in a previous part of their career played a part in many a psychedelic pop single, from Cliff Wade's utterly bizarre "Look At Me I've Fallen Into A Teapot" to Gill's drumming work with near-hitters The Smoke. Stalwarts of the legendary Morgan Studios in Willesden, some of their work can be heard on the essential "House of Many Windows" compilation on Sanctuary Records, which focuses on the studio and its accompanying label.

If nothing else, "Ain't Got No Balls" is a testament to their flexibility, clearly proving that besides weird late sixties pop they were capable of producing work like this. Things got much rosier for them later on when they composed "Heartbreaker", which became a huge hit for Pat Benatar in the USA. Cliff Wade also went on to write "The Woman I'm Supposed To Be" for Tina Turner's "Rough" LP.