Cut-Outs - D.I.Y/ We Don't Want To Hurt Ourselves/ Nearly Right

Label: EMI
Year of Release: 1979

Noel Edmonds - so much to answer for. From his cuddly patience with unpredictable children on Saturday morning TV to his frequently quite barbed japes at the expense of celebrities, Radio One DJ and TV host Edmonds straddled himself across seventies and eighties British popular culture like an immovable Blob(by). He was responsible for breaking many a hit on his widely listened to breakfast show, but it's safe to say that art-punk, DIY and new wave never really figured in his list of interests, even if he did get John Peel to host some segments on BBC TV's "Late Late Breakfast Show" (none of which had anything to do with music, before you ask).

This, then, is a truly peculiar story. One week on the Edmonds hosted "Swap Shop", it would seem that the programme found itself short of a band and in need of a replacement at very short notice. Upon realising that the assistant designer Grenville Horner had his own New Wave group Cut-Outs, a member of the crew asked him if he and his friends would mind stepping into the spotlight to fill the unexpected gap… and so it came to pass that the unsigned and almost entirely unheard of group went live on Saturday morning TV and gained themselves an interview with the jocular Noel afterwards. EMI spotted them performing "D.I.Y.", quickly booked them into the studio to get the track produced by John Leckie sharpish, and the rest is long-forgotten history. A punky anomaly on Edmonds' otherwise smooth and safe watch, and a rare, real-life example of the old Hollywood stand-by plot of "Hold on! The assistant kid can fill in for us!"

"D.I.Y." is actually slightly quirkier and more angular than you'd expect an employee of "Swap Shop" to come up with. "Brown Sauce" this isn't - rather, it's like Colin Newman out of Wire fronting a satirical approximation of Devo-styled pop, all sharp, panicked vocal delivery and staccato guitar parts. It certainly wasn't commercial enough to be a hit despite their television exposure and EMI's clout, and while the label offered them a tour supporting The Tourists to build their profile and take them to the next level, the members rejected the proposal all having day jobs to focus on.

We could deem them foolish for not grasping the opportunity, but as Grenville has subsequently gone on to work as a production designer on numerous major film productions, it would perhaps be foolish of us. The lead singer Graham Crowley is now Professor of Painting at the Royal College of Art, while the whereabouts of the guitarist John Feathers are less clear.

For leaving us this little gem in between BBC production duties and canteen breaks, however, we should salute Cut-Outs. They may never have made another record, but their one release emerged under such odd and non-punk underground circumstances that it's almost tailor-made for this blog.

Thanks to regular reader Arthur Nibble for bringing this track to my attention and causing me to seek it out. And obviously, if anyone, anywhere has video footage of their performance and the subsequent Edmonds interview, I for one would love to see it.

The Saucers - Spring Has Sprung/ Major Breakthrough

Label: BBC

Year of Release: 1982

The curious thing about fluke novelty hits is that the lucky performers seldom accept their fate as flash-in-the-pan artists.  Instead, they have a tendency to try to milk their already limited template dry - hence Lieutenant Pigeon spent years releasing (actually quite entertaining) singles with honky-tonk pianos that nobody really bought, The Firm's attempted follow-up to "Star Trekkin'" entitled "Superheroes" was just more squeaky sci-fi/ fantasy stupidity which didn't get played enough to even annoy anyone, and the less said about Edelweiss' attempts to go for a second gold the better.  

Noel Edmonds had spent years hosting "Top of the Pops" and watching the limited fortunes of actors and TV presenters attempting spin-off novelty singles, so you'd have thought he'd have been sceptical about Brown Sauce having another crack at the charts after "I Wanna Be A Winner" got into the Top Forty.  Perhaps he was, and perhaps it's for that reason that he fails to appear in the video or the credits for this particular effort - but nonetheless, Saturday morning Swap Shop regulars Keith Chegwin and Maggie Philbin feature, and his old chum BA Robertson is back on songwriting duties again. In all other respects, this is business as usual.

Unsurprisingly, this single completely failed to chart.  More interestingly, perhaps, it's actually quite good, even better than its predecessor.  Whereas "I Wanna Be A Winner" was essentially a silly, off-the-cuff joke created for the "Swap Shop" TV show which was only released as a single to cater for public demand, "Spring Has Sprung" is actually a reasonably classy piece of early eighties synth-pop, complete with hushed vocals, atmospheric fills and a similar demanding, stomping chorus.  You can tell that a lot more thought has been put into this - obviously, Philbin's semi-erotic monologue and peculiar mid-Atlantic vocals do threaten to push the whole thing into the realms of parody, but had this been issued by a serious pop act such as Dollar, it might have been a minor hit.  This does actually sound as if Robertson was taking the prospect of the celebrity couple Chegwin and Philbin having further hits seriously and had decided to push the concept as hard as he could.  The video for this single recently emerged online and even features Philbin pouting moodily whilst dressed in new wave garb, looking like some kind of proto-Donna-out-of-Elastica.  

The B-side, to my amazement, is also a proper song rather than an off-the-cuff instrumental.  "Major Breakthrough" is a strident piece of marching rock which involves Chegwin pleading with Philbin's (presumably fictional) army father for his daughter's hand, whilst Philbin coos "Ooh Daddy, ooh Daddy dear!" girlishly in the background.  This has just the right level of bizarre, angular tweeness to 

bear vague resemblances to a Bis B-side, a fair fourteen years before that bunch saw the light of day.

Still, let's not go overboard.  Both sides of this are ultimately disposable and inessential in the grand old game of pop, but the fact that they provide any pleasure at all is still a shock to the system.  I'm actually quite glad they did attempt this single, even if BBC Records and Tapes are probably sorry they bothered to spend any money pressing these up.

One Hit Wonders #5 - Brown Sauce - I Wanna Be A Winner

Label: BBC

Year of Release: 1981

Noel Edmonds... so much to answer for.  Readers outside the UK may not be familiar with Noel, and for the benefit of those folks I have to reveal that he was (and arguably still is) the cuddly bearded Uncle of the airwaves*, dominating the popular culture of the seventies and eighties in particular, and even most of the nineties until he decided to get "dangerous", "dark" and "edgy" on our asses.  And he did, too - the last series of the Saturday early evening extravaganza "Noel's House Party" saw him tormenting small children with fake 'aliens', losing his patience with surprised members of the public, and generally wheezing his airy laugh all over the place in a demonic fashion.  That was my favourite series, incidentally, but everyone else had tuned out by then.

Way, way before all that, however, he presented a morning show called "Swap Shop" where children would phone up and attempt to swap their unwanted gifts with other kids all over the UK.  In case this sounds too dull, the show was interspersed with celebrity banter, and interviews and japes from co-hosts Keith Chegwin and Maggie Philbin.  And that, really, is where this single comes in.  Written by Noel Edmonds and BA Robertson (of "Bang Bang" and "I Knocked it Off" fame) it is actually a passable ditty sung by Keith and Maggie, and not dissimilar in its stylings to Eurovision winners Bucks Fizz who were extremely popular at the time.  Featuring some of the worst rhymes to grace a pop song ever ("Don't want to rule like President Reagan/ or kick a ball like Kevin Keegan" they blurt hopefully) and some of the most joyful, sugary riffs, it really shouldn't be treated as a serious product.  Indeed, it was originally supposed to have been a one-off song on the programme, but public demand lead to its release on BBC Records.  Listen once and you'll find an earworming little pop song, twice and the appeal will begin to wane, then three times and you'll be sick to death of the simplicity of it.  You can't help but wonder if BA "Kool in the Kaftan" Robertson would have added a few more twists, turns and melodic diversions to the disc if he'd known it would actually become a single.  

Whilst a few extra frills might have given the single Top Five status, public demand still took it to a creditable number 15 on the charts in January 1982, but that was the best it could hope for, and a follow-up single credited to The Saucers (also penned by BA Robertson) barely registered in the public's consciousness.  Keith Chegwin went on to appear naked on evening television instead of Maggie Philbin as the Cosmic Ordering of all heterosexual male teenagers everywhere got terribly mixed up, Maggie Philbin herself did (and still does) numerous pieces of television presentation work, and Noel, of course, presents the ridiculously popular "Deal or No Deal" quiz show.  But you'd have to be from Planet Zog not to have noticed that.

As for BA Robertson, his solo career had stalled by 1981, but he eventually co-wrote "The Living Years" - not with Noel Edmonds this time, but Mike Rutherford out of Genesis for his Mike and the Mechanics project.  Beyond the beards, one has to wonder whether Rutherford and Edmonds have much in common, although I find it hard to imagine Rutherford doing prank phone calls to all and sundry.  But you never know... perhaps Peter Gabriel dreads the phone ringing at some unearthly hour...

(*Footnote fact - Despite his cuddly Uncle image, Edmonds has made it known in interviews that he's a tough person to work for.  Read into that what you will.)

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