Second Hand Record Dip Part 84 - Baby Amphetamine - Chernobyl Baby

Who: Baby Amphetamine
What: Chernobyl Baby
Label: Creation
When: 1987
Where: Flashback Records, Islington, London
Cost: 99p

When it comes to bizarre pop curios, Creation is the label that just keeps on giving.  At this point in its history Alan McGee decided to generate as much press as possible for a very simple idea, and one which could be deemed to be the ultimate conclusion of pop music's conveyor belt mentality.  He and cult artist Momus headed off to the Virgin Megastore on London's Oxford Street, selected the three prettiest female staff members, and asked them if they wanted to be in a band.  He then rush-wrote this single for them to release, and encouraged the NME to cover the story.

Whilst obviously there is a little bit more to the story than that, there's not really much to add. David Cavanagh's fantastically in-depth biography of Creation Records "My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize" manages to cover the rise and fall of Baby Amphetamine in a mere three pages, pinpointing them as an interesting idea which was retrospectively regarded by all concerned as a wrong-foot. Perhaps the most amusing event of all wasn't the scam itself or the release of the record, but the fact that McGee's newest employees took against him almost immediately.  Seeming to regard him as a sexist idiot who was only interested in using them as puppets, one member (Perule) was quoted as saying: "If we did this interview like we were told to by McGee, we'd be saying things like 'Simon Le Bon should be given an acid bath'. But that's so old, so dated. Alan lives in a time warp".  Another member, Jo, added: "Manipulated? Not at all. All that's happened is that someone's thrown a bit of their money at us...  let's not get too serious about it - I mean, what's actually happened? We've made a record, and somebody... has bought us a leather jacket each and been a complete wanker".

Harsh words, but - whether it was what McGee wanted or not - this outcome was slightly more interesting than the usual "Starmaker picks pretty, talentless girls to front single" angle the NME could otherwise have run with, and the fact the tables were turned on him before the single even dropped is fascinating.  For his own part, McGee has stated that he felt the women behaved exactly like models who have made a bad pop single then suddenly believed themselves to be pop stars, and I suspect the truth lies between two poles, with McGee probably patronising the women involved and treating them as a living joke (one wonders if he would have headed off to a nightclub to pick the best looking men to give the same treatment to) and the women in turn getting a feel for the limelight and attempting to run before they could walk.  Never before in the music industry have a group of artists tried to run away from their manager and label so quickly.

The furore surrounding the release made something of a footnote of the record itself, and that's perhaps not surprising.  This is far from being the worst single Creation ever issued - there are efforts by Les Zarjaz and The Legend! that trump it - but it's rather forgettable.  One critic has observed that Baby Amphetamine sound exactly like the band who sing "Alien Invasion" on an old eighties Kit Kat advert, and that's not far off the mark.  With its hip-hop beats and clumsy sloganeering, it's playing time comes and goes without leaving any real impression, seemingly an afterthought to the whole debacle.  Baby Amphetamine deliver little, McGee isn't as lyrically shocking as he clearly wants to be, and it all slides by gently on mediocrity and cliches, predating the hundreds of crap no-hope shock-value sub-hip hop Hoxton bands who would emerge in the noughties (so in one way at least, it was ahead of its time, though not ahead of anything actually commercially or critically successful).

As for what became of Jackie, Perule and Jo, history does not record this.  They attempted to continue their career after McGee quickly dropped them, but nothing came of it.  In one respect, however, the single may have been important - Bill Drummond was apparently enthused enough by the scam to begin work on the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu's debut album, and there are certainly shades of Baby Amphetamine about his side-project Disco 2000. So maybe this did have a much larger, unacknowledged influence after all, despite its very obvious shortcomings.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 83 - Pookiesnackenburger - Pookiesnackenburger (Soundtrack LP)

Who: Pookiesnackenburger
What: Pookiesnackenburger (Soundtrack Album)
Where: Sister Ray, Soho, London
Label: Talkback
When: 1985
Cost: £1.99

The name Pookiesnackenburger may sound naggingly familiar to you, and that's probably because of all the bands to be featured on this blog, they probably went on to be among the most successful artists. They've been applauded by Hollywood, performed at The Oscars ceremony, and had regular West End shows in London to the point where their advertising is as much the backdrop to city life as the pigeons themselves.  None of the members of Dr Marigold's Prescription can claim such wonders.

To begin with, however, they were a modest Brighton-based theatre/ street performance ensemble who mixed comedy, parody and music together to create unique live shows which began to create a stir during the alternative comedy boom.  Recordings of their shows are difficult to come by, but it would seem that they incorporated a ragbag of various elements - radical percussive dustbin clattering, live music, audience interaction and goofed-out stupidity.  This period of activity led to a cover of the "Just One Cornetto" advert emerging on Stiff Records, a manic performance involving the popular trash can bashing element of their live shows, plus an album "Pookie Beach Party".  Both efforts flopped.

However, unlike other Stiff stiffs such as Any Trouble or Department S, Pookie clearly had more to offer than just music.  As such, interest from Channel 4 was perhaps inevitable given the keen eye executives there had for any well-drilled comedy act operating on the fringes, and they were initially asked to contribute shorts to a programme called "Alter Image", then finally given the go-ahead to create their own television show.

The resulting eponymous "Pookiesnackenburger" series has been strangely under-chronicled since.  Most British comedy websites acknowledge its existence but can't seem to offer more details about its contents.  Only one show has emerged on YouTube since, the heavy metal parodying "Hell Bent" which tells the twisted story of a group of obnoxious, arrogant black metallers who travel to an obscure residential country studio to summon the devil through their music.  Whilst clearly attempting to ape "The Wicker Man" in places, this episode also offers brilliantly astute parodies of two wildly opposing musical genres, namely metal and rustic folk music.  Elsewhere in the show, some (though by no means all) of the attempts at comedy creak slightly.  The gurning and over-acting of some members clearly highlighted their roots on the live circuit, and showed that they hadn't quite got into the swing of toning their act down for the camera yet.  Additionally, the special effects are largely of a Kenny Everett Video Show quality (which may have been intentional and seemed likeably silly at the time).  For all that, though, there's a unique and peculiar feel to the show, and a sense that it might have developed into something slicker had it been granted a second series.  The combination of horror, occasionally grotesque comedy and parody on display also proves that The League of Gentlemen really weren't first on the block with these ideas, whatever we may have supposed at a later date - although on the evidence we have available to us, their efforts seem stronger.

The soundtrack album that followed the series showcased the music, and stripped of their original context some of these struggle to make complete comedic sense.  "Mysteroids Theme/ Pop Go The Asteroids" was apparently from a Thunderbirds-apeing episode, but merely feels like a likeable piece of retro-kitsch here.  Of more interest to me is the track "Be Cool", which sounds like it's taking on the stylings of Dexys Midnight Runners (or perhaps the likes of the Joboxers) and actually succeeding in being enjoyable in its own right.  Likewise, the metal parodies ("Heavy Metal Life" and "The Lost Canticle of Beelzebub") are heavy-handed, but this was the eighties - Heavy Metal itself was hardly subtle at this point, and Pookiesnackenburger do successfully highlight some of its more ridiculous excesses.

Inevitably the album flopped, and Pookie were forced to rethink their approach.  For a brief period they renamed themselves Yes/No People, shed some members but gained others, and attempted to become slick, funky, near-serious artists.  One single was released ("Mr Johnson") which enjoyed a lot of publicity but failed to break the UK Top 100.  Given this disappointment, they returned to their roots as a theatre troupe, and - whether through smart business planning or just responding to public demand - gave the dustbin bashing element of their live shows complete focus.  A final name-change to "Stomp" occurred, and guided by original members Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas, they remain a serious live draw, performing all over the world to critical acclaim and large audiences.

I've offered a few clips of "Pookiesnackenburger" below, so you can listen to those before deciding whether it's worth your while downloading the album.

Tracklisting:
1. Dance With A Sexy Smile
2. Be Cool
3. Killing Time (The Work Song)
4. Mysteroids Theme/ Pop Go The Asteroids
5. River Of Love
6. Beach Party
7. Dustbin Dance
8. Restoration Scat
9. Oh My My
10. The King's Song
11. Heavy Metal Life
12. Green Man And Corn Dolly
13. The Lost Canticle of Beelzebub

Second Hand Record Dip Part 82 - Tom Catz - It's The Fonz/ Love Walked Out The Door

Who: Tom Catz
What: It's The Fonz/ Love Walked Out The Door
Where: Music and Video Exchange, Notting Hill, London
Label: Weekend
When: 1978
Cost: £2

True fact: back when I was a five-year old boy, my family nickname was "The Fonz".  This was not because I owned a leather jacket or could even click my fingers in a commanding and charismatic fashion (I couldn't even whistle yet) but, I suspect, as some kind of ironic joke.  I doubt the Fonz dribbled peanut butter sandwiches around his face or regularly tripped over the family dog.  He was certainly never spanked for pissing up against a neighbour's wall whilst being caught short in the garden, that's for sure (unless there's an aborted "Happy Days" script out there I know nothing about).

Still, it's evidence of the ubiquity of the character at the peak of the success of "Happy Days".  The Fonz was deemed to be the very epitome of cool, almost something to aspire to.  As a small boy I definitely wanted to be The Fonz, but by the time I had the choice as a grown adult I obviously never tried.  Cool has context.  Clicking your fingers and saying "Hey" is all well and good in a feel-good retro sitcom, but it would make you seem like an utter pillock whilst doing a Saturday job in a supermarket.  Respect would not be forthcoming from your colleagues if you clicked your fingers at them whilst replenishing the cheese counter.

So then... "It's The Fonz" was obviously a cash-in song designed to profit on a craze in much the same way that "Kung Fu Fighting" had some years before.  The crucial difference here is that "Kung Fu Fighting" was a hugely enjoyable record, whereas "It's The Fonz" pastiches doo-wop vocals and feels right, but isn't a potent enough bit of pop to really make the grade.  One of the first rules of any successful novelty record is that you should be humming it after the first play even if you utterly despise it - "It's The Fonz" doesn't really achieve that.  Oddly though, the flip-side "Love Walked Out The Door" is a serious sounding piece of soul which sounds as if it could have been a hit in its own right had the wind been blowing in the right direction (God knows "Top of the Pops" was filled to the brim with this stuff throughout that period).

The Internet is being very unhelpful in helping me to identify who Tom Catz was (and I'm assuming he was a person rather than a group) but media buffs will no doubt note the fact that he was signed to London Weekend Television's label, a relatively short-lived venture which often put out records by the kind of variety acts who graced its programmes, such as these chaps.  It's highly probable that he did have some sort of media profile at the time, but as for where, who knows?  Most of my searches just lead to either one or two suggestions, none of which take me any further forward.

Sorry for the scuffed-sounding nature of these sides, by the way - I tried my best to clean them up.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 81 - Master Singers - Weather Forecast/ Roadilore

Who: The Master Singers
What: Weather Forecast/ Roadilore
Label: Parlophone
When: 1966
Where: Music and Video Exchange, Notting Hill Gate, London
Cost: £1

We've already explored the peculiar world of The Master Singers once on this blog, and there's little to add at this juncture.  After "The Highway Code" invaded the charts in a manner which must surely have surprised most people, they decided to chance their arm at the format again, this time recording an Anglican chant version of a typical British weather forecast.

Surprisingly, despite the fact that this was really just a repeat of their first joke, the single only just missed breaking into the Top 40, finally finishing at Number 45.  It's fair to say that if you've heard "The Highway Code" you'll already know what to expect - it's a peacefully melodic a-capella summary of a changeable weather system with a bit of a punchline at the end.

After this disc the group largely gave up, although they are notable for also providing Peter Sellers with backing on his Richard III version of "A Hard Day's Night" - but in reality, the demand for Anglican singers performing parodical versions of everyday public texts was rather limited, and once their idea to sing elements of the Yellow Pages telephone directory was dismissed as a step too far, that was largely the end of that.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 80 - Leslie Sarony - Three Cheers For The Undertaker/ The K-Hissing Song

Who: Leslie Sarony
What: Three Cheers For The Undertaker/ The K-Hissing Song
Label: Imperial
When: 193(?)
Where: Wood Street Market, Walthamstow, London
Cost: £1

I don't own many 78rpm gramophone records, and I very seldom bother to try to convert the ones I do have to mp3 - this is for the simple reason that it's a messy and often unsuccessful process.  What I have to do is record the record at the wrong speed from my modern deck which uses completely the wrong kind of stylus, convert it to the correct speed, and sit with fingers crossed as I attempt to reduce the overwhelming flood of background noise too.  Neighbours have heard me cussing and swearing during this duty, I can tell you, sir.

This one was worth the fight, though, even if the end results are definitely imperfect.  Leslie Sarony was a music hall performer in Great Britain from 1913 onwards, and issued a colossal number of 78rpm records of popular comedy songs and his own work.  Among his triumphs are the vegetable rights ditty "Don't Be Cruel To A Vegetabuel", the observationally faultless "Why Build A Wall Around A Graveyard", and the utterly timeless "Don't Do That To The Poor Puss Cat".  Sarony absolutely flooded the market with these discs to the extent that I haven't seen what I believe to be a truly accurate discography yet, and naturally when the Bonzo Dog Band went raiding junk shops for 78s, they found plenty of his and were inspired enough by "Jollity Farm" and "Hunting Tigers Out In Indi-ah" to cover both.

The A-side on offer here, "Three Cheers For The Undertaker", is a piece of pitch black humour which is (almost unbelievably) available on iTunes with much improved audio, so if the brief clip below arouses your curiosity you can always head that way to buy it.  However the flip, "The K-Hissing Song", is so absurd that one friend of mine completely refused to believe it was a record from the thirties and instead insisted I was winding him up.  In it, Sarony explains that ladies can be seduced with a clever combination of both kissing and hissing like a snake, and warns of the dangers of kissing women too vigorously who have used a lot of face cream (apparently this is liable to lead to a slide-slip into their ears).  It's not difficult to understand how it didn't capture the public's imagination as much as "Don't Do That To The Poor Puss Cat" as it perhaps lacked that tune's mainstream accessibility, but top marks must be awarded to Sarony for coming up with such an off-the-wall comedic idea.

Sarony performed for most of his life, appearing during his later years in the Monty Python film "The Meaning of Life" as one of the elderly insurance clerks at "Crimson Permanent Assurance", as well as featuring in the sitcom "Nearest and Dearest".  He died in 1985, but the impressive and bizarre back-catalogue of records he left behind isn't talked about enough for my liking, and nor is his obvious influence on British comedy.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 79 - Tom, Jim and Garth - Come Home Newfoundlander/ Something To Sing About

Who: Tim, Jim & Garth (of "The Scotians")
What: Come Home Newfoundlander/ Something To Sing About
Label: Melbourne
When: 196(?)
Where: Wood Street Market, Walthamstow
Cost: 50p

My wife's Canadian, you know. So really, you'd have thought that this particular single might have slipped inside her luggage when she moved permanently to the UK, or perhaps have been sent to us as a gift. You'd be wrong, however - it turned up in Wood Street Market in Walthamstow (East London) late last year to the complete and total bemusement of us both, sitting in the sixties 50p boxes alongside the usual records by Cliff Richard, The Tremeloes, Ken Dodd, et al.

Tom, Jim and Garth were all members of a Canadian folk outfit called The Scotians (later known as The New Scotians) and their chief member Thomas Powers was responsible for putting on gigs in "The Living End" coffee bar on Grafton Street in Halifax. Their output ranged from folk to pop to calypso, but primarily they were an important cog in the Canadian folk circuit and apparently capable of stirring up the memories of many people in that area.

This single has been rather heavily loved - "Come Home Newfoundlander" is battered beyond belief and horribly needleworn, which I apologise for - but is a two sided effort of very patriotic ditties about everyone's favourite large country north of the USA, and I suspect it may possibly have been geared at the tourist market in some way, which might explain how a copy ended up back home in the UK.  Both sides are quite charming, and as soon as I got the record home and played it my wife realised she knew both songs from her childhood, and that Canuck folk rockers The Great Big Sea also recorded a version of "Come Home Newfoundlander" (though I doubt that's going to mean anything to most readers).

Sadly, group leader Thomas Powers passed away in 2010 after a period of running a barber's business whilst continuing to play music.  What became of the rest of The New Scotians I'm none too sure, but I'm sure somebody will be able to fill in the blanks - certainly, some of their records seem very collectible these days.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 78 - Minty - That's Nice!

Who: Minty
What: That's Nice!
Label: Sugar
When: 1996
Where: Oxfam, Crouch End, London
Cost: £1

Oh Lord, this is a peculiar blog entry to have to write.  Minty were a very strange proposition indeed in the nineties, having formed by designer/ artist/ character Leigh Bowery in order to attempt to earn a regular living out of his media profile.

Bowery was a complex figure who cannot easily be explained over the course of a pithy blog entry.  Born in the suburbs of Melbourne where he spent his unhappy youth, he relocated to London in the eighties and preceded to reinvent himself like so many new Londoners before him.  The difference is, Bowery's presence in London clubland was absurd and bizarre, an enormous human work of art rather than the usual simple, genre-fixated exhibitionism one can find whilst strolling around Camden or Hoxton.  At the height of his obsession with taking his personal appearance one stage further, he attempted to slash off one of his ears in a Vincent Van Gogh style.  His Wikipedia page is lovingly maintained and incredibly detailed, and his ITV documentary with Hugh Laurie (yes, that Hugh Laurie) is also worth a peek here - if only to see Laurie's worried and uncertain visage throughout.

Whilst Bowery had enjoyed some high-profile art exhibitions and clothes designs - designing stagewear for Boy George at one point in the eighties, and appearing in the video for "Mr Pharmacist" by The Fall - he remained a council flat tenant in London, relying on irregular bouts of cash to get by.  Minty the band were therefore allegedly put together as a response to this problem, releasing amongst other singles "Useless Man" ("Boot licking, tit tweaking useless man").  They caught the attention of the national press in the UK - who always do seem to give a simultaneous helping and slapping hand to any eccentric doing something perverse - but this utterly failed to translate into sales, and apparently made Bowery's cashflow problem worse.

It doesn't take a supreme business mind to work out what might have gone wrong.  Whoever you may be and however well known you are, forming a band is rarely the answer to your financial difficulties, and this applies even if what you're doing fits present trends and fashions.  Minty were odd, confrontational, slightly frightening and ignored most of the rules behind writing pop hits, and thus were unlikely to get anyone involved platinum discs.  So it proved.

When Bowery died as a result of complications from AIDS in 1994, the band (including his wife Nicola Bowery) took the unusual decision to carry on releasing records anyway, and "That's Nice!" is one of those.  Like a peculiar series of seventies early evening quiz show catchphrases set to synthesisers, it's somehow simultaneously amusing and irritating, like a giant pink day-glo pink foam hand with a raised middle digit.  Taunting cries of "God is dead!/ Sunglasses worn on head!" and "Nice to see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya!" weave in and out through simplistic, primitive and discordant electronic riffs, and  as a listener I'm forced to occasionally wonder if this is supposed to be pissing me off, or someone else entirely, or everyone.  Certainly the quantity of remixes available on this disc are overkill and as a result I've only included two, the Add N to (X) one and the Partycrashers mix.

"That's Nice!" enjoyed some late night radio airplay in the UK - especially from Mark Radcliffe and Marc Riley on Radio One - but almost inevitably wasn't a hit.  Its presence in a North London charity shop was a surprise, though perhaps not entirely inappropriately at the very second I picked it up a very strange senior gentleman who smelt of urine and had a flower in his hair began a long bothering campaign which lasted until I left the store.  I'm tempted to chalk it up as being part of the whole experience.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 77 - Natural Life - Strange World

Who: Natural Life
What: Strange World
Label: Hollywood
When: 1992
Where: de Plaatboef, Oude Gracht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Cost: 50 Euros

It was a funny time, the early nineties, filled with a combination of political angst and grooved up music. It might sound perverse and desperately unfashionable now, but back then (my son) you could form bands with very specific political lyrical agendas and squeeze endless albums out of them, whether their specialism happened to be feminist, Marxist or Anarchic rhetoric. Not only that, but people actually thought they were slightly cool as well.

Natural Life are a particularly odd case in point, having been promoted as an environmentally conscious rock band with long hair, recycled record sleeves and singles which had a rather hollering, angsty outlook combined with big guitars and shufflesome beats. Subtlety never seemed to be on their particular agenda - this disc, for example, mentions shotguns very close to the call-and-response line "Sing it to me sist-errrr!" suggesting that their ambitions were to fill huge arenas rather than the local bar. Like a number of otherwise forgotten bands in this peculiar post-eighties period, there was a flavour of both the rapidly exiting baggy bands and the stadium ambitions of Then Jericho in their work, a dominating sense that all bases were being covered to appeal to as wide an audience as possible so their messages could be heard by all and sundry.

The B-side exercises their alternative roots a bit more keenly, being a dub-rock excursion which sounds incredibly like the festival-goers dance music of choice back in those days when Glastonbury was only just beginning to seem like it might be important.

This was their debut single which failed to chart, but the follow up "Natural Life", complete with a video featuring the band running, skipping and jumping through the Spanish wilderness posing with unplugged instruments, jumped into the UK Top 50 after Radio One and ITV Chart Show support. That proved to be their swansong - their album failed to chart, no follow-up was forthcoming, and like David Icke, the concept of Green rock music never really bothered the mainstream in the UK again. The drummer Shovell would later find gainful employment in M People, the whereabouts of Jon Spong, Darren Hunter, Liggy Locko, Mark Mathews, Ray Wilson and 'Big' Sydney Holdforth remain less clear.

The video for "Natural Life" also seems to be unavailable on YouTube - although I'm guessing somebody somewhere must have an off-air of the Chart Show episode it was broadcast on - but you can see them performing "Strange World" live here.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 76 - Nadine Expert - I Wanna Be A Rollin' Stone

Who: Nadine Expert
What: I Wanna Be A Rolling Stone
Label: CBS
When: 1978
Where: Wood Street Market, Walthamstow, London
Cost: 50p

Oh God. This is a prime example of a single you might spot in the 50p bin and do a double take about, not because you expect any good to come of chancing upon it - let's face it, the sleeve hardly promises a great lost artistic gem - but because you hope that it has some kind of kitsch appeal. And does it? Well, you be the judge.

Information on Nadine Expert online is about as scanty as the daywear she posed in for many of her record sleeves, but the media story appears to be that she happened to "bump into" Bill Wyman at an unnamed airport whilst he was on his travels (attractive young women seemed to stumble into Wyman's path a lot at this time) and following a chat with the man was offered the opportunity of a recording career. Well, it could happen to any of us. You can only wonder at the content of that conversation which must have occurred at the luggage carousel, or perhaps whilst they were both innocently waiting for the shuttle bus to ferry them to a useful terminal. This, the first single, was a disco medley of some The Rolling Stones classics, including "Paint it Black" performed in an absurdly joyous manner. It sounds exactly as you'd expect it to, and is only really notable for predating the trend for popular disco medleys of old hits by several years.

Nadine managed some success on the continent and is still respected by some aficionados of disco music. There's a clip of her performing this very track on some unnamed European music show, where she struts her stuff in a very confident, Suzy Quatro influenced, proto-Samantha Fox hybrid kinda way. Beyond that, it's very difficult to think of anything to add.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 75 - Cirrus - Rollin' On

Who: Cirrus
What: Rollin' On
Label: Jet
When: 1978
Where: Wood Street Market, Walthamstow, London
Cost: 50p

Ah, chocolate for men! Where were we in the days before we had chocolate for men, eh lads? In the seventies, if you were a bloke and you wanted a chocolate bar, you had to buy Dairy Milk and end up looking like a lady in public or (as one astute YouTube commenter puts it) "a bit like Larry Grayson". Dairy Milk and Galaxy, delicious though they are, were for men of suspicious inclinations. And as no self-respecting gentleman would ever want such an image, we had to resort to stealing bars from petrol stations, eating them in the middle of the night for fear that our lady-wives and lovers would catch us, and even hiding it in the Garden Shed underneath the biggest saw we could find. Put it this way, it wasn't much of a life.

Thank God for Rowntrees, then, who put an end to the whole dilemma by producing a low quality, manly chocolate bar all chaps could enjoy without fear of criticism. "Yorkie" (also slang for "Yorkshire Terrier", which as we know isn't an especially masculine dog - I'm stunned they got away with that one) was launched with adverts including a butch, confident truck driver slowly eating the large sized bricks of the stuff with an expression somewhere between smug self-satisfaction and sexual ambition. However hackneyed and silly this idea seems now, it worked a charm in the seventies, and propelled the bar up the best-selling chocolate charts - this despite the fact that it's among the shoddiest commercial chocolate I've ever wrapped my tongue around.

The tune from the advert was clearly popular enough that Jet Records thought it could be a hit single. They were wrong, obviously, and even the aid of this novelty chocolate bar shaped and coloured record didn't help matters. It's pure cod-Country and Western, all twangs and mock American accents, and frankly sounds like a right load of old cobblers. For just a few minutes, though, you could imagine you were the gentleman in the track, that confident, swaggering brute with only miles of road ahead and loads of chocolate on your mind, and as a fetching bonus you got a peculiarly shaped disc for your record collection into the bargain.

This entry is also almost topical in that one of the lorry driving men Stuart Mungall was recently sent to prison after committing euthanasia on his wife. "Left and to the Back" isn't really the place to comment about such complex social issues, but it's such an enormous elephant in the room that I didn't think I could let the entry finish without mentioning it.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 74 - Mr Food - And That's Before Me Tea!

Who: Mr. Food
What: "...and that's before me tea!"
Label: Tangible
When: 1990
Where: Wood Street Market, Walthamstow, London
Cost: 50p

It's been over three months since the last "Second Hand Record Dip" entry, such a long gap in the service that I feel almost obliged to remind you all of what the hell the concept actually is. Essentially, it involves a dig into the remaindered section you find in the second hand record store, the unloved vinyl that gets tossed into the plastic crates on the floor near the back (or, in particularly uncared for cases, on the pavement outside) for the passing cheapskate to contemplate whilst on their bended knees praying for budget miracles. I've had some fantastic finds in the 50p box before now, but SHRD doesn't focus on the gems but the oddities - the flotsam and jetsam that may have stayed there forever had not somebody with a blog to write passed by.

Ex-BBC Radio One DJ Steve Wright has already cropped up in this section of the blog, and it's frankly no surprise to find him getting mentioned again. In the great musical box of fireworks, Wrighty has always been responsible for the fast-burning ones which do little more than make a few farting noises, mostly to the amusement of the assembled children and grandparents. Even his hit and near-hit singles remain largely forgotten by the General Public and are certainly no longer commercially available. Like slumber parties and roller discos, his melodic output does not appeal once you reach adulthood (One possible exception might be his effort under the name of Arnee and the Terminaters, whose single managed to prophesise the career of Scooter, so now is amusing for reasons entirely separate to the ones he originally intended).

So then, I'd stopped listening to Steve Wright's show by the time the jingle this single was based on begun to air on his show, having developed what I thought was a more grown-up interest in moodily listening to indie bands, and have no idea what the hell the context of it was - although context meant very little to our Steve, so it's safe to say this was probably played endlessly for the hell of it. It consists of a Geordie character known only as Mr Food delivering a Pam Ayers-esque series of lyrics about how much he enjoys eating over a basic, jaunty piano backdrop. And that really is it. The title of the single itself is the punchline to the joke, so that's out of the bag before the needle even hits the groove. It's the kind of thing you hear at open mic nights up and down the country when a musical comedy act takes the stage after being encouraged by their well-meaning friends, delivers a ditty to polite laughter, then promptly naffs off never to be seen again. With Wrighty's help, however, this managed a staggering number 62 position in the charts, hardly a life-changing triumph for anyone concerned, but certainly more than most indie-distributed discs of the era could hope for.

This record probably wouldn't be worthy of further mention were it not for the fact that the gentleman behind the mask of Mr Food, David Sanderson, went on to craft several pastoral neo-psychedelic pop songs under the name of Flowerbed, and his efforts can be found here. When he wasn't titting around with Steve Wright and The Afternoon Boys, clearly he was taking the time to study his Lilac Time and XTC albums closely. Sanderson is also a contemporary classical music composer who has had his work performed at several major concert halls in Britain and abroad, and if you honestly expected this entry to end in such a manner, you're far more wised up than I was when I began to research the man behind the disguise. Sometimes even these ridiculous chance finds can lead to interesting places.

For those of you wondering what was on the flip side to this, by the way - because I know at least one person will be - it appears to be exactly the same song all over again in the guise of a "remix". A mis-press or satire? You be the judge. And while you're sitting thinking about that, there's a low quality copy of the promo video to watch over on YouTube.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 73 - Colorado - California Dreaming/ Space Lady Love

Who: Colorado 
What: California Dreaming (b/w "Space Lady Love") 
Label: Pinnacle 
When: 1978 

Where: Music and Video Exchange, Camden High Street, London 

Cost: 50p

Hot on the heels of the last "Second Hand Record Dip", Tik and Tok's eighties electronic version of "Summer in the City", comes this - a disco version of the Mamas and the Papas evergreen hit "California Dreaming".  Covered by a multitude of artists over the last forty plus years, "California Dreaming" does admittedly feel like something of a cliche these days, but this at least is not a xerox copy.  Instead, it attempts to shift the sound on to the seventies dancefloor.  

This particular version was widely anticipated to be a hit at the time, so much so that the group were allowed to appear on "Top of the Pops" despite not having a Top 40 slot to their names.  It made very little difference despite their best efforts, as the single stalled at number 45.  Whilst this version does indeed vamp up the original with some sultry disco noises, there's something a little bit too clinical and contrived about it, and I smell the suspicious whiff of stale sweat and lager of various session musos in action under an assumed "band name" here (although I'd be happy to be proved wrong).

The flip side, however, is a lovely piece of disco dancefloor action you would have hoped somebody at the label would have had more faith in.  "Space Lady Love" is full of Eurodisco and Giorgio Moroder lifts, complete with that squelching, grumbling electronic undertow which characterised so much of the output at the time.  The high pitched vocals are the kind of thing The Scissor Sisters got their notebooks out for at the peak of their careers, and whilst I'd be surprised to learn that they listened to this particular B-side of a flop single, it's certainly jumping up and down and doing the splits under a very similar mirror ball.  

Despite their TOTP appearance I have absolutely zero information on the band, so it's up to some other wise sage to fill in the blanks.  

And... once again, please excuse the pops and clicks.  I have tried to clean this audio up a bit, but the below is really the best I can do.  

(Incidentally, "Left and to the Back" will be updating with mp3 entries on Monday and Thursday mornings as of this entry - random news and housekeeping updates notwithstanding, of course.  I sincerely doubt that even the most regular readers will have noticed the Saturday/ Wednesday update schedule the blog had dropped into, but shifting the timings around a little makes more sense as it leaves me able to write new entries at the weekend then queue them for release.  You don't need to know this, and I don't need to announce it, but... erm... Oh, whatever).  

Second Hand Record Dip Part 72 - Tik and Tok - Summer in the City

Who: Tik and Tok
What: Summer in the City (b/w Crisis)
Label: Survival
When: 1981
Where: Music and Video Exchange, Camden High Street, London
Cost: 50p

Readers of a certain vintage may have hazy memories of Tik and Tok, a robotic dance duo who appeared on all manner of television programmes in the early eighties.  Robotic dancing in the present day and age is popularly regarded to be the folly of Covent Garden street performers rather than cutting edge cabaret, but like mime, the Jim Rose Circus and puppets that emit cuss words, there was a brief point in time where it seemed an exotic and thoroughly modern affair.  Such things usually have a shelf-life of six months to a year before the allure fades and the talent becomes a gimmick, and so it proved with this duo, whose career high wasn't especially prolonged.

For a time, however, Tik and Tok were actually quite mainstream, popping up on Kenny Everett's television programmes and The Royal Variety Show, and supporting Gary Numan on tour (as well as being supported by a young Depeche Mode).  Until I stumbled across this record in the racks of "Music and Video Exchange", I had no memory of what they sounded like, and was expecting the kind of staccato, psuedo-futuristic and alienated fare we've already heard from The Techno Twins and Karel Fialka.  On the contrary, their cover of the Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer in the City" here is actually surprisingly upbeat and effective.  Taking the simplistic stomping rhythms of the original and highlighting them for robotic effect, it's a piece of electronic music that's dated amazingly well, sounding almost like a piece of noughties post-modern pastiche.   The original song is good enough to weather most changes to the original arrangement, but Tik and Tok manage to make it sound as if it always was a piece of eighties electro-pop right from the first hearing, which is actually an astonishing feat for a familiar, evergreen single.  I bought this half-expecting to burst out laughing on the first spin, only to find myself getting strangely into it and promptly putting it on my iPod playlist.

The B-side "Crisis" has aged well too, sounding inspired by Kraftwerk and German electronic pop, and featuring a strange and jarring piece of dialogue which is supposed to be one of the Kray Twins dialling a wrong number and getting through to the robo-duo's HQ.  Again, it manages to give the impression of Shoreditch and Hoxton circa 2005 rather than the Kenny Everett Video Show circa 1981, although whether that's innovative or a grave war crime depends upon your personal perspective.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tik and Tok are still performing today, and apparently regularly appearing at Star Wars conventions thanks to their appearance in "Return of the Jedi".  It almost feels as if I should finish this blog entry on a sarcastic or ironical comment, but actually... why should I?  It would be far too lazy and far too easy, and unnecessary given the fact that I like this single.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 71 - Biddu Orchestra - Soul Coaxing

Who: Biddu Orchestra
What: Soul Coaxing
Label: Epic
When: 1977
Where: Music and Video Exchange, Camden High Street, London
Cost: 50p

Back in the seventies, Biddu Appaiah was something of a disco legend, producing huge hits for Tina Charles and Carol Douglas.  He's still around today and creating new material, largely influenced more by the pop sounds of his Indian homeland than the likes of "Kung Fu Fighting" or "I Love to Love" ever really hinted at.

"Soul Coaxing" (or "Ame Caline" if you prefer) had been bubbling around on the Northern Soul circuit and indeed on the stereos of people at dinner and cocktail parties for some time - the ultimate easy listening version of the track for my money has already been posted on this blog here, which to me is still the definitive interpretation.  You don't agree?  Well, I'll forgive you just this once.

Biddu's disco reimagining of the tune is, it has to be said, lacking in the same wistful melancholy.  That kind of moodiness simply wouldn't have got feet moving on the dancefloor.  What it has instead is a lot of slickness which borders on the sultry or even sleazy - this sounds like the kind of record an unreformed seventies man would use in order to fondle the crotch of the lady of his fancy at a party.  It's an intriguing example of how one tune can shift mood with no major alterations to the melody, just a different arrangement.  This version is to me considerably less satisfying, and the public seemed to agree since it failed to sell in the same quantities as Raymond Lefevre's  - however, it's at least nothing short of curious, which is precisely what the "Second Hand Record Dip" should be about.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 70 - Nanette Newman - "Fun Food Factory"

Who: Nanette Newman
What: Fun Food Factory (b/w "Morris (The Studio Mouse)")
Label: B&C
When: 1977
Where: Wood Street Market, Walthamstow, London
Cost: 50p

I have wandered through life oblivious to many things until they've been right under my nose.  I didn't know or believe, for example, that New Zealand truly was a breathtakingly beautiful country until I actually saw it with my own eyes.  I also didn't know that you couldn't really feed dogs bread until I gave a friend's "standard" poodle more than a fair amount then watched as, a mere couple of hours later, he emptied the contents of his stomach all over the front room floor from both orifices.  And I never, ever knew that Nanette Newman (or "The Fairy Liquid lady" as she seems to be known to most) had put a single out.  I'm not sure where that fits in the grand scale of things, but I think it's safe to say it's not an unpleasant discovery - neither as nasty as runny poodle vomit and excrement nor as breathtaking as Kaikoura.

"Fun Food Factory" is the theme tune to a TV show Newman hosted at the time, which involved lots of children getting messy in cookery orientated fun.  According to the TV Cream website, there was a large "danger" sign on the back wall of the studio which would flash whenever the children handled a sharp object such as a knife, to alert the kids to the potential problems such things cause.  I have never seen an episode myself, but the theme is irrepressibly chirpy, and makes a visit to the Fun Food Factory sound like a visit to some neon-coloured corner of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.  "There's something there for you to make/ funny fruit and carrot cake!" the children exclaim, which makes me wonder what they're on about.  "Carrot cake" is, of course, a perfectly ordinary thing to make, but how would one create either bemusing or amusing fruit?  Was Nanette playing God here, growing phallus-shaped future-fruits in the studio with the help of several genetic scientists whilst in desperate search of ratings?    Or was the fruit in question in some way hallucinogenic?  Thank God the woman was stopped after one series and forced to sell magical long-lasting washing up liquid instead.

The B-side "Morris The Studio Mouse" is a woeful ditty about one mouse's failure to get a career in Hollywood, with parts for mice having apparently all but dried up.  There's a weedy, self-pitying tone to the rodent's high pitched squealing which predates Orville by some years, and I'm not crying "Keith Harris is a plagiarist" here - for all I actually know, he may have had some uncredited involvement in this creation - but it all seems a bit too much of a coincidence.  Nanette sounds so despairing and thoughtful throughout that it's hard not to be moved despite the ludicrous nature of the tune and the character.  Interestingly, this particular track was co-written with Mike Vickers, who also worked with Kenny Everett.  Presumably Kenny didn't take up the option on the song first.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 69 - The Spitballs - Telstar

Who: The Spitballs 
What: Telstar/ Boris The Spider
Label: Beserkley
When: 1978
Where: Wood Street Market, Walthamstow, LondonCost: 50p

"Rock Follies" was the name of a comedy musical drama from the seventies, but in reality, actual rock follies do exist.  No, not buildings made out of rock by eccentric millionaires that are follies, you fool, but rather records nobody wanted or needed, nobody artistically absolutely had to get out of their systems, and very few people played.  Creation Records put out a number of records we could regard as follies, for example, discs which appeared to have been dreamt up in the pub the night before after a few ales.  The primary thing which separates a folly from a novelty record is the fact that it was usually recorded with no commercial purpose at all in mind, but clearly wasn't taking its artistic value very seriously either.

Spitballs almost certainly fall under the category.  Essentially a supergroup consisting of various musicians from other bands on Beserkley records (including Jonathan Richman) they made an entire album of covers of various songs they liked and admired, with no real grand purpose at all.  There's no special reason why they should have done this, but clearly they got a huge kick out of doing so, and there's a kind of undiluted pub rock enthusiasm running through the grooves, but little more than that.

This version of "Telstar" is so basic and stripped back that Joe Meek would probably have thrown a violent fit if he'd had a chance to hear it.  It's almost possible to imagine a particularly pissed-up wedding ensemble doing something similar whilst various children run amok about them spinning around like little satellites.  The B-side "Boris The Spider", covers The Who in a similarly carefree way, not that the song would ever have been possible to reproduce with a straight face in any case.

It's a funny old thing, the music business.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 68 - Joan Collins Fan Club - Leader of the Pack

Who: Joan Collins Fan Club (aka Julian Clary)
What: Leader of the Pack/ Jacques
Label: 10 Records
When: 1988
Where: Haggle Records, Islington, London
Cost: 25p


Julian Clary's name tended to be bandied around like Billy-O whenever the alternative comedy scene was referenced in the eighties. This is curious, as unlike many of his travelling bedfellows he didn't seem particularly politicised (unless you regard the very act of being a camp homosexual to be a "statement")  and dealt mainly in the kind of audience member put-downs and double-entendres which wouldn't have been terribly out of place in the previous decade.  His most controversial act - announcing that he'd been "fisting" the cabinet secretary Norman Lamont live at a comedy awards ceremony before the watershed - in fact isn't even really a joke, more of an absurd statement.  The image of Clary engaged in rough, hot, sweaty sex with the great man-Badger cross-breed Norman is peculiar enough to be amusing, but if it weren't for the uproar and news headlines which followed the bogus announcement, it's doubtful anybody would remember it.  Sometimes the lines which get comedians into the deepest, hottest water tend not to be their finest moments.


And talking of below-par moments... like a great many alternative comedians in the eighties, Clary didn't balk at the idea of being given a record deal, joining the likes of The Young Ones, Harry Enfield and Alexei Sayle into the novelty disc hall of fame.  "Leader of the Pack" was a logical choice for the lad, having a camp undercurrent to its melodramatic tale of careless motorcyclists, but comes closer in quality to Jasper Carrott's "Funky Moped" in terms of end product.  Plugged to death on television at the time, "Leader of the Pack" was still something of a flop, failing to completely capture the public's imagination.  That it sounds exactly as you'd expect it to sound isn't necessarily a good thing.  Clary can't really sing (and I'm sure wouldn't make any claims to be able to) the song's arrangement is a tiny bit slapdash, and the jokes ("He came from the wrong side of the town... well, what was the right side?") mostly sound more like sarcastic asides rather than well-considered lines.  Clary seemed to bank on the fact that we as listeners hadn't already realised that "Leader of the Pack" was something of a ridiculous disc, and was now signposting its frilly failings for our collective benefits - which is a bit like doing "Seasons in the Sun" at karaoke and making comments such as "pur-lease" and "Oh really!" at the end of each questionable or over-the-top line.  Who on earth is genuinely going to have an "Eureka!" moment upon hearing such insights?  Is there anyone who genuinely wept upon hearing "Leader of the Pack" first time around?  If so, would this single make them think "Oh, I feel rather soppy about the fact I got worked about that now?"  It's doubtful.  If Clary had wanted to really challenge people's preconceptions about the homo-erotic elements of mainstream music, he could have had much more of a field day with any number of eighties Heavy Metal singles, and I predict the end result would have been considerably more amusing if the disc was chosen carefully.  It probably would also have caused as much upset as his Lamont comment.  


As is so often the way with these comedy singles, the B-side is stronger.  "Jacques" is an amusing tale about a cool, laidback lover of Clary's whose coolness thwarted the entire relationship.  It's an endearing and minimal parody of French balladry and pop music which just about pulls it off.  And if Julian happened to be reading this, I'm sure he'd have something to say about those last three words.  


Sorry about the pops and clicks on these recordings, by the way.  Again, there was some sticky substance on this record when I bought it.  The last record I purchased to have gluey gum all over it was Rita's "Erotica", so if I were Julian Clary I'd be quite flattered by that "outcome".

Second Hand Record Dip Part 67 - Marty Feldman - A Joyous Time Of The Year

Who: Marty Feldman
What: A Joyous Time Of The Year/ The B Side
Label: Decca
When: 1968
Where: Wood Street Market, Walthamstow, London
Cost: 50p

It's surprising how infrequently Marty Feldman's name crops up in the British media these days.  At his peak, he was one of the foremost comedians of the sixties and seventies, winning two BAFTA awards, and appearing on a stream of TV shows which utilised his apparently "jazz influenced" comedy style to enormous success.  Here he is with John Cleese, and you can witness him playing the part of Igor here if that's your particular bag.

One of life's irrepressible performers, and by all accounts a bag of insane and unpredictable energy at times, Feldman took to the music industry in a manner which many of his contempories must have envied.  Whilst flop singles from British comedians are so ubiquitous in second hand shops that it seems pointless even mentioning it, Feldman's work is among the few I would argue is undeserving of the infamy.  His tunes are an extension of his personality, and the frothy excitement behind most of the work almost manages, in some cases, to give the impression that it was partly improvised (not entirely impossible, actually).

His Christmas single "A Joyous Time Of Year" is a sarcastic piece of nastiness stabbing a dirty digit at the inconveniences of Yuletide.  In it he lists the various miserable aspects of the season - the cost of his wife's present, for example, "could have bought Mornington Crescent", and idiots buying children trumpets ("blowing dischords in my ear") is another inconvenience which is given an airing.  The song is capped off brilliantly by Feldman listing an itinerary of utterly hopeless presents (which still sound better than my haul last year, incidentally).

More interesting still is the B-side where Feldman decides he can "say whatever he wants" because nobody listens to flipsides of records anymore, and proceeds to spread slander about various radio DJs, saving most of his unpleasantness for Tony Blackburn.  Perhaps they did hear the B-side after all, for this single simply did not sell, and Feldman's career as a comedy singer failed - but unbelievably, both tracks and his album "I Feel A Song Going Off" have been made available on iTunes by Decca Records.  To listen to the tracks in full, purchase them either from there or from another online retail outlet.  In the meantime, enjoy the snippets below.

Second Hand Record Dip Part 66 - Disco 2000 - I Gotta CD

Who: Disco 2000
What: I Gotta CD
Label: KLF Communications
When: 1987
Where: Music and Video Exchange, Camden High Street
Cost: 50p

If there's one thing Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty out of the KLF never seemed to do, it was explain their actions.  Their dislike of the five W's - the Who, What, Where, When and Whys so beloved of all qualified journalists - was so pronounced that they even referred to their distaste for such questions in their fan newsletters.  Given this, it's never been terribly clear what the point of the very seldom-referenced Disco 2000 project was.  It seems to have become the least respected KLF moniker by far, causing the twelve inch singles to slip into the lonely corner of the Music and Video Exchange, reduced to a mere 50p.  Why yes, I did do a double-take upon finding this one there in such good condition.

Fronted by Jimmy's wife Cressida Cauty and June Montana who previously sang lead vocals in his band Brilliant, it's tempting to rubber stamp this as a vanity project and move on, but I suspect there may have been more going on than that.  The three singles by Disco 2000 which slipped out largely unnoticed have a definite Justified Ancients of Mu Mu feel to them, but whilst Jams discs frequently had an anarchic darkness in their grooves, being filled with sampled interruptions and sinister slogans, Disco 2000 records tended to fizz along with a cheery rabidity.  It's possible that Cauty and Drummond were attempting to crack the pop charts by taking what they'd learnt from the sample-a-thon of "1987" and getting two slightly more conventionally charismatic figures to front the mayhem.  If this should be in any doubt, it's worth noting that two of their singles had promo videos, and the third and final Disco 2000 single "Uptight" came with a record store campaign which made it all the way down to Southend where I lived at the time.  Colour posters announcing the single's issue were stuck to the entrance door of my local record emporium, which seems like rather a lot of trouble to go to for the sake of larks (especially given how cash-strapped the KLF apparently were at the time).  There again, you never can tell.  Conventional logic never seemed to apply to the individuals concerned.

Whatever the intentions, Disco 2000 did not break through in the same manner as the Timelords project, or in the manner that the KLF themselves did at a later date, and the press seemed not to jump on the concept with quite the same degree of enthusiasm.  After "Uptight" failed, the project was shelved.  What we're left with is a curious trio of singles which sound halfway between the snarling of the Jams (Bill Drummond's voice can even clearly be heard on some of the tracks, including "I Gotta CD" below) and a hyperactive British version of Salt-n-Pepa.  Unlike Stock Aitken and Waterman's production efforts - which Cauty and Drummond were unquestionably inspired by - these records sound distinctly hand made and hammer their rhythms home almost violently.  It's an unsubtle, sticklebrick kind of pop, not as finely crafted as the ambient or Stadium House work which came later,  nor as brutal as the Jams - but they're an interesting piece in the puzzle, a halfway house in the development of the KLF's style.

As for the frontwomen behind this, Cressida Cauty - or Cressida Bowyer as she is now known - eventually moved on to being responsible for some astonishing design and choreography work for the KLF.  Having abandoned the music industry since their demise, she is presently finishing her PhD at the University of Brighton, doing research on liver cancer.  A greater leap away from the chaos of Trancentral could surely not be made (she also appears to be working with a lecturer there I've had professional dealings with in the past myself, but that's another story).  June Montana's whereabouts are harder to trace, and more information would be welcome.



(and I wonder how many people will actually come this way looking for mp3s of Pulp's "Disco 2000"?  Hmmm... and yes, before you say anything, I did know that Jarvis Cocker originally wanted Bill Drummond to produce "Different Class").

Second Hand Record Dip Part 65 - Mojams feat. Debbie Currie - You Can Do Magic

Who: Mojams feat. Debbie Currie (actually, Sinitta)
What: You Can Do Magic
Label: Gotham
When: 1997
Where: Music and Video Exchange, Camden High Street
Cost: 50p

Whilst truth is indeed frequently stranger than fiction in the music industry, sometimes when things seem too absurd to be true, it's because they are.  This single is a supremely odd confirmation of that fact, a scam so subtle in its execution that to this day, you can still see references to it on national newspaper websites as being a bona-fide piece of work.

Debbie Currie, the daughter of "outspoken" Conservative MP Edwina Currie, was attempting a career as a journalist when the team behind the investigative programme the "Cook Report" approached her with an intriguing offer.  The deal was that she would pretend to front a single produced by Mike Stock and Matt Aitken, and they would hire a gang of "hypers" to artificially push its position up the charts.  The aim was to ultimately expose the British charts as being open to abuse despite the BPI's continual assurances that hype was now easily spotted, and a thing of the distant past.

In reality, Sinitta sang the vocals, and all Currie really appears to have done is displayed her stomach on the sleeve (above) and posed for a few publicity shots.  The gossip columns of newspapers also ran a few short pieces about "sexy" Debbie Currie's new pop band which gave the project an air of authenticity, which was eventually blown on prime-time television.

I suspect that the "Cook Report" team would have liked to have seen the single chart within the Top 40, but in reality - despite the production team behind it, and despite the publicity - the single stiffed at number 81.  The end programme appeared to gamely claim that they'd exposed the fact that chart rigging still existed, but it's hard not to conclude that an average pop single produced by Stock and Aitken would have been expected to chart within the lower reaches of the Top 100 at the very least.  Music industry mogul Clive Selwood also dismisses the show's scoop in his biography "All of the Moves But None of the Licks", stating that the single should probably have charted higher on its own merits, and questions should have been asked of the distributors.  All it proved, he concluded, is that people can easily be tricked out of money for non-existent services, which is admittedly fraud, but not exactly headline news.

Perhaps it's due to the failings of the documentary to make a concrete point that to this day, journalists still cite Debbie Currie's "failed pop career" as evidence of the fact that she's "Edwina Currie's rebellious, wild child daughter".  This is an utterly incorrect version of events, and Debbie has gone on record as saying that she would never have seriously considered a career in music, and that her friends assumed that she was having "some sort of breakdown" at the time whilst she kept the pretence up.

As for "You Can Do Magic" itself, it's a passable little single, perfectly pleasant in a quickly recorded Saint Etienne B-side kind of way.  In a quiet week in January it might actually have performed moderately well in its own right, and it's certainly a strange tune to pick to prove a chart hype point.  Perhaps if something noticeably below par had been used, the researchers and producers behind the show might have worried that the authorities would have smelt a rat.

Interestingly, there's also an information service advertised on the sleeve, asking us to write to "Mojams, Freepost 1276, PO BOX 4100, London, SE1 0YW".  One wonders what anybody who scribbled a note to that address got in return - a signed picture of Roger Cook angrily pointing, perhaps.