PIRATE: RADIO

 Is this purely a UK thing, I wonder, with pirate radio a real nostalgia trip for anyone of a specific vintage? (Yup, I do mean old. Boomer.) I remember pirate radio, even if I don’t clearly recall the stagnant status quo that begat it into being and necessity. As a child of the late 50’s, I had a elder sister, a deeply entrenched denizen of the swinging 60’s, a dolly bird with ironed hair, Mary Quant panda eyes and micro skirts. She made damn sure I was up to speed with the hit parade of the day, and it wasn’t courtesy Auntie Beeb. (In truth, looking back, I wonder just quite how much she was responsible for my enduring obsession with music, a blessing I have been cursed with as long as I recall.)

The British Broadcasting Corporation was a bit blindsided by pop music. With, in the 1960’s, two radio stations available, the Home Service and the Light Programme. The Home Service was all the serious stuff: news and current affairs, whereas the Light Programme catered for everything else, thus encompassing comedy, soaps, quiz shows and music, of any and every genre. Which, reluctantly and, whenever the schedule would allow it, pop music, surely a passing fad and one, if studiously ignored, might go away. It was to the huge swell of young people, a relatively new invention, that the pirate’s addressed themselves, as the mainstream certainly was in no hurry.

Radio Luxembourg was the one I was first most familiar with, which, in Luxembourg, was an entirely legit organisation. So what was it doing broadcasting English language programming, not an official language in the state? Answer: trying to get around the loopholes the UK put in place around broadcasting. And, whilst legal and with an official licence, their practice was deemed infra dig by the stiff upper lips of the establishment. We used to listen to Lux under the bedsheets at school, after “lights out”, but it was always a tad soul destroying, courtesy the dreadful signal and the (deliberate?) interference.

Far better was Radio Caroline, a fully illicit operation, broadcasting into the UK from outside maritime borders. From boats. OK, big boats, if not necessarily all that sea-worthy.This was wall to wall pop music, with trendy, hip DJs, who would eventually take on board the widening references of the then nascent music scene, embracing non chart music and the “album” market: underground music, it was called, perhaps equating to, or heralding, FM radio, and the birth of AOR- adult oriented rock, in the US. Caroline were huge and presented a huge threat to the constitution. In 1967 came an Act of Parliament  to constrain their activities. At much the same time, arguably not unrelatedly, the BBC rejigged their formula, with the initiation of Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4. The Home Service, broadly, became R4, although a lot of light entertainment  went there too, comedy, drama and the like. R3 became the domain of “proper” music, the classics, and R2 of inoffensive bland fare for the intellectually ininquisitive. R1 was the new station for young people, and quickly signed up the seasick jocks from Caroline and the other pirates.

As the years have passed the boundaries and channels have blurred and expanded. I am now core R2 demographic, maybe not daytime, but enjoying their evening shows for lovers of specific sub- genres: blues, folk, all of that. Indeed, as clearly no longer a young person, R1 is far too strident and brash for my refined ears, however much I might baulk about being subsumed into the cloth eared original prime audience.

The pirates are still there, largely niche now, but there are the new opportunities opened by web radio, and there are many a tiny operation, blasting ultra specialist grooves out of tower blocks, UK wide. Occupying, perhaps, the role Radio Caroline had in the 60’s, for those with a yearning for the myriad emerging genres that have yet to become mainstream. Taking advantage of that, so too have many an opinionated mouthpiece taken it upon themselves to broadcast to audiences numbered in dozens. Given half the chance, know what I’m saying?

Final point might be to catch the Richard Curtis film, The Boat That Rocked, set on one such floating pirate radio station. Critics didn't think it his best. I loved it, especially the late night jock, with whom I could strongly identify. (And I am still open to offers!!)

Boat That Rocked, here.

BEGINS WITH A J: JENNIFER ECCLES/THE HOLLIES

This old band infrequently get a mention in these pages, usually in conjunction with a mention of Graham Nash, the erstwhile manc turned golden boy of Laurel Canyon. Whilst he left the band a little over 50 years ago, it may surprise some readers that the band play on, never having actually ever stopped. This makes them, along with the Rolling Stones and, arguably, the Searchers, the longest legged beat combos of this sceptred isle. (I'm going to discount Herman's Hermit's seeing as, without Peter Noone gurning at the front, well, they aren't, really, are they?)

I confess I was a big fan of the band in my pre-teens, they having as big a thumbprint on the charts as any of the above and even of the Beatles. In fact, add in that, from Manchester, separated by only 35 miles from Liverpool, yet with accents as impenetrable to one as to the other, they were considered the big local opposition to the Moptops. More so, one might argue than the Stones, London seeming a lifetime, or certainly a day's journey, away. They certainly seemed a perennial on Top of the Pops. 

Jennifer Eccles 

Started by the aforementioned Nash and Allan Clarke, for years their distinctive frontman and lead singer, in an astonishing 1962, they performed mainly covers, at least for the charts. A couple of Coasters's covers gave them recognition, before hitting the top ten, in the UK, with Stay. Possibly better now known for Jackson Browne's version. this song was originally by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs, but I'll bet which version Browne heard first. Gradually encroaching on US awareness, via Canada picking up on the band, and their first couple of LPs, as with the Rolling Stones' early work, were released with different songs and running orders, so as to appeal more to the market, eager for the beginnings of the "UK invasion", as the mid 60's assault on the US charts was called. Clarke, Nash and Tony Hicks, the guitarist then and still now, last man left standing, had begun writing songs, using the name L. Ransford, in an echo of the Nanker/Phelge adopted by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. But it was still with covers they were making their name, with Graham Gouldman behind some of the better known, Look Through Any Window and Bus Stop. Gouldman is a one man hit factory who wrote huge numbers of hit songs in the 60s, for bands as diverse as the Yardbirds and the aforementioned Herman's Hermits. In the 70s, as a member of, and the continuing sole original member and focus of, 10 c.c, he wrote even more, as well as with Andrew Gold, as Wax.

Bus Stop

Bus Stop was their first US top ten breaker, and led to tours across the pond. It is likely that this where and how Nash began first to want to expand his horizons, his mind likely expanded by the smoking materials his new American friends were sharing with him. His bandmates wanted poppier material than Nash's King Midas In Reverse, such as to play the Bob Dylan songbook; Hollies Sing Dylan was an album Nash only distantly engaged with. That, along with the fact the band wouldn't countenance Marrakesh Express, a song he had written and offered them, meant he eventually packed his bags and left, finding more likeminded souls who would.

King Midas In Reverse

The rest of the band, whose line-up had been fluctuating wildly anyway, outside the core three members, were left a little blindsided. Ex-Swinging Blue Jean, Terry Sylvester, replaced him, joining the two residual songwriters, adding his muse to theirs. As the '60s ended and '70s began, they had a further fertile period of success, albeit by relying, once more, on cover versions like He Ain't Heavy (He's My Brother). Ironically, about this time, their follow up to Hollies Sing Dylan, the helpfully entitled Hollie Sing Hollies did not chart in their homeland, attaining 32 in the Billboard chart. Allan Clarke was now developing itchy feet, leaving the band himself in 1971, if the band then having a pretty big hit with Long Cool Woman In a Black Dress, from the album he had last appeared from. An uncharacteristically upbeat and rocky number, he had already left as it was breaking the charts, leading to confusion for subsequent tours. However, he rejoined after a few years, the band now moving into similar territory. They even covered Springsteen, if broadly unsuccessfully, their US management dumping the band shortly thereafter.

Long Cool Woman In a Black Dress

Back home they had become more of a legacy group than a going concern, limping on, with the odd hit scattered along the way. What I hadn't realised or remembered was that Nash returned himself to the fold, in the mid '80's, for a tour and an album. What an opportunity that should or could have been, but, glancing at the requisite Wiki page for What Goes Around, I can perhaps see why it sank without my trace. Not a song by any of the songwriters present, the original triad of Nash, Clark and Hicks, a lot by a Paul Bliss, whomsoever he, and some lack lustre Motown covers. Clearly Messrs Stills and Crosby, Young for that matter, lost little sleep, as back he went to them.

Carrie Ann

The band played on, although the roundabout of members was in full swing, not least when Allan Clarke retired from music altogether, in 2000. (Or nominally, a solo album coming out a year or so back.) Hicks was still bravely hanging on, as was permanently be-hatted drummer, Bobby Elliott, a fixture since 1963. His initial replacement was Carl Wayne, once the lead singer of the Move, and which led to what may have been nostalgia heavy shows, as they would feature songs by both bands during their set. But he died, of cancer, in 2004. It seems the band have had a relatively steady line up in the 18 years hence, lead singer duties now c/o Peter Howarth, the rest of the band made up of Ray Stiles (ex-Mud), Ian Parker (also in Clannad) and Steve Lauri (5000 Volts), present since 1986, 1991 and 2004 respectively. (Which meant, awkwardly, when they were elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 2010, only two of the current six were deemed eligible......)

Hollies at the R&RHoF

I think they definitely classify as survivors. Would I go see them? Whilst I would probably never have deemed it ever something I would think of, actually, now, I think I might, doomed, no doubt, to disappointment. Unlike, say, the Searchers, who, with a similar current cabaret circuit career, I would certainly jump at, they said to put on a corking show, that encompasses not only their mid 60's fame, but their uncanny resurgence in the late 70s/80s on Sire records.

The Air That I Breathe (10 days ago......)

As a footnote, given the song that entitles this piece, here are Eels, Mark E. Everett's band, with their excellent version thereof.

Original.

Cover.

BASS/BASE: J.J. BURNEL

I have so long wanted to do this post, the bassline, or is it the baseline, of the Stranglers being such a glorious sound. For about 10 years, 1977 - 1987, they were avowedly my favourite band, in no small part due to the bass guitar of Jean-Jacques Burnel. OK, as a only ever a pretend punk: ex-public schoolboy at medical school perhaps not being core demographic, they hit all my buttons, being slightly older and keyboard based, with no small nod to the Doors and a guitarist at school with and in his first band with Richard Thompson. (I have covered this ground before.)

It was only later I learnt the unique bass timbre was anything but, with yet another frisson of joy when I heard this, by another even earlier favourite band, the Move. Roy Wood, leader of the band, decided he disliked the bass parts on 1971's 'Message to the Country' so much as to remove them and do them himself. Title track below.

But this post is to celebrate J.J., from the unmistakable dum der dum of 'Peaches' to the later more melodic gallic noodling of 'La Folie'. My favourite bit of Burnel is actually from their first release, the last track from 'Rattus  Norvegicus', 'Down in the Sewer', with, at about 6min.30, a beautiful countermelody within the instrumental finale to the song. Listen to it, above. But what about his other stuff? Always a more complicated figure than the lampoon of he being the inchoate muscle to Cornwell's lofty intellect, he has been de facto leader of the band since Cornwell left, dismissing his erstwhile bandmates, as so did many, as a spent force. It may have taken many of the subsequent near 30 years, but it is arguable that they now have a bigger fanbase than at their 80's peak, and can put out material to critical assent, touring near constantly, way, way more than merely as a greatest hits machine. (Perversely, this is arguably what Cornwell has become, albeit in his way, satisfying the undoubted hunger to hear all  those songs in his voice.) Here's an enlightening interview with Burnel from not so long ago.

Burnel has also produced 3 albums of his own, together with one alongside keyboard Strangler Dave Greenfield. These underline his avowedly franco-european heritage, the first, in 1979, 'The Euroman Cometh', addressing a future wherein a president of the united states of Europe is necessary to see off the dual threats of a american values and soviet subversion. Just, perhaps, the sort of thing the potentially  disintegrating Europe of today, fuelled by my country's dismal performance, needs? I somehow doubt JJ is a Brexiteer. The lyrics start by commenting on any modern european having to contend with the shared lineage of Charlemagne, Oliver Cromwell and Hitler, so not exactly moon in june. Not entirely successful in the intent to fuse electronica with rock, it makes for interesting, if dated, listening.

Perhaps less portentous, and more accessible came 'Un Jour Parfait', echoing very much the sound his day-job was beginning to investigate at around the same time, possibly why, give or take a later soundtrack album (for a japanese anime version, set in the future, of the Count of Monte Cristo, 'Gunkutsuou'), solo work became superfluous. He had a band to keep on the road. So, what better, given it his basslines we are here to celebrate, than a track from the Stranglers, 21st century style:

'Time Was Once on My Side', 2012, with it's near lead bass motifs, has a clear back reference to their original style. Maybe I, like so many who lapsed, should give them a go again and I feel I might.

Having said....

FORGOTTEN? ROY WOOD/THE MOVE

I loved this band, their singles always enlivening my youth, with Fire Brigade being one of the first singles I bought, familiar with all the words of all their hits, identifying, o yes, with the cool, hairy dude who seemed to run the show. You will understand I was still at school and short back and sides haircuts were the order of the day, perhaps intrinsically one of the reasons I was drawn to the shaggier bands of the day. And whilst lead singer Carl Wayne was always neatly groomed, it was the freakier fellow who played guitar and did additional vocals, later learning he wrote all the songs, that drew my innocent eye. I learnt his name. Roy Wood.

The Move had a chequered career, two steps back for every, and there were many, step forward. Beset by a management that always put notoriety ahead of sustainment, finances were always struggle, after a court case that had them surrendering royalties for their biggest song, Flowers in the Rain. Their manager had thought it a great ruse to produce, in a promotional postcard for the band, a cartoon of the then prime minister, Harold Wilson, in bed with his secretary. They also had then the bad luck of losing the master tapes of the LP produced to build on the back of said single, the delayed re-recording then missing the momentum of the moment. Nonetheless, they were a staple in the UK charts between 1966 and 1969, with hits such as I Can Hear the Grass Grow and Blackberry Way. Why no american breakthrough? In hindsight it seems strange, at least to me, and this was something they hoped a change of management, signing up with the notorious Don Arden, father of Sharon (Osborne), would remedy. Sadly this didn't materialise much beyond a support tour with the Stooges, although they can be included in the roster of artists who managed to produce a Live at the Fillmore LP, perhaps the exception to prove the rule, it being otherwise a yardstick of greatness. (To be fair I haven't heard it, knowing not of its existence until the research conducted for this piece, but it took 42 years to be released.)

The original band was a roster of greats from the Birmingham, not that one, circuit. Brumbeat, as the sound of the city was called, was quite a force in the 60s, with the Moody Blues, Spencer Davis Group and Black Sabbath, themselves also managed by Arden, all emanating therefrom. The original line up of Wayne, Wood, Ace Kefford, Bev Bevan and Trevor Burton began to fracture. First Ace Kefford was fired, for his drug use, shortly before the band appeared at the inaugural Isle of Wight festival of 1968. Trevor Burton subsequently took umbrage at the more commercial direction pursued, with Wayne then moving into the cocktail and chicken in a basket cabaret circuit in 1970. Burton, surely a shoulda/coulda also ran in rock's back pages remains to this day a staple on Birmingham's pub-rock circuit,  fashioning his never changing and never fashionable blues-rock, remaining, like sometime cohort, Steve Gibbons, world famous in Birmingham. Wayne strangely reappeared, after years on the easy listening pastures, as a latter-day lead singer for the Hollies, replacing Allan Clarke, and introducing a few old Move songs to this now largely nostalgia act's repertoire, ahead of his later death.

So what could Wood and Bevan do now? Luckily for them, old mate Jeff Lynne was now available, having earlier been too engaged with the Idle Race, another forgotten band, and was enlisted alongside Rick Price, another Birmingham stalwart foot soldier, on bass. This gave an enormous shot in the arm, with a first sight of the elusive US single chart entries missed before. Brontosaurus, California Man and Do Ya' showed a much more vigorous retro rock and roll style that made a (slight) dent into america. But you are ahead of me, as you query my ownership of the last mentioned. Surely that was......

Indeed. At the same time as Wood and Lynne revived the Move template, so also they worked together on another ambition of Woods, the marriage of strings and rock music. A keen self-taught cellist, amongst virtually any other instrument you might name, he had long sought an opportunity to replicate live the sort of lavish sounds of, say, Strawberry Field Forever. With Lynne an even more fervent fan of the Fabs, in 1970, in parallel with the Move, Electric Light Orchestra were born. However, after their first eponymous recording, musical differences began to appear, and they split, consequently also fracturing the Move. ELO, of course went on to fame and fortune, which need not burden us here, their brand becoming overly saccharine for my taste, although their "version" of Do Ya' perhaps is worthy of compare.

For a while Wood seemed the man more likely. He took his brainchild into the equivalently cello laden Wizzard, but with a much more varied palette, a slew of hit singles evoking bygone eras, in turn replicating an ersatz rockabilly vibe, at others, and convincingly, the Phil Spector wall of sound. Perhaps too talented for his own good, he pursued a solo career of quirky singer-songwritery, as often as not used to demonstrate his mastery of an ever more arcane instrumental palette. Since then, and thus for the best part of 30 years he has seemed to pursue ever decreasing circles, as Wizzard became the Wizzo band, producing a sub-Zappa jazz-fusion, ahead of innumerable short lived iterations. Perhaps he just ran out of steam, perhaps he just didn't need to try so hard. An intensely shy and private individual, living quietly in the same town as a chum of mine, he is apparently content to merely potter about for much of the year, ahead of his yearly donning the warpaint for the annual outing of his pension plan, along with a yearly Christmas concert at Birmingham's Symphony Hall. Mind you, the royalties for a song that never fails to chart, year upon year upon year can do no harm.

He remains etched upon my childhood, a lost figure content, it seems, so to be. Up there with Ray Davies in my book, Kinks supremo, who, perhaps unlike Wood, has never quite given up trying to replicate his bounteous past. Here's his take on it. So, cheers, Woody, thanks for all of that.

Postscript: Do NOT fall for the more recent faux Move product, a latter-day laying claim to by drummer Bev Bevan, who has a track record of this, his E.L.O. part II originally also claiming to be the real thing. Or so, a lawyer writes, I understand.

3 used from $1.82!!!

Burn/Fire: Fire On High

Electric Light Orchestra: Fire On High
[purchase]

Regular readers of my work here and elsewhere know that I’m a fan of prog rock, and I think that it is pretty clear that the Beatles were a profound influence on prog bands, many of whom have acknowledged this directly, or have covered Beatles songs. Electric Light Orchestra,which was founded when Roy Wood, of The Move, wanted to explicitly pick up where the Beatles left off, and use orchestral arrangements and instruments to fuse classical music with pop shows how it is possible to mix the two.

Initially, Wood recruited Jeff Lynne to join The Move, which also included drummer Bev Bevan, and they gradually morphed the older band into a new unit, Electric Light Orchestra. Wood left the band during the recording of their second album, leaving Lynne as the leader. And, there is no question that Lynne loved the Beatles (and the Beatles loved him—as you can see in the article that I linked to above, not only did they like his songs, Ringo and George guested on their albums, Lynne produced solo albums for Ringo, Paul, and George, replaced George Martin as producer for the Beatles’ last singles, and, of course Lynne was a Traveling’ Wilbury).

I was a fan of ELO during their mid-late 1970s heyday. I enjoyed the mix of pomp and pop. “Fire on High” is one of their stranger songs, suitable only as a B-side—an instrumental (mostly), with backwards vocals ("The music is reversible, but time... is not. Turn back! Turn back! Turn back! Turn back!"), choral segments and all sorts of odd stuff going on, making it still a fascinating listen.

Interestingly, despite its weirdness, a portion of the song was used by CBS for its sports coverage in the 70s. I have a strong memory that it was used for the network’s NBA coverage, but the Internet disagrees, telling me that it was actually, used for a sports anthology show, sort of like the better-known Wide World of Sports called the CBS Sports Spectacular. As we know, memory is a strange thing.

Back in the late 1980s, my friend Bill and I shared an apartment in New York, in the days when having an answering machine was still something that everyone had, and creating a theoretically clever outgoing message was popular. I remember that we used a few seconds of “Fire on High” and pretended that we were announcing a game while imparting the standard “we aren’t home, leave a message at the beep” message.

As I am writing this, I’m having second thoughts about whether it is a good idea to share this story or not. But we're all friends, here, right, and you won't think less of me. Right?

Elected Officials : Vote For Me

The Move: Vote For Me

[Purchase]

Bad officials are the ones elected by good citizens who do not vote. 

 George Jean Nathan

It would have been punk for The Move to have released "Vote For Me" in 1967, the year it was recorded. The band had just been sued for libel by Prime Minister Harold Wilson for producing a cartoon showing Wilson in bed with his secretary in a promotional postcard for their hit single "Flowers In The Rain". 

                               Prime Minister Harold Wilson

    The band lost in court. Badly. Every penny they made off the UK #2 single went to the charities of Mr. Wilson's choice. The band probably lost millions of pounds. 

      Again it was 1967. Not 1977. So in a manner that could hardly be considered punk, The Move shelved this delightfully edgy pop tune until it appeared on a compilation in 1997.

Morning: Through the Week Edition

Sometimes a week just gets away from you. Here it is Saturday, and I haven't had a chance to post anything yet. As I try to get out the door for a family gathering, I'll keep the yakking to a minimum and celebrate a week's worth of mornings.


The Move: Mist On a Monday Morning

[purchase]

We'll start on Monday, with a dark bit of British psychedelia from The Move.


Badfinger: Sweet Tuesday Morning

[purchase]

On to Tuesday, with a somber-sounding songs with surprisingly upbeat lyrics from Badfinger.


Simon and Garfunkel: Wednesday Morning, 3AM

[purchase]

A song that would have been appropriate for last week's theme, too.


The Roland Kirk Quartet: April Morning

[purchase]

OK, here's where my conceit falls apart. I could not find a Thursday morning song, so I'll substitute "April Morning", since we're now in April, and the first of the month was a Thursday. Plus, all that introspective folkie stuff earlier in the week was getting a little old.


Chris Hickey: Friday Morn'

[purchase]

Some sad-but-resilient singer-songwriter Americana to finish out the work week.


Eels: Saturday Morning

[purchase]

It's the weekend! Time to rock out with the Eels.


The Velvet Underground: Sunday Morning

[purchase]

There are several good Sunday morning songs, but this is one of my favorites.