MARCH 1978

 

 

Notes on Text

Nottingham Forest went out of the 1978 F.A. Cup in the sixth round, beaten 2-0 by West Bromwich Albion. The Cup was eventually won by Ipswich Town, who beat Arsenal 1-0 in the final. Still, Clough’s men still managed to come comfortably top of the First Division and just about managed to win the League Cup that season, and you cannot have said anything similar about Don Revie’s England.

 

“Petrol station synthesiser” was my term for the Korg string synthesiser, as it was used in a television commercial of the period for the Scottish petrol station chain Burmah, one of which stations was then located on Bothwell Main Street.

 

Radar ADA 002 was a cover of the Coasters' "I'm A Hog For You Baby" by San Francisco band The Profits. Me neither. 

 

Watching this space for developments would have proved a fruitless quest, but I didn’t know that at the time.

 

 

4 March

 

DONNA SUMMER: Rumour Has It/Once Upon A Time (Casablanca CAN 122)

 

 

 

The glut of Donna Summer releases is becoming unmanageable; one does wish the heads of GTO and Casablanca could be metaphorically banged together and come to some sort of compromise. Both these songs work splendidly in the context of the Once Upon A Time double album, and “Rumour Has It” is probably its most obviously danceable track, but hearing two separate narratives excised from a story is like reading a novel but only its third and twentieth chapters.

 

 

 

NOTTINGHAM FOREST WITH PAPER LACE: We Got The Whole World In Our Hands/The Forest March (Warner Bros K 17110)

 

 

 

Away from the charts for a good three-and-a-half years, Paper Lace suddenly pop up again, propping up Clough’s team for this simple F.A. Cup pep-raiser. He seems to have done better than Don Revie has managed, since the England team do not seem to have qualified for any cup.

 

 

 

ELKIE BROOKS: Lilac Wine/Live, Laugh & Love (A&M AMS 7333)

 

 

 

Melodramatic orchestral reading of an old Nina Simone song, arranged and produced with characteristic grandiosity by Mike Batt but, as with the Kursaal Flyers, probably too obvious to become a really major hit. I enjoyed “Pearl’s A Singer” but am highly dubious about A&M’s attempts to turn this fine soul and blues singer into an MoR Two Ronnies star; as grand and worthy as “Lilac Wine” may be – although I am not convinced that, as a song, it is either – it simply isn’t Elkie Brooks; I don’t see her here.

 

 

 

BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS: Is This Love/Crisis (Version) (Island WIP 6420)

 

 

 

First taste of the new Marley album Kaya, this is an agreeable soft-reggae trot bearing a lyric that belies its surface smoothness, as for that matter do the odd angles we hear from the lead guitar and rhythm section.

 

 

 

BLONDIE: Denis (Denee)/Contact In Red Square/Kung Fu Girls (Chrysalis CHS 2204)

 

 

 

Blondie’s commercial breakthrough was always a matter of when, not if, but they have stormed into the charts quite demonstrably with this fabulous Randy and the Rainbows cover, Debbie Harry stepping into French midway through and drummer Clem Burke playing for his life, as though the world would collapse were his drumkit not supporting it. This is obviously going to be huge, as are the group.

 

 

 

 

11 March

 

HOT CHOCOLATE: Every 1’s A Winner/Power Of Love (RAK 270)

 

 

 

Exciting and genuinely funky with a great mix of fuzz guitar and petrol station synthesiser; the band really are on a roll right now.

 

 

 

ANDY CAMERON: Ally’s Tartan Army/I Want To Be A Punk Rocker (Klub Records KLUB 03)

 

 

 

It’s already and predictably been massive up here in Scotland for a month but now our World Cup song finally crosses over nationally – why? “FOR ENGLAND CANNAE DAE IT ‘COS THEY DIDNAE QUALIFY!” “YAY!” Of course it’s great!

 

 

 

BRIAN AND MICHAEL (BURKE & JERK): Matchstalk Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs (Lowry’s Song)/The Old Rocking Chair (Pye 7N 46035)

 

 

 

Sentimental folk-pop tribute to the late, great Salford artist, who would probably have despised its admittedly well-meaning sentimentality, complete with brass band and children’s choir; this sounds designed to shoot to number one (whereas Kate Bush, who actually did shoot to number one this week, sounds on “Wuthering Heights” as if having a hit single were the last thing on her mind).

 

 

 

 

18 March

 

GENESIS: Follow You Follow Me/Ballad Of Big (Charisma CB 309)

 

 

 

With both Peter Gabriel and now Steve Hackett gone, Genesis clearly felt that they needed to roll up their sleeves and write an actual hit song. This is slow, hypnotic and catchy and also rather MoR in nature, but Phil Collins seems to feel what he sings and the abstract guitar tracking rhythm is quite clever. Andrew of course thinks it’s brilliant.

 

 

 

REAL THING: Whenever You Want My Love/Stanhope Street (Pye 7N 46045)

 

 

 

Eddie and Chris Amoo & Co. speeding up and evidently going for the Tina Charles market with dubious lyrics, although the B-side confirms that the group is capable of much, much more.

 

 

THE MANHATTAN TRANSFER: Walk In Love/Four Brothers (Atlantic K 11075)

 

 

 

On average Manhattan Transfer get one hit a year in Britain, but all three so far have been very different. “Walk In Love” is a lovely midtempo contemporary ballad and on the B-side they have a lot of fun with Jon Hendricks’ lyric to the tune Jimmy Giuffre composed for Woody Herman’s band of the late forties. If anybody goes out and buys a record by Giuffre or even Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, the group will have done its job.

 

 

 

NICK LOWE: I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass/NICK LOWE WITH ROCKPILE: They Called It Rock (Radar ADA 1)

 

 

 

The first single and first hit from Jake Riviera’s new label is an outstandingly disrespectful and effortlessly danceable homage to side one of Bowie’s Low, complete with extremely wayward freeform piano commentary. Obviously heading for the top ten and it should be honoured by the record’s presence.

 

 

 

 

25 March

 

DAN HILL: Sometimes When We Touch/Still Not Used To (20^th Century Fox Records BTC 2355)

 

 

 

Lugubrious, overblown ballad from Canadian singer-songwriter (who actually co-wrote the song with Barry Mann) in which he sounds far more desperate and possibly even paranoid than in love.

 

 

 

TINA CHARLES: I’ll Go Where Your Music Takes Me/Stop What You’re Doing To Me (CBS 6062)

 

 

 

Biddu seems to be running out of ideas for Tina, recycling this two-year-old Jimmy James and the Vagabonds hit to no great effect. The title of its B-side may prove prophetic.

 

 

 

THE JAM: News Of The World/Aunties And Uncles (Impulsive Youths)/Innocent Man (Polydor 2058 995)

 

 

 

After such a dreadful and clearly rushed second album – “Tonight At Noon” is the only good song on it – the Jam now need to re-establish themselves. I’m not sure this Bruce Foxton-composed and sung diatribe against the popular press is going to get them anywhere near the top, but at least it has some propulsion and purpose. I suspect Paul Weller writing some better songs might help them; watch this space for developments.

 

 

 

ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ATTRACTIONS: (I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea/You Belong To Me (Radar ADA 003)

 

 

 

The third single and second hit for Jake Riviera’s new label sees pop at a level of intensity rarely glimpsed since Dylan in the mid-sixties; an explosively-performed and brilliantly-produced (by Nick Lowe) roar of rage against fashion, conformity and smugness. Costello is turning out to be one of the major singer-songwriters of our times. Dissonant, unforgiving and relentless in its power, “(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea” is everything that the Brotherhood Of Man could never be, even if they wanted it.

 

 

 

SHOWADDYWADDY: I Wonder Why/Ever Lovin’ (Arista ARISTA 174)

 

 

 

A fitting title. The enormous hit that this blanded-out Dion and the Belmonts cover – you can hear the lifeblood flowing out of the metaphorical body as the acapella introduction goes into the actual song – is inevitably going to become raises the question of what people want from rock ‘n’ roll, if indeed they ever wanted it at all as opposed to middle-of-the-road muzak that looked and sounded like rock ‘n’ roll (but with no alcohol).

 

The problem with both Showaddywaddy and their allegedly cooler cousins Darts is that they present listeners and viewers – since they are both intensely visual bands – with the body of rock ‘n’ roll but not the substance. If you listen to early Elvis, Jerry Lee, Berry, Domino, Richard, Holly, Vincent, Cochran etc. you experience punch, swing, amused insolence, a simple joie de vivre, an essence of life. The songs rang out of transistors, demanded that you assimilate them for better or worse. The great rock ‘n’ roll performers and their records possess, or possessed, a will to live, a joy at what life and the world had to offer us, or we them. You could not remain neutral; you either loved rock ‘n’ roll or it made you sick and you retreated to the polite embrace of Pat Boone and Jimmy Young.

 

Whereas all that Showaddywaddy and Darts seem to offer us – as opposed to what those threatening Punk Shockers, if punk is even still a thing in 1978, propose – is a museum of rock; well, not even a museum, but a rock ‘n’ roll gift shop, full of tacky, gaudily-coloured postcards and the vaguest memories of what this thing once was, because people cannot bear to face the prospect of what it still might be. They have the formula, the methods, to hand – but not the inspiration and certainly not the damn-you insouciance that rock ‘n’ roll actually needs.

 

The most depressing thing about this scenario is precisely how utterly content most people – in Britain, at least – are with it. They want pantomime music on their TV screens, as opposed to rock ‘n’ roll – light entertainment, not life-altering art. Music which agrees with them and confirms their prejudices. And they are the people who have given Showaddywaddy hits for four years and for goodness knows how many more years, who preferred “And I Love Her” to “Strawberry Fields Forever,” who go to the football and the pub and the hairdressing salon and they’re happy and who am I to deny them such happiness? The problem with me is, as with Can, I want more; whereas most other people just seem to want the same, forever.

 

 

 

SUZI QUATRO: If You Can’t Give Me Love/Cream Dream (RAK 271)

 

 

 

Looking set to have her biggest hit in years, Chinn and Chapman have very regrettably taken Suzi – or “Suzie” as the cover spells it – down the Smokie road of polite folk-rock. “You may be the king of this discotheque thing” as opposed to the Brotherhood Of Man’s “disco bar.” It’s rather like querulous High Court judges who don’t know who those Beatles are.