JUNE 1977

 

All that needs to be said about this month is that Silver Jubilee Week in Uddingston was another early reminder of how utterly fenced-off I felt seemingly from the remainder of humanity. Everybody else was joining in, celebrating - celebrating what? - and if you abstained there was Something Wrong With You and people gave you funny looks in the Main Street, as well as compassionate glances towards my mother ("such a nice woman, such a shame..." etc., even though my parents were steadfastly not involved in this business either).

On the afternoon of Saturday 4 June the big procession made its way down Uddingston Main Street, and I duly made my way into Uddingston Library where I took out a copy of Black Music by the writer then still known as LeRoi Jones, a fierce diatribe against any notion of imposed order. On that evening's edition of Jazz Record Requests, Peter Clayton played "Bailophone Dance" by Pharaoh Sanders, one of the musicians described (and also photographed) in Jones' book. "Fucking hell," I quipped to myself. In one of the music papers that week, possibly Melody Maker, there appeared a reproduction of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's "what side of the bed" T-shirt. I noted the presence, among the good people, of Dewey Redman and Archie Shepp. I then knew what punk rock was, as I know in their bones did they.

After dinner that evening, I went to my couch in the bedroom and wrote the first section of the following. 

 

 

4 June

THE STRANGLERS: Peaches/Go Buddy Go (United Artists UP 36248)

No hesitation or apologies. The New Wave has infiltrated the charts. Even if the Stranglers are not technically punk rock - although if you think about punk rock in its original sixties garage band sense, they might be the punkiest of the lot - they still make a fuss and don't care about your patterned orders of bland benignity. Singer Hugh Cornwell sneers this seaside anti-shuffle rather than sings it, the bass could bite your teeth off and the organ is seeking refuge from Atomic Rooster - this is fantastically produced by Martin Rushent. This record isn't interested in being nice but in being different. Whereas "Hotel California" simply slinks away in shame, "Peaches" is deliberately confrontational. You won't be able to bop or smooch to it at the school disco and in the approaching summer of 1977 that matters (not least because school's out for the holidays). Taste? This spits that ghastly deceit right back at you. A great rock record, for those who recall how such things are supposed to sound.

 

THE JACKSONS: Show You The Way To Go/Blues Away (Philadelphia International/Epic EPC 5266)

 

Berry Gordy couldn't really work out what to do with, or about, the Jacksons, so now they're part of the Philly Sound and sound far more relaxed and confident as a consequence of being treated like grown-ups. This is a really superb, languid Gamble and Huff production with a splendid arrangement - that worrying lead guitar sounding at times like a mournful pedal steel - and a phenomenal lead vocal from Michael. Should be their biggest hit here since "I'll Be There."

 

GLADYS KNIGHT & THE PIPS: Baby, Don't Change Your Mind/I Love To Feel That Feeling (Buddah BDS 458)

 

Looking set to hit big, Van McCoy gives Gladys and her boys the latterday hustling uptempo Stylistics treatment but is wise enough to leave Hugo and Luigi out of things. Gloriously wracked lead vocal performance as ever.

 

CAROLE BAYER SAGER: You're Moving Out Today/Aces (Elektra K 12257)

 

Sixties songwriter - as "Carole Bayer" she co-wrote "A Groovy Kind Of Love" - comes back with an extraordinary record that sounds like an off-Broadway musical number gone awry. She wants rid of this weird man - what, one wonders, lurks in his sixty-one cassettes? - and the end result is like Dory Previn doing "Rainy Day Women" with vaudeville brass and thirties movie catchphrases ("Get. Out. Of. My. House. You. Dirt. Y!"). So unconventional that it's clearly going to be big, if only on a novelty level.

 

GENESIS: Spot The Pigeon (E.P.) (Charisma GEN 001)

Track listing: Match Of The Day/Pigeons/Inside And Out 

It's something of a punk rock gesture for a band of Genesis' standing to be releasing what looks like a wacky, throwaway E.P., let alone score ("Match Of The Day" - see? Ahem...) their biggest hit "single" (and indeed their only one in three years); perhaps the success of "Solsbury Hill" was the jolt they or their label needed. Anyway this is delightfully uncatchy (and by their standards quite self-effacing) music, and I doubt if the band's fans can get it any higher up on the chart but in a sense it's a kick up the backside in many ways.

 

SEX PISTOLS: God Save The Queen/Did You No Wrong (Virgin VS 181)

 

For a record which may well be set to destroy any concept of "the charts" forever, it is best to start at the beginning. Or maybe just crash into the middle.

People don't want you to hear or buy this record. This includes Woolworths, whose standing order I cancelled this morning as a result. I wasn't that bothered because I'd already bought the single from Listen Records in Glasgow's very own Renfield Street in anticipation that Woolworths wouldn't be stocking it, and in future I'll be getting the week's new entries from HMV just up the road on Union Street.

The thing is this record tells you things you might not want to hear. Things which go against everything that might have been implanted in you and your ancestors' brains for centuries. The way they are viewed as gods, more than human (and yes, I've been reading Theodore Sturgeon) and how they are ultimately neutralised as a consequence.

This explosion of a rock 'n' roll record is everything "Anarchy In The U.K." should have been but wasn't. It's faster, more coherent, far more powerful. Note that the single is credited just to "Sex Pistols." It isn't "God Save Queen" by The Sex Pistols even though both groups now share the same producer (Chris Thomas) and there's more than a touch of Brian May in Steve Jones' guitar solo. This is us, the record seems to be saying, take us or leave us; we aren't going to bound up to you and lick your face or agree with you.

This is brilliant rock 'n' roll whichever way you listen to it. I'd say there's an awful lot of the Sweet about the song's attack - "Teenage Rampage" in particular - but even that is underrating what is by any stretch of the imagination a near-terrorist attack on pop music, or what we choose to deem pop.

My suspicion is that Johnny Rotten loves the Queen really - "We love our Queen!" he chirps twice, without any apparent element of irony or satire - but detests what Britain has forced her to become, an empty figurehead for rich tourists, an abandoned chalice of worship. "The fascist regime - it made you a morrrrrrON, a potential H-BOMB!" Flowers no longer in the rain, but in the dustbin. The spectacle has robbed us of any pretence towards individuality, systematically stripped us of any unique quality in favour of conforming to what other people are made to expect from or of us.

"NO FUTURE!" the band keeps crying as the song reaches its incendiary climax, but I interpret this in what I understand is the Situationist way - I haven't read any Guy Debord yet; the library doesn't have his books - insofar as, if you want there still to be a future, you're going to have to go out and create one yourselves. I hear Johnny Rotten just as I heard Pharaoh Sanders two-and-a-quarter hours ago and they both scream "NO BUT YES!" And on an elemental level, isn't it just great to hear musicians making noise again - highly-sculptured noise, but nonetheless noise?

I would therefore argue that you owe it to yourself as a human being to go out, risk getting a cold or getting beaten up, and hear this remarkable 45 rpm single, especially if THOSE people - we all know who they are - are so desperately attempting to prevent you from doing so, and importantly buy it and help get it to number one next week, although those who run things will I'm sure find a pallid excuse not to have that happen. This, however, is the sheep being separated from the goats. You have to take sides. For or against the future, but if there is no future, what is the purpose of life?

 

 

11 June

HONKY: Join The Party/Party Time, Funky Time (Creole CR 137)

 

Not sure you should be calling a band by that name these days, but this is pretty purposeful disco filler.

 

QUEEN: Queen's First E.P. (EMI 2623)

Track listing: Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy/Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To...)/Tenement Funster/White Queen (As It Began)

While we're waiting for their next album, this four-track retrospective for newcomers to the band should remind them that there is a lot more to them than just "Bohemian Rhapsody" although the 10cc-type wistful camp of "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" sounds a bit pale and dated in the context of the Sex Pistols (whose "God Save The Queen" has, to nobody's surprise, "only" climbed to number two this week - there is talk of chart manipulation. My increasing feeling is that the only charts of meaning are the ones you compile yourself). Will there ever be a second E.P.?

 

FRANKIE MILLER: Be Good To Yourself/Down The Honky Tonk (Chrysalis CHS 2147)

 

Long-overdue first hit for the great, throaty Glaswegian soul-rock singer who in my opinion could outsing Rod Stewart all the way to Bellshill; superb, unhurried R&B.

 

BO KIRKLAND AND RUTH DAVIS: You're Gonna Get Next To Me/Stay Out My Kitchen (If You Can't Stand The Heat) (EMI International INT 532)

 

Slinky midtempo disco sensuality - almost an answer record to the recent Rose Royce hit.

 

EMERSON LAKE & PALMER: Fanfare For The Common Man/Brain Salad Surgery (Atlantic K 10946)

 

Punk really must have some big names running scared; this is, I think, the first single ELP have ever released in the UK and it's a stormy reworking of the Aaron Copland piece - one of the most simultaneously stirring and sinister pieces of music that I can think of - which works brilliantly as a pop record. Remember those, prog heads? ELP certainly do. Wouldn't this be quite the record to go to number one?

 

18 June

GEORGE BENSON: Nature Boy/The Wind And I (Warner Bros K 16921)

 

Another WEA 12-inch gimmick release but good to see the great guitarist back in the charts with this very sensual remake of the Nat "King" Cole oldie.

 

ALESSI: Oh, Lori/I Was So Sure (A&M AMS 7289)

 

Nothing at all wrong with mainstream American pop when it's done as beautifully (and, again, with as much sensuality) as this; a lovely jazz shuffle with vibes and flute, a sort of double Robin the Frog set of cousins to Steely Dan's Kermits. I can love both this and "God Save The Queen" because why should I not?

 

OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN: Sam/Changes (EMI 2616)

 

Old-fashioned Don Black-penned waltzing weepie which sounds as though it belongs on a Cilla Black album in 1968 but Olivia gives it her usual gamely treatment and this should be big with Two Ronnies fans.

 

HOT CHOCOLATE: So You Win Again/A Part Of Being With You (RAK 259)

 

Seven years into their chart career and still Hot Chocolate have never had a number one; that should have been "You Sexy Thing" but unfortunately for Errol and his colleagues it came up against "Bohemian Rhapsody." This brisk and extremely catchy Russ Ballard song should do it for them now, however, with Errol's vocals more direct and intense than they have been of late.

 

 

25 June

"DETROIT" EMERALDS: Feel The Need/Love Has Come To Me (Westbound/Atlantic K 10945)

 

Not a reissue, but a complete re-recording, mixed for 12-inch by Tom Moulton, and this is really spectacular dance music. Deserves to be as big a hit as the original was four years ago.

 

TONY ETORIA: I Can Prove It/Angel For Lovers To Be (GTO GT 89)

 

Subtly insistent Jesse Green-style hustler.

 

ELTON JOHN: Bite Your Lip (Get Up And Dance!)/KIKI DEE: Chicago (The Rocket Record Company RU 1)

 

The 12-inch single appears to be taking over; although I'm not sure the Elton track, oddly compelling though it is, is in itself particularly danceable, Tom Moulton does his best to make it so. The Kiki Dee track, however, though not remotely danceable, really stands out.

 

T-CONNECTION: Do What You Wanna Do/Got To See My Lady (T.K. Disco XC 9109)

 

Possibly the biggest record out of Miami since "That's The Way (I Like It)," an absolutely dynamic disco stomper and just about funkier than anything (although Sly Stone might want a word about that "If You Want Me To Stay" bassline); unlike some 12" hits, this fully justifies its seven-and-a-quarter minutes.

MAY 1977

 

 

In retrospect, May 1977 was as good as things were going to get for me. I did extraordinarily well in most of my exams. I came top of my (second) year in four subjects, including one 100/100 mark and joint first in English (98/100). I came second of my year in another three subjects, one of which was Art, at which I was habitually mediocre so there you go.

 

Did I win any school prizes? Oh no. Nothing. You see, what they did – the people who determined who was going to come top – was average out all ten exam marks for each pupil. My Achilles heel was Technical Drawing, in which I scored a remarkable 12/100. I didn’t want to do the subject in the first place but back then you had no choice – I would have been considerably better at Home Economics but that was for GIRLS only, whereas Technical Drawing (and later Woodwork) was strictly for the BOYS.

 

That mark dragged my average down somewhere below sewer level, so all the prizes, including the John Junor Prize for Dux of Second Year, went to nicely-behaved uncontroversial types who obediently scored 85/100 in everything. The average rewarded and the maverick ignored. It turned out to be the story of my life.

 

Still, times were good that May. You didn’t yet have to take school all that seriously – that was for third year, when you had to pick and choose subjects, work towards your O Grade exams and start thinking about what you wanted to do, or what you could do, after you left school. I was looking forward to third year, myself; anticipating being free of Technical Drawing and the nasty, sadistic dwarf who taught the subject to us in second year.

 

Then there was the stage. We performed The Chinese Mask twice on the Monday, once in the afternoon before fellow pupils, and again in the evening before pupils’ parents, including mine. It was exciting and thrilling, actually. Our young hippy English teacher director Mr Ross, dressing down in tie-dyes etc. (in 1977!), swooshed around excitedly. It was something different from everyday school business.

 

It was bloody great being on stage and performing in front of an audience. I adored acting. I wanted to keep on doing it, to develop. It was something I found for myself, as opposed to something imposed on me by my parents. The Chinese Mask was surely only the beginning of many glories to come, despite my corpsing twice on a key line of dialogue despite six months of steadfast rehearsal.

 

There was no way that I could know, at the time, that this…this moment…would be it. A road down which I would happily have travelled. But then the road was closed off to me, and fenced off.

 

 

7 May

 

BILLY PAUL: Let ‘Em In/I Think I’ll Stay Home Today (Philadelphia International PIR 5143)

 

 

 

Staggering, explicit reworking, possibly recorded live, of the cosy Wings song to incorporate Martin Luther King’s speeches and an overall Civil Rights theme. This is how you cover a song – approach it from a very different angle.

 

 

 

DELEGATION: Where Is The Love (We Used To Know)/Back Door Love (State Records STAT 40)

 

 

 

Real Thing-style midtempo chugger from UK soul vocal group which sounds a lot more purposeful than the last Real Thing single.

 

 

 

PIERO UMILIANI: Mah-Na Mah-Na/You Tried To Warn Me (EMI International INT 530)

 

 

 

Benny Hill sketch jingle obviously reissued to cash in on the Muppets’ revival of the tune. Bizarre but makes much more sense as a hit single.

 

 

 

 

 

KENNY ROGERS: Lucille/Till I Get It Right (United Artists UP 36242)

 

 

 

Back on the charts for the first time since 1970, the gruff-voice country singer returns with a wistfully woozy barroom ballad.

 

 

 

 

14 May

 

HEATWAVE: Too Hot To Handle/Slip Your Disc To This (GTO GT 91)

 

 

 

Neither song is as immediate as “Boogie Nights” but are both still very agreeably funky.

 

 

 

BLUE: Gonna Capture Your Heart/The Shepherd (The Rocket Record Company ROKN 522)

 

 

 

Glasgow band so much liked by Elton John that he signed them to his label and co-produced this pleasant but hardly remarkable Gallagher and Lyle-style soft-rock-pop plodder.

 

 

 

MARVIN GAYE: Got To Give It Up (Pt. 1)/Got To Give It Up (Pt. 2) (Motown TMG 1069)

 

 

 

A tremendous comeback single and potentially Gaye’s biggest British single since 1969; this makes me think of Bowie taking the mass production disco grind of side one of Low and throwing some light upon it. The record is almost what Patrick Moore on The Sky At Night calls an event horizon in itself and is primarily functional in its intent; the groove – song or record - could theoretically continue forever. It exists purely on its rhythmic attraction until Gaye introduces interesting and occasionally heartbreaking minor key harmonic variations into what passes for the song’s middle eight. Behind and beside him we hear the voices of a party, hardly altered from “What’s Going On?” (which really should have been a major hit single but was probably kept out of the charts for political reasons), whooping and cheering the singer on in perfect good nature. Like “Marquee Moon,” this too is the future.

 

 

 

BAY CITY ROLLERS: It’s A Game/Dance, Dance, Dance (Arista ARISTA 108)

 

 

 

Clearly on the decline, and reduced to covering a String Driven Thing oldie from 1973 (played all the time on Luxembourg but never quite a hit). It’s a guess as to how many more hits the Rollers will have, but I can’t imagine there will be that much more.

 

 

 

 

21 May

 

BRYAN FERRY: Tokyo Joe/She’s Leaving Home (Polydor 2001 711)

 

 

 

Rather dull rock plodder with clichéd Japanese effects and a much more interesting B-side from All This And World War II, where the ageing lounge lizard tackles the Beatles’ ballad in a way at least one reviewer has already compared with Adam Faith.

 

 

 

JOY SARNEY: Naughty Naughty Naughty/FRIENDS OF JOY: Letters Of Love (Alaska ALA 2005)

 

 

 

Excruciating Punch and Judy novelty romp. Exactly the type of tripe daytime Radio 1 DJs imagine we want and succinctly summing up why punk rock had to happen. It’s the equivalent of Cyril Fletcher on That’s Life cackling over a tin of peas that costs thirty PEE. Stop buying this; you’ll only be ashamed of yourselves in ten years’ time.

 

 

 

YVONNE ELLIMAN: Hello Stranger/Good Sign (RSO 2090 236)

 

 

 

Efficient but unexciting cover of the Barbara Lewis oldie.

 

 

 

TRAMMPS: Disco Inferno/You Touch My Hot Line (Atlantic K 10914)

 

 

 

I asked for the 12-inch version of this at Woolworths because James Hamilton in Record Mirror raved over it, and he was right. Absent from the charts since “Hold Back The Night,” the group storm back with this defiant and possibly revolutionary stomper (since they appear to be singing gleefully about burning everything down) and it has to be heard, and preferably danced to, in its full ten-minute version with minimalist harmonies and rhythms that would not shame Steve Reich and the lead singer’s hilarious ad libs two-thirds of the way through. It's like the Four Tops have had their arses kicked into the late seventies and can’t believe what glories they’ve encountered. Phenomenal.

 

 

 

 

BOZ SCAGGS: Lido Shuffle/We’re All Alone (CBS 5136)

 

 

 

Nobody seems to have their finger on the pulse of current pop more firmly than Boz Scaggs. Yet another glorious song from the incandescent Silk Degrees with a titanic synthesiser instrumental break. If Van Morrison could let himself go and cheer up a bit, he’d be as good as this. The B-side is the writer’s own definitive reading of a great ballad; mildly surprised that it isn’t the A-side, but no doubt several cover versions will be on their way.

 

 

 

 

28 May

 

SHALAMAR: Uptown Festival (Part 1)/Uptown Festival (Part 2) (Soul Train FB 0885)

 

 

 

In the vein of the Ritchie Family, this is an energetic disco medley of old Motown favourites. Not sure we need Motown oldies when they’re currently releasing such great records as “Got To Give It Up,” “Don’t Leave Me This Way” and “Sir Duke,” but if you’re drunk in the disco at two in the morning I don’t suppose it will matter that much.

 

 

 

ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA: Telephone Line/Poorboy (The Greenwood)/King Of The Universe (Jet Records UP 36254)

 

 

 

Value for money three-tracker led by anguished Bee Gees-style outer space weepie that should give Jeff Lynne & Co. yet another top ten hit.

 

 

 

TINA CHARLES: Rendezvous/When You Got Love (CBS 5174)

 

 

 

Brisk, sunny deviation from the singer (and producer)'s usual formula but possibly already too dated-sounding to become a really big hit.

 

 

 

THE MUPPETS: Halfway Down The Stairs (Sung by Kermit’s Nephew Robin [Jerry Nelson])/Mah Na Mah Na (Pye 7N 45698)

 

 

 

Possibly the biggest pop stars in Britain at the moment – their only real competition is the Sex Pistols – Jim Henson’s creations offer us a halting reading of the A. A. Milne children’s bedtime lullaby and, inevitably, their version of the Piero Umiliani tune on the B-side. The album, due out in a few weeks, should be interesting.

 

 

 

RAMONES: Sheena Is A Punk Rocker/Commando/I Don’t Care (Sire RAM 001)

 

 

 

It had to happen; the original punks finally get a hit. Another 12-inch single previewing the band’s forthcoming third album – three albums in the space of just over a year reflects quite a remarkable commitment to work – and of course it shakes you awake, licks you in the face and swiftly escorts you away from any compromising mainstream mediocrity. Interesting how the Ramones rise at the same moment that the Rollers appear to be sinking. Will the girls be screaming at them this time next year?

 

 

 

LIVERPOOL FOOTBALL TEAM 76/77: We Can Do It (E.P.) (State Records STAT 50)

 

 

 

Track listing: We Can Do It/Liverpool Lou/We Shall Not Be Moved/You’ll Never Walk Alone

 

In 1974 so many people thought Liverpool couldn’t do it without Bill Shankly, but Bob Paisley proved them very wrong. They lost 2-1 to Manchester United in the F.A. Cup final but still managed to top the First Division and win the Football League Cup, and are in the European Cup final tomorrow, playing Borussia Mönchengladbach. If they win this might go to number one. Cheerful and spirited souvenir for the fans (Author’s 2025 Note: they did win the European Cup for the first time in their history, beating Borussia Mönchengladbach 3-1, and the E.P. never climbed higher than #15, but that isn't why they’re remembered and loved).

 

 

 

JULIE COVINGTON with CHARLOTTE CORNWELL, RULA LENSKA, SUE JONES-DAVIS (sic): O.K.?/CHARLOTTE CORNWELL: B-Side (Polydor 2001 714)

 

 

 

Uncompromising from the start: “You want to do me…but I don’t want to be done…O.K.?” From the second series of Rock Follies which has been shown in part but isn’t on at the moment because of ITV industrial action. Perhaps this is now sounding slightly old-fashioned in the age of punk etc. Women who mean it being exploited by cynical men. The story of pop, many might summarise that.