— Tim de Lisle
We tend to think of the indie DJs when it comes to champions of up and coming bands. John Peel supposedly cried when he first heard The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks" and his famed Peel Sessions were instrumental in getting bands signed to major labels and into the charts. Janice Long was similarly dedicated to lifting up bands on the fringes. Being on a public broadcaster like the BBC, there wasn't the commercial pressure to dedicate the bulk of air time to the hottest groups.
But it wasn't just the trendy disc jockeys who did this. To one extent or another, they all performed this task. Mike Reid may have voted Conservative and played tennis with Cliff Richard in his spare time but he was also an unlikely backer of Liverpool indie rockers The Icicle Works. Bruno Brookes was also a Tory but this didn't stop him from getting behind late-eighties' acid house, with the brilliant "Stakker Humaniod" owing at least some of its Top 20 success to Britain's most popular DJ of the era. Rather admirably, this generation of Thatcherites on the wireless thought nothing of promoting even the most staunchly left wing acts.
With his blond hair, dimple and cheery disposition, Peter Powell was a popular DJ who is recalled a lot more fondly than many of his contemporaries. While the majority of radio presenters past and present struggle to avoid making it all about themselves, he admirably kept his ego in check. Seemingly uninterested in being too cool for school, he got behind some of the more commercially dominant acts of Britain's second great pop boom, including Culture Club, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet. Pop kids didn't need to be hectored by either self-righteous indie types or boomers stuck in the sixties; to have a DJ like Powell who didn't seem to resent current mainstream music would have been much appreciated.
Still, not everyone he backed enthusiastically took off. The Church are a long-standing Australian institution with a very respectable back catalog but they never troubled the UK Top 40 in spite of Powell's best efforts. Proving there's only so much one Radio 1 presenter can do, he was similarly unsuccessful in promoting London quintet Bim.
Culture Club, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet...and Bim? (The name doesn't quite fit in with the rest, does it?) Could they have become a part of the Second British Invasion? It seems far fetched though it really shouldn't. In lead singer Cameron McVey they had a figure with movie star looks, albeit seemingly without quite the same flair for the spotlight as Boy George and Simon Le Bon. They also crafted some fine singles that check all the required elements to please Tim de Lisle (and, indeed, Peter Powell). Exciting? Oh yes. Good for dancing? I can't see why not. Well-produced? I suppose so. And, crucially given the pop climate, powerful? As powerful as anything Lemmy or David Lee Roth had in them, that's for sure.
Let's just jump back to "Factory" being "well-produced". While not self-produced, it's notable that two very influential studio boffins were members of Bim. McVey would try his hand again at a pop career with a single called "Looking Good Diving" alongside partner Jamie Morgan. Their prospects were promising enough that it was produced by Stock Aitken Waterman. Its B side was the similarly-titled "Looking Good Diving with the Wild Bunch", a song that would soon evolve into "Buffalo Stance", the hugely popular and influential hit single for McVey's now wife Neneh Cherry. This would become his launch pad towards producing hip acts like Massive Attack and Portishead as well as pop groups All Saints and Sugababes. Bim bassist Stephen Street would also head in the direction of production, helming Morrissey's solo debut, the first five Blur albums and The Cranberries. Indie guitar pop wouldn't have been the same without him.
There's little doubt that their talent and experience in a band aided the careers of both McVey and Street as they found themselves coming into their own behind mixing desks. Yet, they somehow couldn't quite cut it as pop stars. They had a look, they had a sound, they even had power but what they might have lacked was lyrics for the kids to identify with. "Factory" is a great song but I can't really see it capturing the collective imagination the way Haircut One Hundred or The Associates had recently managed. "Love Plus One" and "Party Fears Two" made not make any sense but they're both aspirational, strange and whimsical. "Factory", not to mention Bim's other very well made singles, lacks these pop essentials.
But good on Peter Powell and Tim de Lisle to become mouthpieces for a group like Bim. Not everyone can be Duran Duran but it never hurts giving others a boost. "Factory" may not have been immediate pop but it remains "exciting, good for dancing, well-produced and powerful." Lesser acts have gone further with much less — Spandau Ballet being one of them.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Mathématiques Modernes: "Disco-Rough"
They had a francophone name and a distinctly Continental image and yet it's tempting to wonder if Mathématiques Modernes were Japanese rather than French. (Why did it take me so long to realise that the two countries share a common pop tradition) The striking duo of Edwige Braun-Belmore and Fabrice Thiesset borrowed as liberally from Shibuya-kei as they did post-punk or anything they picked up from Andy Warhol — and at a time when it wasn't cool to try and sound as tacky and manufactured as possible. "Disco-Rough" has none of those vaunted qualities of "Factory" but its insistent rhythms and playfulness make it much more fun to listen to. Imagine being so cool that you're above dong a Peel Session. Mental note: forget UK-US pop, it's high time I went on a strict diet of Franco-Japanese stuff. More to follow — probably.
(Click here to see my original review)
No comments:
Post a Comment