Mel and Kim

man, the mid-late 80s was unreal. remember Phil harding turned-in a 7" mix for cabaret Voltaire when they were signed to EMI? and we all thought this was normal behaviour? jesus christ, its fucking scary -best not to examine it too closely - just try and stay focused on that whole Kraftwerk/Detroit/Chicago thing. heh...
 

mms

sometimes
my mate had a mel and kim t-shirt, when mel died he crossed her picture out, now that's respect:eek:
 

Canada J Soup

Monkey Man
Yeah I agree Nick. Pete Waterman's biography is genuinely, frighteningly insane.

From the Wikipedia entry on Pete Waterman:
It was as a gravedigger that Waterman got a passion for Kit Kats, eating four or five a day as he would wait to bury a body. At the height of his success in the eighties he was eating upwards of 12 Kit Kats a day.

How awesome is that. I think I'm going to have to track down a copy of the bio...
 

mms

sometimes
Don't forget that Waterman actually did invent Balearic beat with the 12-inch "Jazzy" Mandy Smith remix.

i'm not sure if baleric was anything more than a concept though, check out the first baleric beats album and you've got the lovely mandy next to nitzer ebb and the residents, baleric as a kind of house music seemed to come a bit later with beloved etc, but it seemed to be a concept based around clubs, but maybe this is true of all genres in retrospect, they all evolve into something more solidly after a while, then riff on the signatures i guess.
 
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mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
i'm not sure if baleric was anything more than a concept though, check out the first baleric beats album and you've got the lovely mandy next to nitzer ebb and the residents, baleric as a kind of house music seemed to come a bit later with beloved etc, but it seemed to be a concept based around clubs, but maybe this is true of all genres in retrospect, they all evolve into something more solidly after a while, then riff on the signatures i guess.

Balearic was real, as in Ibiza was real, and the Djs over there were playing what was exported to here as 'Balearic', and even the pure 'acid' places played Sympathy For The Devil and the like. Shoom was all over the place music wise.

Pete Waterman also invented rare groove with 'Roadblock', lol. What a fucking strange man.

And Rachel? ""Showing Out" is the missing link between Linx and Nitzer Ebb"

How? not quite getting that, but it's the best sentence I've read in ages.
 
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Rachel Verinder

Well-known member
Melodically "Showing Out" reminds me a lot of the early Linx stuff (especially the middle-eight).

The great thing about "Roadblock" is that it originally had a lead vocal (by Jimmy Ruffin, no less) but SAW took it out 'cos they reckoned it would make it less "rare" sounding.
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
Inspired by this thread, I had a bit of a look through a SAW discography, and to be honest it looked pretty thin in the main, apart from the lovely Mel and Kim. Howeever, You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) is still in my 20 singles of all time, I think.
 
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) is still in my 20 singles of all time, I think.

an astonishing record for its time, no less!

isn't it strange...as the pop charts got weirder (post-acid, post-hip hop, proto rave) SAW became ever more conservative. they could've reached for the stars, instead they gave us kylie and jason and rick fucking astley

(although massive respect to rik for sticking two fingers up to the industry and getting the fuck out. i think Waterman still reckons he was the greatest!!)

ps who rembers 'Glass Of Champagne' by Sailor? A #2 hit in '75. i keep hearin it on some TV advert this week. sounds wicked! my ears must be fucked or summit:confused:
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Inspired by this thread, I had a bit of a look through a SAW discography, and to be honest it looked pretty thin in the main, apart from the lovely Mel and Kim. Howeever, You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) is still in my 20 singles of all time, I think.

Again in Pete Waterman's biography - and what's weirdest is that I haven;t read it for yeaaaaaaaaaars, but it must have made a deep impression on me somewhere, which scares me as well - he says that Pete Burns was his favourite person to work with, the one who he thought was the biggest star.
I think it's a great shame they never worked with Boy George, myself.

Rachel - yeah, I can see it. I always though I-level were very underrated with regard to UK computer soul, but the Linx thing I can see. Who produced Linx? It says Bob Carter but the only mentions of him I can find are to do with Paul Hardcastle and 'Private Dancer' by Tina Turner, know anything about him?

Oh and don't forget Imagination as well. That Nightdubbing album is amazing.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
ps who rembers 'Glass Of Champagne' by Sailor? A #2 hit in '75. i keep hearin it on some TV advert this week. sounds wicked! my ears must be fucked or summit:confused:

I just googled Sailor cos I forgot how the song goes, and, erm, came up with this :

"Another of the group's trademarks was the 'Nickelodeon', a scratch-built contraption of pianos, synthesisers, glockenspiels, etc. that allowed the four-man band to reproduce on stage the complex acoustic arrangements that they had done in the studio."

There are pictures of it here :
http://www.sailor-marinero.com/index.htm

It's amazing.

Is this like the alternate universe thread or something?
 
wow, that is indeed amazing. Clearly, Sailor's pop-visionary status needs to be urgently re-assessed (or perhaps simply acknowledged, as I personally have never read any sort of assessment of them, beyond the website you just linked).

the descriptions goes someway to explaining the track's dense, processed sound. Mind you, I remember another tune of theirs that was a big hit called 'Girls girls girls', which was another matter entirely...
 

Rachel Verinder

Well-known member
Sailor were a strange lot but possibly not interestingly so. "Girls Girls Girls" is sort of electrovaudeville. If the Scissor Sisters had brought it out now they'd be hailed etc.

"Glass Of Champagne" was essentially a "Virginia Plain" ripoff but instead of Eno they had Phil "I'm mad me" Pickett camping it up proto-Timmy Mallett style (I always get confused as to whether he was/is the same Phil Pickett who is a leading figure/authority on the Early Music scene).

Bob Carter did Linx and also early Junior Giscombe. Not quite sure what happened to him after that.

The first Linx album (Intuition) is a somewhat neglected Britfunk classic. Second album wasn't so good, though.
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
Junior Giscombe... [eyes mist over]

Every time Imagination come up here, I remind people of his amazing vocal on the Wideboys' Your Mind Your Body Your Soul, one of UKG's toppermost moments.
 

henry s

Street Fighting Man
that Nickelodeon contraption looks like what I would expect The Shortwave Set to wheel out on stage...
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
Haha, dear oh dear, I thought I would look up the lyrics of You Spin Me Round (Like A Record), as I was never sure what he was singing. What a mistake-

All I know is that to me
You look like you're havin' fun
Open up your lovin' arms
Watch out, here I come

It's an astonishing vocal, somewhere between Freddie Mercury and Loletta Holloway, but the lyrics are appalling. Ha.
 

xero

was minusone
wow, that is indeed amazing. Clearly, Sailor's pop-visionary status needs to be urgently re-assessed (or perhaps simply acknowledged, as I personally have never read any sort of assessment of them, beyond the website you just linked).

the descriptions goes someway to explaining the track's dense, processed sound. Mind you, I remember another tune of theirs that was a big hit called 'Girls girls girls', which was another matter entirely...


'down by the docks' is the one you need - underground gay disco classic (for fairly obvious reasons apart from it being a great dance track) - can post an mp3 if you like
 
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