Music for a broken concrete utopia

I suppose it was only a matter of time till I discovered Gordon Chapman-Fox and the sound of Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan. It's where Northern brutalism and psychogeography (two passions of mine) plug into the mains and reimagine what Krautrock would sound like if you swapped slick Germanic autobahns for British arterial ring roads and their miles of ubiquitous coned off lanes.

You'll have to forgive me but, like I've just said, I have only just begun wading thru their back catalogue; I really could have chosen anything, by way of introduction, from their half dozen albums (plus a clutch of singles/EPs) but I've gone for a brace that starts with Polytechnic from People & Industry - their album from 2022 featuring a rather familiar looking power station on the album's sleeve, and then Gateway to the North from 2021's Interim Report, March 1979 (the spoken word intro, I think, tees both the track and the album up perfectly).

Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan · Polytechnic

Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan · Gateway to The North

Awkward

If your formative years were anything like mine then how you felt growing up in the early 70s can probably be best defined by one word. Awkward; standing on the precipice of teenhood was just that - a precipice. If you've forgotten what exactly hanging around looked like in 1972 then I suggest you take three minutes out of your timetable and watch this amazing Super 8 footage of kids with the world at their feet - if they did but know it. In this reel (more like a time capsule, really) these lads & lassies can be seen displaying absolutely none of the attitude, confidence, or, for want of a better word, brazenness, their 21st century counterparts possess when the cameras are turned on them. The music, btw, is Slady - the UK's only all female Slade tribute band. 

Bridgend, South Wales, c.1972/3 - Film c/o Roland Morris

 

Everyone's a winner

I think it's a pretty safe bet to say that the only people who don't like Hot Chocolate are music snobs. There, I've said it. Let's go outside if you don't agree. (Actually, in light of my current health, can we just agree to exchange heated emails?) Errol Brown and his crack band of musicians (under the tutelage of one Mickie Most) RAK'd up hits in every year from 1970 to 1984. Some going, huh? And, IMHO, every 1's a winner. See what I did there? I was lucky enough to catch them live (tho' at the time they were probably billed as Errol Brown's Hot Chocolate). No matter, they didn't disappoint. And, if memory serves, they opened with this.

Hot Chocolate - You Could've Been a Lady (1972) 

★ 

As you can see from the image at the top of the page, in 1979, when the band's PR people were designing the sleeve for their '20 Hottest Hits' compilation, some Ad Man had a lightbulb moment and invoked the Malteser as shorthand for Errol Brown's bald pate. An advertising masterstroke.

Errol Brown (1943-2015)

It's better than digging a ditch

Norman Whitfield was one of Berry Gordy's right hand men at Motown. Songwriter extraordinaire, he penned Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home), Ain't Too Proud to Beg, I Heard it Through the Grapevine, Needle in a Haystack, Ball of Confusion, War, Papa Was a Rollin' Stone and many, many more. He worked with most acts on the label's roster including the Temptations, Gladys Knight and Edyyn Starr and won countless Grammys in the process. In 1976 he upped sticks, formed his own label, and wrote this rather elegant slice of disco infused funk. It shifted in excess of two million copies. 

 Rose Royce - Car Wash (1976)

Norman Whitfield (1940-2008)

Through restful waters and deep commotion

Blondie Chaplin with Brian Wilson

Just before I pack away my Brian Wilson memories and take them up to my cerebral attic, I thought I'd just briefly mention a personal favourite of mine (tho' not, interestingly, one of Wilson's). Taken from their 1973 album, Holland, it's a Van Dyke Parks collaboration whose lead vocal was sung by neither Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson or indeed Mike Love. Blondie Chaplin, for it is he, was both a time served Beach Boy and a Rolling Stone (and how many people can say that?). Maybe when the dust (or should I say sand?) has settled I'll write a few words about one of rock and roll's unsung heroes. Until then, here is one of the band's most luxuriant, plaintive cries...

The Beach Boys - Sail On, Sailor (1973)