Here’s an interesting one. The Foreign Films is the nom de guerre of Canadian multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Bill Majoros. He’s been around for over two years and worked with some very well-known and influential artists. He’s probably the opposite of most of the artists we feature on Music Riot; his work isn’t about authenticity and roots, it’s unashamedly about creating gloriously uplifting, hummable and foot-tapping pop tunes in the same vein as The Feeling in the UK a few years ago or 10CC a few more years ago.
Bill Majoros is in a line of pop creators from Jeff Lynne, Pete Waterman, Guy Chambers and others who know how to steal a lick or a hook from somewhere and turn it in to their own creation. It’s not a criticism, all three of those songwriters have been incredibly successful commercially, creating pop masterpieces for themselves and other performers. There are many ways of creating songs and each one is acceptable when it’s judged by the results.
“Starlight Serenade” is the second album by The Foreign Films to be released in the pandemic and once again demonstrates the ability of artists to adapt to changes in circumstances. If you can’t bring musicians in, you play everything yourself and you use technology to create orchestras and choirs, which is exactly how “Starlight Serenade” was made. Most of the musical settings are fairly busy and a couple, “Angel in Disguise” and “Photograph of You”, have Spector-like Wall of Sound arrangements, while the rest of the album has its roots firmly in fifties/sixties/seventies classic pop. Sometimes it’s subtle hints and sometimes it’s complete pastiche like “The Mystery of Love” which is pure fifties/sixties doo-wop with piano triplets and almost falsetto lead vocal. If you think you can hear an influence, then you probably can. “All the Love You Give” hints at the sixties Honeybus classic “I Can’t Let Maggie Go” with the intro from The Fratellis’ “Chelsea Dagger”, “Many Moons Ago” is a nod towards The Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday” and “Rainbows” feels a lot like “Here Comes the Sun”.
“Starlight Serenade” is looking resolutely backwards to a couple of decades in the middle of the last century when pop songs were catchy, upbeat and full of hooks. It’s all about creating songs that are uplifting and, let’s be honest, we could all do with some of that at the moment. Listen and smile.
“Starlight Serenade” is out now on CURVE MUSIC (SNVY82).
Here’s the video from “All the Love You Give”:
The High Fives feature just wouldn’t be the same without a contribution from Our Friend in the North. Steve J has been a very busy man this year, reviewing loads of gigs for us while working as a radio presenter in the Peak District and somehow manging to publish a couple of books as well, “On the Radio” with his brother Paul and a solo effort, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Twilight”. They’re both cracking reads (subtle stocking-filler hint here) and our totally unbiased view is that you should get hold of a copy of each for your nearest and dearest. In the meantime, here’s Steve’s reaction to hearing some of his classic 45s (ask your nan) performed live.
High Fives. This year has been the year of classic singles – LIVE!! So I’ve picked my fave live performances of five classic singles that I’ve experienced this year, bookending from ‘I’m Not In Love’ to ‘Is This Love?’ See what he did there? Certainty into uncertainty. Metaphor for the year, n’est-ce pas?
“I’m Not in Love” – 10CC
A beige, plastic-labelled 45 on Mercury Records. A night out at The Opera House in Buxton. Nearing the end of a storming set and the lighting changes. Suddenly, I become aware of an effect which has been more or less redundant all night…a cutaway mirrorball, throwing darts of seventiesesque silver light in elderly lovers’ eyes and randomly piercing the sudden dark blue wash which had swallowed the stage. And with stunning clarity and instant recognition, the keyboard strikes up for one of the most perfect, flawless and in a way, perplexing lurv songs of all time. And it’s all there. The ambiguity in the title, suggesting despair or disdain or something in between (Disappointment? Disenchantment? Take a look into this lovely audio mirror; see what bounces back) and all wrapped up in that rich electric keyboard swirl which at times sounds like it is emerging, dripping, from between the trees. And can the CCs pull off the stunning build up of layer upon layer of vocal harmonics before it all dissipates in a crystalline sprinkle of sparkly synth? Sure can. Sure do. Four or so minutes of suspended animation. Perfect.
Travellin’ Band – John Fogerty / Creedence Clearwater Revival
Ain’t nothing fancy about this; a UK-release blue-labelled Liberty Records mono 45 cut like the San Andreas Fault and heavily worn with spiral striations due to jukebox wear (the arm skims the toast rack of records, reaches down, grabs, makes a wear imprint and over time, your 45 will fade from shiny black to shimmering grey) with a stomped-out middle and a triangular black centre piece. And a night out in the former Millennium Dome in London. But what a way to start a set. This ain’t no polite calling card; this is a ‘blow the doors off’ statement of intent. John Fogerty rips into the opening tune with the ferocity of a storm-force wind. Rasping and what even for then was uncompromisingly ‘dated’ sax gives way to the foghorn honk of Fogerty’s amazing vocal. You can read millions of pages about what it was like to live the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle; or you can listen to this for about two minutes twenty seconds and get the whole story. You’ve paid for it. And you’re having it.
2-4-6-8 Motorway” – Tom Robinson Band
Red and salmon pink-labelled EMI demo 45 stamped ‘Factory Copy; For Demonstration Use Only’. And as tended to happen with the ‘airplay’ samples, it’s a Porky Prime Cut alright, tyre-wall black and uncompromisingly deep. Wherever it plays, it cuts the air like a knife. Pop tune meets rock anthem meets The New Wave (sort of). Probably the most out of context of all TRB’s output (with the exception of a few plain duffers on the second album) it is the Show Closer all century long, ensuring an enthusiastic crowd stick around for the encore and are Up For It. As a song it just screams to be hit hard, and sung with lust for life and played with drive and passion. And at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, that’s what it gets as the Tom Robinson Band roll back the years and suddenly we’re all somewhere else, sometime else.
“Rock ‘n’ Me” – Steve Miller Band
Another beige plastic-labelled Mercury Records 45. Another drivetime classic meets live anthem. But this one is very ‘American’ as we return to the Drearydomeydrome, London, once more. This just ‘drives’ along on vinyl, with the singer’s voice sounding as artificial and as ethereal as Fogerty’s is to sound ‘real’ and very much Of This World about half an hour later, same place, same night. This is as much a tribute to the fine art of producing recorded sound as it is to it being a mighty fine, well-arranged song. And after an early evening where the sound sold Steve Miller and the Millermen seriously short, it was good to hear the whole thing come together and produce three minutes of unadulterated joy, which evoked top-down, hedonistic, Californian sunshine of various kinds just as vivaciously as the little unassuming vinyl disc did when it first lit up my grim Scottish tenement flat as I first played a demo copy to myself on a horrible little autochange record player way back in (I think!) 1976. Keep On Rockin’ Me, Baby.
“Is This Love” – The Wailers / Bob Marley and the Wailers
Island records multi-coloured label 45 with the lurid green palm tree in the foreground, and with the centre knocked out for use as a Jukebox copy, my “Is This Love?” is a well-travelled audio file. I’ve taken it out on more gigs than The Beatles, The Stones and The Who have played put together and sure enough it bears all the scars of wear, tear, spilt beer, exposure to sunshine on outdoor gigs, grit in between the single sleeve sides, greasy buffet fingers and sub-zero storage. Old-school DJ abuse, in short. As do The Wailers, who continue unsteadily but utterly charmingly into the future, carrying Bob Marley’s live legacy with them. Both on the 45 and in the Manchester Academy, the song and the way it is delivered contains enough space to walk around in. Space. Clarity. No clutter. And those chord progressions and the odd squirt of squealing lead guitar every now and then. And that drummer. Live, just as on the record, strolling, loping along as if it’s the easiest, most natural thing on earth. (Try it some time! I stand in awe of most musicians due to my own limited abilities but reggae drummers….well.) On stage as on vinyl, sunshine, but more than that, a hope bordering on a belief that love can indeed triumph over all, and that peace will be the outcome and unity will be the end result; which lasted about as long as it took for me to walk outside into the typecast Manchester rain and for some bloke half my age and twice my size to attempt to kick me swede in whilst waiting for a taxi. And the compliments of the High Fives to you, too.
For some reason and lovely though it is, press tickets for Buxton Opera House invariably mean you are crammed up against the lighting rig way up in Ye Gods. It’s not the most comfortable way to spend an evening, I will cheerfully concede.
Support act Smith and Brewer wander on and are a competent and pleasant enough listen, with some interesting lyrics and quality acoustic picking. There’s a lot of it about, but you could spend half an hour in significantly worse company, even when they do the Buxton Water Gag (Buxton famous for bottled water, every band has one on stage, congratulates audience on very fine water, everyone goes ha ha ha politely).
10CC have always been an enigma. Their run of chart success, both singles and albums, suggest they should be up there with Queen etc etc but somehow, the mass adulation, instant recognition and media frenzy they managed to evade. So despite number 1 UK hits, a spectacular run, memorable records and huge sales, they remain a sort of large-scale minority (!) semi-guilty pleasure.
Probably because they never had a defined front person, a definitive ‘star’ or focal point in the pack. They were a band – and an art-rock band at that. You never knew quite who you should be looking ‘at’.
History has simplified things considerably in that respect and the only remaining member of the original ‘gang of four’ currently in 10CC is Graham Gouldman. I could at this point make the crack about it being 2.5CC or whatever but in fairness, drummer Paul Burgess has been playing with the band since 1973, which is pretty much the duration of, and lead guitarist Rick Fenn has been with them since about 1978 or so. Which is a while.
So, Graham Gouldman is de facto band leader, and the band do indeed take their cues from him, and the ‘act’ as such, is, as it should be, built around him. That said, he’s a bass player, and, well, you know. Bass man he don’t call for no glamour. Then again, Tom Robinson, etc etc…..
A strange and stagey start to the gig with the band coming on to the audio backdrop of a Graham Gouldman song about…being Graham Gouldman; with squirts of Hotlegs’ “Neanderthal Man” stirred into the mix. This is actually quite evocative and relevant, for Gouldman’s story is a strange one. Few are as prolific and successful as songwriters; he wrote “For Your Love” and “Shapes Of Things” for The Yardbirds, “Look Through Any Window” and “Bus Stop” for The Hollies, “Pamela” for Wayne Fontana and “No Milk Today” for Herman’s Hermits amongst many others. He went to live in the States for a while to churn out ‘bubblegum’ hits for the likes of Ohio Express and Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus. Strange Days Indeed, before Hotlegs who got to number two and sold two million and then, 10CC.
And straight into “Wall Street Shuffle”. Band don’t look overly enthused. It is clinical, but not in a good way; then “Art for Art’s Sake”; and they’ve burnt two classic 10CC 45s, both big hits, and neither audience nor band look particularly engaged by the proceedings so far. And at this point Mr. G and the rest of the band start to talk to the audience and this helps a bit and slowly but surely, they start to ‘unstiffen’. There’s tight, and there’s uptight, and that’s how it looked and sounded early doors, but as the set progressed, matters improved in this respect and that’s a good thing.
Still the hits kept on coming, “Life Is A Minestrone”, attributed to some misheard radio DJ. We have a lot to answer for, it appears. These are Clever Lyrics. And that also can have the effect of driving a bit of distance between the audience and ‘the turn’, but as the band warmed to the task and ultimately the mock-profound lyrics, and the sumptuous layers of sound started to turn things around. “Good Morning Judge” followed, once again reflecting Gouldman’s time in and understanding of aspects of the American experience, in lyrics but also in the chunky country feel this one seems to exude. Another top ten UK hit. Gouldman’s voice didn’t seem altogether ‘there’ on this one, though, which is strange because elsewhere he was spot on.
The band is outrageously talented; various members swap from bass to guitar, keyboards to guitar, percussion to key boards, guitar to bass without any great fanfare, almost just because they can. Indeed Gouldman seems just as happy waving a Telecaster about as he does his bass –and he has a few of those to choose from as well.
Yet another and very interesting hit follows – “The Dean and I”. It is such an effective pastiche of Beach Boys-stylee American youth culture of a time ten to twenty years removed from when it was written – counterbalanced with all the ‘fun’ of being a grown-up, and all that that entails. Perceptive, sharp-eyed and yet still affectionate in a strange kind of way, an early highpoint of the set.
Off we go into the album tracks and – good call – “Old Wild Men”, 10cc’s tribute to Bowie’s “Rock n Roll Suicide”. And the irony was not lost on the band members, especially GG, now 72. Of course, you only get to ‘old’ if at some point you manage to get a grip on ‘wild’, combined with a certain amount of good fortune. This was followed in short order by “Clockwork Creep”, which still has the theatrical power to shock, as we are invited to consider the curious dialogue between aeroplane and explosive device. The theatre, timing and delivery of this really was something else which had the effect of making the following “Feel the Benefit”, a classic Northern expression derived from being forced to take your coat off inside the house, sound a bit ‘baggy’ and prog-rock, really. Which is where a number of 10cc’s album-buying fans lived; in the prog rock bubble of interminable album tracks bereft of hooks, charm or justification. It wasn’t that bad by any means but….some did indeed enjoy it. In a set where they didn’t play “Worst Band In the World” and “People in Love” I struggle to understand, but, fair enough. In a body of work of this size, you aren’t going to get all your faves.
And to be fair, they reacted like they knew this and sweetly harmonised their way through a gorgeous “Things We Do For Love” which FM radio just embraces and celebrates. Very nice camp 70’s hand claps, too.
”Silly Love” then launches itself with careering, skittering intensity and great guitar work. Another high point is reached a few minutes later as “I’m Mandy, Fly Me”, complete with lovely jangly acoustic is announced by the correctly-mixed sample from “Clockwork Creep”. And for most of the time, the harmonies have that sumptuous, layered, multi-tracked gloss they need to bring this off. Can’t be easy to recreate this live even with today’s technologies. Very well done indeed, chaps, especially Paul Canning and Keith Hayman who absolutely shone on this.
And, just as I become aware of two stationary glitter half-balls towards the back of the stage, the band strikes up with “I’m Not in Love”. Recorded around the time of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, when musicians were waking up to the possibilities of multi-layered technologies, this remains one of the most awesome radio tunes ever. And dance floor ‘gnight ‘n’ thangyou’ tunes ever, as well. A number one all century long, it was co-written by Graham Gouldman, and many of the assembled gentlemen sent a silent prayer of thanks towards the stage for something which many will have their own ‘story’ about. I cheerfully predict this tune has not reached zenith point yet in terms of global ‘reach’ and impact. In many years time, this will turn up as THE theme tune to a Massive Film. Even more massive than the last one. And it is played with great accuracy and regard to the original even down to Gouldman’s curious bass meanderings under the girly whisper. One of the greatest UK number one hits ever, recreated beautifully. And what a way to finish your set – with a loose and bouncy chunker-chunk through “Dreadlock Holiday”, another number one hit, finished with ‘I don’t like Buxton – I Love it!’ Beats the generic ‘water’ gag of earlier, I’ll tell thee.
I would have been quite happy to go home at that point but no, the deserved standing ovation brings the encore, and a reflective “Ready to Go Home” leads into a stellar acapella version of the first 10cc hit, “Donna”. This was always a doo-wop pastiche just waiting for this treatment, but the success of this type of treatment depends on the quality of the delivery. Done badly, it’s awful. Done as well as this, it is a guaranteed show-stopper. Brought the house down. As did the only truly ‘rock out’ tune in the repertoire, the rubbery, sinuous “Rubber Bullets” which went all the way to number one in 1973. Standing ovation reprised, band take selfies, all look a bit stunned, which is such a distance away from the reaction and indeed my feelings two tunes into the set, after which I got the distinct impression it was going to be a Long Night For The Riot Squad.
Which it wasn’t.
