The Movies
Double "A"
and
Bullets
Through the Barrier
Success, particularly in the rock music field, has about as much to do
with chance as it does with talent. A lot of it has to do with being at
the right place at the right time, thus the lucky few “make it,” while
everyone else has to struggle. There are many examples of bands and
artists who aren’t particularly talented, but whom nonetheless scale
heights of fame. Conversely, there are many more examples of bands that
truly did have talent, but due to bad timing, missed opportunities and
what-have-you, never achieved the commercial success they deserved. As
examples of the former are too depressing to contemplate (and yet, too
overly contemplated everywhere else), today I bring myself to discuss
an example of the latter.
I first discovered Britain’s Movies via their third (1978) album, Bullets
Through The Barrier. I
can’t say particularly what attracted me to the album, but I think it
may have had something to do with the unusual translucent green-white
vinyl on which it was pressed. I wasn’t blown away with it at the time,
but I found it enjoyable enough that I picked up their second album, Double “A”, when I found it some
time later. It didn’t impress me nearly as much as its follow-up, and I
shelved it after a scant few cursory listens.
Bringing them back out of the stacks has been a rather revelatory
experience. Double “A”, which
I’d initally found mediocre at best, I now know to be still patchy but
with some stellar high points. Bullets Through The Barrier, which I’d
initially found “good” now strikes me as a borderline classic.
As the Movies’ history seems to have been mired in a lot of confusion
and misinformation, I feel it only right that I set the record straight
before setting off on my review proper. The band had its roots in the
Cambridge progressive rock band Public Foot The Roman, who had released
one album in 1973 on Capitol/Sovereign. PFTR effectively disbanded
after the release of their album, but keyboardist Dag Small, drummer
Jamie Lane and guitarist Greg Knowles soldiered on, reconstituting a
new band featuring singer/guitarist Jon Cole and
percussionist/multi-instrumentalist Julian Diggle from a competing
Cambridge rock band, Thunderbox. Add Venezuelan bass player Durban
Laverde, and the Movies were born.
Almost immediately, the Movies found themselves with a record deal for
A&M. Their self-titled 1975 debut (produced by ex-Vinegar Joe
guitarist Pete Gage) didn’t shift a lot of units, but it created enough
attention in music circles that got them a lot of good gigs right out
of the gate. The first of these was a support/backup gig for
singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading, whose sophomore 1975 release (Back
to the Night) was likewise
produced by Gage. Their association with Armatrading was a lasting one:
Diggle guested on her 1983 album The
Key, while Lane drummed on 1988’s The Shouting Stage.
1975 also brought difficult change to the band. Four members (Lane,
Knowles, Small and Laverde) were in a train crash in Nuneaton. All four
were injured, but they were the lucky ones; many other passengers died.
But Laverde was injured so badly he was unable to continue playing with
the band. His slot in the subsequent tour was filled by newcomer Dave
Quinn.
Though incredibly talented, the Movies never found the success they so
deserved. Part of it may have something to do with the fact that there
was no ready-made audience for their quirky brand of rock & roll,
but a big stumbling block turned out to be plain old bad timing. In the
U.K., the mid-to-late seventies were a bad time for any young rock band
that wasn’t explicitly punk in orientation. And while they were
erroneously introduced as a “British punk band” at a concert in Norway,
they were decidedly un-punk. Which is not to say they were exactly
prog-rock (despite being erroneously billed as such in the occasional
vinyl dealer’s catalogue), though their virtuosic playing and
conceptual nature (“every song is a picture that moves”) were enough to
brand them as “hippies” by the snotty safety-pin set. The fact that
Knowles and keyboard player Mick Parker both sported beards and shaggy
manes probably didn’t help their case any.
They probably could have stood a better chance in the U.S.A., if only
they had acted faster. They were a bit past-peak when their fourth
album, India (made minus
Parker, and with bassist Colin Gibson replacing Quinn), finally arrived
on American shores. And it didn’t help that there was a bit of
confusion between them and an identically named Seattle pop trio, who
released their one and only (self-titled) album on Arista in 1977. And
you can thank Dave Marsh, the idiot from the Rolling Stone Record
Guide, for propagating that smidgen of misinformation.
So, what did they sound like? The Movies started with a base of good
old rock & roll, cried some blues via Cole’s expressive
slide-guitar and the odd harmonica from Diggle, threw in Latin touches
(especially via Diggle’s percussion), jazzy (even fusion-y) accents and
the odd flirtation with funk and mixed well. Some have compared them to
10cc, but the Movies were considerably less arty, less studio-bound and
far more bluesy and stripped-down. Not quite “pub-rock,” but your
Guinness™ would go down pretty smooth to their music. Some have
inaccurately pegged their music as “new wave,” probably due in part to
Parker’s occasional helium-fuelled synthesizer work, and probably due
in part to Cole’s looks, which were not dissimilar to Elvis Costello’s.
Double “A” opens with a rather
cool, beat-jazz tinged motive for Wurlitzer piano and fingersnaps,
establishing “Heaven on The Street.” Their bluesy touch is immediately
proclaimed by Jon Cole’s authoritative slide-guitar exhortations.
Still, the tune is intriguingly haunting; they definitely know how to
establish a mood. Cole’s lyrical wit, likewise, is apparent right out
of the gate, with slyly comic couplets like, “What our eyes see no eyes
have seen/Since God made street signs.”
“Yo-Yo” is certainly no less moody. In fact, it’s a lot darker than its
flippant title would portend. As a brief instrumental intro, Mick
Parker solos on electric piano over a midtempo, jazzy, conga-laden
groove. The lyrics are a bit elusive, but seem to suggest some sort of
character study. Just who is this Yo-Yo fellow? He seems rather
chameleonic. Parker contributes a second electric piano solo after a
couple of verses. One more verse, then the tune kicks into high-octane
with a double-time conga break. This leads into a sort of
Latin-inspired nonsense refrain, and a high-energy instrumental section
featuring yet another Wurlitzer solo, an acoustic piano solo and a
great, rolling solo from Julian Diggle on timbales, followed by a
fadeout over a repeat of the refrain section.
The next brace of tunes aren’t as substantial. “True Love Trouble,”
Diggle’s lone compositional contribution (and lead vocal), is an upbeat
funky number with a zigzag disco bass-line and a typical Stan Sulzmann
soprano sax solo. “Rumour” is a bit better, a more or less acoustic
number (save for the background synthesizer solo throughout much of the
song) featuring more witty Cole observations. “Rumour, borne on the
wings of surmise.” It ends with the delightfully ironic couplet: “If I
knew a rumour about rumour/I’d tell it to you.” A drone leads us into…
“Playground Hero,” possibly the most musically interesting tune on the
album. Sustained organ chords grow out of the drone as drums roll and
bass and clean-toned guitar lines skitter about. At last, Diggle’s
congas pitter-patter in establishing the rhythm, the rest of the band
joining in with him in due time. A sort of fusion-like melody appears
on the electric piano a couple of times, joined the next time by
Knowles’ guitar playing in unison. At last the “song” proper begins, in
an unusual verse/chorus/sub-verse format. A repeat of the unison line
leads into another verse/chorus/sub-verse. A couple more repeats of the
unison line bleed into a different melody line linking to a solo
section. Beginning softly, Parker plays a spacy solo on his trusty
Wurlitzer, which over its course grows slightly in intensity as the
band reels it in behind him. A sort of bridge, bearing no musical
relation to the previous verses, follows. At its climactic end, more
repeats of that unison line follow; after a couple of fusion-oid
variations at last ending with a couple of ominous synthesizer drones.
The playground/elementary school imagery in the lyrics is used
ironically; the song really seems to paint a cinematic portrait of
gangster life.
“In The Big Boys’ Band” kicks off the B-side with some particularly
nasty, grungy organ chords and Cole’s slide guitar wailing over the
slow, swinging rhythm. The music builds slowly over the course of the
song, with an interesting brass/woodwind (well, multiple flutes,
anyway) arrangement starting off pianissimo, but gradually crescendoing
to duel with the band over the closing solo section, which features a
nifty guitar-duet between Cole and Knowles. Lyrically, this one’s
probably the most pointed satire of the album, with the Salvation Army
imagery serving as a sort of elliptical allegory to the text’s
condemnation of nepotism among the wealthy and powerful. The top brass
at GTO must have had confidence in the tune, extracting it for a single
release (which, of course, went nowhere).
“Boogaloo” is another funk-oriented throwaway with nonsense lyrics but
a somewhat likable synthesizer/filtered guitar duet. “She’s A
Be-Bopper” is a more enjoyable trifle: a cute, breezy pop number about
a man admiring a virtuosic female jazz saxophonist at a nightclub. It
would have been a heck of a lot more respectable, though (to say
nothing of it becoming more conceptually wonderful), if only they’d
managed to get Barbara Thompson, rather than Ray Warleigh, to play the
sax solo at the end of the song.
“Living The Life” announces itself authoritatively with an infectious,
jangling rhythm guitar part and a foot-stomping rhythm, starting off
with the chorus, then going off into the first verse. The middle eight
(sixteen, more like) features another jazzy electric piano solo from
Parker, then it’s back to the refrain. This time, it’s accompanied by
layers of overdubbed handclaps and some piercing guitar injections from
Knowles, carrying on thusly to the fadeout. I think this would likely
have made a better single than “Big Boys’ Band,” as it’s so
irresistible. And the lyrics, about a younger man’s romance with an
older woman, are enjoyably quirky.
“Chasing Angels” fades in on some celestial, echoey synthesizer sounds.
It’s another eerie, haunting number that gets under your skin, in a
minor key with Jamie Lane’s drums and Diggle’s congas gently rocking
back and forth like a ferry-boat as Cole’s slide-guitar and smoky
vocals add their usual bluesy texture and Parker’s synth swoops over it
all in an ethereal manner. In the bridge section, Knowles adds some
superb, piercing guitar lines. It ends, not on the ascending synth
glissando you would have expected, but in the runoff groove as droning,
swirling synthesizer sounds float on beyond said upward glide. It’s a
fitting ending for such an endearingly quirky band.
Double “A” was pretty clearly
lesser Movies, albeit with obvious standout tracks. Bullets Through
The Barrier is
generally regarded as the classic Movies release. One notable
difference between the two albums has to do with the songwriting. Cole
is collaborating a heck of a lot more with his fellow bandmates, Parker
in particular. The result turned out to be what may be the band’s
strongest set of songs.
A little aside here, as I’d be remiss if I failed to mention the
album’s most annoying feature. Mainly, a little quirk about Cole’s
lyric writing. Somewhere in between Double “A” and this album he seemed
to forget how to conjugate verbs. A typical example, from the beloved
“Nobody Loves An Iceberg”:
So broken-hearted he seek Utopia
But where it is he have no idea
So he get out, he look around a bit
He try to see and understand…
Now imagine an entire album (or close to it) of this, and you
begin to see what
I’m on
about. It’s not just contrived it’s annoying! I don’t know
quite what
Cole was going for this, some sort of “realism”? Perhaps he thought he
was being “cool”? In the end, it’s a minor point, the music stands up
pretty well on its own.
“Last Train” (the first of three Cole/Parker co-writes) kicks off
festivities with a bang, a propulsive rhythm gets us charged. A marimba
(played by Cole) imitates pizzicato violin strings as Parker’s piano
pins down the urgent rhythmic pulse. Parker’s keyboard work is many
ways makes the track, his organ swirls add some superb texture.
Cole’s
lyrics, about a spurned lover sending a bomb to her ex, would have been
controversial had it been released today, but seen in proper context it
was just another quirky story-song from a band that specialized in
them. And the “Bye-bye Pepsi Cola” refrain is totally
infectious.
Parker’s Hammond organ solo totally kicks ass, as does Knowles’ lead
guitar work. It’s pretty obvious we’re talking “single material” here,
and it was indeed released as a single A-side. And it’s criminal that
it went absolutely nowhere. We’re talking “lost rock & roll
classic” here, people!
“No Class” is another funk-rocker, but unlike previous attempts (e.g.:
“Boogaloo”), this one works. In part, this is because of a compellingly
funny set of lyrics (about some youths wrecking a classy hotel),
possibly inspired by the same incident that likewise inspired “Merci
and Bye Bye.” But in part, it’s because this one actually has something
previous attempts lacked: a good hook (provided by Parker’s keys, a
staccato unison part on organ and synth).
“Horror Story” again hangs around a unison hook expressed on Hammond
and synth, but is more of a sprightly pop-rocker featuring some
delicious conga-playing from Diggle and some airy slide-guitar from
Cole. A complexly-chorded solo section features a fine Parker organ
solo. This would probably have made a good third single extract (after
“No Class,” another flop single), but apparently wasn’t considered.
“Berlin,” yet one more tune co-penned by Cole and Parker, is considered
one of the band’s all-time classic tunes, and rightfully so. It starts
out with another spacy intro a la “Playground Hero” or “Chasing
Angels,” then metamorphoses into a slow, mysterious electric piano/bass
groove before exploding into an organ-fronted fanfare. The lyrics,
which hint at an espionage theme and which are pure poetry, are served
well by the eerie musical setting. It’s a deceptively simple song for
the most part, made to sound more dense by its flashy intro, another
jazzy Parker electric piano solo, and heavily layered instrumentation
and effects (including, of all things, some accordion from Diggle).
The explosive obsession continues on Cole’s amusing novelty “Blow It Up
And Start All Over Again.” A whimsical tale of a guy transporting
illegal explosives with a chirpy synthesizer hook and falsetto backing
vocals, it’s probably this tune more than any other that is the genesis
of the 10cc comparisons. The backing vocals do are permeated with a Lol
Creme-esque air, and the lyrics have G&C written all over them. But
beyond that, the similarities end. An explosive ending brings us to…
“Love On The Run,” co-written by Cole and Knowles. This is an all-out,
foot-stomping rocker. Slow-paced but high-energy, it goes over six
minutes but never wears out its welcome. One of those tunes where all
the instruments are cranked to 11, this one’s distinguished by some
great interplay by Cole on slide and Knowles on non-slide guitar,
energetically whirling Hammond from Parker and raunchy blues harmonica
from Diggle. It’s songs like this one that make me regret that I never
had the opportunity to see this band live, they must have put on quite
a show.
Rumour has it that “Nobody Loves An Iceberg” was written in ten
minutes. I don’t know that I believe that, it simply sounds too weirdly
constructed. First, the lyrics are just flat-out bizarre, and second,
the verses and chorus are so unalike, it’s almost like they came from
two different songs. Some may say it’s simply “accidental,” the result
of quick thinking, but it sounds like too much thought went into it for
it to be an accident. The verses are dreamy and searching, unlike
anything one’s accustomed to from these guys, but in keeping with the
maritime theme of the text. The chorus is surging, uneasy rock with an
odd hook played by Diggle on his chromatic harmonica (OK, not exactly
Stevie Wonder, but it works). This is another fan-favourite, mainly
just ‘cause it’s so damned strange. The 10cc parallel can probably be
drawn from this one as well, probably because it’s so hard to compare
to anyone else.
“Vacant Possession” is another funk-rocker, this time allowing some of
the band’s fusion-ish tendencies to burst through. And burst through
they do, right at the beginning, with the cracking fusion-y
instrumental line that’s repeated a couple of times through the piece.
This had to have been a hard song for Cole to sing and for the band to
play, the melody is all over the place and the chord changes are denser
than dense. If you’re not paying attention, you’ll miss how complex
this little number is, and it’ll just sound like an ordinary funk song.
Don’t make that mistake, there’s no solos or anything, but this is a
damned complicated tune!
Closing things out is another high-energy rocker, “Merci and Bye Bye,”
co-composed by Cole and drummer Jamie Lane. Reputedly based on an
actual incident in which the band were ejected from Copenhagen’s Plaza
Hotel, it’s the bluesiest song on the album, with copious slide-guitar
from Cole and harmonica from Diggle. Knowles contributes a suitably
fiery guitar solo to the middle eight. In typical Movies fashion, the
tune is absolutely infectious. If you’re not singing along by the
closing chorus repeat, are you sure the rock & roll spirit is in
you?
I think what appeals to me most about the Movies’ music is its
uncategorizability. Unfortunately, it’s that very uncategorizability
that pretty much doomed them from ever finding an audience. Punks
turned their nose up at them for reasons documented elsewhere. Proggers
turned their nose up at them for deigning to write “songs.” No one else
bothered, they were too busy listening to Rumours, or whatever
else the
record companies told them to buy. This is basically the same reason
we’ll probably never see their albums on CD. The nostalgia audience
isn’t there, there aren’t any hipsters out there retroactively
embracing this and the only ones who still care about them are geeky
record collectors like me. Maybe if Quentin Tarantino had inserted
tunes like “Last Train” into his movies instead of bad Dutch pop songs
the world would be a better place.
I think what makes me feel worst is the realization that a band like
the Movies simply couldn’t exist in today’s musical climate. Everything
has become too polarized; the major record companies only want you if
you’re either screaming, unsubtle hard rock or fluffier-than-fluff
bubblegum.
Anything else is regulated to the world of “indie release,” and the few
“indies” that get any kind of press tend to be either insufferable,
posturing hipsters or pretentious tortured-artiste types (or worse,
both). But it’s nice to remember that once upon a time there existed a
band that, in spite of it all, never forgot that rock & roll first
and foremost should be fun.
Special thanks to Jonny Fun's semi-official Movies Page for some of
the
important historical info.
Search for Movies albums on gemm.com.
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