On this day (22 May) in 2002, Stuart Goddard appeared at the Old Bailey in London, having been charged with the possession of an imitation firearm. He had been arrested that January, following an altercation outside the Prince of Wales pub in Kentish Town, London, when a bouncer refused him entry. He was sentenced to a 12-month community rehabilitation order.
If you weren't sure who Stuart Goddard is, the picture above (for anyone of a certain age) should have given the game away.
So, on this auspicious anniversary we dredge up the murky musical connections, twists, turns and occasional dead-ends, that will lead us from Adam Ant to the king of shoegaze, Kevin Shields. You may even, on this occasion, note a certain amount of desperation as we try to find a last link to complete the trail.....
Stuart Goddard, a.k.a. Adam Ant started his music career in the early 1970s in pub rock band, Bazooka Joe. Having left them in 1975, he ultimately formed Adam & The Ants in 1977. The version of the Ants that recorded the first album was taken away from him by Malcolm McLaren to form Bow Wow Wow. The second version is perhaps the most definitive one, including other London punk legends like Marco Pirroni. They recorded two further albums before they broke up in 1982 - Kings Of The Wild Frontier (1980) and Prince Charming (1981).
Adam & The Ants: Prince Charming (Official music video)
Bazooka Joe had been formed in 1970 by John Ellis and Danny Kleinman. They were the headline act when the Sex Pistols played their first ever show - on 6 November 1975 at Central St. Martin's College of Art & Design. Goddard left the band in the aftermath of that gig, as the Bazooka's had an argument over the Pistols performance, with Goddard the only one who enjoyed it.
John Ellis went on from Bazooka Joe to form The Vibrators in 1976, with Ian Carmochan, Pat Collier and John Edwards. They got a gig backing Chris Spedding at the 100 Club; Spedding was a well known and highly sought after English blues guitarist, who worked with the likes of Elton John, Paul McCartney, Bryan Ferry, Donovan and David Essex. He recommended them to famed promotor Mickie Most, who signed them to his RAK Records label. Most would also produce their first single, We Vibrate. While they never picked up much success beyond Automatic Lover, their one single to scrape the Top40 - they did get other good bookings, supporting Iggy Pop on his March 1977 UK tour, before backing Ian Hunter (Mott The Hoople).
The Vibrators: We Vibrate (Audio only)
Moving on from there, Ellis would tour with Peter Gabriel in 1984 (and appear on the Peter Gabriel 4 album). He would spend most of the 1980s recording and touring with Peter Hammill, who had made his name in prog rock band, Van der Graaf Generator. Then, in 1990, he joined the new line up of The Stranglers as guitarist (with Paul Roberts on vocals), following the departure of Hugh Cornwell. The first album he played on was 1992s Stranglers In The Night; and he would go on to appear on three more - About Time (1995), Written In Red (1997) and Coup de Grace (1998) - before leaving the band in 2000.
The Stranglers: Always The Sun (Live in 2000 - the 2.0 line-up playing an old classic)
Alan Winstanley produced the About Time album (the bands twelfth), having been the engineer on their first three records and the producer of the fourth one (The Raven). For this album, he also brought in some string arrangements to several songs. Performers would include famous 'punk' violinist Nigel Kennedy, and another violinist called Gavyn Wright.
Gavyn Wright made a name for himself by creating orchestral arrangements for a number of pop songs, working for the likes of Oasis, Tina Turner, Elton John and Van Morrison. Prior to that, he had been a member of the Penguin Café Orchestra.
Penguin Café Orchestra: Music For A Found Harmonium (Live on the BBC, 1989)
The Penguin Café Orchestra, formed in 1972, were an avant-garde act, playing music that was a mix of lively folk and minimalist classical. Their 1976 debut, Music From The Penguin Café, was suitably released on Brian Eno's experimental Obscure Records label. They got their first major live job as support act for Kraftwerk at the Roundhouse in London, in October 1976. Their music has appeared in a lot of tv and movies over the years. Music For A Found Harmonium was the opening theme for cult Australian film Malcolm, while Telephone And Rubber Band appear in the final sequences of Oliver Stone's Talk Radio. Perpetuum Mobile gets a run out during season one of The Handmaid's Tale.
Music For A Found Harmonium is also the featured music in both the trailer and end credits of She's Having A Baby. This was a 1988 John Hughes film that starred none other than Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern. The reviews are not great for the film - but there is a pretty tasty line up on the soundtrack (as is common for many of his films). It includes songs from Love And Rockets, Gene Loves Jezebel, XTC, Bryan Ferry and Kirsty MacColl.
Love And Rockets: So Alive (Official music video)
Love And Rockets were born out of the ashes of Bauhaus, getting their name from a comic book series by the Hernandez Brothers. Daniel Ash, David J and Kevin Haskins moved away from the darker gothic work of their first band, and adopted a more poppy sound. As if to prove that, their first minor hit was a cover of The Temptation's Ball Of Confusion. It was their fourth, eponymously titled album, that would provide their high watermark (sales wise) with the single So Alive that made number three in the US.
Love And Rockets (the album) was produced by John Fryer, a well known figure on the dream pop scene, and also one of two permanent members of This Mortal Coil (the other being Ivo Watts-Russell, who also co-founded the legendary 4AD record label). Fryer had started out as a producer at Blackwing Studios in South London. He predominantly worked with dream pop bands (Cocteau Twins), industrial rock bands (Nine Inch Nails, Gravity Kills) and indie band (Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Bruce Gilbert [of Wire]).
Blackwing Studios was based out of a deconsecrated church (All Hallows) that had been partially destroyed in the blitz of 1941. The studio was founded by Eric Radcliffe, who got much of his early work from Mute Records, before it eventually closed down in 2001. During that time there were a few classic albums made there, including Speak And Spell and A Broken Frame by Depeche Mode, Yazoo's Upstairs At Eric's (a direct reference to Radcliffe), Trompe Le Monde by Pixies, a raft of Stereolab albums including Peng!, Mars Audiac Quintet and Emperor Tomato Ketchup - and the aforementioned Love And Rockets.
Stereolab: Wow And Flutter (Official music video)
One other classic partially recorded there was Loveless, by My Bloody Valentine - whose guitarist and songwriter is...... KEVIN SHIELDS.
Comments