Music Reviews 4U - Spandau Ballet - To cut a long story short - Review

 

Music Reviews 4U - Spandau Ballet - To cut a long story short - Review

Spandau Ballet - To cut a long story short 7" Vinyl single

To cut a long story short is quite apt as a reference point to start this in a series of music reviews. This review will cut the story of the music down into sections. Not only do you get an overview of the music, we'll include a few facts about the people and the equipment and my own memories of the time (if I was around then when the music was released, I was )! 

So, lets go back to 1980 to a band now named Spandau Ballet and as the last strains of punk rock were fading out, the 'new wave' music came into the British pop scene. 

The post punk scene was an exciting time as new musical technology having recently emerged, now forged ahead, changing popular music forever.

Spandau Ballet - To Cut a Long Story Short video -

filmed in the London Dungeon Tourist attraction

Spandau Ballet - the group

Formed in Islington in the mid 1970's, after a few lineup and name changes including the Gentry, they took the name Spandau Ballet that was apparently from a piece of Berlin Graffiti about Rudolf Hess, the last WW2 prisoner in Spandau Prison in Berlin. 

By now fronted by Tony Hadley (Vocals), Gary Kemp (Guitar, Synths), Steve Norman (Guitar, later Sax), Martin Kemp (Bass) and John Keeble (Drums) this was the group that has endured over the last 45 years with hiatus, breakups and reunions allowing.

Their breakthrough came playing at the Blitz Club in Covent Garden and Billy's in Soho in 1979-80, the Covent Garden area had been slated for redevelopment but likely due to the financial situation of Britain in 1979 after the collapse of the labour Government in 1979, this fiscal vacuum left the venue available until the nation became more financially viable and redevelopment could take place.

Spandau Ballet - Before the discord

The Blitz became one of the places for the new, young avant garde often students or fashion trend setters to be seen. The 'New Romantic' movement created by the Blitz and Billy's clientele for example were a diametric opposite to the nihilistic punk rockers of the Sex Pistols ilk. Punk imploded with the legacy of the late Sid Vicious. 

The 'Blitzers' of the New Wave were in effect the 'new Dandies' (Dandies had been the New Wave of their time in 1700's and 1800's London), the New Wave dressed in retro chic fashion, created their own take on the past and with many fashion students among the crowd, a new 'look' emerged in London, spreading out across the country.

Spandau Ballet became the house band at the Blitz, playing dance music inspired by soul and by American stars such as Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett.

 The Yamaha CS10 - key to the sound of the single

The key to the song was the repetitive riff running through the song that songwriter Gary Kemp came up with as the hook. Steve Norman, Guitar and later Sax player said that essentially once Gary had the Riff, the song was established.

The legacy of the track was that it launched over 30 dance music bands in the following year alone onto the charts. It created a new genre of music that rubbed along with performers like Eric Clapton, Elton John and Dire Straits - whose more traditional music structure co-existed with this new craft.

The Equipment - Enter Synth-Pop - the Sequenver and the Arpeggiator

Music technology in the 1970's had moved on from the Keyboards of the 1960's Mellotron (a proto synth) and the early Moog Synths of the late 1960's. 

Keyboards such as the 60's Fender Rhodes and the Vox Conqueror were ironically by this era having a resurgence as the Ska genre was being revisited by groups such as the Selector, The Specials, Madness and Bad Manners, who were putting their own mark on this music.

Duran Duran and Depeche Mode were two of the contemporary groups who were using the emerging new synth technologies in their music. Gary Kemp had bought a synth which no doubt contributed to the new music he was writing.

Synths like the Roland Juno, Yamaha DX7, Odyssey, Prophet and Emulator brands made their presence in the UK music charts felt. You can identify the signature sounds on many of the hits of the time. Emulator was one of the first Synths to have a sampling function.

The Yamaha CS-10 was as they say 'instrumental' in the sound of To Cut a Long Story Short. What some might say was that the riff of the song was a programmed arpeggiation, some Synths of this time did have arpeggiation functions - a single note when played could then create a set of played notes around that core note.

(Some Synths of the era could be programmed to play sequences of notes and arpeggiated notes in 'sequences' hence these Keyboards later became known as 'Sequencers').

The Yamaha CS-10 had no arpeggiator, but by using the LO-FI Oscillator, an arpeggiated style could be created. Certainly in the Studio, with the use of multi tracking, the arpeggiated phrases could be 'cut and pasted' electronically by re-recording the phrasings and adding them in sequences to a track. 

This was before the days of computerised 'cut and paste music' production was around, although Digital recording consoles were coming in by 1980, if you had the money!

To the video

The song having achieved air play on Radio 1 by DJ Peter Powell and others, that got this as then unsigned band out into the public domain and led to Chrysalis Records signing the band.

The subsequent video for the song was filmed in a venue called the London Dungeon, a tourist themed attraction in Tooley Street, London. The group were brilliantly styled in their fashion, it made anything of the punk era decidedly old hat. 

The band adopted a Scottish military Tartan inspired look for the video and with friends in the new wave movement who were often art school and fashion students as group followers, they were at the epicentre of a new look for avant garde youth of the time, life imitating art in these great times where pop and life co-existed in real time.

The music sounded exciting and the limited space of the video filming venue concentrated the action onto the group and a few of the Blitz club entourage appearing as extras in the video. 

Shot for a by now modest budget of £5000, there is no doubt that this video really launched the band visually. It shows that simple works well, when you compare it to some of the modern productions of today costing in real terms so much more to achieve.

The first time I saw the group was on a Saturday morning television show, I thought on seeing their performance this was Band unique - in terms of the look and the sound, this was very different and I liked it. The riff was catchy and the electronic style of the music was refreshing.

As the front man, Tony Hadley really stood out, his style was almost operatic, we hadn't seen anything like this in this form before. 

The only reference point to this musical style was from singers like Mario Lanza, Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra from the 50's and 60's - Tony Hadley by chance had coincidentally met Frank Sinatra at a concert in London.

The Legacy

The legacy of the song cannot be just written off as a piece of throwaway pop music, when it existed ironically in precisely that sort of arena - in the charts for a few weeks and gone, as was the fashion.Good music never goes away and this hasn't. 

That said, we now still hear on the radio many of the pop music hits of the last 60  plus years rubbing shoulders with music from the stars of today. 

Could this song be improved? I doubt it, it did what was required, the band had the visual image to carry it off on stage or on Top of the Pops and the other music shows of the time. The lyrics are quality, meaningful and are delivered over the insistent and urgent arpeggiated riff.

Even now 45 years on this song does not rally sound dated, music technology may have moved on, but even today songs from that 80's era and before are still sampled in modern music. The test is that it still sounds great today.

The longevity as I frequently say is down to the legacy of this group having done the musical apprenticeship as a group in the pubs and clubs. With the talent of the players and the song writers, great music endures. 

It was fortunate in this era that Gary Kemp could write his songs as he envisaged them. Today, song writing is more like a unionised restrictive practices exercise with every man and his dog on the credits for their one or two lines of contribution, it seems.

The legacy of this song is that one man wrote it, the contributions of the players in the studio brought it to life and it still sounds great. 

It didn't need Uncle Tom Cobbley and his mates putting their Ten Shillings worth into the song to make it work as would be commonplace today.

The memories of the era

The early 1980's were an interesting time if you were young and in London or the London area like I was at the time.

The Cold War was at its height and we lived in the shadow of that and the fact we might be literally gone in a flash from Soviet missiles. 

I worked in London over the first few years of the 80's and briefly in the Kings Road in 1983 near the World's End part of Chelsea, it was a great time to be around the capital.

Not only that, but I was at that time making music with a band made up of people I had been at school with, we had left school in 1982 and by 1983 were writing our own music which we slotted in between covers of mostly 50's and 60's classics when we played live.

It was a great time to see the fashions of the time, even then young people of our age wore the fashions as 'normal' attire, this didn't sit well with many of the starchy office environments of the time, but you'd often see women who worked in shops or offices creatively using make up and hair styling that made them stand out. They looked great, different, stylish. It was an exciting time to be there - like the 60's was for the previous generation.

The 80's was a great era to be around in, the 90's with its grungy laziness seemed to be a backwards step I thought. 

You just had to be there in the 1980's to see the young peacocks. The 80's had the advantage over the 60's in that it also had the great music of its own time and also the legacy of the 60's to draw on which it did.

There was a buzz and a vibe to the time. To cut a long story short, I was there....

Don't call me Ska face - the 2 Tone music scene that did more positive things for race relations than people realise

Ska legend Prince Buster - replete in 'Pork Pie' hat

Punk Britannia

1970's Britain - a picture of industrial strikes, football hooliganism, disaffected youth, PVC, economic doom and gloom and in 1976, punk rock. For those of you who weren't there, this is what it was like...

Football hooliganism became the safety valve of disaffected British white youth

The rise of disaffected youth, in the form of the 'Skinhead' 'Bootboys' and the rival Punk rockers, was causing concern to the government of the day.

Punk rock, an angry movement adhered to by disaffected youth, facing no future, few jobs and whipped up by the late Malcolm McLaren who saw the potential of publicity, was taken very seriously by the security services who feared the unrest that may ensue from this type of point of view might spill out into the general populace - the 'Anarchy in the UK' espousal was angry and deeply worried those in charge of the nation.

Many of those in positions of influence had served in World War 2 and knew only too well the significance of the Swastika armbands that many Punks wore as part of their 'shock' appeal or not as the case was. They certainly got noticed and that was the point.

The publicity-savvy Malcolm McLaren 3rd from right with the Sex Pistols

signing a record deal outside Buckingham Palace

Worse was to come, for the 'Agent Provocative' Malcom McLaren who managed the punk super group the Sex Pistols, engineered a publicity coup that saw the group sign a record contract outside Buckingham Palace.

National Front graffiti was common place

The group unleashed their own take on the national anthem, with a nihilistic rant full of disaffected rhetoric entitled 'God save the Queen,' which it is alleged actually topped the pop charts in the week of the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, although the record was banned by the BBC, which only served to ensure it sold in great numbers, yet another publicity coup for Mr McLaren!

National Front supporters in the 70's

Punk, with it's nihilistic 'anarchy in the UK' undercurrent, was opposed by the anti-immigrant white males (& sometimes female) often right wing -leaning 'Skinheads' some of whom were active in the then 'National Front party' - a legitimised interest group that wanted to repatriate non-white immigrants. Punk wasn't about racism, just shock.

Typical Skinhead 'Bootboys' - not all were racists

The National Front staged many marches and public assemblies to support their cause and National Front graffiti was often seen daubed on walls. The uniform of the Skinhead was a pair of Doc Marten boots, usually 17 hole, jeans, taken up to the top of the boots, a Harrington or US Air Force style MA1 jacket and Stayprest shirt, topped off with a 'buzzcut' hair do.

Not all the menacing looking 'Skins' were looking for trouble, or were rabid racists, they were often labelled 'trouble' but were more likely to help an old lady across the road rather than nick her handbag.

The 'Bootboys' looked menacing

The Rude Boys

For the people who were immigrants from the West Indies in Britain, they faced casual everyday racism, attacks from some of the 'Skins' and stop and search by the Police. This stop and search which the black people perceived as discriminatory and done just because of their skin colour contributed to the riots in 1981.

A pair of 'Rude Boys'

When the immigrants came to Britain largely from the West Indies in post war Britain, they also brought their music. And in the enclaves of North London, Harlesden for one and in the Midlands in Handsworth, Birmingham, Dudley and Coventry, areas where large numbers of black people lived, the 'Ska' music of Jamaica started to be heard.

Perceived persecution of black people by the Police led to tension and riots

In 1979, the term 'Rude Boys' started to become known more widely. This was applied to the West Indian people who dressed in sharp suits, trilby or 'Pork Pie' hats and in dress terms equivalent of the 1960's 'Mod' - curiously the white 60's Mods favoured the Motown music of Detroit, performed by black American artists and also Ska, from that era.

The 2 Tone image from the late 70's Ska 'revival'

Prince Buster was one of the leading artists of the Ska movement in the late 1950's and his music would filter in to the UK Mod scene of the 1960's. When the 2 tone scene got off the ground in the late 1970's, his oeuvre became fashionable again.

Coventry band The Specials c. 1979

Stop your messing around..

The Ska revival of the late 1970's broke convention. Bands like The Specials, from Coventry, were made up of both white and black performers, a somewhat unusual arrangement for the time in British music.

The Selecter - fronted by Pauline Black

Inevitably, this drew both white and black people to their performances and one of the great buzzwords of the time was 'multiracial integration' - Ska music of the revival certainly did make this happen.

The Ska revival group 'Bad Manners'

fronted by the enigmatic Buster Bloodvessel aka Douglas Trendle

Ironically, it also led to many of the Ska followers who were skinheads, to come to live performances, here you might expect a rather 'volatile' situation, but the reverse was often the case.

Bands like The Specials and The Selector, made up of white and black performers settled down the issues of integration and through mass exposure to millions of British citizens through music programs of the day such as Top of the Pops, changed attitudes.

Legendary nihilistic punk rocker Sid Vicious, lashes out

One step beyond

In North London, a group proposing to call itself the 'Morris Minors,' started out with some original Ska covers, such as the Prince and Madness, by legendary Ska artist Prince Buster.

Somewhere in Camden, Madness and Morris Minor van

Based in Camden, North London and performing in the nearby areas of Kentish Town, Islington and the like, they took the original Ska and put their own stamp on it.

By coincidence, The Specials from Coventry, also used the Ska framework to pen their own songs such as 'too much too young,' 'gangsters' and 'ghost town' whilst still covering original Ska hits.

The Fun Boy Three - refugees from The Specials

The music scene was very fluid in the post punk era, giving rise to the New Romantic genre as well as the Ska scene.

The Specials lost Terry Hall, Lynval Golding and Nev Staple who left to form the Fun Boy Three, a group that broke another barrier, multi-racial and with supporting female musicians. This musical direction produced some interesting records although this group was sadly short lived.

Madness in their heyday of the late 70's

Madness started to write their own material and forged a career that has seen them remain a part of the British music scene.

In the round, Ska music has not only given us enjoyable music, but helped to heal the divisions of black and white people. The National Front and the Punk movement are now remnants of forty years ago and monochrome nostalgia. It just goes to prove that music is for everyone and good can come out of it. A sort of law of unintended consequences, but a good one.