Five Miles Out

Standing up to Gripper

This was a time when some DJs thought Bhangra fusion would be the next big thing in music. Sadly the crossover started and ended with a couple of singles by Monsoon.

Monsoon got huge coverage because their lead singer, Sheila Chandra, had been in Grange Hill. Now Grange Hill was a big deal to young people in the late 70s and early 80s. Of course parents hated it. Now the early seasons actually seem pretty mild, but a complete change from depictions of schools that showed fair teachers and compliant children. Tucker, Alan and Benny were not the smartest kids or the least smart, they experienced a world of bullying and cliques and teenage problems. It did so well that Tucker had three seasons of his own show where, having left school with few qualifications, he struggled to find work in the early 80s recession.

I was too cool for a “kids show” by the time the time season 6 came out. The school bully (a position that had to be occupied to drive the plots) was occupied by the unpleasant Gripper Stebson and there was a racism focus for his attacks. From day one Grange Hill had a multicultural cast but it reflected 80s London more than most TV shows (on children or adult television) by this stage and Sheila Chandra as Sudhamani Patel was one member of the cast that was part of the bullying plot. I decided that I had to watch this as otherwise I could not join in the discussions at school.

The story was so talked about that I returned to watching the show and it was incredibly hard hitting for time – not surprising as Phil Redmond, later famous for Brookside, had created it. For a group of teenagers in a very white part of Essex this was a look at what racism looked like on a personal level rather than just in the news.

Grange Hill continued to be must see watching for years. Its only weakness was the standard of child actors when they started on the show. This is something that has totally changed in the 21^st century when child actors are almost universally superb. A couple of years after the racism storyline there was the famous heroin storyline when Zammo became a drug addict. The campaign went international and you still Lee McDonald and Erkan Mustafa on retro shows talking about their experiences. The funniest thing was when they went to the White House to join in with Nancy Reagan’s anti drug campaign and smoked a spliff in the toilet….

Anyway, I prefer this to their first single Ever So Lonely – your mileage may vary, but Monsoon folded and that was it for Bhangra fusion.

We’ve All Gone Crazy

Andrew Lloyd Webber. Such a talented man, all the great classical composers used time travel to steal off him (I stole that comment – but it is so true). Everyone knows the original Julie Covington Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (and the woefully bland Madonna version). This is the same music with the real story, rather than Evita Peron’s biased point of view. (I also really like Essex’s Silver Dream Machine). It’s the lyrics that do it for me.

“We’ve gone crazy mourning…” reminds of the death of Diana, when a large part of the country went into a prolonged period of hysterical mourning for someone who was famous for marrying a Prince. Listen again and see how much the lyrics apply to Diana’s death.

I never understood this outpouring of grief. People said she did a lot for charity – that was her job, she was rich and financed by us. She was treated badly by Prince Charles. Her sons lost her mother. That is sad, but no sadder than so many other children that it happens to. Mass hysteria is the only answer.

So, chocolate. I can have a bit of chocolate, can’t I?

Gimme Chocolate by Babymetal

This is mad. So mad. My niece Sophie, and her husband Phil, came to London to watch Babymetal. I had never heard of them so Sophie showed me this and it is mindblowing. It is like a death metal band playing the music for a J Pop girl band formed by a talent show. I love the contrast. In my 50s finding something so new is amazing so thanks to them. Not sure I could manage a whole gig now….

The video is crazy – the women seem to be having so much fun – especially Sumetal.

Sophie and Phil are proper musos, they go to gigs and festivals a lot. Now they have a new baby boy – Odin Parker – they may have to do a bit less. At least he will grow up with parents who have excellent taste in music😊

Living In Harmony

There used to be a BBC program called the Rock and Roll Years. It was music from the year in question over clips from the period with a written commentary about what was happening in the world that year. As an introduction to the history of the last 30 years (it was the early 80s) it was fascinating (even details like British homes lacking fridges and central heating well into the 60s shocked the teenage me). It is a shame it got discontinued and never seems to be repeated – maybe there are rights issues?

Anyway I watched it with my Dad and I was still in the phase where any music older people liked was absolutely and definitively garbage. After watching this I was not prepared to admit I liked this old stuff, but I did. My Dad likes the Everlys and they were a massive talent – but they fell into that period between Elvis joining the army and the Beatles emerging. The period is considered a bit of a fallow one for music with “safe” acts like Fabian emerging to replace the original rebels – the Everlys get unfairly lumped in with those acts.. Shame they ended up hating each other.

Romeo Done

Remember the Golden Jubilee celebration? That amazingly bland concert at Buckingham Place – graced by giants of music like Atomic Kitten, Will Young and Blue? That was at the height of So Solid Crew’s fame and they should have been there, but then the Sex Pistols weren’t invited to the gig either. Or the Rolling Stones – though an episode of the TV series Urban Myths gives a possible explanation about why Mick Jagger is persona no grata around the Queen.

A long time ago my colleague, Diane, suffered a horrible accident and was off work for months. I came back from holiday to find out that everything was not done and she was in hospital. I was allowed to look at applications from the candidates not short listed for the exams officer post. I picked one and Samina was great – not only competent but a nice person. A few weeks later the person who got the exams officer job turned out to be incompetent, unable to communicate and have terrible personal hygiene. He failed his probation and Samina was offered the job; she took it as it was a permanent post.

Fast forward a few of years and I had a member of my team going on maternity leave. Samina’s 10 year younger sister was looking for a job. We trained her and she came in to start a week before the person going on maternity leave left. She liked So Solid Crew and was the only person who I could talk to about them. I also felt cool to be trendy at 38. The sister vanished after one day (we found out she was ok, but had issues) but she is permanently linked to this song for me. I hope she is doing well. The person who replaced her was the best appointment I ever made in my life.

There’s Something I Just Gotta Say

Borderline by Madonna

The 1980s had a very different entertainment landscape to what we have now. Madonna appeared in 1983 when the UK had just started a fourth TV channel. We had a video recorder, but blank tapes were not cheap. Being a teenager meant that my music collection was small (some LPs and cassettes taped from friends – remember how home taping was killing music?) so the radio was on a lot. On Saturday afternoons Paul Gambaccini had a slot playing American hits that included a top 30 countdown of the American charts. A very different line up from the UK charts so you were always liable to find tracks that may not be hits in the UK for ages, or even never make it at all.

He played Madonna Ciccone, who was having hits on the American dance charts. This was before her UK breakthrough in 1984. This track actually bombed first time around in the UK. I saw Desperately Seeking Susan at the cinema twice – once with my friends from Brightlingsea and then on the second day back at university with my mates from there, it’s a fun film. There are other Madonna tracks I really like (Ray of Light, Dear Jessie, Into the Groove, Papa Don’t Preach), though she is hardly a ground-breaking artist, she is incredibly good at finding collaborators. There was no movement she could not jump on – Voguing, William Orbit, mash ups, but genius steals I guess. This is my favourite Madonna track – Borderline, and doesn’t she look young….

Carol Danvers is worthy

After my raving about the film last year some of you may know I am a big fan of Captain Marvel. I have followed her since her own title started in 1976. There have been ups and downs but she has now had 150 issues of her own title, In the latest issue – the climax of The Last Avenger – she does something very people have done before – see the picture. Carol is worthy 😊.

Welcome to Five Miles Out

So I wanted to actually do something rather than vegetate out at the moment and I have been thinking of writing forever. There will be no politics here – just entertainment. I’m going to be posting videos of my favourite songs, with a comments on the artist and/or the song. Some will be musical, some will be personal memories. People who have a big influence on my musical life will get namechecked. Definitely included will be my brother Mike and my father Peter, Graham Wright, Neil Wigley, John Hawkins, Dave Francis, John Bonney, Clive Hook and Richard Wigley, as well as many more.

To limit this to a sane length (and there are a lot anyway) it is one song per artist. Even that leads to some questions. Would a song by two artists recording together (like Walk This Way by Run DMC and Aerosmith) be allowed, as well as separate entries for each artist? What about groups where the membership changes completely? Like Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac or Rainbow? Each group’s first incarnation barely resembles the last. What about Yes? A group whose membership turnover is so prodigious that almost every album has a different line up, which led to two versions of the group existing simultaneously in the 80s. No to these. Yet I think the KLF, the K Foundation and the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu are one group. It leads to strange outcomes though – Guns ‘n’ Roses are in here, but so are Velvet Revolver who have more G ‘n’ R members than the Guns line up that recorded Chinese Democracy.

Also there will be famous artists missing – do not hold your breath for Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston or Elton John. Some of them have some decent songs, but nothing that would make me gasp.

My posts, my rules😊 I just hope that you may find some of the content interesting and find a few songs you like that either forgot or never knew. Very roughly it is a countdown to the best, but it is rough…. Some music I like full stop. Some of it is a riff or the lyrics, or even it can be by association with good memories.

There will be other things apart from music going forwards, but I am going to try and write everyday and this will give me a backbone of things to write about.