In My Room

Most Saturday afternoons in 1977 you'd find me in my bedroom listening to the Kenny Everett show on Capital Radio which was the perfect way to fill some of that dead time between getting back from the shops with my Mum and the football results coming on Grandstand. It wasn't just the adventures of Captain Kremmen (which you can download here) that kept me listening, like myself Kenny had a major ELO obsession and was constantly playing their then-new "Out Of The Blue" album. He must have played the entire double album (parts of it several times over) and this was before I got my own copy so I was glued to the radio. Kenny's musical tastes leaned heavily toward the polished and elaborate like ELO, he was the sort who thought "Sgt. Pepper" was the pinnacle of western civilization and that snotty punk stuff was just horrible. I thought so too at the time, it just sounded like a moronic racket to my ears and whenever my sister played the first Clash album I'd take the piss by singing "White Riot" in a retarded D.P. Gumby voice.

Another album that got heavy play on his show I ended up buying was "Looking Over My Shoulder" by Scottish singer/songwriter Chris Rainbow. If anybody has heard of him these days it's as lead singer of The Alan Parsons Project in the 1980s (I'm so glad to say I never knew he was) but in the 70s he recorded three solo albums which are to The Beach Boys what ELO's were to The Beatles, full of sunny, intricately-arranged pop symphonies with heavily multi-tracked vocals. While a lot of "Looking Over My Shoulder" now sounds as dated and cheesy as the shirt he's wearing on the sleeve some of it still quite gorgeous.

"Dear Brian" is a fan letter to Brian Wilson who at that time was still a recluse, drugged out of his head in a sandpit somewhere. Over it's sublime six minutes he laments the destroyed tapes and lost outtakes that ended up on a studio floor and implores Brian to "step in the sandbox" and make music again. The ghostly "In And Out And Round About" washes in like a mist coming off the North Sea and gets a bit Proggy (but in a very pretty way) with some highly pretentious lyrics and a grand church organ arrangement. Kenny played this a lot and would get all wobbly over the whispery ending.

Download: Dear Brian - Chris Rainbow (mp3)
Download: In And Out And Round About - Chris Rainbow (mp3)

All of Rainbow's albums are out of print now and go for rather large amounts of money as he's something of a minor cult amongst fans of 70s soft pop. I wish I could tell you I spent my Saturday afternoons in 1977 being all punky and rebellious down the King's Road, buying bondage trousers at Boy and getting into fights with Teddy Boys, but sadly I was only 15, still desperately unhip and listening to stuff like this instead.