In retrospect, Gay Dad had everything going for them... but none of it was quite right. Formed by a former Mojo journalist (lead singer Cliff Jones), their original demo was produced by the frontman of Furniture (a much better band) and paid for by Stones producer Andrew Loog Oldham (bit of an arsehole if this is anything to go by). They had all the right connections, which meant the record companies were throwing money at them and the notoriously nepotistic music press was happy to promote them as the second coming (see above). They got Peter Saville to design them a logo and managed to become the first band to ever get a Top of the Pops booking WITHOUT EVEN HAVING A RECORD OUT. They even had the nerve to sack Tony Visconti, the producer of their debut single, To Earth With Love.
Yes, they sacked Tony Visconti. I guess he got over it.
There were just three big problems with Gay Dad.
1: The name. An obvious attempt at hip, controversy-baiting irony, I'm sure they felt they were being really right-on, but it ended up seeming, at best, naively crass, and at worst, deeply, deeply offensive. It sounded like a spoof band name Chris Morris would make up for The Day Today or Brass Eye. Basically, it was shit. There was no getting around that.
2: The tunes. With the exception of the Visconti-produced debut, they really didn't have any.
3: The whole air of privileged vanity project. This was not a struggling young band who'd worked their way up from touring toilets, crammed into a knackered VW camper van while living off pot noodles. It was a bunch of art school tossers who had the world handed to them on a plate and still couldn't make a decent fist of things. That's not to say that good bands can't be made up of art school tossers - I'm sure we can all think of great ones - but they should still have to struggle to convince us to love them. There's a reason The Who hit a chord when they sang, "I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth".
So Gay Dad got what was coming to them. After that first flush of glory, everything fell apart and they ended up blaming both the press hype (which they created) and the controversial name (which they chose). Funnily enough, they never admitted to not having the tunes... but I guess that's the most subjective area of all. Maybe you loved them. I quite liked this one... and then after that, I couldn't really be bothered.
I have a copy of their album somewhere.
ReplyDeleteCan't say I've listened to in more than a couple of times