Yesterday's Next Big Thing #3: Gay Dad

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.

Yesterday's Next Big Thing #2: Campag Velocet

"The best new band in Britain," said the NME, often a kiss of death... and it certainly seemed to be for Campag Velocet who disappeared shortly after the release of their debut album in 1999.

"Bunch of pretentious arses," appears to have been the verdict of the record buying public, and with song titles including 'Sauntry Sly Chic', 'Cacophonous Bubblegum', and their biggest "hit" (Number #75 with a bullet), Drencrom [Velocet Synthmesc]... well, it's hard to argue with that assessment.

Still, I did take rather a fancy to the title track of that album, Bon Chic Bon Genre. I've no idea why, because listening back now, I'm not entirely convinced it wasn't utter guff. Still, I was young (well, 27) and stupid (no change there). Let's give it one more spin for old time's sake...




Apparently Campag Velocet released their second (and final) album It's Beyond Our Control in 2004 on Pointy Records "to mixed reviews". By then, even the NME had given up on them.

Yesterday's Next Big Things #1: Spector

Because one can never have too many sporadic series that fizzle out and then crop up again when you least expect them, I present: Yesterday's Next Big Things. Bands that those-in-the-know tipped to be huge... who then promptly fizzled away into nothing. Because, as Elvis sang...

You better speak up now, it won't mean a thing later

Yesterday's news is tomorrow's fish and chip paper

I thought I'd start with Spector, a band with the dubious rock 'n' roll chops to name themselves after a musical genius... and murdering psychopath. Well, it's one better than Mansun.

Back in 2012, the Grauniad described Spector as "somewhere between Roxy Music and the Strokes, The Killers and Kanye West, Pulp and Frank Sinatra". Come on, muso-critics: why not chuck Jesus Christ, Buddah and Shirley Bassey in there while you're at it?

I quite liked the band's first album, although they doomed themselves by calling it 'Enjoy It While It Lasts', because after "storming" into the UK album chart at Number 11, they promptly disappeared into semi-obscurity. The follow-up arrived with little fanfare in 2015... so little fanfare that writing this post is the first I'd heard of it. They're still in the go, apparently, but so far have yet to scratch their way into the pop consciousness the way the artists mentioned above did. Still, I like to think there's still time.

Anyway, because it'd Friday... have this. Don't listen too closely to the lyrics... they might also be seen as prophesying a fast fade out.