Pop-Up! Ker-Ching! And The Possibilities Of Modern Shopping (The Return of Lawrence)

Anybody remember that Relative Poverty sitcom that was shown on ITV back in 1984?

Chirpy Cockney couple Gordon Bennett and wife Maureen both receive their P45s on the same day when, without warning, the factory where they work goes into administration. Worse still, daughter Sonia is about to leave school with little prospects of finding a job, while Gordon’s overbearing mother-in-law Wanda, who lives with the family, is already complaining of struggling to survive on her pension. Times are gonna be tight!

The ensemble cast’s acting was universally panned by critics and viewers alike. It was often compared unfavourably with Only Fools and Horses, struggled in the ratings and failed to be renewed for a second series.

Okay, I just made all that up. But if this dire sounding sitcom* had existed then I can imagine something closely resembling Mozart Estate’s Relative Poverty being its theme song. It would be the best thing about it.

First surfacing on Go-Kart Mozart’s 2018 album Mozart’s Mini-Mart, seldom has such a depressing subject matter sounded such damn fun. Here is the new version of Relative Poverty:

Possibly Britain’s greatest pop eccentric, Lawrence is back under a new guise with a new album Pop-Up! Ker-Ching! And The Possibilities Of Modern Shopping, which is just out. Asked about the recent rebranding from Go-Kart Mozart to Mozart Estate, the singer explained in An Audience with Lawrence in Uncut: ‘A more serious name for serious times. I love novelty records but I wanted to hit a bit harder this time.’

Certainly, the times they are a-changin’ in a negative way in Britain and I don’t see them a-changin’ for the better any time soon. Stepping off a bus at my local shopping centre last week, it looked like the council must have made their priority to ensure they have a high new entry whenever the next edition of Crap Towns is published. The fronts of the adjacent boozer, bookies and carry-out shops were awash with the sort of desperados that always seem to be stranded and need a tap for their bus fare home. Or who try to flog you some street valium. Meanwhile, schoolkids are queuing up at the chippy to eat themselves into Scotland’s latest rising obesity statistics, chips with curry sauce being a big favourite. At least the food bank has had new windows installed after being repeatedly smashed.

Serious times indeed, but much of Pop-Up! Ker-Ching! And The Possibilities Of Modern Shopping is hardly devoid of its novelty elements. I’ve only played the album fully once, so this won’t be a review but I will mention that Flanca for Mr Flowers comes over like a Ennio Morricone track played on a tinny keyboard rather than by an orchestra (I love it), while Pink and Purple is incredibly jaunty, reminding me of some 1970s children’s TV show but with the late introduction of a country and western style steel guitar.

Nobody else sounds like Mozart Estate. One minute you might detect an influence from one of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s weirder experiments (the intro to Before and After the Barcode), the next you might think of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s Get Down or The Scaffold’s Lily the Pink. Poundland is a slice of musical madness with lyrics like:

In Poundland, things are almost free /

In Poundland, don’t get two, get three /

In Poundland, they’re making history.

Despite its horrible squelchy slap bass, it did make me smile. But it isn’t going to be picked up by the cheapo chain store for its use as an ad if that’s what you’re hoping, Lawrence.

Even the cover version on the album was unexpected. I thought that by the 1970s, Adam Faith had packed in music for acting – he’d already starred in two series of Budgie and co-starred in the movie Stardust – but no, he made an LP called I Survive in 1974. From it, this is Honey, a song that, as I played it, made me think of Steve Harley. And the album that Lawrence’s never gets tired of listening to, according to that aforementioned Uncut Q&A, is Cockney Rebel’s The Psychomodo, so maybe it isn’t that much of a surprise that he was keen on the song. Here is the original, which while no classic is much better than I thought it would be:

Pop-Up! Ker-Ching! And The Possibilities Of Modern Shopping has been picking up some very favourable reviews. The Times awarded it 5/5 stars and asks: ‘Has the time of Lawrence finally arrived?’ Louder Than War‘s Paul Clarke noted: ‘For over three decades Lawrence has been on a relentless quest to be a star and this album full of quirky pop gems might just do it.’

So, is this the album to finally achieve the kind of success that will make Lawrence’s dreams of fame a reality? Could he be about to exchange a crap van for a limo, his high-rise council flat for a swanky London townhouse and villa in Barbados? Might Charli XCX come knocking at his door begging him to write her a song?

Being a spoilsport, I would have to say no, but it is great to have a new batch of tunes by him.

For more on Mozart Estate:

https://www.facebook.com/mozartestate

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/artist/mozart-estate/

*Still likely a better idea for a comedy series than the likes of Citizen Khan or Mrs Brown’s Boys, which obviously isn’t saying much.

Technology Nights

I don’t remember food, competitions, prizes or any charitable element, but on this night I do remember ‘Dexey’s Midnight Runners’. After a few songs it became clear that unless the set was very, very short it would mean me and my pals missing our last bus and a long walk home. No way were we going to miss a single song, though.

And look at that ticket price, a measly pound to see them with none of your booking fee nonsense either. You would have imagined we could have afforded a taxi.

Okay, I am aware of something called inflation, especially every time I go to the shops nowadays, but a little research tells me that £1 back then is equivalent in purchasing power to just over £5 as I type.

I saw Dexys twice in Glasgow in 1980. Firstly at the Tech, then (I think) at Tiffany’s in Sauchiehall Street. Glasgow College of Technology – long since upgraded to being university status as Glasgow Caledonian, after their students learned how to spell band names. It was a great venue at the time with acts such as Orange Juice, OMD and Simple Minds taking to the stage. Best of all likely was the night The Cramps shared a bill with The Fall, though I was living in England when that one took place and missed it.

As the 1980s got underway, Dexys were just starting to make waves with debut single Dance Stance managing to graze the top 40 in Britain. A chart that also made way for singles like London Calling; 7 Teen; Underpass; Brass In Pocket; Rapper’s Delight and Joey Ramone’s – I mean – The Ramones’ version of Baby, I Love You. Number one was The Specials with their Too Much, Too Young EP. Dexys would soon also have a number one with Geno.

After Geno came another top ten hit: There, There, My Dear. The song, in case you’re wondering, is addressed to Robin, the sort of pretentious (or what Rowland judged as pretentious) independent musician beloved by NME, keen to namedrop the likes of Ballard, Burroughs and Duchamp, to establish their intellectual credentials. This lyric (printed on the back of the sleeve) from a man who a couple of singles previously had managed to namecheck Samuel Beckett, albeit he had a admirable enough purpose there: addressing the Irish are thick jokes that were all too common in Britain throughout the 1970s. I would guess that for every black or Asian joke you would hear back then, you would hear at least five Pat and Mick gags.

Here is Kevin rrrrrrrrrrrrrRowland, practising his marching technique, searching for the young soul rebels and questioning Robin’s enthusiasm for Frank Sin-nat-rahhh:

Rowland could be a prickly customer, confrontational but quick to take offence. For almost two years, he refused to give interviews to what he called ‘the dishonest hippy press’ and instead took out ads in the likes of Record Mirror to give his side of the story. ‘The Musical Express (which, incidentally, we felt had more integrity than the other papers) seems intent on making Kevin this year’s whipping boy,’ he complained in one of these communiqués. Poor Kevin.

Dexys were far from your average band. They’d go out for runs together before heading along to the studio and they preferred cafes to pubs. If I was to draw up a list of groups I’d liked to have been a member of in the 1980s, Dexys wouldn’t be featuring on it.

Rowland was very much Dexys’ leader and it has been said that he ran the band as a dictator would. This is something that I don’t have a big problem with. Give me the likes of a Kevin Rowland, Captain Beefheart or Mark E. Smith anytime over the hundreds of groupthink groups over the years who have trumpeted the fact that each of their members has an exactly equal say in their music. In a musical sense at least, I say democracy be damned! And as an example of this, I give you David Bowie, who, as his band Tin Machine began taking their first tentative steps, talked up the idea of the band being a democratic unit.

How did that one work out? Well, if you haven’t already watched Brett Morgen’s dazzling documentary Moonage Daydream, don’t expect to hear a single note of Tin Machine’s music over the course of its 140 minute runtime and I doubt too many would be too disappointed by their absence.

Before scanning some old ticket stubs recently, I was convinced that the first time I’d seen The Specials (as opposed to The Coventry Automatics) was at this Bournemouth show in 1980 but a little research tells me that I had already seen them at the Apollo in late 1979 as part of the 2 Tone Tour. Somebody on social media claims to have seen them before that in Tiffany’s – I remember going along to see them at that venue but the show being cancelled. Maybe it was rescheduled for the Apollo, somebody’s memory is hazy and it might be mine. At the Apollo they were supported by Madness and The Selecter, who I do remember.

Sadly, the last few weeks have seen a number of deaths amongst musicians of my generation. The Specials’ Terry Hall and Martin Duffy both died on the same day in December. Some days earlier, Thomas McLaughlin aka Rev Volting, one time Backstabber, a quarter of The Fun Four and occasional reader of this blog, passed away in Glasgow. Most recently, it was announced that Alan Rankine of The Associates had died peacefully in his home in the early days of 2023.

From 1983, here is Terry Hall fronting Fun Boy Three with Our Lips Are Sealed, a song he co-wrote with Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go’s, who supported The Specials at the Stateside. They had already recorded the song, and even if you knew nothing about either act, you could easily guess which band was from California and which was from Coventry. I’m a big fan of both versions.