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.

Lawrence, formerly of Belgravia

2012’s Lawrence of Belgravia documentary will be released in the coming weeks for the first time on Blu-ray, so to get you/me in the mood, this week some music by the man himself from various points in his career.

I’ve not been keeping too up to date with Lawrence’s career in recent years and I’ve only just discovered that he is now going under the moniker Mozart Estate and playing at an event at Glasgow University in August called Glas-goes Pop.

I’ve not been keeping up with Record Store Day either. In its early years it had struck me as a good idea but more a good idea for other people to help keep record shops open so that I could visit any day of the year that hadn’t been installed as RSD. I’ve just never felt any inclination to queue up for hours on end in order to get the chance to fork out over the odds for a 12 inch piece of grey vinyl speckled with pink – or something equally hideous – featuring a couple of tracks I already own on CD or could download within seconds.

Jean-Luc Godard is credited with once saying that all you need to make a film is a girl and a gun and here we see that a girl and a record collection are all you need for a promo video. With a jingle like simplicity, this is Mozart Estate with Record Store Day from 2021:

Presumably the singles here were supplied from Lawrence’s own collection and the biggest surprise is likely the inclusion of Lio, who featured in my previous post. I didn’t have him down as a Red Noise man either. While I would never classify myself a collector, I have owned a fair amount of the singles featured and have even managed to hang on to a number of them such as Horrorshow, Blue Boy and Ambition by my favourite Godard, Vic, and his band Subway Sect.

That final 45 you see, Felt’s debut Index is one of two copies of the single that Lawrence sent to John Peel – when the first copy wasn’t played, Lawrence guessed that it must have been lost somewhere down the line and sent another but Peelie was just not very keen on it, a fact that prompted Lawrence to then post off what the DJ later claimed was the most ‘vitriolic and nasty’ letter he’d ever received.

Before Mozart Estate there was Go-Kart Mozart, and before Go-Kart Mozart there was Denim. Denim’s music was rooted in the music of Lawrence’s childhood and deliberately rejected the 1980s – the closing track of 1992’s Back in Denim was even called I’m Against the Eighties (you might legitimately ask why he has joined the Glas-goes Pop lineup as the acts are all associated with 1980s indie). In Middle of the Road, though, it is earlier musical sacred cows that he merrily slates: ‘I hate the King, I hate Chuck Berry / I hate Hooker, I hate Leadbelly.’

Lawrence obviously doesn’t hate Jonathan Richman and the Roadrunner guitar riff, to which he added a little glitterbeat (he even hired a couple of The Glitter Band to help out) and Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep. Yeah, ooh wee Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep. Released in January 1993 on Boy’s Own, this is Middle of the Road:

And now for some Felt from 1984, a year that was perhaps the highpoint of independent music in Britain with the releases of Upside Down, Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops, The Smiths’ self-titled debut album and Felt’s Sunlight Bathed the Golden Glow.

The latter begins and ends with a bassline maybe influenced by Jah Wobble’s opening of Public Image. In between there are some great strings, a very pleasing vocal interplay between Lawrence and Strawberry Switchblade’s Rose McDowall, and Maurice Deepak’s chimiest of chiming guitars. No video unfortunately but you can hear it here:

On Wednesday 15 June at 7pm, the BFI and Rough Trade East (150 Brick Lane, London E1) present a special launch event, with a screening of Lawrence of Belgravia to be followed by a conversation with Lawrence and Paul Kelly, hosted by journalist Siân Pattenden.

The following day sees the official release of the Blu-ray. For more information, click here.