FLOWERS IN THE RAIN: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE MOVE by Jim McCarthy

(Wymer, 2024, 403 pages)

Review by Alan Clayson

Because I found Jim such a nice bloke during correlated e-mail correspondence, I don’t want to give his diligently-researched work a rubbishing. Yet it has to be said that, perhaps through ham-fisted sub-editing, sentences are often split up. Like this. Which may prove irritating. So might factual and syntactic repetition, and, in the process of scene-setting, going off on not entirely relevant tangents. Moreover, the lack of an index may frustrate anyone seeking raw information. In this regard, a few minor errors might not matter. For example, while it’s correct that the use of Tchaikovsky’s “1812” riff in “Night Of Fear,” the maiden A-side that kicked off the Move’s five-year run of domestic hits, was pre-empted by Ike and Tina Turner in their “Tell Here I’m Not Home” opus, this came out in 1964—not 1966. Also, it’s Johnnie Ray not Johnny Ray, and what’s this about ‘Clifford Bennett and The Rebel Rousers’?

The reader is left too with unanswered questions. Why, say, was Roy Wood expelled from Moseley College of Art? Was Tamla Motown’s cosseted Little Stevie Wonder really among four mere support acts to the Move at Birmingham’s Club Cedar on February 3, 1966? What was the genealogical connection between Unit 4 + 2 and Tomorrow figured out by an author given to mixed metaphors—e.g. “the weak link in the chain is the one who becomes the sacrificial lamb”—and opinionated digs at the respective likes of Ginger Baker (“a clodhopper of a drummer”) and Syd’s Pink Floyd (“half-assed playing, sloppy drumming, allied to pretentious lyrics. Middle-class student music”)?

Yet, if nothing else, this offering is more than simply thorough—as demonstrated by both 1967’s “Wave The Flag And Stop The Train” flip-side featuring “a wonderful, harmonized confusion of vocals between 1:39 and 1:50 seconds,” and maybe too much detail about a particularly sick-making jape in the van between gigs. Crucially, the account is carried by McCarthy’s infectious enthusiasm that, if over-effusive sometimes, tells an intriguing tale rooted in grassroots struggles of the West Midlands beat groups from whence would spring in 1966 the ‘classic’ line-up of the Move, i.e. singer Carl Wayne with guitarists Roy Wood and Trevor Burton, drummer Bev Bevan and Chris ‘Ace’ Kefford on bass—who all took lead vocals at designated points during a stage presentation involving fireworks, smoke bombs, lighter fluid and Wayne charging about with an axe to implode televisions and hack at effigies of political personages like Prime Minister Harold Wilson who, after being caricatured in a rude postcard circulated to publicize 1967’s “Flowers In The Rain” single , won a libel suit against the quintet and their manager, Tony Secunda (“almost ‘situationist’ in his preferred style of creating chaos,” writes McCarthy).

Before the year was out too, the discords and intrigues that make pop outfits what they are had started to overwhelm the Move. First to go was Ace Kefford, given pride of place on the book’s front cover, having been singled out loudly by a prominent London promoter as the combo’s chief visual selling point—with all the concomitant resentment—for his Norse god androgyny with underlying dread. He was also a composer whose efforts were marginalized by Wood’s near-monopoly of originals. Indeed, Kefford was responsible for “William Chalker’s Time Machine,” the best-remembered 45 by the Lemon Tree—which had it been attributed to the Move, would have been a sure-fire smash.

Effectively, Ace sacked himself after starting to go the same brain-frazzled way as Syd Barrett when the Move and Pink Floyd were each on a round-Britain package tour with the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Amen Corner, that, in less absolute fashion, was on a par with that fated “scream circuit” trek in 1960 co-headlined by Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran.

Kefford’s creation of “a hole that was never filled” did not, however, impede the Move’s onwards-and-upwards trajectory as they scored a Number One with “Blackberry Way,” although during its Top of the Pops plugs, Burton’s constant scowl and Brooding Intensity became less an effusion of ‘image’ than the real thing. Irked by Wood’s increasing control of the ensemble’s destiny, he was soon to depart—as would Wayne, but not before the latter had advocated the Move’s unhappy stab at cabaret on the same bills as corny variety acts.

Bevan and Wood rallied by enlisting Jeff Lynne, X-factor of the picked-to-click Idle Race, but, garbed and painted like a psychedelic Wild Man Of Borneo, Wood was at the central microphone for “Brontosaurus” and remaining British chart entries during the three’s plotting of the Electric Light Orchestra and the late Carl’s discarded but “very cool and practical idea” of fronting a Move with Ace and Trevor back in the fold.

Flowers In The Rain also addresses the post-Move careers of all concerned, and a discography plus lists of electric media appearances and even the venues for cancelled tours in the USA (where the group surfaced only as cult celebrities) are included in the appendices of a history that, while it won’t win Jim a Nobel Prize for Literature, will serve as both a useful starting point for Move beginners and a necessary purchase for long-time devotees.

The Best of 2014 — according to a bunch of Ugly Things writers

As the year drew to its close, we asked our writers to submit a list of their personal favorite reissues and such for 2014. Against all odds, some of them managed to fight through the fog and fug of the holidays and complete the assignment. Here’s what they came up with…

Mike Stax (Editor)

Favorite single artist reissues:

The Bonniwell Music Machine – S/T (Big Beat) 2-CD

The definitive collection of the second-phase Music Machine. The Bonniwell Music Machine album expanded to include all of the contemporaneous non-LP singles, along with a trove of demos, outtakes and alternate mixes. Expertly compiled and annotated by Alec Palao, who also was responsible for…

The Seeds – Singles A’s & B’s 1965-1970 (Big Beat/GNP-Crescendo) CD

Big Beat’s comprehensive reissue series of the Seeds’ catalog concludes with this great collection of all of the band’s singles, from 1965’s plaintive “Can’t See to Make You Mine” to 1970’s gut-wrenching “Did He Die.” Alec Palao’s detailed liner notes spanning this entire series also serve as the ultimate Seeds biography, shining light on every facet of their story, including special attention to all of their recording sessions.

We the People/American Zoo – Visions of Time (Guerssen, Spain) LP/CD/DL

Not to be confused with the well-known Florida band, this edition of We the People were based in LA and released a handful of singles under that name and as American Zoo. We the People/American Zoo resided in that shadow-shrouded corner of the ‘60s garage band universe where brooding teenagers spent long, solitary hours listening to Byrds and Bob Dylan records and were duly moved to write somber, soul-searching minor key songs with titles like “Feelings of My Emptiness,” “Back Street Thoughts” and “Who Am I?” It’s an intoxicating recipe when it’s done right, and American Zoo did it right. A class package from the Guerssen label including informative liners by Gray Newell.

(more…)

FLYING SAUCERS ROCK’N'ROLL

FLYING SAUCERS ROCK’N'ROLL: Conversations with Unjustly Obscure Rock’n'Soul Eccentrics edited by Jake Austen (Duke University Press, US; 2011; 282 pages)

For the past couple of decades, Jake Austen and his ragtag team at Roctober have been engaged in some truly outstanding work in the field of rock’n'roll writing and research. If for some reason you’ve missed one—or any—of the almost 50 issues they’ve put out in that time, you could do a lot worse than pick up this book which compiles some of their most memorable interviews.

Roctober’s coverage has always been all over the map, taking in ’50s rockabilly, country, vintage soul, R&B, blues and funk, ’60s garage rock, ’70s and ’80s punk rock and new wave, heavy metal, and a range of unclassifiable species that might be loosely defined as novelty acts. A cross section of those styles are represented in the ten meaty interviews selected here, which include career-spanning conversations with Sam the Sham, David Allan Coe, Sugar Pie DeSanto, Oscar Brown Jr, the Fast, and the Good Rats.

Among the highlights are Ken Burke’s lengthy and absorbing chat with Sun rockabilly giant Billy Lee Riley, Jonathan Polettia’s disturbing voyage into the dark world of Hollywood glam weirdoes Zolar X, and a wonderful chat with the late, great Claude Trenier by a team of Roctoberists headed up by John Battles.

Each chapter is headed up by artwork by King Merinuk, illustrated with rare photos, and features a brief update on each artist. In several cases, the update turns out to be an obituary, a stark, poignant reminder of just how important it is to document the personal stories of these rock’n'soul innovators and eccentrics. (Mike Stax)

From UGLY THINGS #32 (Fall/Winter 2011)