Right then, back to the alphabet after Saturdays excursion in to D...we're back at Sm which means...

Smoove or DJ Smoove, aka Jonathan Scott Watson, is a DJ and remixer from the North East who had made a couple of albums for Acid Jazz Records. I first came across Smoove via a song called “Left Right And Centre”. The song had been written by Paul Weller in his mid teens and in 2006 Acid Jazz released a single by Lord Large, a recording of Weller’s song and a couple of remixes. Lord Large turned out to feature New York Italian singer Dean Parrish (who Northern Soul fans will know for songs like “I’m On My Way”, “Determination” and “Bricks, Broken Bottles And Sticks”) and one of the remixes I liked was by this fella Smoove. So I dug a bit deeper and found an album called “Gravy: Remixes & Rarities” by Smoove which featured a fantastic cover of the Spencer Davis Group song “I’m A Man” credited to  Dan Roberts (a 7” copy of which cost me a tidy sum some years later) and now I was really interested in this Smoove fella. The next thing I discovered was that Smoove was a part of something called Smoove & Turrell. I found their tracks “Hammond” and “Beggarman” online and quickly ascertained their sound was very much like the Dan Roberts single and here we are with a copy of Smoove & Turrells debut album “Antique Soul”

Smoove had chanced across singer John Turrell after hearing him rehearsing with his band in a garage in the house next door to a keyboard player he was working with. After a couple more sessions scouting him through the walls they knocked on his door and hit it off straight away. Smoove & Turrell was born. Smoove & Turrell is a band, they are real musicians and not just a DJ/Remixers backing tracks with a live singer. They play a concoction of Soul, Funk, Northern Soul and Hip Hop that they dubbed ‘Northern Funk’ or sometimes the much better description of ‘Northern Coal Music’.

This is pure dance music, aimed firmly at the feet and not the head. The grooves are infectious and Turrell is a great soulful singer, if at times you could easily mistake him for Paul Weller. Highlights are the previously noted singles “Hammond” and “Beggarman”, the barnstorming “I Can't Give You Up” and a great cover of Yazoo’s “Don’t Go”. 

No deep dissection or philosophical rumination on the nature of this album will be entered into here. This is dance music pure and simple, that’s why I like it, pure and simple.

Hammond - https://youtu.be/5wF_c69NT-M?si=YO3Cxw5AyhbX7YQj

By the time Ian Dury & The Blockheads 2nd album was released in May 1979 they may well have become the most unlikely pop stars of the last 60+ years. In the summer of 1978 their single “What A Waste” reached #9 in the UK charts and in January of 1979 "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick" reached #1. These huge selling records were produced by a singer and band who were all veterans of the London Pub Rock scene, whether with Dury in Kilburn & The High Roads (guitarist/keyboardist Chaz Jankel, saxophonist Davey Payne) or bands like The Loving Awareness (bassist Norman Watt-Roy, drummer Charlie Charles, guitarist John Turnbull, keyboardist Mickey Gallagher). These were all seasoned musicians who were all, I’m sure, fully au fait with the subject matter of one of Dury’s earlier singles (that Jankel, Watt-Roy and Charles had played on) "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll”.

Under the direction of Dury and Jankel this band, now christened The Blockheads, cooked up a groovy concoction of Funk, Jazz, Rock ’n’ Roll, Pop, Reggae and Music Hall topped off by Dury’s witty, wordy lyrics. All of that is laid out before you on “Do It Yourself”. 

Off the back of 2 big hit singles “Do It Yourself” reached #2 in the UK albums chart. It’s slightly odd that no single was lifted from the album (“Inbetweenies” was issued as single in Europe) to give it that extra push up to the top spot but this was Stiff Records who never did the things that other companies did. The album was released in the UK in twelve different sleeves each based on a design from the Crown wallpaper sample book !

We saw Ian Dury & The Blockheads on the tour to support this album at Birmingham Odeon in July ’79. The gig sold out in seconds but, as it was close to my brothers birthday and he really wanted to go, this was the first time, and only 1 of 2 occasions, I ever bought tickets from the touts outside the gig before the show. I don’t remember them being hugely expensive but if they were it was worth it, to this day, it’s one of the greatest gigs I’ve ever seen. The Blockheads really were a quite formidable band.

This Is What We Find - https://youtu.be/L9Js_nrrtHo?si=aH9YiozUl5epkJ8D

I first saw The Smithereens on Channel 4’s (at the time) unmissable Friday evening music show The Tube. I’m pretty sure the first song I heard them play was “Behind The Wall Of Sleep” (and thanx to the wonders of YouTube I’ve just discovered it was January 30th 1987 and the first thing I heard was “Blood And Roses”, f*ck you memory!). Bass player Mike Mesaros looked like Dee Dee Ramone. He and the other 2 guys up front (singer Pat DiNizio and guitarist Jim Babjak) all played Rickenbacker guitars (a 4001, a 325 and a 330 respectively) all in black. Drummer Dennis Diken looked like he didn’t belong with the other three. They blew me away. I almost immediately phoned the guitarist in my then band, The Libertines, to make sure that, if he hadn’t seen it he needed to turn the TV on and catch them when they came back on. It was OK he’d seen it, and it blew him away too.

The Smithereens were from New Jersey and were obviously hugely influenced by the British Invasion Beat Groups of the 1960’s. There are points in this record when you have to ask yourself is this a late 80’s recording or a genuine 60’s one. That question has to be asked right from the off as “Strangers When We Meet” messes with your perception of time. It’s a rollicking good 60’s pop tune in the vein of The Beatles  “I Saw Her Standing There”. “Behind The Wall Of Sleep” begins with the line “She had hair like Jeanie Shrimpton back in 1965” letting you know it’s a 60’s influence and not from the time (the girl in the song is later described thus “Well she played a bass guitar and she was playing in a band, And she stood just like Bill Wyman…”). The album also had a lovely ballad, “In A Lonely Place”, sung together with Suzanne Vega.

Mark and I got quite obsessive about The Smithereens for a while culminating in August 1988 with us getting Mark’s then girlfriend to drive us to London to see them at The Astoria on the tour to support their second album “Green Thoughts” (hopefully coming into a collection near me very soon). It was a bloody fantastic gig too. I have one other of their albums on vinyl, 1994’s “A Date With The Smithereens”, but as that is in the form of a box set of 4x7” singles we won’t cover that here. 

The Smithereens made their final album in 2011, well, their final album with Pat Nizio who sadly passed away in 2017. They were great…

The Smithereens on The Tube 30/1/87 - https://youtu.be/uBKFa3yB8ZY?si=KUxoDULw3pImOHTi