JIVE BUNNY AND THE MASTERMIXERS – "Let's Party"

sh!t

As I said before I enjoyed the ‘March Of The Mods’ element so would have to relisten to hear quite the level of badness you’ve described – and I’d forgotten about the “what the hell is going on?” bit.

Putting the “Christ” back into Christmas…

I don’t know what’s more offensive, its usual mastermixeriness or the fact that they shamelessly cashed in on two of the biggest UK Christmas perennials. But why choose? It’s a guaranteed 1, especially as it’s the third JB track I haven’t been able to listen to all the way through on YouTube.

Thank JC it’s all over.

A few years ago somebody commented that Jive Bunny were “the UK Steinski” which is a bit like saying that Roy Castle was the British Clifford Brown. Just because “Lessons 1-3” mastermixed those number one tunes doesn’t make Jive Bunny’s unfortunate chart-topping triptych their equivalent – the difference is to do with cynical showbiz against loving art, canned laughter versus natural humour, machines and humanity (and were Jive Bunny to have lived all nine of its alleged lives it could never have conceived something as starkly moving as “The Motorcade Sped On”).

Even by their humble standards, Jive Bunny’s Christmas offering was an especially shoddy piece of work, not so much mastermixing as first year primary school mixing on turntables made of Playdoh, consisting as it does of huge, indigestible chunks of Slade’s “Merry Xmas Everybody,” Wizzard’s “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday” and (ahem) Gary Glitter’s “Another Rock ‘N’ Roll Christmas” ineptly slotted into fragments of the ever faithful John Anderson and his team parping their way in various keys and tempos through the old Joe Loss relic “March Of The Mods,” a tune forever associated in my mind with primary school PE class workouts. Saddest of all perhaps are the newly-recorded contributions from Chubby Checker, Noddy Holder and Roy Wood, adding mock-mirthful voiceovers to the shameful melée and demeaning themselves in the process.

Ah yes, process, processed…had it not been for the next entry, “Let’s Party” (with its handy B-side of Anderson’s mob performing “Auld Lang Syne”) would not only have made Jive Bunny the third, and by far the least, act to have their first three singles go to number one (and thereby opening the gates for the kind of subsequent warped thinking which would put Westlife on a near-equal footing with the Beatles or Presley), but would also have been the last number one of the eighties – a truly sorry end to any decade. But few seemed to care; the record was spun and energetically, drunkenly danced to at countless parties that season. Hundreds of thousands of people enjoyed and were entertained by Jive Bunny’s processed demolition of music. Hundreds of thousands of people derived enjoyment from living processed lives. And by the following Christmas, Jive Bunny couldn’t get arrested.

But enough of Jive Bunny; a remedial word here about the far more important chart event of December 1989, namely the Manchester/Madchester trilogy which stormed the Top 20 within the space of a fortnight – there was a fourth record, Morrissey’s “Ouija Board, Ouija Board,” but that barely registered, and while not one of his indispensable records does merit a small round of applause simply for not being “Let’s Party” whose ghastly stench of quotation-marked happiness spoke far more of death (as one of its few distended samples aptly put it, “What in the hell is going on?”). Of these, “Fools Gold” (no apostrophe, and if you had the twelve-inch its actual title was “Fools Gold 9.53”) by the Stone Roses became the most famous. Their slow escalation to sainthood is not entirely baffling, but in 1989 they were not instantly greeted as saviours of anything; the debut album received indifferent reviews in the music press and sold steadily. “Fools Gold” with its post-23 Skidoo twin-bass neurofunk approach satisfactorily updated 1981 for then-current needs – and in an atmosphere of Jive Bunny, trash dance cash-ins and the Billboard Hot 100 a month out of date, “Fools Gold” sounded sufficiently different and fetching to stand out amidst the morass.

Happy Mondays, too, finally broke through – Vince Clarke’s “W.F.L.” remix should have done the trick earlier in the year, not to mention the divine “Lazyitis” re-recording with the slightly bemused pre-Beatles chart veteran Karl Denver – with the Madchester E.P., lead track “Hallelujah,” performed on TOTP the same week as “Fools Gold” with Kirsty MacColl on backing vocals, looking and sounding infinitely happier than she had done with the Pogues two Christmases earlier, a glorious stagger of post-everything rock-funk, and even if their masterpiece (Bummed) was already behind them, no one could demur at their thoroughly deserved success throughout 1990.

That leaves “Pacific” by 808 State, and the parallel story of Manchester dance, rearing up from those pregnant early eighties days of ACR and Quango Quango, and ending up with something truly new – think also of erstwhile 808 Stater A Guy Called Gerald, whose revolutionary “Voodoo Ray” finally crossed over to the mainstream Top 20 in 1989 at the third time of asking, and obliquely World of Twist with their monumental “The Storm,” and in a parallel-to-Manchester sense the Orb’s “Huge Pulsating Brain…” with its devastatingly patient 20 or so minutes of peaceful, beatless beats and its central resuscitation of Minnie Riperton’s “Loving You” and I heard a new world. “Pacific State,” when originally heard on the Quadrastate mini-album, was gorgeous and expansive where the rest of pop and dance was becoming clenched up and stilted once again – with its encouraging, medium-range beats, its floating soprano saxophone (more John Surman than Kenny G), its air of a “Wonderful Land” for the courageously generous new world of the nineties which was surely to follow. Spruced up somewhat for its 45 status, but losing none of its original magic, “Pacific” the top ten hit single became the lead single from the wonderful Ninety album, with which we can properly close down this decade just as the first Pretenders album opened it, a beaming, radiant proclamation of a shinier, newer pop – and how right it should have appeared on the ZTT label. From this perspective, it looked as though New Pop might just have won. Looking forward to the future, Madchester succeeded in making pop sound as though it had only just begun. For all emotional intents and purposes, let’s freeze the frame here, and refrain from doing so on Jive Bunny’s never-more-forced bonhomie.

Jesus, 1989 was sh1te, wasn’t it?

I remember this – I was nine years old. It was embarrassingly shit. This, by the way, is the True Sound of Thatcher – cheap, contemptuous prolefeed, like the front of the Sun.

VH1 devoted a few hours to All the Number Ones of the 80s a couple of weeks ago, which included this in its full horror but (unless they put them in out of order) skipped both the other Jive Bunny numbers. And Doctorin’ the Tardis.

The Jive Bunny single is so depressing that I can’t find much to say about it. ‘March of the Mods’ deserves to be remembered as so much more than the ‘Let’s Party’ source, though, so perhaps it would be more productive to write about why I like that so much.

This is party music, but music for a party that I might even enjoy being at, if I could travel in time. I imagine it playing at a proper dance hall , circa 1964, the age when you could go to both dances and discotheques. Its a big formal event, a works dance or New Years’ Eve, and the men and women are particularly dressed up for the night, as more hangs upon having a good time this evening as would normally be the case, neat partings, new ties, colourful dresses.

Crucially, this wouldn’t be a gathering of the kool kids of the day, but a collection of several generations and more unfashionable and uncertain revelers. The ‘Mod’ in the title is just a with-it period trapping. The only mod thing about the single is the groovy organ that adds a few jolly flourishes over the second half of the disc.

What this record really is a stomp, a chance for the dancers to let their hair down and lose a few inhibitions through an unapologetically silly tune. It’s a great blaring brassy thing;

DA-DA-DA! DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG!! *DANG*-DANG-*DANG*-DANG!!! DA-DA-DA-DA-*DA*!!!!
DA-DA-DA! DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG!! *DANG*-DANG-*DANG*-DANG!!! DA-DA-DA-DA-*DA*!!!!
DA-DA-DA! DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG!! *DANG*-DANG-*DANG*-DANG!!! DA-DA-DA-DA-*DA*!!!!
DA-DA-DA! DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG-DANG!! *DANG*-DANG-*DANG*-DANG!!! DA-DA-DA-DA-*DA*!!!!

The effect of this repetition is really quite locked-on and relentless, demanding an instantaneous and non-cerebral response from the listener, rather like a hard-rockin’ guitar riff does. Eventually other instruments join in and flirtatiously play off against this riff, a call and response, some of the flutey arrangements sounding like the instrumentation for a British comedy film of the fifties or sixties. If you were dancing to this, I would imagine that you and your partner would have worked out some mutual action with your feet during the riff, walking towards and away from each other, say. Then, when the new bits of instrumentation came in, you’d have to do something silly like throw your arms out together. It would also be a good tune for communal dancing like holding hands in a ring-a-roses or a conga line. It’s certainly just as well that it only goes on for two minutes, because you’d reel away exhausted to the chairs at the edge of the room once it had stopped, feeling in need of a drink… but you’d feel happier and less selfconscious.

Like many pop phenomena, The March Of The Mods comes from an unlikely source, the letkajenka, a traditional Finnish linedance that revolves around bunnyhopping actions. In the early 1960s a mutant strain of this spread in Finland, incorporating steps from the Madison and the Conga. And then somehow it traveled to England, Joe Loss & His Orchestra and to provincial dancehalls and night outs such as I like to imagine.

Further internet research validates my theory that this tune led to the creation of special dance routines. YouTube listeners reminisce;

“Takes me back to my dancing days at the Pamela Chelmiah school of dancing in St.Ives near Huntingdon! Fantastic memories.”

– and –

“I’d forgotten all about this music. I can vaguely remember doing the dance that went with it. Everybody went round the dance floor in a big circle. There was one bit where you jumped forward with your feet together then jumped back again then took four steps forward. I hated doing it as a kid because I wanted to be a rocker and thought that all mods were poofs. I still do.”

Billy @ 17 – I think that piece of research may be the only good thing to have come out of this record

Oh god, this is way beyond terrible. Surely this must be the most “that’ll do” number one of all time.

Personally my kneejerk response to “March Of The Mods” is to do The Max Wall – a) ask your dad/grandad; b) see also Diana Ross’ 1982 top tenner “Work Your Body.”

I can agree that “When You Come Back To Me” (ANOTHER SAW single – after two of Sonia’s naff 1989 efforts) where the title is almost, but not quite, sung in the lyrics, is one of Jason’s finer efforts. (Hardly high praise, that).

That he doesn’t sing in the chorus helps immeasurably. Which makes me think what a fine career he could have had as a singer had he adopted the Milli Vanilli approach. And if Big Fun had done that…

This is surely as good a place as any to mention one of the nearly-great lost SAW-linked acts, just to check that I am not th only one to recall them: viz Morgan McVey. “Looking Good Diving”, anyone? (1986 I think).

If we have to make a connection, the Morgan of the act went on (in Jan 1990 or thereabouts) to have a top 30 hit with a rather crap speeded-up cover version of “Walk On The Wild Side”. And Jason didn’t sing on the chorus of that one either. I vaguely seem to recall that there might have been some kind of Neneh Cherry connection too (and she was hovering around the lower part of the top 40 with “Inner City mama” roundabout now, IIRC.)

Ah, that’s what it was! Thanks, Steve. Faint memories from reading Record Mirror….

‘Looking Good Diving’ also being the main reference point for ‘Buffalo Stance’ right?

re #33 – I never knew that Buffalo Stance started out as an SAW record. Yet another reason to love the Popular comments boxes

I saw a five-CD box set of Jive Bunny on sale at the counter of the filling station at Peterborough Services on Saturday. Five CDs. Imagine. 400 minutes of Jive Bunny.

Certainly the main connection with the Looking Good Diving that I’ve just YouTubed is the rising harpsichordy section.

Though it’s possible that we shouldn’t ignore LGD’s B-side “Looking Good Diving With The Wild Bunch”, sung by Neneh Cherry, produced by SAW and It Was Donald*

*these last four words are an obscure in-joke for Tom’s benefit; the rest however is true.

Edit: Bah, too slow.

Since this is the last time we’re likely to discuss JB, I think it’s worth talking about their thwarted follow-up singles. I remember reading an interview with the Mastermixers in a national newspaper where they swore that there was an ‘industry conspiracy’ against them. This involved:

* Woolworths refusing to stock “Over To You John” because, according to a store spokesperson, “We believe their time is over”
* Radio One refusing to playlist them
* Er… that’s it.

They seemed convinced that this was all because they were an independent concern and had achieved everything on their own terms. They made themselves sound like rebellious outsiders, and I almost felt sorry for them – until I promptly remembered how absolutely bloody dreadful everything from “Let’s Party” onwards was. Some people aren’t very good at admitting to their own idle mistakes.

I think the reason you never see JB& MMs at bootsales is because the vast majority of albums were bought on tape for kisd, subsequently discarded by said kids and have been languishing in landfill for at least a decade.

My wife (who was 8 at the time) cannot recall what happened to her copy bought in Xmas ’89 for her …

Thanks for posting the LGD remix Chelovek – quite an eye-opener! I see Nick Kamen also covered the song.

IIRC at the time the reaction wasn’t even horror any more, just a sullen admission of defeat – and crossness that they’d timed the release to get a #1 since they must have known they wouldn’t beat the next one (which is saying something) – in fact maybe a need to get the product in the shops before it explains the extreme cheapness? (Did it have much of a climb up the charts?)