Whatever Happened To Bands That Made You Laugh?

Does anybody out there remember Radio Stars?

At a time when music seems to be more serious than ever I can't help asking myself, what has happened to good old-fashioned comedy groups? I don't mean those cringe-inducing Red Nose Day singles by Hale and Pace or Spitting Image spin-off hits like The Chicken Song. I mean top quality bands who actually delivered proper tunes and also smiles.

So again, I'm not thinking about The Grumbleweeds or The Barron Knights or other outfits that did rapidfire knock-off parodies of pop songs du jours. I guess the earliest example I can think of of a proper comedy band was the The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, who featured the late Neil Innes, often known as the seventh (or is it eighth?) Python, having collaborated with Cleese, Palin and co.

One band that springs to mind is a particular favourite. Radio Stars could be categorised as a punk/new wave band, but only by virtue of the fact that they were at their peak in 1977/1978. They had a lot more hinterland than your average spiky topped outfit. Bass player and main songwriter Martin Gordon had been in Sparks – a band who also had a way with a witty couplet.

And lead singer Andy Ellison, meanwhile, was certainly no angry young man. He might have been angry and a man, but he was already in his thirties and had been around since the 1960s, most notably in John's Children with Marc Bolan. He is 80 on July 5 according to wikipedia, which also says that they last reformed in 2010 to mark their 34th anniversary.

Radio Stars played proper sings, pop-tinged R&B speeded up to give it a bit of punk credibility. Their best known hitlet was probably Nervous Wreck, about a man driven to the edge of insanity by what we would now call an abusive relationship, which was most notable for the chorus of "electro-encephalograph – plug it in my brain." When they appeared on Top of the Pops, a glamorous woman - at the time probably called a dolly bird – was employed to reply "I don't think so" to the question "Is this love?"

Watch Nervous Wreck on TOTP above here.

Their first album was released in 1978. It was called Songs For Swinging Lovers, which had been the title of a Frank Sinatra album already parodied by Peter Sellers on his album Songs for Swinging Sellers. Radio Stars took the wordplay and ran with it, the cover featuring a silhouette of a man and a woman swinging from nooses.

Their sense of humour clearly did have its dark side which occasionally went too dark. One track, Beast of Barnsley, was about a serial rapist. I presume it wasn’t considered that controversial back in the day though as a version was also recorded for a BBC session. I guess you could say it was different times.

But the band mostly wanted to have fun and add daft lyrics to their power pop tunes. Arthur is Dead Boring (Let's Rot) was their ode to the recently deceased Elvis Presley. Nothing Happened Today was a Pythonesque woke-up-this-morning blues pastiche sung in a Presleyesque tone: "Nothing happened today, not a sausage, bugger all...".

With lyrics like that what could go wrong? Surely world domination would follow? Er, no. They released more records but never scaled the peaks of their first album. The follow up, Holiday Album, spawned only one really memorable track, No Russians in Russia. Buy it here.

Their brief period of success coincided with another great lost comedy rock band, Manchester's Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias, whose biggest hit was 1978's Quo homage, Heads Down No Nonsense Mindless Boogie. Neither band had as much success as they deserved.

For me Radio Stars were the perfect blend of smart, funny lyrics and really catchy tunes. They had another terrific song, which really deserves your attention, Don't Waste My Time, which has the kicker line, 'it's the only thing I have'. Give their stuff a listen. It's out there on the internet and I can guarantee you won’t be wasting your time.

Buy Songs for Swinging Lovers here.