Sounds From The Junkshop #57 - Mo Solid Gold

 

"Had enough of your weepin’ and wailin’, don’t need you to point out my failings" - Mo Solid Gold - Spooky Too

You may remember way back in a very early SFTJ we waxed lyrical on These Animal Men, one of your correspondent's favourite groups of the mid-'90s. This is the story of what they did next and it's fair to say it was a bit different from what had come before. In the wake of TAM's split in 1997, the group would undergo something of a reshuffle with long time bassist Paddy Murray leaving, guitarist Hooligan (now going by his real name of Julian Hewings) moving to bass and frontman Boag moving to guitar with Craig Warnock remaining on keys and Rob Hague (ex-S*M*A*S*H*) staying behind the drumstool. The group would bring in a new singer K (short for Kevin...no seriously, that was his real name) and go for a different sound, bringing funk and soul elements to the table.

The group would sign to Chrysalis and make their debut with the Prince Of The New Wave/Spooky Too double A-side single which showed the new sound writ large - the former a raw live recording showing off the band's tightness and K's impressive vocals while the latter was a driving soul rock number similar to Give Out But Don't Give Up era Primal Scream. As a TAM die-hard, I didn't quite "get it" on first listen but with repeated listening it definitely grew on me. Second single Personal Saviour was even better, laying down the group's manifesto in style with its tight wiry groove and K's smooth vocals topping things off perfectly. Seeing them live at the Cockpit in Leeds a few months later sealed the deal - they had all the nervy wiry energy of TAM but K was an excellent lightning rod for that energy up front, blessed with a great voice and audience commanding charisma. No doubt about it, they definitely looked like contenders.

Third single David's Soul was a gorgeous longing ballad namechecking Charlie Parker and Miles Davis but while Personal Saviour had stopped just short of the Top 75, this one missed the charts altogether and I suspect that might just have made Chrysalis a bit jittery that this band weren't going to be the chart conquering sensation that they were hoping for. A cover of Massive Attack's Safe From Harm was released to try breaking them with a song people might know already but although this did chart slightly higher than Personal Saviour, it failed to breach the all important Top 75.

The group's one and only album Brand New Testament would surface in the summer of 2001 and showed off the group's sound well. Bizarrely, there were two versions of it which I only found out upon looking it up online - I got the original version but it was quickly pulled to be replaced by a new version which axed Safe From Harm and Solid Gold and added three new tracks including a cover of the old R Dean Taylor northern soul classic There's A Ghost In My House (which had given the Fall a rare Top 40 hit a decade or so earlier). Although it arguably didn't quite have a knockout blow to really take it over the top, there were still some fine moments on there such as the stirring Mo Trilogy, the blissed out Miss America In Space and the epic Motorway which the band had actually road tested as These Animal Men before K joined them.

Mo Solid Gold would disband after being dropped by Chrysalis in late 2001 with Rob returning to a reformed S*M*A*S*H* and Boag and Hooligan eventually resurfacing in garage punks Thee Orphans a decade or so later. In a way, they were the victims of bad timing - certainly I think that if they'd tried to launch a band like this in the wake of soul-rockers like Vintage Trouble breaking through a decade or so later then they might well have been on to something but as with a lot of SFTJ bands in this era they were just cursed with being too different to really fit in anywhere - as I mentioned last week in the SFTJ Straw column, the nature of the "indie" beast at this point seemed to be that the majors were willing to take a punt on anything that could possibly end up being the catalyst for a new movement to start up and dominate the scene. Either way, Brand New Testament is an interesting little curio of its time that is well worth investigating for the intrigued.