Saveloy’n’Chips

Status Quo were once great, and I mean that sincerely! They’re absolutely not great anymore - and I mean that just as sincerely. The reason I feel this way is because I (obviously) speak as a one-time fan; as well as an inexorable observer, a producer, and a musician who actually ‘cares’ or svat a dirty word?

I also feel this way because I’m invariably kept up to date with The Quo (as they’re known), by a really good friend of mine called Phil, who bless, remains one of the band’s biggest and most loyal fans. Now Blame It On The Boogie or blame it on Whatever You Want, Phil’s persuasion is such that he books two seats wherever and whenever he goes to see the band (I kid thee not), thus enabling him “ample room to boogie”.

Hence his nickname: Phil Two-Seats.

So when Phil Two-Seats and the lovely Fran got married, my wedding present was playing at their reception “for which I recruited top drummer and long-time friend Kevin Wilkinson (RIP), alongside equally top bass player and long-time pal, Nick Beere”. Now, not in a hundred-thousand lifetimes, would I have ever imagined myself succumbing to Wet Wet Wet’s appalling ‘Love Is All Around Me’ - but as the bride and groom requested it as their ‘first dance’, I was (eventually) obliged to deliver.

Suffice to say, short of murder, I did enlist a number of cunning tactics to evade such suffering/said song, all of which fell on literal deaf ears and as such, failed miserably. I even recall obliquely thrusting a rather blunt blade alongside Phil’s Adam’s apple (which I guess was my least cunning tactic), which also failed. Yet in retrospect, I have to admit it could have been so much worse. At least it wasn’t that other ‘first dance’ favourite (released several years earlier), the even more ghastly: ‘Everything I Do, I Do It For You’. A song of both inordinate and impeccable shame, which (unfortunately), entailed Reading born/Canadian rocker (and all round Mr. Nice guy) Bryan Adams singing in tights.

Now there’s a vision and a way to embark upon marriage.

Whatdafuckinfuck?
Haven’t these people (ever) heard of Marvin Gaye?
Otis Redding?
Johnny Ace?
Sam Cook?
Smokey Robinson?
Elvis!?

Amid assorted vol-au-vents and tempestuous truffles, we took to the stage, and I have to admit, ‘Love Is All Around Me’ wasn’t that bad. But what followed, was, and shall (forever) remain, something of a reinforced musical discourse, on the trial(s) and three-chord tribulation(s) that is Status Quo.

For a start, they’re a band whose music, along with that of (the ever fantastic) Chuck Berry, doesn’t need to be rehearsed. In fact, it’s far better if one doesn’t rehearse The Quo (if indeed, such a task be remotely possible “for rehearsing da Quo would be akin to rehearsing how to eat”!).

Thus, Kevin and myself sang through the set list on the way to the wedding. Had we actually rehearsed, we’d have probably ended up in the pub, which might not have been such a bad idea when you consider two fully-grown men, verbally riffing their way through a staple of The Quo’s back catalogue (whilst driving).

And what a back catalogue it is. For upon inadvertently confirming that the progression(s) between the E and the A chords in ‘Paperplane’ are identical to that of the G and the C chords in ‘Down Down’ (and no doubt, countless others), we immediately and simultaneously, broke into cathartic cackling. Reason being, our spontaneous cognizance of the band’s myopic musicality, was instant, without question, hilarious, and almost childlike!

Now with the possible exception of the actor Bernhard Gribbins - who, when played the outro to ‘Mean Girl’ on a radio quiz, suspected that the end of the world was nigh - most people have at least heard about, if not read, Status Quo’s relentless barrage of accusatory/negative reviews. Reviews which vehemently insist that all of the band’s music is repetitive and redundant and nothing more than that of a tired, three-chord design. Well, for the briefest of aforementioned microseconds in the car (when Kevin and myself were momentarily obliged to take the band’s music seriously), the proof was clearly in the humming.

As such, I have to state here and now: ALL the reviews are quintessentially correct.
Status Quo’s music really, really, really, really does sound ALL the same (for which read ifuckindentical). Now I realise the same musical maxim could just as readily be applied to any number of bands “ latter day Rolling Stones and The Ramones are two examples that leap forth; but unlike the Sarf London gold-diggers and the New York gunslingers (most of whom are either dead or in rehab heaven), The Quo were never cool.
And therein perhaps, lies most of, if not all the difference.

The fact that throughout most of their career, The Quo have never really been cool, and had very little, if not nothing to say (other than again and again and again on the midnight train etc), has surely had some bearing on their derisory reputation.

Moreover, there are those who consider that Status Quo might well have been cool (for want of a more appropriate term) between 1972 and 1974. A period of time - as substantiated by the recent television series Life On Mars - when terrible clothes, terrible hair, copious amounts of terrible tinned food and high-octane, everyday terrible sexist-speak, was the norm. The latter of which was surely substantiated in 1972, when the epitome of cool (who else but) Lou Reed, had his only hit in the UK with ‘Walk On The Wild Side’. A great song, which happened to contain the somewhat inflammatory line: “But she never lost her head/Even when she was giving head;’’ to which The Quo - never one to miss out when the going (or should that be the blowing?) got good - followed in hot pursuit with their only Number One in the UK, ‘Down Down’.

A song not remotely comparable with ‘Walk On The Wild Side’, ‘Down Down’ did however, contain one of the most direct and surely succinct (if not loaded) of chat-up lines ever written and recorded in the history of popular music: “get down/deeper and down”. And if it wasn’t subliminally scribed amid Reed’s sub-lyrical slipstream, then I’ll revert to wearing trousers in which toasters could be transported.

So, ‘twas during said period of delightful British yoof politik “ when many boys wanted to look like girls (and did) and many girls wanted to look like Rod Stewart (and didn’t) - that The Quo (truly) found themselves. That’s right kids, between 1972 and 1974, Status Quo were the most sexist, dirtiest, hairiest, no-nonsense, feel-good boogie band in the land; replete with sing-a-long chants, voluptuous volume, Fray Bentos arrangements and oodles of (grinding) Benny Hill innuendo: “Roll over lay down and let me in”.

Like AC/DC a couple of years later, The Quo did not in anyway adhere to any form of ‘big girl’s blouse’ delivery/fraternity. The band simply employed a staple of exceedingly loud, brash, blokey, saveloy’n’chips (with loadsa salt ’n’ vinegar), feel-good songs; that were played ’n’ conveyed with more power, more vengeance and more conviction than anyone around at that particular time. For whilst the likes of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple et al, dabbled in some of the above, The Quo took the feel-good factor to number eleven. Indeed, during this golden period, even the pivotal John Peel (RIP) was known to have quipped: “when the party’s going slow, put on the Quo”.

No wonder Phil’s always felt compelled to purchase two-seats!

Indeed he, along with thousands of others in the so-called Quo Army, has remained transfixed by the chug-ah, chug-ah, chug-ah, chug-ah, chug-ah, chug-ah rhythm (if such it can be called), which - and this is the big one - unremittingly places (the emphasis of) the beat at the beginning of each and every bar, thus resulting in the band’s seemingly hypnotic and (eventual) coercive white noise.

For that is what it - Quo’s drone - essentially is: a white noise (aligned with Sun lyrics). And no one, but no one, did (and some might argue, does) said particular strand of emphatic and industrial white noise boogie, better than The Quo. And it’s this - along with their all-round, down-to-earth, plumberesque blokeyness - that explains their continued popularity.

To be sure, The Quo enable their fans to lose themselves by way of a heads-down, no nonsense, escapist and diversionary set of songs that fundamentally say nothing.

Herein lies another crucial Quo quality.

With the exception of (the underrated) ‘Unspoken Words’ released on the Piledriver album in 1972, the band’s lyrics have never essentially said anything that could be considered remotely important or of any value. This explains why most of their song titles (if not all), are about as inter-changeable and disposable as orange-peels: ‘Rain’ might just as well be called ‘Pain’. ‘Caroline’ might just as well be called ‘Cement Mixer’. ‘Roll Over Lay Down’ (now there’s a title) might just as well be called ‘Shag Me Up The Arse’. ‘Paperplane’ might just as well be called ‘Papertank’. ‘Down The Dustpipe’ (another top title) might just as well be called ‘Dick Cheney’s A Cunt’.

It makes no difference (whatsoever), as what matters in QuoLand is the feel-good factor; absolutely NOT what’s being said. All of which is okay, ‘cause let’s face it, not everyone’s Bob Dylan. But, ‘twould be perfectly plausible to feel that after thirty-five or so years in relative limelight, Messrs. Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt might have actually stumbled upon something to say (other than again and again and again on the midnight train etc).

Admittedly, the aforementioned AC/DC continue to sing about slappers, hard-ons and the clap, but, at least they’ve stayed true to form: AC/DC have never once deviated from what they’ve always done (played a similar brand of loud as fuck, no-nonsense, heads-down-boogie’n’roll), which is far more than can be attributed to The Quo, who over the years, have evolved into what Sir Alan Sugar likes to call: “a bunch of light-weights.’’

When bass player Alan Lancaster left the band (amid much acrimony) during the mid-eighties, Messrs. Rossi and Parfitt chose to metamorphose The Quo into a QuoLite version of their former selves. Out went fab rockers like ‘Don’t Waste My Time’, ‘Big Fat Mama’, ‘Softer Ride’ and ‘Backwater,’ and in came such docility as ‘In The Army Now’ and a veritable flotilla of nauseating/saccharine covers of other artists - including The Beach Boys.

In 2002, the genius that is Tom Waits said: “I don’t think comfort is good for music”, and he’s utterly correct; Status Quo being a pristine example of a band utterly incapable of taking any form of risk whatsoever. They are thus, about as rock’n’roll as milk - which explains why when they tour every December (which, it has to be said, is when most bands tour), the majority of their repertoire consists of material written over thirty years ago. And this is because a) that’s what the paying punters want to hear and b) The Quo are so musically tired and uninspired and quite possibly disabled, that they’re simply unable to move beyond the very musical parameters which they themselves set in place “rather than in motion” all those years ago.

So roll over Rick Parfitt and tell Francis Rossi the news, for the above is - to my mind at least - clarification as to why Status Quo have not (unfortunately) been taken seriously, for a very, very long time.

David Marx.