302 Goodbye Bay City Rollers - You Made Me Believe In Magic

Chart  entered : 30  July  1977

Chart  peak : 34

With  one  obvious  exception  there  is  no  more  tawdry  tale  to  tell  here  than  the  fall  from  grace  of  Edinburgh's  finest.

Where  to  start ? Well  it's  clear  from  the  sleeve  that  the  band  has  changed  somewhat  from  their  first  hit. Of   the  six  faces  from  the  cover  of  "Keep  On  Dancing"   only  Derek  Longmuir  is  still  there  on  the  left. After  their  second  single  "We  Can  Make  Music"  flopped   Eric  Manclark  , Archie  Marr  and  Neil  Henderson . The  first  two  disappear  into  the  shadows  immediately  but  Neil  joined  Middle  of  the  Road  in  1974  and  wrote  quite  a  lot  of  their  post-fame  material  before  they  jacked  it  in  in  1976.  They  were  replaced  by  two  new  guitarists  Eric  Faulkner  and  John  Devine  who  at  least  moved  the  musicianship  of  the  band  up  a  notch.  Still  their  singles  continued  to  flounder.

At  the  end  of  1973  they  recorded  the  Martin-Coulter  song  "Remember"  but  with  exquisitely  bad  timing  singer   Nobby  Clark   who  was  fed  up  of  touring   decided  to  quit  the  band. He  was  replaced  by  a  fresh-faced  teenager  Les  McKeown   then   John   left  to  get  married  allowing   Tam  Paton  to  replace  him  with  another  one , Stuart  Wood,  shortly  afterwards.  This  completed  the  "classic"  line -up.  Nobby  made  a  couple  of  featherweight  pop  singles  "Steady  Love"  and  "Shake  It  Down"  in  the  later  seventies  and  had  some  success  in  France  where  he  worked  on  film  soundtracks  for  a  few  years  before  returning  to  Edinburgh  and  running  a  recording  studio. He  then  retreated  into  private  life  for  a  couple  of  decades  before  his  friend  David  Paton  helped  him  make  some  CDs  in  the  noughties. In  recent  years  he  has  been  trying  to  cash  in  on  his  time  with the  Rollers  with  a  not  entirely  honest   autobiography  and  attempts  to  get  in  on  their  ongoing  legal  action  (see below ) against  the  record  company which  seem  to  have  been  rebuffed.

Despite  the  line  up  changes  the  Rollers  were  warned  by  Bell   that  "Remember" ( with  Nobby's  vocals   still  on  it  )  was  their  last  shot. Paton  had  some  postcards  printed  out  and  mailed  them  to  all  the  addresses  of  David  Cassidy  fans  he  found  in  Pop  Swap  magazine. The  ploy  worked  and  within  a  year  the  band  were  the  hottest  property  in  pop  reaching  their  peak  early  in  1976  when  "Saturday  Night"  a  re-recorded  ( despite  Nobby's  claims to  the  contrary )  version  of  an  earlier  flop  got  to  number  one  in  the  States.

Things  started  unravelling  almost  immediately  afterwards. Founding  member  Alan  Longmuir  who  at  27  always  looked  exquisitely  uncomfortable  amongst  the  screaming  and  was  drinking  heavily  agreed  with  Paton's  suggestion  that  he quit. He  was  replaced  by  17  year  old  Irish  boy   Ian  Mitchell , a  move   which , along  with  escalating  drug  and  alcohol  abuse heightened  paranoia  in  the  band. Just  weeks  later  their  painstakingly  constructed  squeaky  clean  image  was  shattered  when  Les  knocked  down  and  killed   an  elderly  woman  near  his  family   home. With  conflicting  witness  testimony  about  how  fast  he  was  driving  he  was  found  guilty  of  reckless  driving  and  fined  £150  - bear  that  in  mind  next  time  you  hear  him  complain  about  how  hard  done  by  he's  been.

It  didn't  stop  their  cover  of  Dusty's  "I  Only  Wanna  Be  With  You"  becoming  their  final  Top  10  hit  in  the  UK   that  autumn. At  the  end  of  the  year  Ian  quit  the  band  though  he  stayed  with  Paton  and  enjoyed  some  success  in  the  Far  East  with  his  new  band  Rosetta  Stone. After  breaking  with  Paton  he  had  success  in  Europe  too  with  the  Ian  Mitchell  Band  in  the  early  eighties  but  found  it  impossible  to   shake  off  the  ex-Roller  stigma  in  the  main  markets. In  recent  years  he's  toured  his  own  version  of  the  Rollers  and  like  Clarke  tried  to  get  in  on  the  legal  action.His  replacement  Pat  McGlynn  lasted  just  three  months  and  the  band  decided  to  record  their  next  album  "It's  A  Game"  as  a  quartet.  

"You  Made  Me  Believe  In  Magic"  was  the  second  single  after  the  title  track  reached  the  Top  20  in  February. It's  a  decent  disco  pop  tune  written  by  a  Len  Boone  with  a  breezy  arrangement  by  producer  Harry  Maslin  and  a  neat  guitar  solo  possibly  by  Eric  but  it's  hampered  by  a  pisspoor  vocal  performance  from  Les  who  sounds  like  he's  going  for  a  Barry  Gibb  quaver  on  the  verses  and  then  really  straining  on  the  chorus. It  makes  it  sound  like  the  sort  of  record  a  famous  70s  footballer  would  make.

The  third  single  was  "The  Way I  Feel Tonight"  a  lush  David  Soul-ish  ballad   with  an  adequate  breathy  vocal  and  rather  saucy  lyrics  - "Let  us  taste  each  other's  wine  til  the  cup  is  overflowing". When  it  flopped  in  October  1977  it  was  clear  that  as  far  as  the  UK  was  concerned  Rollermania  was  dead. As  their  commercial  stock  went  down, internal  friction  escalated  with  Les  and  Eric  the  main  antagonists; their  endless  feud  is  probably  the  main  reason  for  their  misfortune. Eric  was  jealous  of  Les  getting  all  the  attention  as lead  singer; Les  was  jealous  of  the  extra  income  stream  Eric  and  Stuart  were  getting  as  writers  on  their  albums ( 1975's   rocky  Christmas  hit  "Money  Honey"  was  the  only  one  of  their  compositions  to  be  trusted  as  a  single ).  At  the  beginning  of  1978  Alan  was  invited  back  into  the  band  to  stabilise   the  situation.

They  had  two  projects  on  the  go,  a  new  album  "Strangers  in  the  Wind"  and  a  US  TV  show  and  the  plan  was  that  one  would  promote  the  other. However  they  were  going  in  different  directions. The  album  was  aiming  at  the  mature  soft  rock  sound  of  latter-day  10cc  while  the  TV  company  wanted  a  reprise  of  their  1975  UK  show  Shang-A-Lang.  Only  one  of  the  singles  got  a  UK  release  in  October  1978,  the  dreary  Beatles-via-ELO  dirge  "All  Of  The World  Is  Falling  In  Love"    written  by  Eric  and  Stuart   with  its  parping  Penny  Lane  horns  and  embarrassingly  corny  lyrics.  The  still-traumatised  Les  could  not  get  in  the  right  frame  of  mind  for  the  show, effectively  sabotaged  it  and  quit  the  band  as  it  was  cancelled. With  a  tour  of  still-interested  Japan  coming  up  he  was  coaxed  back  in  but  hired  security  guards  to  protect  him  from  the  others. They  were  unable  to  prevent  Les  and  Eric  bringing  the  tour  to  an  abrupt  end  with  an  onstage  brawl  sparked  by  Les  trespassing  into  Eric's  spotlight.

The  rest  of  the  band  sided  with  Eric  and  Les  was  out. We'll  come  back  to  him  shortly.  Eric  finally  got  to  call  the  shots  but  it  was  a  Pyrrhic  victory. They  recruited  a  new  singer  Duncan  Faure  , truncated  their  name  to  The  Rollers  and  released  the  album  "Elevator"  in  1979  showing  off  a   US   New  Wave  sound. The  single  "Turn  On  The  Radio"  is  a  competent  enough  stab  of  Cars-like  modern  rock  but  they  were  always  to  be  handicapped  by  their  past.  The  band  blamed  Paton  for  its  failure and  their  parlous  financial  situation  and  sacked  him. Their  1980  album  "Voxx"  was  a  hodge  podge  of  out-takes, live  tracks  and  Duncan  Faure  solo  tracks  given  a  perfunctory  re-working  and  was  only  released  in  Germany  and Japan. Nevertheless  it  fulfilled  their  contract  with  Arista  and  they  were  free  to  move  on  to  Epic  in  1981  for  a  final  LP  "Ricochet". The  single  was  Faure's  over-optimistic  "Life  On  The  Radio"  which  is  all  latter-day  ELO  production  and  no  song.

In  1982  they  patched  up  their  differences  with  Les  and  reunited  though  without  Paton  who  was  in  prison  after  being  convicted  of  gross  indecency  with  a  group  of  teenage  boys  though  only  one  of  them  was  under  today's  age  of  consent.  Les  had  managed  to  keep  his  career  going  as  a  solo  artist  in  Japan  for  a  few  years  although  he  frittered  away  most  of  his  earnings  on  constantly  revising  the  elaborate  production  and  artwork  on  his  records. They  were  warmly  received  in  Japan  and  Australia  but  cold  shouldered  elsewhere. In  1983  they  appeared  at  Leeds's  post-punk  Futurama  festival  as  a  sort  of  dirty  trick  by  the  organisers  ( though  not  as  dirty  as  expecting  the  audience  to  kip  down  on  a  filthy  concrete  floor  a  few  years  earlier )  which  ended  with  Les  being  arrested  for  throwing  a  beer  can back  into  the  audience. After  a new  album  "Breakout" failed  to  live  up  to  its  title  in  1985  they  went  their  separate  ways. In  1988  Eric  tried  his  luck  with  an  entirely  new  line-up  and  a  girl  singer  and  his  "New  Rollers"  released  an  EP  on  a  tiny  label  to  minimal  interest.

While  this  was  going  on  Tam  was  building  up  a  property  empire  and  living in  a  well-guarded  mansion  with  an  entourage  of  teenage  boys. Suspicion  grew  that  he  had  helped  himself  to  more  than  his  fair  share  of  the  band's  earnings. We'll  never  know  the  truth  of  this  now  that  Paton's  dead (since  2009). He  said  that  it  was  probably  built  up  by  his  own  efforts  after  the  Rollers  era  though  that  surely  provided  the  seed  capital . On  the  other  hand  the  saner  members  of  the  band  - Derek  and  Stuart  - seem  to  have  accepted  his  protestations  that  he  too  was  in  over  his  head  and  didn't  deliberately  defraud  them. It  was  probably  easier  for  Les  and  Eric  to  blame  one  man  rather  than  try  to  get  their  heads  round  the  tangled  web  of  documents  signed  while  they  were  out  of  it.

Paton  also  suggested  in  a  lengthy  interview  that  they  were  exaggerating  their  penury  and  it  had  more  to  do  with   their  own  poor  investments  and  in  Alan's  case , a  messy  divorce  than  anything  he  did. Paton  cited  Derek  as  having  his  own  tidy  portfolio  of  properties  in  Edinburgh  and  tellingly  he  opted  out  when  Eric , Stuart  and  Alan  got  back  together  in  1990  preferring  to  pursue  a  new  career  in  nursing. They  trod  the  nostalgia  circuit  but  again  frittered  away  most  of  their  earnings  on  a  lawsuit  against  Les's  rival  outfit   which  ended  in  forcing  him  to  add  the  word  "Seventies"  to  his  group's  name. Two  years  later  they  were  working  with  him  again  after  Channel  4's  Glam  Rock  Top  Ten * became  the  first  of  a  string  of  documentaries  to  highlighted  their  plight. So  that  was  £200,000  well  spent !

Derek  declined  to  take  part  in a  final  appearance  at  Edinburgh  Castle  on  Millennium's  Eve  in  1999   but  he  hadn't  escaped  the  Roller  curse. In  2000  he  was  convicted  of  possessing  child  pornography  and  sentenced  to  300  hours  community  service. In  an  ironic  reversal  of  the  Tam  Paton  situation  most  of  the  offending  material  on  discs  at  his  home  was  actually  legal  at  the  time  it  was  made  ( i.e. featuring  16-17  year  old  models ). With  grotesque  unfairness  he  was  featured  n  the  News  of  the  World's  infamous  paedophile  gallery  the  following  year.  However  there  was  some  good  news  in  2001  when  with  great  good  sense  the  UK's  nursing  disciplinary  body  allowed  him  to  resume  his  career.

Since  then  we've  had  regular  updates  via  documentary  on  how  the  Rollers  are  doing  in  their  fight  for "their"  money.  Though  not  working  together  any  more,  the  five  ( plus  Faure   though  it  wouldn't  seem  to  have  much  to  do  with  him  )  have  managed   to  maintain  a  joint  legal  action  against  Sony  ( Arista's  legal  succcessor  ). Sony  have  said  they  pay  money  into  an  escrow  account  and  can't  make  any  disbursements  until  it's  settled  exactly  who  is  entitled  to  it  although  my  impression  is  that  that  relates  to  money  from  compilation  CDs  released  in  the  last  couple  of  decades  rather  than  the  "millions"  from  their  heyday  that  Paton  was  surely  correct  in  saying  are  long  gone.    Each  time  he  appears   Les , pop-eyed  and  jowly, has  looked  more  and  more  like  the  sort  of  guy  you  instinctively  avoid  in  a  pub.  In  the  2004  documentary Who  Got  The  Bay  City  Rollers' Millions  ?   he  showed   an  appalling  lack  of  personal  dignity  in  agreeing  to  a  staged  confrontation  with  Paton  ( who  must  have  anticipated  he'd  make  a  tit  of  himself  )   where  he  was  bawling  " Give  me  my  fucking  money ! "  like  a  sad  perversion   of  the  famous  Geldof  outburst.  Three  years  later  he  accompanied  Pat  McGlynn  to  a  police  station  when  the  latter  made   a  complaint   of  rape  against  Paton  during  his  short  stint  as  a  Roller  more  than  three  decades  earlier; Paton  dismissed  it  as  a  publicity  stunt  to  promote  Les's  new  autobiography  and  the  police  seem  to  have  agreed  as  no  charges  were  brought.  Alan, who  has  survived  two  heart  attacks  and  a  stroke  has  gone  back  to  plumbing  and  Stuart  serves  a  niche  market  making  Scottish  folk  music. Eric  seems  to  have  no  fixed  address. The  lawsuit  is  ongoing  at  the  time  of  writing.        

* They  were  of  course,  never  a  glam  act  and  their  inclusion  showed  a  basic  disrespect  for  the  genre.