( * ....and Friends )
Chart entered : 5 November 1983
Chart peak : 65
Number of hits : 10
Brian only gets in here buy the skin of his teeth - featuring on another artist's cover of a Queen hit - but we'll let him through because he's a nice guy. Besides after trawling through the Rainbow diaspora I need a short one !
We know all about Brian's day job. The start of his solo career was not originally intended for release. Brian spent a couple of days in LA's Record Plant studios jamming with some mates including Eddie Van Halen, REO Speedwagon drummer Alan Gratzel and session man Phil Chen and Fred Mandel ( bass and keyboards respectively ). Roger Taylor dropped by briefly and thus features as a backing vocalist on the track. The "project" only saw the light of day when others urged him to release the results which became the mini-LP "Star Fleet Project". The other two tracks have no relationship to the short lived TV series which inspired the single.
Star Fleet the TV series was a Japanese attempt to make a Gerry Anderson- style puppet series. Its original title translated as "X-Bomber" but when dubbed into English it was re-titled to better suit its Saturday morning kids TV spot in 1982. Brian's son Jimmy started watching it and his astronomy-addicted dad soon got engrossed. The original song was written by Paul Bliss to run across the closing titles and so only lasts about 90 seconds. Brian stretches it to four and a half minutes ( eight on the LP ) by adding plenty of his and Eddie's guitar pyrotechnics and repeating the first verse.
Bliss's original had a cheesy Europop synth sound. Brian doesn't stray too far from this but with the heavy drum sound it sounds like it's come from ELO's Time album. Brian's pleasantly plaintive vocals belie his nonchalance about releasing it. With Queen's The Works album out to roll , Brian didn't want to do any more work on the material and he put out what was on the tapes unmixed which is why it sounds like it's coming in from next door. He could hardly have expected a huge hit with such a rough sound and so it proved.
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