Chart entered : 15 February 1986
Chart peak : 21
Number of hits : 11
This lot were part side project, part supergroup and part refuge for displaced musicians but they still enjoyed a 13 year run of hits.
Phil Collins was by no means the only member of Genesis who wanted to stretch his wings in the eighties. Bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford had actually beaten him to releasing a solo album with "Smallcreep's Day " at the beginning of 1980. The Genesis fanbase got it to number 13 in the charts but it got the predictable critical mauling. The first side was taken up by a 25 minute seven-part suite based on a bleak 1965 novel of industrial frustration and the jolly light prog second part was released as the single "Working In Line". Despite garnering a fair bit of airplay , it wasn't a hit. The album isn't a classic but it does have its listenable moments, hinting that Mike might have something to offer outside the parent group.
He tried again in 1982 with the album "Acting Very Strange" . Unlike the first album he had a writing partner for half the tracks but did the lead vocals himself. That was a big mistake ; veering between a poor man's Peter Gabriel and a destitute beggar's Joe Cocker, his singing makes even the half-decent single "Halfway There " a challenge. How the awful "Maxine" was a hit in Canada I just don't know. For the most part the album is airless bombastic rubbish with songs that you suspect Tony Banks and Phil Collins consigned to the waste paper bin. Again, Genesis fans placed it at number 23 but it's difficult to imagine it winning a single new convert.
Mike himself has generally agreed it's a poor album. It helped convince him that he was better suited to working in a group format. However he still wanted to work outside of Genesis so the answer was to form a second group. Mike's idea for the new group would be somewhat similar to Vince Clarke's The Assembly . He would write the material with partners B. A. Robertson , for whom the hits as a performer had long since dried up and pop producer Christopher Neil without either actually joining the group and use guest vocalists.
It didn't quite turn out that way as some of the guest performers had the happy combination of being both high calibre and available so a solid line up emerged from the sessions. Vocalist Paul Carrack was something of a veteran. Born in Sheffield in 1951 , he started out in prog rock as the long-haired organist in Warm Dust . I haven't explored their three LPs in depth but a sample of tracks suggests they weren't too bad, like a more accessible King Crimson. When they dissolved for want of success, Paul and bassist Tex Comer formed the band Ace, playing more straightforward AOR.
Ace had an instant smash in 1974 with the radio classic "How Long " which reached number 20 here but got to number 3 in the States. Paul wrote the song and did the lead vocal, revealing a fine white soul voice. Though usually taken as a cuckold's reproach , it was actually directed at Comer for secretly preparing to jump ship. The follow-up "I Ain't Gonna Stand For This No More " is a reasonable chugging blues rock number but completely unremarkable . It got to 71 in the US but missed out altogether here . Realising their mistake, Ace released a number of singles in the same vein as "How Long", such as "Found Out The Hard Way " but it was too late ; their moment had gone. Relocation to the USA as punk stormed the UK brought no reward and the band split in 1977 when Paul and two other members accepted an invitation to join Frankie Miller's band.
As well as working with Miller Paul played keyboard parts for the reformed Roxy Music as neither Eno nor Eddie Jobson had rejoined the band and became a prized session player. in 1980 he released the solo album "Nightbird". It was ignored, probably because it was dull as ditchwater with its tepid, dated soft rock tracks barely distinguishable from one another. Paul then had a year in Squeeze as the immediate replacement for Jools Holland on keyboards. He played on the album "East Side Story" and did the lead vocal on the second single "Tempted " which gave them a rare US hit.
After leaving Squeeze Paul joined Nick Lowe in Noise To Go which, like Rockpile before it , existed as a band of crack musicians on hand to back its individual members' projects and so Paul's next solo album , "Suburban Voodoo" in 1982 was really a group effort. It was produced by Lowe and from what I've heard from it it was a big improvement on his lacklustre debut with a brash R & B pop sound. It made a minor impression in the US charts. As well as playing on two LPs by Lowe and one by John Hiatt as part of the group ( now rechristened as the Cowboy Outfit ) he found time to play on The Smiths' debut album and The Pretenders' Learning To Crawl. The Cowboy Outfit disbanded in 1985 just as Mike came calling.
Mike also found room for another singer in Paul Young ( not that one ). He was still with his first band Sad Cafe but they were clearly on the slide. Sad Cafe were a seven piece Manchester band ( I used to work with one of Paul's neighbours ) formed in 1976 . They quickly acquired a reputation as a great live act - I recall seeing a lot of posters for their concerts in the late seventies - and their first couple of albums achieved middling chart positions without the benefit of hit singles. They eschewed punk and played a brand of contemporary AOR that could potentially score in the US market and a composite album of tracks from the first two made a minor dint in the US charts. They also had a charismatic front man in Paul, somewhere between Robert Plant and Michael Hutchence in looks and Mick Jagger and Leo Sayer in his vocals . In the UK they scored a breakthrough hit with the Everyman piano ballad "Every Day Hurts" which reached number 3 in the autumn of 1979 and pushed third LP "Facades" into the Top 10 . "Strange Little Girl " a New -Wave influenced pop song which basically reiterated the plot of creepy Jodie Foster thriller The Little Girl Who Lived Down The Lane was a weird choice of follow-up and it stalled outside the Top 30. They returned to the Top 20 once more with "My Oh My" in the spring of 1980 but their eponymous fourth LP only produced two minor hits, the first of which "La-Di-Da, belatedly became their only US hit, reaching number 78. After that they started label-hopping with diminishing returns. Their most recent album , "Politics of Existing", recorded by the band after slimming down to a quintet , hadn't charted at all so Paul was glad to join Mike's party.
Another member was the versatile Londoner Adrian Lee who played both guitar and keyboards. He was in the band Red Hot and co-wrote their 1976 single "L-L-Lazy Days produced by Mutt Lange but I've never heard it. He was then engaged by Cliff Richard as a touring musician. He switched to Toyah as their new keyboard player in 1981 just as they broke through and co-wrote the number 4 hit "Thunder In The Mountains". He left Toyah the band after a year but continued to write the odd song for Toyah the singer. In 1982 he released a solo album "The Magician ". I've only heard the one track, the single "Blondes Aren't Fair" which is second-rate synth pop of the Karel Fialka variety with a dreadful vocal. It sank without trace and Adrian retreated into session work including producing failed mid-80s pop act Space Monkey.. He played on Toyah's 1985 album "Minx" which was produced by Neil and so Adrian found his way into the Mechanics.
The drummer Peter Van Hooke was another sessioneer with a long pedigree. He started out in a couple of bands with schoolmate Chas Jankel ( later of the Blockheads ). He was also in the final line up of Stackridge , playing on their 1976 album "Mr Mick ", but really came to prominence as Van Morrison's favoured drummer both in the studio and on tour. He pioneered the use of Syndrums as heard on Marshall Hain's Dancing In The City. With Van The Man preferring Tom Dollinger on his most recent album, Peter had some time to become a Mechanic.
The album "Mike + the Mechanics" was released in the autumn of 1985. "Silent Running " was the opening track and lead-off single. Vaguely inspired by the Bruce Dern film of the same name, it's sung from the point of view of an astronaut who's crossed the time barrier , seen the future and is sending a message back home to tell his folks to prepare for the worst. Paul C sings it with plaintive conviction and the music is a clever mix of traditional AOR tropes like Mike's understated guitar solo and Adrian's contemporary synth washes. It wasn't a hit in the UK when first released but the Yanks went for it in a big way and it reached number 6. It was also picked up for use in the eco-thriller On Dangerous Ground so that when it was re-released in the UK in the new year , the song had a new sub-title promoting the film and clips from it were incorporated into the video.
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