Saturday, 30 July 2016

527 Goodbye Chas and Dave* - Snooker Loopy


* ( Matchroom  Mob  with .... )

Chart  entered : 3 May 1986

Chart  peak : 6

After  seven  years  it  was  time  to  bid  farewell  to  the  singing  cockneys  ( except see  below ).

Chas  and  Dave  peaked  in  1982  when  their  ballad  "Ain't  No Pleasing  You"  reached  number 2  but  leaner  times  followed  very quickly  and  this  was  their  first  hit  in  three  years. It's  perhaps  a  measure  of  their  diminished  status  that  they  accepted  second  billing  on  this  single despite  doing  the  lion's  share  of  the  work  on  it.

So  who  on  earth  were  the  Matchroom  Mob ? They  were  the  professional  snooker  players   who  had  signed  up  to  the  management  of  megalomaniac  sports promoter  Barry  Hearn. Hearn had  been  manager  of  Steve " Interesting"  Davis  since  1976  and,  along  with  second  division player  Tony  Meo ,  they  had  set  up  Matchroom  as  a  management  company  in  the  early eighties. Since  then  three  more  top  pros  had  signed  up, Dennis  Taylor, Terry  Griffiths  and Willie  Thorne  and  it's  that  quintet  that  performs  on  this , a self-promoting  marketing  device masquerading  as  a  novelty  single  to  coincide  with  the  1986  World  Championship  when  the game , commercially  at  least, was  at  its  zenith.

Mike  Gardner  in  Record  Mirror  nailed  this  in  a  review  so  good  it's  worth  repeating  in  full :

The  professional   Cockneys  take  on  Steve   "Interesting"  Davis  and  his   chums. This  is  a  mildly  amusing  seaside  postcard  ditty  but  where's  Tony  Knowles,   Alex  "Hurricane"  Higgins  and  Kirk  Stevens ?  Obviously  having  a  lot  more   more  fun  with  various  combinations  of  the  seven  deadly  sins.

For  those  who  weren't  around  at  the  time  the  sins  in  questions  were, sex , booze  and  cocaine respectively.

Besides  reminding  us  of  a  faraway  time  when  snooker  players  were  top  tabloid  fodder, Mike  also  identifies  another  problem  with  the  record. The  "Matchroom  Mob"  were  good at their  sport   but  not  its  most  charismatic  stars  and  Chas  and  Dave  are  hard  put to  find anything   funny  about  them. So  Meo  is  over-emotional  when  he  wins  ( which  wasn't  often ) , Taylor wears silly  glasses, Thorne  is  bald  and  Griffiths  had  a  new  haircut - hilarious. As  for  the terminally  boring  Davis,  he  gets  a  boastful  line  about  Hearn  sewing  up  the  field  which thankfully  was  immediately  exploded  when  rank  outsider  Joe  Johnson  beat  Davis  in  that  year's  Final. All  five  of  them  appear  to  be  tone-deaf  - Meo's  line  is  particularly  painful.

"Snooker  Loopy"  is  hauntingly  awful; once  heard  it  can  never  be  entirely  erased  from  the  memory  bank. If  any  song  deserved  to  end  a  chart  career  it's  this  one. They  quickly  followed  it  up  with  another  topical  song "Halley's  Comet ", which  I  haven't  heard, but  just  as  the  celestial  object  failed  to  appear  to  the  naked  eye  so the  single  failed  to  materialise  in  the  charts. They  did  get  a  hit  album  at  the  end  of  the  year  when  "Christmas  Carol  Album"  reached  number  37

In  March  1987  they  got  back  together  with  the  'Mob  ( now  expanded  to  include  Jimmy  White  and  the  less  than  stellar  Neal  Foulds ) to  record  a  follow  up  single  "The  Romford  Rap". I couldn't  actually  say  it's  worse  than  "Snooker  Loopy "  but  the   public  didn't bite  twice  and  it  disappeared  without  trace. The  lads  were  quickly  back  in  action  to  write  another  FA  Cup  single  for  Spurs ,"Hot  Shot  Tottenham"  which  reached  number  18. Although  their  involvement  was  no  less  than  on  the  earlier  collaborations,  "Ossie's  Dream"  and  "Tottenham  Totttenham"  they  were not  credited as  artists  on  the  single.Perhaps  they  had  a  premonition  that  Coventry  City  were  going  to  beat  the  lads  from  White  Hart  Lane.

At  the  end  of  the  year  they  released  the  single  "Flying"  a  sentimental  piano  ballad  ( re-worked  from  a  1982  instrumental  track ) trailing  an  album  of  the  same  name.  Both  flopped.  Subsequent  singles   from  the  album "The  Diddlum  Song"  a  characteristically  silly  novelty   song  and  the  woozy  country  ballad  "I  Can  Get  Along  Without  You "  failed  to  turn  things  around.

Once  we  got  into  the  nineties,  new  material  from  the  duo  became   very   sporadic  although  they  remained  a  popular  live  act.  In  1991  they  confused everyone  by  recording  two  FA  Cup  Final  songs  on  different  labels, both  equally awful  , "When  The  Year  Ends  In  1"  and  "The  Victory  Song". The  former  got  to  number  44  and  at  least  some  copies  credited  the  duo  but  the   record  books  don't. Perhaps  they  were  excised  for recording  the  alternative  song ?

Later  that  year  they  released  their last  single for  a  decade  with  the  nostalgic  "When  Days Were  Long  "  which  utilises   lots  of  strings  and  an  Abba-like  piano  melody. In  1995  they reached  number  3  in  the  album  charts  with  a  rock  and  roll  medley  album  "Street  Party", their  last  LP  for  18  years.

At  the  turn  of  the  millennium  they  appeared  to  be  completely  washed  up - God  knows  who  wanted  a  remix  of  "Snooker  Loopy"  in  2001 - but  in  recent  years  they've  enjoyed  something  of  a  re-appraisal. In  2003  and  2004  they  were  invited  to  be  the  support  act  to  The  Libertines  at  a  couple  of  gigs  in  London. Following  on  from  that  they  appeared  at  Glastonbury  in  2005.   Chas  Hodges  published  his  autobiography  in  2008. The  following  year  Dave  Peacock  announced  his  intention  to  retire  following  the  death  of  his  wife  but  he  later  changed  his  mind. Original  drummer  Mick  Burt  did  retire  in  2011  ( he  died  in  2014 )  and  was  replaced  by  Chas's  son  Nick.

In  2013 , following  a   successful  tour  and  BBC  Four  documentary  they  made  a  new  album  "That's  What  Happens"  on  Warner  Brothers  which  highlights  their  musicianship  on  a   set  of  blues  covers  and  re-workings  with  the  superfluous  assistance  of  Jools  Holland  and  Hugh Laurie. The  single  "When  Two  Worlds  Collide"  sounds  like  a  re-write  of    "Ain't  No  Pleasing  You" ( itself  present  as  an  acoustic  re-working ). Chas's  voice  is  showing  signs  of  age  but  on  this  sort  of   material  it  doesn't  really  matter.  The  album  made  number  25  in  the  charts. The  duo  are  still  active  so  there  might  be  more  to  come.  


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