Century 21 Boys TV21 In The Twenty First Century Part 2

MMMM's exclusive interview with TV21 mainstays Norman Rodger and Ally Palmer continues with the guys' recollections of where it all went wrong, the final single and their gigs with the Strolling Bones.

Did you ever think you were on the edge of a commercial breakthrough?

Norman: Yes, briefly around summer 1981 and then again just after the album came out.   When the album stiffed, I think we all knew the game was up really.

Ally: I remember sitting in a pub in Edinburgh discussing how we should do Snakes and Ladders the following week on TOTP. We were sure it would reach the top 40. The LP got a fantastic review in the Melody Maker by Paulo Hewit who was a huge fan. Made comparisons with Joy Division (?). But nobody else reviewed it for weeks.

Much as I like the 2 singles of the LP ('Snakes and Ladders ' was a bit different to other stuff around and 'Something's Wrong' peddled a nice line in jangly guitars long before C86) there were one or two songs which were screaming out (to me at least) to be released as singles - the uptempo "Tomorrow" (which always reminded me of the Teardrops' 'Reward' and probably the best track on the LP 'Ideal Way fo Life'.)

In retrospect (again) would any other songs on the album have been better singles like "Ideal Way of Life" and "Tomorrow".

Norman: Ideal Way of life was our choice as single but the record company wouldn't have it - they wanted us to re-record Playing With Fire and Ticking Away - using 10cc's Eric Stewart as producer.

Ally: There is no doubt that we had commercial songs, but by that time we were no longer comfortable with those songs. Our manager at the time tried to convince us to re-record some of the early stuff but we knew better!

Unlike today when record companies will strip an LP bare of singles there wasn't a third single of the LP (despite a number of obvious candidates.) The next release from the band was another single the following year, the "attractive" 'All Join Hands' (John Peel).

Marking a significant change in direction the single was based on a more synthetic production but doesn't to me sound like it was released in 1982. In terms of melodic, moody singles 'All Join Hands' is way up there for me.

So of course the professional cool slipped and I managed to ask a question so dumb it was only surpassed by Jim White (Scottish football presenter) asking Danish international Brian Laudrup, "Brian, why are you so good?".

Why was "All Join Hands" not Number 1? (Serious question!) (Note there was an element of irony in the question as well as the bucketloads of naivete!)

Norman: Probably because it wasn't very good.  We were trying too hard to be something else by then and it didn't really work.  When we were producing it we originally planned to work with Alan Winstanley but he pulled out.  At the rehearsals he suggested that it needed a middle eight to lift it but we disagreed - wrong! It definitely does - I wish we'd gone with his idea. Ally: I know lots of people now who only ever heard All Join Hands and thought it was great. I think it's just ok.

They're doing it again. Believe me and Ally's mates who thought it was great. It was.

The change in direction away from obvious guitar music was confirmed by an eclectic final Peel session including a song 'Omei' (after 19 years I now know how to spell it!) which pretty much only featured drums and Norman singing. Was that session an indication of the likely musical direction of the band had it continued?

Norman: You mean total disarray?  'My Chance' and 'Omei' were the songs that I like from that session and that's how I saw the band going.  Unfortunately, by that time we were all pulling in different directions and we eventually lost it.

Ally: You can tell that we were no longer really a band. All the energy and general enthusiasm of the early work was gone

Were there any other songs kicking about at that time which were never used?

Norman: Loads, some pretty good, some pretty weird and some downright awful.  By the time we split we had the basis of about two thirds of a new album, which with a bit of production and knocking into shape might have been pretty good.  By then though we were without a contract and for various reasons (some of our own making and some down to a certain person that we fell out with) no one would touch us. 

The last thing the band did was to support the Rolling Stones on several Scottish dates. How did the Stones' gigs come about?

Norman: Our then manager had been in the music business for years, having started out as roadie with Procul Harem in the 1960s, then moving on to people like Joe Cocker and Leon Russell, doing all the big tours in the States, including gigs like Woodstock.  He still had loads of contacts over there and was a big buddy of the Stones' tour manager.  He happened to be talking to him when this guy mentioned that they were looking for a Scottish band to support the Stones on the pre tour warm up Scottish gigs. The rest is history.    Actually, we also had to be vetted by Mick Jagger who listened to and liked the album.

What were they like? Presumably they were your biggest gigs?

Norman: Pretty weird gigs, for all sort of reasons. I don't know if you saw the article in The Scotsman last year when the Stones played Murrayfield but that kind of summed up the experience - very weird. Lots of stories that we've all lunched on for a very long time.  It's always a good conversation stopper when people talk about having seen the Stones and you go, "well actually." I don't think they were our biggest gigs.   We played a couple of bigger ones in Poland in Lodz (about 7,000) and Warsaw about the same as The Playhouse but full - we only played to half filled halls for most of the Stones' gigs.

Ally: The biggest thrill was arriving for the first gig in Aberdeen and waiting for our brief sound check. Sitting in the empty stalls with Mick Jagger singing Tumbling Dice beside us in the aisle with his then new fangled radio mike was quite a memory. We had all been Stones fans and even then had a grudging respect for them. 

And that was pretty much it. There can't have been too many bands who got a front page feature in 'Melody Maker' one week then announced their split the next. Why did the band split up? (The piece in MM about the Stones gigs was a bit vague, from what I remember.)

Norman: Nae dosh, nae contract and nae direction.

Ally: We had expected some response from record companies at those gigs, but it became obvious there was going to be none, Norman took the correct decision to split up the night of the Playhouse gig.

Were there (m)any post TV21 musical careers?  I remember Norman being in Shame (who released a 12" single in the UK - I have it). And what was the story with Canada?

Norman: I guess Neil was most successful, he joined The Bluebells just after they'd recorded Young at Heart, so he spent a year or so touring with them. The Shame experience was another weird and long, long story, too close to Spinal Tap for comfort.  We did release an album in Canada but by the time it came out we'd had it - all sort of protracted legal problems ended up eating the entire advance and we limped home broke and broken.  Had a fantastic few months in Canada though.

The remnants of the Shame, Neil Baldwin, Simon McGlynn and myself eventually and over a long period recorded a new album under the name of Sugarland which is available online at
http://music.peoplesound.com/artists/artisthome.asp?country=en&artistID=473
- but nothing ever came of that really.

Ally: Straight after TV21, Norman started working on new material and we got back together again with a band called The Collector. It eventually became Shame. One song Swimming was set to be released on Stiff, but a week before it fell through. We played a few gigs in Edinburgh with a small brass section and for a while I got enthusiastic again about recording and even playing live.

Is there any chance of an re-issues? (Or do I have to win the lottery and buy the rights myself?)

Norman: When I did the Shame album in Canada we tried to buy the tapes off Deram to re-release Thin Red Line as a tie in but they still wanted £10,000. I tried again about three years ago but again they wanted silly money.  I also tried to buy the BBC tapes, to release them along with the Powbeat stuff and various demos but we needed permission from everyone who played on each session and we couldn't find Colin Maclean.  So I guess no is the answer to that one.

What about non-musical careers? What is everybody up to?

Norman: Neil is working as a PR man but is also trying to develop some big software package with another ex-musical colleague from Shame, Jimmy Anderson.  Ally is one of the top newspaper designers in the world - I kid you not - he keeps winning loads of awards - jammy bastard.  Ali Paterson is an architect in northern Germany - he still plays in an R&B covers band every Friday, I believe. Dave Hampton was last heard of teaching music in Brighton - he did eventually learn to play trumpet properly.  And I run my own multimedia company (Bella Pintura Multimedia) (though largely in name - no millions yet) and work with various community based and vocational education projects.  I've actually been working on a TV21 site myself recently, so I'll pass on some material shortly.

(Norman's TV21 site is still being built up but it looks good and given the scary number of demos listed for download it is well worth investigating.)

Having covered all bases relating to the band's career, it was time to wrap up with a few oddities.

There was a band called TV21 that released a song last year called "Surf punks must die" but I presume that it wasn't you.

Sorry, no relation.

What do you guys listen to these days?

Did you ever think Ian Broudie would become a pop star??

No.

Fair enough! How did you find this site??

Norman: Via Ally.

Ally: I was surfing one night and just thought I would try TV21 on a search engine. Surprised to find anyone out there who still had an interest in us.

Ah, well looks like I've found a niche market! 

Thanks to both Norman and Ally for spending far more time in answering the questions than I ever expected or hoped for. Great stuff and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did.

Band photo courtesy of Norman Rodger.

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