Go Go Mania

I just caught this this morning. Pop Gear is a British film recapping some pop hits of 1964 with staged performances by bands such as The Spencer Davis Group, Peter and Gordon, The Animals, and many others. Concert footage of the Beatles (singing She Loves You and Twist and Shout) opens and closes the film. The producer assumes familiarity, an intimacy between performers and audience, to the extent that the Master of Ceremonies (whose hair resembles a worn-out blond mop) never bothers to introduce himself, nor does he bother to introduce many of the pop groups by name. This is irksome for a lay cultural historian like myself, but that's the way it was, baby. There's a lot of good music and the songs are generally rather brief - 2 minutes on average. A cinematic, widescreen variety show, with more hits than misses. Recommended for fans of 60s radio pop.

Absolutely amazing time capsule look at the British pop music scene in 1964. There are sixteen groups (or solo singers) and several sing two of their 1964 hits, one being The Beatles who bookend the whole thing with color concert footage of "She Loves Me" and "Twist and Shout". It's the best early Beatles stuff I have ever seen and the editor does a nice job cutting between the group and the audience-mostly girls who scream and swoon-while the few boys in the audience sway to the beat and try their best to look interested.

The rest of the groups are filmed in a studio-with either lip syncing or ADR supplying the audio. The guitars are unplugged but they are playing and singing-it works fine because they are mostly on beat and it is easy enough to suspend disbelief. Jimmy Savile, a British radio personality who looks like a cross between Edgar Winter and Marty Feldman; handles the introductions. Things were very different back then-imagine trying to get 15 of today's chart topping groups to cooperate with something like this.

It is an interesting mix of British recording artists, most were just starting out and they would have extremely varied futures although few would last out the decade. About half the songs made it onto the American charts and some were big hits. This was the first wave of the British Invasion and those that didn't make it were quickly replaced by groups like The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, and The Velvet Underground.

1. First up is Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas doing "Little Children" on a set with giant alphabet blocks. The greased back hair and the conventional suits made this guys look outdated even in 1964.

2. Susan Maughan sings "Make Him Mine", she was a solo artist and arguably pop music's all-time prettiest girl.

3. The Four Pennies sing "Juliet" (a B-side song that unexpectedly became their biggest hit) and then later "Black Girl" (by Leadbelly).

4. The Animals do "House of the Rising Sun" and "I'm Just a Soul Whose Intentions are Good". Eric Burdon is amazing.

5. The Fourmost sing "A Little Lovin"; both group and song are forgettable.

6. The Rockin' Berries do "He's In Town" and "What In the World's Come Over You". These guys are an unexpected treat with Geoff Turtone's falsetto voice very distinctive. They are a beat group whose name came from their fondness for Chuck Berry.

7. The Honeycombs do "Have i the right" (the first time he growls "Come Right Back" is one of the top ten moments in rock and roll) and "Eyes of Someone in Love" (illustrating the one-hit wonder phenomenon). They have a female drummer.

8. Sounds Incorporated perform something I did not recognize and follow it up with an up-tempo version of "The William Tell Overture" (it would be a great song for a high school football game halftime show). A five member instrumental group, at one point they have alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones going at the same time-they could have made it big if they had thought to incorporate an oboe. They also jump up and down a lot.

9. Peter and Gordon do "Please Lock Me Away". Watch Peter play a 12 string guitar complete with a back beat-he is the one of the pair who looks the most like Jane Asher (not surprising since she is his sister).

10. Matt Munro does a couple of completely dreadful songs-he looks like a cross between Perry Como and Bobby Darin and is completely out of his element in this production.

11. Herman's Hermits do "Something Tells Me I'm Into Something Good".

12. Tom Quickly & the Remo Four perform a song about nursery rhymes that may have inspired Monty Python's "Lumberjack Song".

13. Billie Davis does "Whatcha Gonna Do". Billie is a girl, she is very cute and wholesome.

14. The Spencer Davis Group does "My Baby" and it is a stretch to classify it as R&B.

15. The Nashville Teens try to do C&W. Except for the Stones, British groups have always struggled with country inspired tunes and the two songs here ("Tobacco Road" and "Goggle Eyes") will be quite painful listening for Americans, and the Dexy's Midnight Runner look (complete with a little boy dressed as Huck Finn) will send you scrambling for the fast forward button.

This is essential viewing for those interested in pop history and should be a lot of fun for casual fans.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

What a great relief it was to see this rare "rocumentary" again this year....I first saw it on cable TV during the July 4th holiday in the US. Since then, I had been searching the WWW for more information for this rare film, with not much success, except from the exhaustive database by IMDB. (Luckily, it came back onto cable TV on October 14.)

I really like this film because of the music and the fashion during the 1960's. True, the Beatles, the Animals, Peter & Gordon, and Herman's Hermits were very popular during the 1960's here in the US and many of their songs have become a permanent part of our musical memories.

However, it was wonderful to see and hear some of the less popular British bands of the 1960's, such as Sounds Incorporated and the Honeycombs as well as the Rocking Berries and the Four Pennies. Each of them had their own "60's" flavor. (But, not all of those featured were bands as there were a few British solo singers on Pop Gear. They were a treat to listen to also.)

Personally, I liked the female drummer of the Honeycombs, whose name was Honey, as I found out on the WWW. I also liked the first dance routine with the female dancers and their colorful tops and gold hiphuggers. The second dance routine was interesting with the men wearing coats and ties and the women wearing short dresses.

(Today, you can't see many dancers wearing that kind of garb. But, there were a few all male bands on Pop Gear who didn't coats and ties.) The music during those dance routines is very symbolic of how unique the 1960's really was. (I can't find much of that "uniqueness" during the year 2000.)

Overall, I would definitely recommend this film to anyone who is interested in British pop, the 1960's, or is in a band. Kudos to this rare unique "rocumentary" even if the bands were staged, except for the live footage of the Beatles at the beginning and the end of Pop Gear.

This is a difficult film to rate. Most viewers will find it an annoying bore, but devotees of the bands who appeared over the first year of the British Invasion will be mesmerized. The movie is a series of lip-synched "performances" by the also-rans that flourished in the wake of The Beatles during 1964, including The Honeycombs, The Spencer Davis Group, The Animals, Tommy Quickly, Peter And Gordon, Herman's Hermits, Nashville Teens and several others. The standout is probably The Animals featuring a young and deadly looking Eric Burdon. The film is decorated with tons of 1960's set design and art direction and a team of pretty dancers in gold-lame hip-huggers shaking same in Hullabaloo style choreography.

This is a fun film showcasing a number of hits from 1964, many of the performances stages specifically for the film. I had not seen it in years, but it has re-emerged on AMC, so if that year's music holds any interest to you, watch and have a ball.