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Post by John Green on Feb 16, 2015 20:43:35 GMT
Catch Us If You Can ... never seen it, though I've obviously heard of it, know the song etc. Not the easiest film to acquire though  £10 new on Amazon-buy it elsewhere if you can.Plus a multi-region player/thing if abroad. |
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Post by Simon B Kelly on Feb 16, 2015 23:10:32 GMT
CUIYC was released in the US as "Having A Wild Weekend". A Region 1 DVD is available with that title for those who want it in NTSC.
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Post by John Green on Feb 17, 2015 0:44:29 GMT
CUIYC was released in the US as "Having A Wild Weekend". A Region 1 DVD is available with that title for those who want it in NTSC. At an even-cheaper $12! |
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Post by Alan Turrell on Feb 17, 2015 6:06:48 GMT
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Post by Tony Walshaw on Feb 17, 2015 9:29:08 GMT
The whole documentary revolved around Dave Clark talking himself up. It came across as a kind of 'X-Factor presentation' of a 60s artist. "We had it hard growing up after the war, I love my home town, I gave Spurs their terrace songs, the band met because we worked out at the local gym etc...."
The showmanship and hype was constant - with sound-bites from the Osborne's, and Gene Simmons in 'full uniform' etc.
A documentary by an independent producer and research team would have been much more balanced.
Whilst Paul McCartney was amiable, he did come across as 'going through the motions'. Lending weight to the theory that DC has in his possession Beatles footage that Apple would like.
And (as one or two others did) I did nod off 20-minutes or so in  . But it was worth watching all of it later because beyond the schmaltz it did show how the group (as a whole) did some good songs which purely on musical terms can be under-rated.
I think that the DC5 took the best elements of all other 60s acts but without being innovative themselves. Probably the TV shows like Ed Sullivan wanted The Beatles, Stones etc as first choice but they couldn't always appear. In the event of this, the DC5 were always awaiting in their limousines to drive-in for an appearance.
Did anyone else notice that the voiceover at the start of the 'Catch Us If You Can' film clips was by Steve Wright.... 
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Post by johnpater on Feb 17, 2015 10:37:28 GMT
I think that the DC5 took the best elements of all other 60s acts but without being innovative themselves. Probably the TV shows like Ed Sullivan wanted The Beatles, Stones etc as first choice but they couldn't always appear. In the event of this, the DC5 were always awaiting in their limousines to drive-in for an appearance.
That pretty much sums up what I have always thought about them too. Although they did manage to write some good pop numbers which cannot be taken away from them (this was probably more down to Mike Smith's songwriting abilities than anything else). Interesting though about the rentacrowd celebrity talking heads as I've never heard any of those famous people talk elsewhere about the DC5's musical qualities or impact. Only in this documentary do they suddenly reveal themselves to be great admirers of the group. The whole thing is suspect. Their impact in many ways though was initially bigger in America for the first two or three years due to heavy US touring and concentrating many of their releases in that territory. In Britain they are mainly known for several early big hitters, then not too activity here and then again for some moderate hits later in their career after ceasing touring and focussing again on the home market. This over-emphasis on the states early on does skew the picture as regards their importance in the the '60s beat boom (or British Invasion as it is known to the Americans). From the doc you would think they were on a creative par with The Beatles, Kinks, Stones, Who, Yardbirds and so on! |
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Post by johnpater on Feb 17, 2015 10:58:27 GMT
Catch Us If You Can ... never seen it, though I've obviously heard of it, know the song etc. Not the easiest film to acquire though Very easy to acquire Shelley. I bought the DVD very cheaply online a few years ago. The '60s pop movie I want to see again is Ferry Cross The Mersey. It has never been brought out on DVD and I can't remember the last time it was on TV. This, along with Pop Gear would make a welcome release (although the latter was brought out many years ago and now fetches silly prices online, I imagine a re-package would not happen as it heavily features JS). I would also like to see a release of the colour film of the 1965 Richmond jazz and blues festival, which I am assured exists in great quality and just sits unseen. Getting o/t here! |
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Post by Chris Barratt on Feb 17, 2015 15:50:52 GMT
Dave Clark's skill was in utilizing the talents of other more modest & humble men. Adrian Kerridge was a fantastic producer & studio engineer who gave the DC5 records that wonderful sonic kick, Dave did well to find him just as he'd graduated from Joe Meek. Ron Ryan was a good songwriter but had no ambitions for pop stardom, which is just as well. Mike Smith was a wonderful vocalist, musician and songwriter (if it wasn't for him the DC5 would have stayed playing Airforce bases and clubs) and both Lenny Davidson and Denis Payton developed into excellent musicians. The session players are only an issue with the DC5 due to Dave's insistence they weren't used when several better bands were using those guys on their records due to the precision they brought to costly recording sessions.
That they took off in America the way they did was convenient as Dave Clark's way of doing business was rubbing a lot of the UK scene up the wrong way - the UK chart positions tell their own story. Hence that when it came to this documentary Dave's 'talking heads' were nearly all American (or America-based), which wouldn't be the case if a documentary as ambitious as this was made against just about any other British band of the 60s. And as far as American success went, Herman's Hermits (who had a remarkably similar career trajectory) were far bigger over the same period. Referring to an (albeit very under-rated) UK #8 single (followed by two flops) as 'going out on a million seller' is just another of the hyperbolic claims that made this show quite preposterous.
Which doesn't alter the fact that the pool of talent employed by Dave Clark cut some superb records over a 7 year period, which is in itself something that should be celebrated. Unfortunately due to the music being kept out of print since the early 70s, most people haven't heard the likes of Try Too Hard or Inside & Out to know how good they are, and that cause wasn't helped in this documentary.
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Post by Liam Joseph on Feb 18, 2015 13:38:09 GMT
^
Very perceptive post Chris. Another whose talents helped the DC5 was the brilliant session drummer Bobby Graham, who played on a staggering number of hits in the 60s. The 2009 obituary that Spencer Leigh wrote for Graham in the Independent has some interesting observations:
Even at the time, it was suggested that Dave Clark was not playing on his records. Clark has never acknowledged this but Graham told me, "Dave wanted to produce and he couldn't be up in the box and down in the studio at the same time. Mike Smith had written 'Glad All Over' with him and they weren't too sure what they wanted from the drums. I was playing how I would normally play with the hi-hat, snare and bass and Dave asked, 'Bobby, can you make that simpler please?' He didn't want complicated fill-ins he couldn't play himself on live dates as that would have given the game away. In the end, I did this four-to-the-bar feel, a flam beat, and he said, 'That's lovely.' I was on a lot of the hits but Dave did play on album tracks. The journalists wanted to catch him out. I got a call from the News Of The World who said, 'We've just spoken to Dave Clark and he has told us that you're drumming on his records.' I said, 'Not me.' I was paid to do a job and I didn't see why I should be exposing him."
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Post by markboulton on Feb 19, 2015 20:52:02 GMT
I just got a copy of "The Best Of" LP from eBay and I was expecting fake stereo having only heard mono mixes of most tracks before, and I was happy to discover all tracks are true stereo mixes! Very nice sound too. Are the latterly available versions in mono or stereo?
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Post by Patrick Coles on Feb 20, 2015 11:49:44 GMT
Alot of the hits on '25 Thumping Great Hits' appear in mono (even 'Everybody Get Together' !) while that earlier budget Regal Starline 'Best Of...' is in true stereo
Strangely The DC5 sixties albums are all mono only until the very last one 'If Somebody Loves You' , thus even their 1967 and 1968 albums were in mono only - suggesting older tracks thrown together...but that isn't quite true as both Columbia albums; 'Everybody knows' (1967) and 'Five By Five: 14 Titles...' (1968) do appear to include tracks from mid to later sixties...
Plus certain earlier tracks DO appear in true stereo (that 'Best of..' album & there are stereo versions of songs like; 'Thinking Of You Baby' & some of the 1967 album tracks like; 'Inside And Out', 'Good Love is Hard To Find' etc)
odd 'enchanced for stereo' mixed tracks appeared on USA stereo albums.
PROPER true stereo versions of the UK albums together with remastered mono versions on CD are required.
Re the tracks themselves, DC5 were aimed essentially at the hit singles market - hence early Rockers, Beat boom numbers, then (surprisingly) they went closer to Englebert Humperdinck ('Everybody knows' 1967, 'No One Can Break A Heart like You' - both sung by Lenny) than Beatles or anything deeper....
although they DID cut some great tracks like; 'I Know You', 'Anyway You Want it', 'Everybody Knows 1965 (with sudden tempo changes), 'Don't Let Me Down', 'Mighty Good Loving', 'On Broadway', 'Nineteen Days','Try Too Hard', 'I Need Love', 'Inside And Out', 'Good Love is Hard To Find', 'Lost in His Dreams', 'Bernadette', 'Sittin' Here Baby'(with a Lovin' Spoonful feel), the powering 'Maze of Love', 'Return My Love','Who Do You Think You're Talking To ?', 'Concentration Baby' and an exhilarating guitar & piano led version of 'Here Comes Summer' (mostly sung by Lenny featuring Mike) etc, plus some driving instrumentals ('Rumble', 'Move on') and surprisingly haunting instrumental mood music items ('Theme Without A Name', 'When I Am Alone', etc) which showed a band vocally and instrumentally capable of FAR MORE than just bashing out stompin' 'Thumping great' hits....
o.k. DC used session players - so did Brian Wilson (any complaints about 'Pet Sounds' carrying 'The Beach Boys' credit ?) and SO did many other TOP bands
- even The Beatles got Eric Clapton in for 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps'...and does anyone assume Paul played the horn on 'For No One' ?? or John played the flute on 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away' ??
Indian musicians featured on George's songs; 'Love You Too', 'Within You Without you' & 'The Inner Light' NONE of John, Paul, or Ringo featured....do we make a big thing of that ?
Trouble with The DC5 was the approach did seem cynical by DC himself (alot of envious & poorer fellow musicians had an eager knife to stick in his back I suspect) DC did run a 'self sufficient' outfit together with his 'team' at Lansdowne studios, & alot of their often hard to find music was very well written, played, & sung whoever actually did what !
Tho' for every buried & forgotten gem there was the utterly ghastly 'Tabatha Twitchet' to deflate opinions !!
but the stronger cuts are well worth tracking down - they cut a lovely cover of 'Raining in My Heart' I recall...
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Post by garyfreeman on Feb 20, 2015 13:50:57 GMT
I watched the doc a few days ago and I have to say I got a little bored with it. There just wasn't enough input from the other members , albeit that there's not many of them left and there may be no archive footage of them , and Dave does seem to, well, like himself. That said, and reading other posts re the doc, I think its fair to say that most bands (even up to todays modern crop) have more than a little to hide in the way of session musicians and ghost writers . Its the way the business works.
The main problem that I have with Dave Clark is the READY STEADY GO issue. For my two cents ( as I have said on this board before)we have seen all that he has. If he has a full set, and in the past he has said he has them all, it would be priceless. Any savy businessman would have moved that on for mega bucks years ago ( the Dick clark archive for example)
So come on Dave come clean with us all, let us know what you have.
One final though that has just come into my head. If Dave has all of the ready steady go series why did he use sills of the dave clark 5 on RSG rather than footage. the stills were not screen grabs either... just a thought!
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Post by markboulton on Feb 20, 2015 16:13:30 GMT
Well said Patrick. I haven't gotten around to listening to the interview yet, so I don't know how much of a megalomaniac he might sound to me, but my take on it is that showbiz IS all about bigging yourself up, and most who do it with supreme confidence are glorified for it. Just some who don't have to pay dues to others to have managed their business dealings tend to become subject to sidelining by "the biz". As has been said many bands have used session musicians, and remember in the 60s the fact they were used was typically kept under wraps to maintain the group's image. Again, Alan White on The Beatles' Love Me Do. That's common knowledge now, but was it then? Or the later Beatles tracks where Paul played drums?
Anyway, just by going on the music, the composition and performances/recordings and ignoring the politics, I have to say I've thoroughly enjoyed discovering the DC5 more fully. And it does seem the Regal Starline LP is an unsung collectors ' gem just for the stereo mixes alone, which are streets ahead of other 60s pop recordings. Mind you, that would be the Lansdowne way. Instead of worrying about how to keep things separate so that fluffs could be faded or edited out more easily, it seems because the DC5 were technically more reliable than, say, The Beatles, they could afford to plan how they used the 4 tracks to best effect, knowing that if the voices or instruments to go on one track were not up to scratch, they could do retakes 'per track' in their stride; or just perform in ensemble from the top as pretty much 'live to tape'. I think the Fan's 3rd and 4th albums were done pretty much that way which is why the stereo was so much better, but by 'Help' they'd wanted to make their recordings in a more crafted way, building up layer by layer.
There are pros and cons to both approaches but part of me wishes The Beatles could have been produced in a more DC5 kind of way.
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Post by Patrick Coles on Feb 20, 2015 17:44:28 GMT
Agreed - The Beatles of course got more studio time to work as they chalked up mega sales after mega sales - tho' their product was sometimes 'rushed out' in time for Christmas and far more care went into the mono mixes than the (then smaller market) stereo versions - hence the flaws left on the original stereo album versions of; 'I Should Have known Better', 'If I Fell' etc that were all corrected in mono
The DC5 records DID have quite an experimental edge to them - listen to the echo used on 'Glad All Over' (1963) and 'Anyway You Want it'(1964) plus the sheer sophistication on 'Because'- note Berry Gordy jnr WAS a DC5 admirer, not only did The Supremes cover a few DC5 songs but the percussion style used (be it Clark, Graham, whoever) was also similarly featured on alot of his respected Tamla Motown records that followed...
Adran Kerridge can and must take credit of course, but DC (like him or loathe him) was unquestionably running the show & for such a young guy to get a 'free hand' regarding his records was unheard of in Britain at that time - The DC5 were asked to play at the White House, did the Royal Command performance, made a film, and held Epic Records record for selling a million copies at one point, so Clark must have been doing something right even if more as a band leader/manager than anything else - The Beatles were far more in the hands of their manager & Brian Epstein's film deal with United Artists & the long running Northern Songs deal that netted John & Paul a mere 25% of their true royalty earnings, shows the Fab Four were getting a far poorer deal than they should have been doing...(sowing the seeds of discontent that flowered later on...)
I too find it hard to understand why DC is so continually reluctant re both The DC5 back catalogue on CD (his group have nowhere near the place in sixties music history they could have on the musical front, despite being inducted into the R & R Hall of Fame in the USA) and re the RSG ! shows....
Besides 'Best of...' the other compiled Starline release (later on MFP Records too) of 'DC5 Play Good old Rock & Roll' (1971) is in true stereo, with stereo versions of 'Reelin & Rockin' (1966) plus the two R & R Medleys and a few other such themed tracks (where their excellent 'Raining In My Heart' version comes from) - tho' why a few more R & R flavoured songs such as; 'Blueberry Hill' (1967), 'Little Bitty Pretty One' (1965), their fine take on 'Here Comes Summer' (1970), & 'On Broadway' (1964) were not included remains unclear (they could be added as 'bonus' tracks to any future CD release of the album of course).
I've read & heard a few odd things re the DC5 story - besides apparently 'sidelining' Ron Ryan, that DC wanted in 1966 to disband the group & launch Mike Smith as a solo artist - hence 'You've Got What it Takes' (with brass big band accompaniment), and the 'DC5 Greatest Hits' 1966 UK Columbia album (mono only) - that release makes more sense IF DC was indeed disbanding the outfit....
Supposedly,for some reason things changed & The DC5 duly continued (besides the clearly enthusiastic Mike Smith the rest of the guys notably DO indeed look VERY 'disgruntled' in the performance of YGWIT included on the 'Glad All Over Again' VHS release !)
- next Lenny Davidson was allowed to sing lead on 'Everybody Knows' (1967), we are told as Mike could not 'get on' with the sentimental ballad....but maybe it was also to 'repair' strained group relations too (?), whatever I've also read that a guy who was apparently doing a book on The DC5 story soon gave up......(!!)
How true all this may be we can only guess, but that 'Greatest Hits' release in 1966, and the style of YGWIT (not much like a group performance but Mike Smith & accompaniment) plus the looks on the other guys faces in that performance on the VHS release....do suggest 'something' was going on re The DC5 at that point !
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Post by ashleywood on Feb 20, 2015 18:15:20 GMT
I don't think pointing out the Beatles use of Andy White or Brian Wilson's use of sessions musicians is anything like what DC may have done.
The single release of Love Me Do was the Ringo version so Andy is only on the album so a non-starter really. Of the 210 plus songs the Fabs recorded only a handful feature Macca on drums and at least a couple were because Ringo left the band for a week or two during the White album. So what else does Paul play on ? Not much at all and nothing significant.
The Beach Boys played on a the very vast majority of their early tracks and when you look at the various retrospectives there is always huge credit and praise for people like Hal Blaine, Tommy Tedesco, Lyle Ritz, Carol Kaye etc.. and also for engineers like Chuck Britz, Larry Levine etc.. Compare this attitude to DC's. any mention of Adrian Kerridge or Bobby Graham - both top men in their field.
Is it not weird that Judy Garland, Sir Ian McKellen, Freddie Mercury, Whoopi Goldberg and dear dear Larry et al warranted more screen time than the still alive Lenny Davidson and Rick Huxley ?
Is it true at least Mike Smith and possibly the rest signed non-disclosure agreements ? I've read at least 2 interviews with Mike Smith where he's said I'm not allowed to talk about that or words to that effect.
If DC had come clean i don't think it would have been damaging...certainly not as damaging as refusing to issue the band's back catalogue for the best part of 50 years.
It is a great shame because the band deserved better. It also bugs me that despite DC being so phenomenally wealthy and brilliant that Mike Smith had to rely on fans and others for help when he was crippled. I'm assuming DC didn't help because you can bet he would have massively bigged himself up in the doc.
He has a very interesting story to tell but that documentary wasn't it.
Plus as far as RSG goes, that's where a use it or lose it law would benefit everyone.
By the way, i believe it's confirmed by his people that Johnny Kidd and The Pirates are not part of his RSG holdings. Has anyone tried to contact DC International Productions ?
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. But it was worth watching all of it later because beyond the schmaltz it did show how the group (as a whole) did some good songs which purely on musical terms can be under-rated. 
