Firstly thanks a million to Mike from The Crossroads Appreciation Society (here) for his prompt reply and sterling work for finding the episode where the punk band were featured and for putting the clips up on youtube above. It’s a bit of a classic! From these clips we have found out that the band were called The Foremen (a play on four men perhaps, but the band is made up of three men and a women) and the line up was:
Danny Fielding – Lead Guitar and Vocals
Wally Roberts – Keyboard and Synth
Jeff or Geoff Blake – Drums and Percussion
Tracy – Bass Guitar and Personal Manager
They were at the Crossroads Motel reception on their way to the basement studio to record two singles. One of the songs was influenced by or used the lyrics from William Hughes Mearns‘ Antigonish or so Danny told Meg Mortimer later (Wikipedia mentioned that “David Bowie is believed to have partially inspired the lyrics for David Bowie‘s 1970 track “The Man Who Sold the World,” which describes an encounter “upon the stairs” between Bowie (who “wasn’t there”) and the titular figure”).
With songs like this and the use of a synth, could they be considered even Post-Punk or New Romantic with that image? Or are we being very genre-pedantic there?
Mike told us “There was a ‘story’ to the recording studio which was opened by Chris Hunter (David Hunter’s son). It was called Eldorado Records which had Kate Long (Kate Robins) as its major star. Really Lew Grade’s way – as he had several times prior – to
get a chart single seen on Crossroads to get into the charts.” Brilliant stuff.
He went on to say “Not sure it would be classed as a social issue, but for whatever reason, ATV wanted to show the punk group in a positive light. The alternative music show Revolver at that time had been produced in the studio next door (which is) possibly the reason they did it”.
We love the clip, which starts “With Meg being annoyed with them, playing their music loud in the reception. But later one wanders into her office, she assumes to cause trouble, but he instead has a nice conversation with her.”
It’s terrible to think that all of this time that we thought the band were the ones who started the fire. Apparently not but Mike added “A long time ago one of the actors who played a punk in the band did email us to mention he also played one of the ‘thugs’ that started the fire”. We knew that Danny Fielding and his mob were the good guys!
If you want to know anything about the long-running Soap Opera and we mean anything we recommend you to visit the fan club site here. There is so much info on there, including music related referenced, including a Coventry Connection (of course) here:
Cheers again Mike and thanks very much for your help again!
While we were putting together a shortwave mix we came across a cover of the Crossroads Theme Tune that we couldn’t stop smiling to by The Lost T-Shirts of Atlantis. It is some tune! (The cast above including Carney the Gardener, Benny and is that Buzz the hippy character with the long hair and beard at the back?)
