STEVE HARNELL

© Steve Ullathorne

“HAIRCUT 100 ARE RARELY GIVEN THE RECOGNITION THEY DESERVE AS A SUPREMELY TIGHT FUNK BAND”

Just how far would Haircut 100 have gone if Nick Heyward had stayed with the band past this superb debut album? It’s one of the great unanswerable questions of 80s UK pop. With a clean-cut image and the teen idol good looks of their frontman, it’s perfectly reasonable to presume they could have been as big as Wham! or Duran Duran.

Boasting an irresistible brand of dancefloor-friendly pop, Haircut 100 were standard bearers of the burgeoning Brit funk movement that included Level 42, Funkapolitan, and Stimulin. Whereas Heyward would grow into a fine songwriter in the classicist mould on later work, there’s a feeling on Pelican West that his self-penned material (he wrote everything here with the exception of one track, Love’s Got Me In Triangles, co-penned with bassist Les Nemes), was worked up from more of a jam session ethos.

Producer Bob Sargeant (“our own George Martin” avers Heyward) crafts a coherent sound throughout the record built around the scratchy guitars of Heyward and Graham Jones.

Every band member is intrinsic to the audio picture, from Nemes’ funky basslines to the relentless rhythmic urgency of percussionist Marc Fox and classy Motowninfluenced drumming of Blair Cunningham. Adding further musical guile was sax and brass player Phil Smith.

The punchy, high-octane Kingsize and cowbell-driven Snow Girl are pure shots of aural Vitamin D; Nemes’ bassline on Lemon Firebrigade is placed high in the mix for maximum impact while its rhythm guitar line recalls Bowie’s Right from Young Americans.

The album only occasional pauses for breath – the chiming Byrdsian guitars of Surprise Me Again are a welcome change of pace amid the breakneck funk.

The musicianship throughout is impressive; Haircut 100 are rarely given the recognition they deserve as a supremely tight funk band. More column inches should have been devoted to their instrumental skills rather than their love of chunky knitwear and boat shoes.

Three killer singles dominate here: the hyperactive itch of Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl), the light and shade of Love Plus One and classic pop songwriting of Fantastic Day.

Heyward credits engineer John Galen – who worked on Bohemian Rhapsody – for crafting the sound of Love Plus One, the track now famous for the lines “Where do we go from here, Is it down to the lake I fear?” The novelistic lyrics have often puzzled fans. “In my mind, I know exactly what that song means,” explained Heyward.

“When I sing ‘Is it down to the lake I fear’ I know what place, what person and everything. But nobody else does.”

Crushed by the pressures of being a heart-throb frontman, Heyward was hospitalised with a nervous breakdown after Pelican West and his lack of presence during recording sessions for its follow-up created an irreparable schism between Nick and the rest of the band.