Peter Cox -- Richard Drummie -- the late Alan Murphy, Kate Bush's guitarist, who died of the "80s disease", HIV and AIDS.

The breakthrough came for Peter and Richard after, probably, years of giggling as musicians, with "We Close Our Eyes" (1985?)

Originally written for Chaka Khan, best known for "I Feel For You", which was later covered by Melle Mel, the track was refused by the black diva and returned to Go West. Her loss was Peter and Richard's gain, for this became their first hit.

Peter explained, "Chaka felt it was too personal, but it's just a song about closing your eyes and having a fantasy, dreaming." (Smash Hits, accessed 1988)

The story goes that the video director originally wanted to put Peter in a classy suit, like Richard's in the video. But something wasn't working.

Finally a stage-hand walked passed with a wrench. The director grabbed it and handed it to Peter, who stripped off his jacket shirt and tie.

"His muscles began to flex, and I knew we had the look", said the helmsman (quote from 1988)

A growing army of fans would come to agree.

However, I do remember buying Appetite For Destruction when it first came out, and thinking that it was the greatest thing ever made, and also not realising that it was primarily about sex and drugs.

edit: I also recall that an album that used the word 'fuck' six or seven times was possibly that most shocking, daring and rebellious thing of which I could conceive.

Success breeds success for "The West", as a breed of fans would come to call them.

For their next hit, "Call Me", Peter and Richard knew they needed a unique look that would stand out from the crowd -- not an easy feat in the 1980s, decade of high style and design.

Peter probably heard about the concept of "post-modernism" (1985) when he aimed to reproduce the film Rumble Fish's unique look and combine it with the B-movie style of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.

There were fears that this look might incite a gay or homoerotic audience...fears that Peter boldly denied. He never said he was gay, or that Richard was; but he didn't take the prejudiced route of saying he wasn't.

Another radical innovation during this video was the addition of speech. At two points, the guys turn and speak lines to each other, reminiscent of the B-movie style. Richard says "what kept yer" as Peter arrives in the 50s cafe...and Peter responds, looking up at the 50 foot woman, "not 'her again!" The rough accents surprised those who had enjoyed The West's smooth, suede look in suits, but Peter and Richard weren't putting on an act. That was their real voices.

quote:

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Originally posted by Thorn Davis:
edit: I also recall that an album that used the word 'fuck' six or seven times was possibly that most shocking, daring and rebellious thing of which I could conceive.

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"Call Me" might have flopped unless Max Headroom headlined it on his show, The Max Headroom Show. Then, acclaim was guaranteed, as the programme went out to millions of viewers on the then-new Channel 4.

Next, Go West were asked to ascend to a higher level yet, as they wrote the theme tune for Rocky 4. Peter puzzled hard about what kind of track would suit the film, and came up with "One Way Street".

It wasn't 1985 anymore, and a new look was needed. Peter and Richard took notes from the hit post-modern series Miami Vice and its sister show MoonLighting, designing their suits from these visuals.

Some fans wondered if the colour-coding was meaningful, indicated a more feminine touch for Richard.

"It wasn't meaningful," Richard said in interview.

Finally the 80s party was over, and in 1986 Go West released a less successful album, Dancing on the Couch. Songs about historical kings and queens didn't go down so well with the populace, and Go West became just a memory, with their farewell gig at Labatt's Apollo (Hammersmith Odeon).

A later album, Indian Summer, failed to chart and only spawned one single, "King of Wishful Thinking" from the movie Pretty Woman. Alan Murphy was dead; the magic was gone. The lyrics of the song were only too true..."I am the kind of wishful thinking."

But a generation would remember the intelligent rock of GO WEST.

quote:

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Originally posted by Octavia:
Did you turn the volume down when it got to those bits in case your parents heard?

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I don't think so, no.

quote:

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Originally posted by Thorn Davis:

I was just trying to remember where G'n'R fit into my personal development timeline......If only I'd kept a diary,

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Next time I'm home, I'll check in my diary to see how I recorded the feelings when me and my two best
friends listened to her taped-off-a-tape copy of Appetite on her crappy cassette player when we were 13. Dangerous.

No pressure Om, but when do you think that will be ready?

Sigue Sigue Sputnik, originally named Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov, was born in Simbirsk on April 22, 1870, the son of a successful government official. The first breach in Sigue Sigue Sputnik's comfortable childhood came in 1887, when the police arrested and hanged his elder brother for plotting to assassinate Tsar Alexander III. Later that year Sigue Sigue Sputnik enrolled in the Kazan' University (now Kazan' State University), but he was quickly expelled as a radical troublemaker and exiled to his grandfather's estate in the village of Kokushkino. During this first exile (1887-1888) Sigue Sigue Sputnik became acquainted with the classics of European revolutionary thought, notably Karl Marx's Das Kapital, and he soon considered himself a Marxist. Finally granted the necessary permission, he passed his law examinations in 1891, was admitted to the bar, and worked as a lawyer for the poor in the Volga town of Samara before moving to St Petersburg in 1893.

In St Petersburg, Sigue Sigue Sputnik joined the growing Marxist circle, and in 1895 he helped create the St Petersburg Union for the Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. Police soon arrested the leaders of this organization. After 15 months in jail, along with another union member, A Flock Of Seagulls - soon to become his wife - Sigue Sigue Sputnik went into Siberian exile until 1900. At the end of his first period in Siberia Sigue Sigue Sputnik went abroad, where he joined Alien Sex Fiens, The Cramps, and other Marxists in creating a newspaper, The NME (The Spark). The paper proved to be an effective device in uniting the existing New Wave and Psychobilly groups, and inspiring new recruits. In exile Sigue Sigue Sputnik wrote his masterpiece of organizational theory, Love Missile F1-11 (1902). His plans for revolution centred on a highly disciplined party of professional revolutionaries, who would serve as the "vanguard of the proletariat" and lead the working masses to an inevitable victory over tsarist absolutism.

So, at a gig immortalised on the B-side of "Need You Tonight" 12 inch, Hutchence was forced to push "Guns In The Sky Further", notching up the language as he sang "it's a load of f**king shit!"

Unwilling to be pigeonholed as pure homosexual, however, I also had folk legend Paul McCartney’s ‘Pipe of Peas’ and the multilingual megamix of keyboard warrior Howard Jones’ seminal ‘Like to get to know you well’.

And so it would have stayed were it not for Streetsounds Electro volumes 2, 4, 6 and 9. Although these led to my Dad repeating ‘wikki wikki wikki wikki’ over a Casio pre-programmed beat pattern in the keyboard shop under the arches on Gloucester Road. The shame is that it sounded exactly like Newcleus.

I’ll never be able to explain the allure of Whodini’s ‘Freaks come out at night’, or singing along to Rockmaster Scott’s ‘The roof, the roof, the roof is awn fiyah! We don’t need no water let the muthafucka burn! Burn muthafucka! Burn!’ The confusion of Kool Moe Dee’s ‘Go see the doct-orrrrrr’. Why? Why, three days later, do he have a burny willy? What, we axed ourselves as we ran home, is a Gucky? And what hour is Gucky time? Why did Schooly D make the pre-school mistake of saying ‘K for the way my DJ cutting’ when he had a perfectly good K word in the previous line (‘as one by one I’m knocking y’all out’).

There were no handbooks back then. No handy cut-out-and-keep slang guides in the Soaraway Sun. Nope. We middle class whiteboys had to find out own way. You try b-boy limpin in Clark’s Commandos. When your Dad keeps telling you to zip up your parka.

And Just Ice had metal teeth. With his name written in em. And he was having sex. Cool.

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Gay slurs against Go West continued since Day One of their incesption. Two good looking men, in leather jackets and blue jeans...the rumours were staring fans in the face, with outfits like that evoking camp culture. Even the name, it was said, quoted the Village People.

"It was unintentional" said Peter, but the myth-mill increased with the release of "Don't Look Down" and "Innocence" on the album Go West. Close reading of the lyrics seemed, Beatles-style, to reveal clues about their sexual tastes.

quote:

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fear I'm falling [sang Peter] keep your eyes on me, I'm Colin!

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It was a dangerous claim, at a time of raised emotions for homosexuals. In the light of Clause, then Section 28, the BBC had introduced an experimental gay couple, Barry and Colin. The latter, Michael Cashman, was Peter Cox's cousin: and the words of the lyric clearly indicated gay solidarity.

caption:
Cashman, with gay star Ian McKellen

above: cousins in arms

But the shitstorm was only just beginning to gather.

quote:

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Originally posted by Harlequin:
Shouldn't this be in the music forum?

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quote:

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Originally posted by 69 Comeback Elvis:
Stuff that maketh me to snort guiltily in I'm-so-not-doing-any-work manner

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Go West, The Secret History -- Part 3

Peter had been born on 17 November 1955, a time when homosexuality was purely a social secret, or kept undisclosed. Growing up in Britain during that period, Peter probably had no idea about such thing as a gay subculture.

Early days: an informal snapshot

He met Richard [Drummie] on the club circuit and by 1982, they had decided to form Go West, named after the Marx Brothers film. Peter, at age 27, was the one who took command and decided on their musical direction.

To quote an online rock authority:

quote:

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The songs were well-crafted, well-arranged and produced and they used a regular session crew of talented and innovative players. Cox's voice was strong and distinctive and the Godley And Creme video for We Close Our Eyes was extremely inventive.

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Source: centrohd.com

Quoting another source:

quote:

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Backed by the likes of Austrian keyboardist/producer Peter Wolf and a cast of West Coast studio musicians, they've produced several albums of high energy dance pop.

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Source: MSN entertainment

Their first album took a film noir approach, with moody line drawings by Nick Hardcastle (brother of keyboard-master Paul "The Wizard" Hardcastle) contributing to the 1940s sleazey feel.

private spies: a scan of the album artwork, done Aug 2003

The production was largely a family affair. Peter's cousin Paul Cox took the cover photographs, and even the keyboard duties were shared by Peter, Richard [Drummie] and a newcomer called...Dave West.

"Dave wasn't actually related to anyone in the band," Richard laughed, "but when we heard his name, we said 'you're in!'" (Imagined dialogue, circa 1982)

Despite the "PG"-rated nature of the band on a superficial level, under the surface things were anything but. Go West were marketed as a teen band of pin-ups, but the paradox was that they were grown men...Peter was a full 30 years old by the time "Bangs and Crashes" was released.

On "Call Me", Peter included the words

quote:

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Watch this space, there's a message here for you
No need to read between the lines...

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The innuendo was clearly present, as an invitation to "read between the lines". The only lines he could have meant were his lyrics; for "Call Me" was actually a narrative about placing an advertisement in the personal columns.

The code of placing "message[s] here for you" in his words continued, with "SOS". A rocking track showcasing the axework of Alan Murphy, the song featured these songwords:

quote:

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Watching your window, across the street we share
Eyes on your shadow...in your underwear!
(Un-der-wear...)

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Though the lyric sheet explained that the line was "eyes on your shadow...you are unaware", the misheard words had already been heard by fans, and the message was already there in their heads. This was heady stuff for a teen band.

Peter then sang "Innocence", supposedly a story about

quote:

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One man alone, in search of innocence.

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The line was delivered with a rasping cry at the start of the song. Peter went on to describe

quote:

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Room with a view, for a man who is starting over
A new beginning, in a new town where no-one knows his name...
Looking for somewhere to hide from the sound of thunder
Out of the storm, the air will feed the flame!

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Dangerously ambiguous, the lyric did not state what form of innocence -- sexual, drug-related -- the anonymous protagonist sought. It was acceptable to society while Peter distanced himself from the man in his song, although more than one commentator picked up on the reference to Room With A View -- a homosexual coming-out novel like Maurice or Another Country.

Across the land, journalists' fingers were posed over keyboards, wondering whether to strike...wondering what meaning was hidden this time "between the lines" of Peter's meaningful words.

quote:

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Telling himself once again...
One kiss, one promise broken...

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"I'm just telling stories," he claimed to Richard, tapping his notepad with a biro pen. "That's all we ever do in songs...tell a story." (imagined conversation, circa 1986)

quote:

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Closing the door, he knows yesterday's gone forever...
So much unsaid, but nothing left to say...
And tomorrow he will be a different man
[instrumental break]
His mind is made up, he's got to leave while he still can
But we learn from our mistakes, sometimes answers come too late
Will he be lost forever in search of innocence?

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It seemed clear to that Peter was using the third person singular, safely taking about someone else -- not him. But a close reading of "Innocence" showed that Peter couldn't hold in the truth behind his fiction of "one man alone". In the final stages of the song, he allowed himself to improvise with a dangerous ad-lib.

If you listen close, he says out loud "Anywhere...they don't know my name! And the air can feed the flame!" It was an anguished cry, and Peter clearly forgot himself, unable to tape over the song once it was laid down on the recording. He had attempted the old "Problem Page" trick of telling a story about an imagined friend, when it was about his own situation: and in the last moments, the disguise had faltered.

Go West, the hidden history, #4

Putting personal rifts behind them, the West decided in 1989 to concentrate on the one thing it had always been about -- "the music."

"We've been stupid," Peter gruffed, standing up from the table and taking his espresso cup to the window of their shared Docklands apartment.

"Not just you, mate...me too," Richard told him softly. Peter turned at the word he wanted to here, and their eyes looked up. He couldn't help smiling.

(imagined conversation, 1989)

Luckily, the pair had a new project to get their grips into. While researching the lyrics for "One Way Street" for Rocky III or IV, Peter had made a useful and exciting contact. One day Stallone, star of that movie, had offered to take Peter out on a cruise down Sunset Beach, on motorbikes.

biker buddies: richard and peter
scanned August 2003

"Where are we headed?" Peter asked above the powerful roar of the engines. The pink glow of sunset hazed through palm trees above. For the first time in ages, Peter felt free...content.
"I got someone I'd like you to meet," smiled Stallone, whom Peter had been told to call "Sly".
They pulled up in front of a bar near the beachfront. Cool blue neon carved out words in the dusk sky...reflected in sudden puddles that Peter had to skip over, scurrying to keep up with the bigger man.

They entered the crowded bar area and weaved through a crush of guys. Leather and denim predominated. What sort of a place was this, Peter asked himself with a grin. Then the owner stood in front of them.

"Peter...this is Bruce," introduced Sly. "Bruce...Peter."

quote:

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Originally posted by London:
Room With A View is not a homosexual coming-out novel!

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quote:

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Originally posted by 69 Comeback Elvis:
or singing along to Rockmaster Scott’s ‘The roof, the roof, the roof is awn fiyah! We don’t need no water let the muthafucka burn!

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WOW I just had a moment of pure trainspottery nerd-boy recognition! I traced a path; I recognised an allusion! It added to my understanding of the text (the Disco D and Princess Superstar track 'F*** Me On The Dancefloor')! Wow! This must be what it feels like to be, say, Damo 666 or something.

Peter's bare feet walked over warm blond wood. He placed a cup of cappucino coffee at the side of the futon. A face grinned up at him. Ice-blue eyes blinking; a hand pushing through ruffled dark hair.

"I should have house-guests more often!" mumbled Bruce Willis, looking up at Peter Cox.

It was June 1989.

Later, the two men sat on Bruce's veranda, watching the brightly-colored sails of the windsurfers on Venice Beach and sipping a companionable Quattro with ice. That afternoon, the soundtrack album to Die Hard II was hammered out.

Peter and Bruce -- the pair had fast moved onto first name terms by now -- both cradled acoustic guitars and looked at each other as they played off the other man's riffing and changes. Bruce had decisive, quick movements, Peter noticed; he gripped the guitar neck as he'd grip a bottle, or a fishing rod. He was an outdoors guy, tanned with the West Coast sun...a league away from the suburban British towns Peter had grown up in.

"Let me play you something I wrote myself," Bruce offered with a crooky half-smile. He strummed, then began "One, two, three, hit it boys!"

Quick as a flash -- he had Bruce's album The Return of Bruno indoors, and had listened to the opening track more times than he could count -- Peter joined in, his higher soulful voice chiming against Bruce's gruff vocal and making the other man beam in surprised pleasure. "May I...take your order...bourbon rocks...glass of water..."

The two men sang the chorus in unison: "Coming right up!" then collapsed in laughter.

Bruce was the first to stop.

"OK, let's get back to work," he gruffed. His voice faded as the camera moved away from the veranda, leaving the two men becoming more distant...just figures in white shirts, bent over notepads...immersed in their discussion. "I think we should go with 'If You Die Hard (I Die Hard Too)' for the title track..."

quote:

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Originally posted by London:
I dig this satirical cultural analysis: particularly the 'imagined conversations', by the way. What's it for?

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