Black by Design by Pauline Black

Author:Pauline Black [Black, Pauline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781846687907
Publisher: Profile
Published: 2011-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

Debbie Harry, me and Holly Beth Vincent, 1980

Holly and the Italians proved to be a great opening band on that night too. After seeing their performance, The Selecter decided to invite them on the Too Much Pressure tour because we hoped that they would provide a different sound palette, a welcome respite from the relentless ska off-beat, for the audience. Holly was a pertly pretty Chicago-born singer-songwriter who wielded a deft guitar lick and played music with a punk/pop edge. She looked as though she could more than hold her own on any stage.

On paper the three bands looked like a perfect combination: all fronted by strong women, all with individual styles. It was a done deal. The Selecter busied itself with a first appearance on BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test, a showcase gig at Le Palace in Paris and Top of the Pops in the interim, then joining up with our two chosen supports for an all-day rehearsal at the Roxy in Harlesden. Before we knew it we were playing in front of 1,500 people every night on a 30-date UK tour.

Immediately we realized that we had made a mistake in electing to have Holly and the Italians as second on the bill after the Bodysnatchers. The fact that their music had absolutely nothing to do with ska or reggae – something we saw as a plus – was not enough to stop the diehard, unreconstructed male 2-Tone fan from spitting, bottling and heckling them off the stage every night. Understandably Holly got upset and although they struggled on for a while, their reception got so bad that they were forced to leave the tour.

Too Much Pressure was released on the 2-Tone label on 15 February 1979. We were playing much the same venues as on the 2-Tone tour and packing them out just as successfully with us as headliners. The buzz surrounding the tour sent the album to No. 4 in the charts the following week. Even though it was well reviewed, many of us in the band knew that production-wise it could have been so much better. Unfortunately, our second single release, ‘Three Minute Hero’, despite the success of the album, didn’t do as well as expected, rising only to No. 16 in the charts. We did Top of the Pops again, but our energetic performance wasn’t enough to push the single any further up the charts. In my opinion, it was not as good a song as ‘On My Radio’ and was badly recorded. The title was catchy enough, but the melody and production could have been better and the saxophone solo sounds like a kazoo! Only Errol Ross knows how he managed to do that! By then, many of us were sick to death of Mr Ross. He was persona non grata at the 2-Tone label’s parent company, Chrysalis.

Even the Bodysnatchers’ first single, produced by Roger Lomas, had made the Top 20 and they had only been playing for three months. Some of the male

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