He said, “Get both your heads closer together.” We were getting closer and closer and eventually asked, “Tim, how close do we need to be?” Paul just sort of stroked my ear, sending up the whole thing. Tim Pope said he needed to get a shot of both our heads so had us lie down on a gingham picnic tablecloth. The scene that particularly created a furore was not actually planned. In our mind we were sending up our class roots as we were not university educated or blue-blooded. At the time it caused much debate about your sexuality…Ĭomparisons with Brideshead Revisited although that was Oxford whereas we filmed that on the Cam. The video for "Long Hot Summer" features you and Paul Weller languorously lazing about in soft focus - he half naked - on a punt. Cherish those books, just don’t expect too much of the film!īelow: Watch the video for "The Long Hot Summer" At the time I met Paul he was talking about Absolute Beginners but I was more familiar with City of Spades because my dad had it. I see them all as one big book.Īside from the film, those books were an important reference to The Style Council, right? When I say books, I’m talking about the trilogy, City of Spades, Absolute Beginners and Mr Love & Justice. More of the kitchen sink New Wave of British Cinema influence might have put it somewhere I felt the books were.
Maybe that was something he saw in his head and I don’t know if that helped, because there’s also a gritty realism to his writing, as much as flights of fantasy. It was a bit of bum steer for Julien Temple that Colin MacInnes had alluded to his books being made as musicals. I did partake in some sleeve notes, which a guy called Michael Mulligan put together. I remember being disappointed at the time.
#The style council live showbiz tv#
It was transmitted on TV a while back and I caught a bit of it, then Googled to check how brief was the use of “Have You Ever Had it Blue”. THOMAS H GREEN: The Style Council were involved with Julien Temple’s 1986 film Absolute Beginners - when was the last time you saw it? It’s on the career of this often brilliant and sometimes underrated band that theartsdesk’s interview with Mick Talbot focuses. The Style Council, meanwhile, are celebrated in a new Sky Arts documentary, Long Hot Summers: The Story of The Style Council, and a double album collection of the same name.
Paul Weller went onto a lauded solo career while Mick Talbot has worked with multitudes of artists, notably The Who, Dexy’s, Candi Staton, Galliano, and Mother Earth. After a flirtation with then-nascent house music, The Style Council fizzled into silence. 1988’s Confessions of a Pop Group album was a return to form, but it seemed to come too late. From there, they moved sideways into a slick contemporary American soul sound, meeting with less critical and commercial success. Musically, The Style Council’s amalgam of plush pop, agit-prop and sly satire reached its peak with 1985’s Our Favourite Shop album and “Walls Come Tumbling Down” single, which were followed by an appearance at Live Aid. They took part in all manner of benefits, from Anti-Apartheid gigs to an association with the Labour Party’s Red Wedge youth initiative, as well as heading up The Council Collective for a single, “Soul Deep”, in aid of the striking miners of 1984. The group, which expanded to include vocalist Dee C Lee and drummer Steve White, also espoused a socialist perspective, offering a passionate counterpoint to Margaret Thatcher’s vision for Britain. With The Style Council, he and Talbot explored soul, funk, jazz, R&B, easy listening, and more, resulting in a golden run of Top 20 hits that lasted for three years and included the likes of the “Speak Like a Child”, “You’re the Best Thing”, “My Ever Changing Moods” (their only US hit), and “Shout to the Top”. Weller’s plan was to escape the lad-friendly guitar sound of The Jam.
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