VARIOUS ARTISTS
Remember 60s Vol.1 (BR Music DVD)
Remember 60s Vol.2 (BR Music DVD)
     Context is a wonderful thing. We all carry songs in our head which we feel we will never need to play again either because a). we have them note and production perfect internally or b). because we can't stand the idea of ever having to listen to them again! Watching these two excellent quality DVDs it becomes apparent that if you add the dynamic of visual context neither of the above necessarily apply. With a wealth of specially shot (for Dutch and Belgian TV seemingly) promo films and outside broadcast footage, these DVDs reclaim hardy perennials such as The Tremeloes 'Silence Is Golden' or Gary Pucket & The Union Gap's 'Young Girl' from the zombiefied nether world of hospital and overly parochial local radio and golden oldies shows and put them back into cyclical time, when they were being performed as current hits and new songs. Equally for instance, although you get Manfred Mann performing the overly familiar 'Mighty Quinn' (on the steps of a town hall somewhere in Europe by the looks of it), you also get a colour promo film of them for the much less often heard (and more interesting I feel) 'Ragamuffin Man'. Although there is a plethora of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beakey Mick & Tich hits, 'Zabadak!' becomes merely an aural backdrop for the excellent period footage of the group larking about in Paris with a BBC camera crew, and all in colour. You also get one of their best (and uncomped?) numbers in the shape of the dramatic harmony fuzz popper, 'Last Night In Soho'. Even when the song is as overly familiar as 'Bend It', the performance itself is sidelined by the period stage antics and white booted swingin' go-go girls synchronised gyrations to the song. I never thought I could ever listen to 'Love Is All Around' again after Marty Pellow and co's stab at it, but accompanied by the long thought lost promo (on a train) film, The Troggs original becomes beautiful again! And where you get The Hollies on Beat Club doing a conventional number like 'Sorry Suzanne', you also get them in some unspecified European location, posing around to 'Dear Eloise'. 
     Most of the film is black and white but all three of Aphrodite's Child's contributions are in colour (promo films again) as are Manfred Mann's 'Ragamuffin Man', Amen Corner's 'Hello Suzie' (fab bare footed go-go girls in head bands and flared jump suits here outpace the band in every sense!) and Dave Dee & Co's 'Zabadak!'. The majority of studio takes are from Germany's Beat Club, but nothing that has already appeared on the Beat Club DVD series. The pearls here though, are the three performances by The Herd ('From The Underworld', 'Paradise Lost' and 'I Don't Want Our Loving To Die') which feature the band in Beat Club's studio intercut with outside broadcast shots - just see how young Peter Frampton looks! Joe Dolan emotes wildly to 'Teresa', a good enough pop ballad for the time, but it's the girls and their fashions shaking in the background that constantly catch the eye, similarly the gouache lyrical content of J. Vincent Edward's 'Thanks' is entirely irrelevant compared to the full-on white booted go-go girls giving their all to it in the background. Quite what the thinking was behind the setting of a manky scrap metal yard for Lou Christie's mime to 'I'm Gonna Make You Mine' is another thing entirely however! There are eighteen tracks on each DVD with a playing time of around fifty or so minutes. The sound is excellent, and much of this footage has likely never been seen since the day its was originally transmitted. I never even knew what Neil Christian looked like until seeing his Beat Club appearance for 'That's Nice' here. The blurb on the back of Vol.1 makes the valid point however that: 'We all know how 'That's Nice' from Neil Christian sounds [maybe in Holland anyway!] but now we see him during Germany Beat Club and realize what the dress code in 1966 was'. 
     I'd say that what's on these DVDs are rare and precious things. You may well be surprised at how they work to make the overly familiar seem new again and at the other extreme, provide footage of bands who perhaps were regulars on European TV where their 45s reached higher chart positions but were all but invisible in the UK. Now all that remains is, given that much of this stuff has been cribbed from Dutch TV archives, when can we expect a similar collection of material from indigenous groups like Q65, The Outsiders and Golden Earrings, all of whom made frequent Dutch TV appearances (stills from which often decorate CD liner booklets on their reissues). Perhaps we could start an e-mail request campaign with BR music for just that! 
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Paul Martin