Wellington –Catch Us If You Can/Superstar –Concord Con 031 (1974? UK)
Catch Us If You Can is an enjoyable lively and frenetic pop rocker with a pounding piano and thumping drums. The chorus is also hyper catchy:
Here comes the man in the black sedan,
Catch us if you can man, catch us if you can
Here comes the guy with the supersonic high,
Catch us if you can man, catch us if you can
It might aspire to be an outright Glam rocker, but the piano and earthy feel bring it closer to Staveley Makepeace/ Lieutenant Pigeon territory.
Although they really get going during the guitar solo, it still lacks that extra edge to turn it into a complete classic. The mid tempo B side is one of those “to make it in the music business” songs and is nicely produced.
Once again , any info is most welcome...
Click below for soundclip
6 comments:
This was their second single, after "Alright, I'll See You Tonight".. I think. Also on Concord. They were from Northampton or somewhere like that. One of the main men was named Dave Martin... which means he could also have been in No Dice, Chelsea, or Gene Loves Jezebel. Or all three. Or none of them.
Anyone?
The Chelsea Dave Martin played with Peroxide Romance pre-Chelsea, which would rule him out of No Dice, think he'd probably be too young to be involved in Wellington? Don't think there was ever a Dave Martin in Gene Loves Jezebel, but Chelsea's other guitarist James Stevenson was, via Gen X, Kim Wilde and others. Which leaves the No Dice bloke, and I know sod all about No Dice, sorry.
Dave Martin was a guitarist from Corby, Northants. He and mate Ian Eccles were the crux of the band Wellington who had a minor recording with 1973's, "Alright, I'll See You Tonight." The guitar work was a direct rip-off of T. Rex's "Get It On (Bang A Gong." Eccles sang the lead. Shortly after he moved to Milton Keynes where he worked as a DJ in local clubs. Ian was married to the former Pamela Brown and they have two sons. Present whereabouts are unknown.
Correction to the lyrics: Here comes the guy with the supersonic eye. Sadly Dave Martin died last year, don't know where Ian Eccles is. He was in Germany at some point - maybe he still is. As songwriters they wrote some great catchy tunes, in addition Wellington recorded spots for Radio One shows, but their releases always seemed to just teeter on the edge.
Swoop/Catch us/Superstar were all recorded at the same session in a studio in Tin Pan Alley in the summer of 1974. Swoop down was never released in the UK as far as I know.
Ian Eccles is still involved in music in a smaller way and after the sad passing of Dave Martin
continued to make rare recordings
check out 2005's Oh how I wish it would rain, excellent track with Ian again on lead vocals.......
Wellington were a band who really should have pushed on into the big time.
They have a fantastic back catalogue of unreleased material which if released in its time would surely have made a dent on the charts of that day.............
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