Three weeks at number one from w/e 14th September 1985
I’m sure that this is largely true. Rough Trade were a small independent label often operating on creaky financial footing, and had to put the most money down on their leanest, speediest horse rather than gambling their lot on unknown quantities. The Smiths were certainly their prize filly, but what’s interesting is absolutely nobody in the documentary mentions The Woodentops, who were also rapidly catching up on the outside lane and were also stealing Rough Trade's attention.
The group, it seems, have largely been forgotten even by people who were actually in their vicinity at the time, but were distinct press favourites and earmarked as probable contenders even in the trade press. Rolo McGinty had previously unsuccessfully auditioned as the bass player for the Teardrop Explodes, and like that group, had a faint air of both the New Wave pop star and the magic mushroom guzzling hippy about him. His pixie-ish bopping made him a great English frontman in the Barrett/ Bolan tradition, while the group’s cocktail of influences made them a unique prospect.
McGinty’s rounded middle class English vowels met with frequently folky lead acoustic guitars, which mixed and matched with hyper post-punk tribal drums and squealing keyboards. The angular woodiness to their sound can’t have been unprecedented, but it felt simultaneously accessible and yet odd; the only real prior comparison I can think of is Unit 4+2 at the frantic and faintly psychedelic tail end of their career (give their final 45 “I Will” a spin to hear what I mean, but don’t ignore the better flipside). Even they never truly pushed the boat out this far, though.
McGinty made the approach sound very simple in a 1986 interview with “One Two Testing”, explaining “[There are] lots of different kinds of shapes but there's always this acoustic guitar and lots of backing vocals so it always has that kind of folkiness… The music of the drums, the bass, electric guitar and the keyboards is almost like a dream behind the acoustic guitar so the vocal and guitar are like Bob Dylan leaning against a tree, singing a song and the band is like a dream of the backing that's going on inside Bob Dylan's head when he's singing.
"He's not hearing this acoustic guitar, he's hearing this orchestra or something and he's singing with that. The acoustic guitar is just keeping his rhythm for him.”
They clearly weren’t approaching things from an orthodox direction, but the results could be astounding, and “Well Well Well” is marvellous. If you haven’t heard it in a long time, refreshing your memory is a valuable exercise – for one thing, it’s more intense than you remember, sounding polite and joyful but also faintly threatening. Rolo often sounds taunting while singing “Baby I know you like my way so wrap my soul and take it away” in the chorus, and the band pound, clatter and rattle like an old diesel train in danger of getting derailed behind him. It’s a steep downhill journey towards the buffers, or perhaps, in reality, towards a likely lady’s lap.
Usually when groups pick up acoustic guitars to enchant someone of the opposite sex, it’s done so with embarrassing displays of earnestness and passion rather than mischief, which is another way the group subvert expectations here. The fact that while doing so, they have a killer skiffling hook in the mix (Terry and Gerry would have undertaken unspeakable and possibly criminal dares to own this chorus) and know exactly when to stop is a sign that none of this is random, despite Rolo’s jazzy vagueness about their methods. It just feels eccentrically plotted, but unlike the off-kilter experiments of a lot of indie acts, it’s a scheme that Pops rather than jars.
