Go West the “We Close Our Eyes” hitmakers appeared on my radar this week. So I thought I’d do a bit of digging and see what I could find about the pre Go West career of Cox and Drummie. Luckily for everyone there’s not much apart from Terra Nova a band created by Cox and former Manfred Mann’s Earth Band members Chris Slade and Colin Pattenden; they released an album in 1980. The album is on YouTube. Couldn’t find it on Spotify or much else about them. So I thought I’d ask you lot if you’d come across them before and what you think. Enjoy….
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Dave Ross says
Dirty Love….
Slug says
Neither dirty nor lovely enough for me, I’m afraid. Lost interest quickly.
Information on them is not helped by the existence of a shockingly dreadful 90s Dutch AOR band with the exact same name, and also a fairly successful German band called Terranova.
Striking band logo though, going for the puckered bumhole motif, I can’t help but notice.
Dave Ross says
Agreed. Hadn’t noticed the logo thing. Quite odd now I’ve seen it… I wonder what point the designer was trying to make?
H.P. Saucecraft says
Bullet-holes is my guess, and maybe was the designer’s, too.
Slug says
Pff. Your atypical coyness is fooling no one. Clearly bumholes.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Isn’t “Your Atypical Coolness” an Elvis Costello outtake?
Moose the Mooche says
We Close Our Eyes: I had assumed all these years that when I was eleven I’d dug it mainly for that very inventive Godley & Creme video with the monkey wrench and the mannequins, but it’s a bloody good record anyway. Great voice. As with Living in a Box and – lawd help us -Rick Astley later, they’d have been showered with critical plaudits if they’d been black.
Dave Ross says
And there’s me thinking you’d focus on the bumhole in the letter ‘e’ in the logo. I underestimated you Moose. I have to confess which will be no surprise to anyone that “Go West” by Go West is a firm favourite. Great songs, well sung. If it was a Hall and Oates album…
Slug says
Maybe Moose, but the flipside of that argument is then they wouldn’t have been backed up with big-time commercial marketing from their labels that ensured that Go West, LIAB and Astley all had enormo-hits that sold like crazy.
Moose the Mooche says
Are you implying that there’s racism in the entertainment industry?
I won’t stay here for a moment to tolerate this woke nonsense.
Nick L says
Never a fan of Go West but I was brought up just round the corner from Terra Nova drummer Chris Slade, who was in the original Tom Jones group from Wales and who also went on to play with Jimmy Page in The Firm, as well as later being in AC/DC. When we were young kids I used to play with his son. Nice chap if memory serves, was away on tour a hell of a lot.
Not keen on these tunes though…sorry.
Dave Ross says
Of course someone here lived near the drummer from unheard of 80’s soft rockers Terra Nova. Never let’s me down… Thanks for the info and no sorry needed. It’s shite….
Mike_H says
Terra-Bull
Smiles Diles says
I remember being very impressed by Go West when they appeared on The Tube with an absolutely cracking team of session players, including Pino Paladino (paging Moose to do his impression). It stands to reason they would have a skeleton like this in their closet, almost all bands used to have an unsuccessful previous incarnation. I’d always suspected Radiohead might have had an early incarnation on FM Revolver records, probably called Slyyz or something. However they came of age in the era where the music industry expected your first band to be a success.
Moose the Mooche says
You’re paging me as if I’m not doing that impression 24/7 anyway. It’s a hard life when you play the BOOODOWWWW
fentonsteve says
Radiohead did put out a few dodgy tapes in their early days as On A Friday. I had a friend at Oxford Poly, a short train ride from Reading, and saw On A Friday a couple of times at the Jericho Tavern. I almost didn’t go to the second gig as they weren’t very good the first time, but they were launching an EP and changed name between booking and playing the gig, there was a bit of a buzz and my pal was keen.
I sold my Drill EP for £125 about 20 years ago, kind of wish I’d kept it now. That and my Factory Sampler which I sold to a German for £25 in 1991. Twenty-five quid!
Rigid Digit says
I had a Vauxhall Nove in the early 90s. Drove to Bristol in it once. That was going West.
Moose the Mooche says
I hope you kept your eyes open.
Podicle says
I guess I’m alone in thinking that that is far, far preferable to anything that Go West ever did. I wouldn’t knowingly buy it, but it sounds like the ‘difficult’ third album from a Free/Thin Lizzy supergroup.
Go West were always the exemplar for me of awful 80s production and composition. I’m sure they are very talented musos, but I’m also sure that they would rather be out there playing their Terra Nova back catalogue than their hit/s.
Nick L says
I wouldn’t go as far as saying it was preferable to Go West but your second paragraph nails it. My goodness how they clogged up the radio back in the eighties…
Smiles Diles says
There was a band called The Quick around the same time as Go West, who were said to have some close involvement with them, but I never figured out what. I think there was just a collective of musos trying to break through and maybe they all worked together. A band called Re-Flex were similar as well.
fentonsteve says
Re-Flex had a UK hit (The Politics of Dancing), unlike The Quick. They were more related to, of all people, Level 42.
Moose the Mooche says
How Much Longer was also a minor hit for the ‘Flex. Guest vocal from Sting, for some reason. Impressive mulletry from that band as I recall.
H.P. Saucecraft says
These herberts give me gas.