The Rough and the Smooth

Rip It Up, Issue 85, 1 August 1984, Page 14

The Rough and the Smooth

Bryan Staff

The Next Big Thing This time last year, the hot young act about town, was Coconut Rough. When 'Outlook for Thursday' wasn't around, ‘Sierra Leone’ was there, being played on all the radio stations, and in the daytime as well! They won the "most promising group" title at the awards in November and vocalist Andrew MacLennan also collected "most promising male vocalist." The group looked set to move on to Oz, along the young hopefuls' road to stardom. Well guess what? Do you remember Coconut Rough's second single? Of course you don't unless you have a keen

sense of irony. It came out to take over from the runaway success of 'Sierra Leone’, but got lost in the Christmas rush. It had been prophetically titled ‘As Good As ItGets'. The band did a couple of tours at the beginning of this year, then went into the studio to make an album. Even that part was okay too. But wait a bit, the album was finished in March... how come we haven't heard anything, or even seen them; have they been working in Australia or what? Gee It 's Rough Being a Coconut As you know, Mushroom is an Australian record company, and

when they do something well, they do it very well indeed. But in rock 'n' roll there are always decisions that can become stumbling blocks in a band’s career. Thus it is in the snakes and ladders story of Coconut Rough and Mushroom. After the album was finished, it was put into a "rough final mix" by producer Dave Marrett and sent back to Australia, to Mushroom. They offered to give it to whizz kid British producer Norman Miles, who had been working with Joe Jackson, and was in Australia at the time. It was at this stage that the band thought that they were going to go to Australia.

But Norman Miles had to return to Britain, so Mushroom came up with a couple of more names, so it seemed just a case of waiting on dates and the availability of what Andrew MacLennan terms "these world famous, Michael Jackson type, megastar, world beating, totally brilliant mixers". He goes on to say "one minute it was all go, and our bag were packed, and a date was set, then something would happen to postpone it." So the band waited. They couldn’t really set up any dates in New Zealand, because they were about to leave any day for Australia.

Or so they thought. To keep them busy, Mushroom suggested they write some more songs. And you never know, maybe they could even record them when they came over to Oz.

"We hammered away out in Stuart Pearce’s shed throughout April; that was good for us, we have written some of our best songs there," says Andrew. "Then we duly packed our bags, made arrangements to stay in Sydney and said goodbye to everyone, only to find that the studio booked is actually in Melbourne! I said goodbye again, was about to leave in three days time, when Mushroom called to say the session had been cancelled. Julian Mendelson (who had produced Frankie goes to Hollywood) had been set up, but in the end he didn’t want to do it."

The album, which is released at the end of this month, is mixed as Dave Marrett finished it back in March of this year. Coconut Rough never did go to Australia. Instead they drew advance royalties, and sat around and waited.'' It has been a lack of communication," says Mark Bell. "A gigantic balls up that cost me alone about fifteen hundred dollars.” Despite these set-

backs and resultant inactivity, the band is resigned rather than annoyed at Mushroom. "It sounds a bit naive to say it," says Andrew, "but I didn’t really know just how a record company works, and why things can’t just be released when a band wants them to be. Mushroom is handling 28 acts, and times are tough for everybody; I don’t know what goes on over there, but I do know for a fact that if they get distracted, the things they are going to leave are the things that are furthest away. All the Mushroom acts in NZ will complain about this now there's a sweeping statement and all of them will turn around in the same breath and say... it’s okay, it's rock ’n' roll.

"We are quite happy with Mushroom it is the second big company I have been with, CBS (Australia) was a hundred times worse because of its size. I don't think you can complain, I mean it has fucked us up something chronic, but good things have come out of that too."

Making Lemonade out of the Lemon you have been handed

The Coconut Rough about to emerge from the gloom is a whole

different band to the group of last year. If you look from one side of the stage, you could be excused for thinking it was The Swingers, although New Zealanders didn’t see much of them when Andrew was their vocalist. Bones on bass guitar has replaced Choc, who has gone back to carpentry and his family. And the new single out this month is a latter day Swingers’ song from 1980, called 'Magic Hour’. Phil Judd wrote it and designed Coconut Rough’s new album cover; there was even talk of his joining the band, albeit just for a tour of New Zealand. Coconut Rough’s lineup further changed with drummer Paul Hewitt leaving after the album, to be replaced by one of this country’s truly brilliant rock drummers, Eddie Olsen ex Instigators and Auckland Walk. With these two changes the band played a Wednesday and Thursday in Auckland last month, to be reviewed on both nights by The Star.

A week later came a major change. Keyboard player Stuart Pearce left the band to go on a tour of America with country act Ritchie Pickett and the Inlaws. He then plans to leave New Zealand permanently for Australia.

"So at least one member of the band will get there!” jokes Andrew. "In a way Mark and I are quite pleased, because it is as though we are both in the Whizz Kids again. I mean no disrespect to Stuart at all, but in some ways itis now very easy to define what we are about, as a four piece."

Pared down and retrenched, their album harks back to almost a different band. Although Mark sings one song on the album, he sounds just like Andrew, but now that Andrew will be doing more synthesiser work, Mark may come to the fore as a vocalist in his own right, as in Blam Blam Blam. Yet with such a strong rhythm section as Bones and Eddie to support them, there is every chance that this new incarnation will have every chance of repeating their former success as Coconut Rough Mark 11.