July 1980
by Paul Zickler
Clive Langer & The Boxes
Splash
Genre: Ska / New Wave
Rating: 4 out of 5
Highlights:
Hope and Glory
Best Dressed Man
Half as Nice
Splash (A Tear Goes Rolling Down)
Had a Nice Night
Clive Langer produced some of your favorite records with his partner Alan Winstanley: One Step Beyond, Too-Rye-Ay, Punch the Clock, Flood, Bona Drag. He co-wrote Shipbuilding! Apparently he was also a musician who occasionally made records for himself. Splash is one of those records.
On the first half of the LP, the basic sound is straight ahead 2 tone ska, minus the horns. Heavy use of keyboards and bass, with Langer’s guitar a bit further down in the mix. Elvis Costello produced two of the tracks. Neat. Couldn’t find any info on which ones, but I’d lean toward Hope and Glory as one of them. An uptempo Watching the Detectives verse gives way to a Tommy Tutone-ish chorus. The instrumental break features literal bells and whistles. The lyrics seem suitably dark for an EC joint.
Clive’s voice sounds a bit like Ray Davies. He lacks Ray’s songwriting skill, but who doesn’t? Best Dressed Man does sound like it could be a Kinks song if the Kinks hired Bedford and Woodgate from Madness as their rhythm section. There's even some cool harmonica. Unfortunately, Clive also lacks Ray’s singing ability, such as it is. Luckily the other blokes do quite a bit of singing on several tracks. And there’s no lack of enthusiasm in songs like Half As Nice, with its “la la la la / la la la la / la la la la / la la la” chorus. Honestly I was reminded of the Banana Splits theme, if not in melody, at least in joie de vivre. Turns out it's a cover of a '60's tune by a band called Amen Corner (thanks Tom), which makes it even cooler, really. Now that I'm listening to it again, I'm very much reminded of the production on my favorite They Might Be Giants album, Flood, which Langer would co-produce ten years later. Yay!
Side two features a bit more experimentation and a bit less head bobbing. The title track, Splash (a Tear Goes Rolling Down), with its big beat, wiry guitar solo, and sorrowful lyrics makes for a great change of pace. Less effective is a somewhat mordant cover of the Stones’ It’s All Over Now, although it does show off some fancy production tricks. There’s fun new wave noodling followed by a racing bass line on Take You Down, but it’s not much of a song in the end. Burning Money and First Thing in the Morning similarly contain fun moments but rely too much on Langer’s vocals to work well. The closing song, Had a Nice Night, descends from celebrating an evening to bemoaning a missed opportunity, then fades out before the 2 minute mark with some ominous piano over a thumping beat.
I don’t know why Mr. Langer has performed so infrequently over the many years of his career. He's obviously capable of writing, arranging, playing and (sort of) singing. Maybe this album wasn’t the success he imagined it would be? Anyway, I enjoyed most of it.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/64KW70piaprw0BygfHlYAp?si=8708864ab8cc4d3d
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