25 YEARS OF RECORD COLLECTING: MUSICAL MEMORIES 1982 - 2007

 

21. ‘East Seventeen’

 

“Outside it’s raining, but inside it’s wet”

 

Within every generation of music, there is a rivalry and pop battle between two popular bands of the time. Whether it is between ‘The Beatles’ and ‘The Stones’, ‘Duran’ and ‘Spandau’ or ‘Blur’ and ‘Oasis’, time and time again two opposing sides are put together by the media, and in the early 1990s this was between ‘Take That’ and ‘East 17’

 

Now, whereas I love records by Robbie Williams as much as everybody else does and ‘Take That’ have recently released some brilliant records, back in the early 1990s I preferred the records released by their Southern rivals ‘East 17’.

 

I think that the band released some great ‘techno-pop’ and ‘Swingbeat R&B’ records in their time, including ‘It’s Alright’, ‘Deep’ and ‘House Of Love’. In fact, I would go as far to suggest that ‘House Of Love’ includes one of the greatest musical introductions to a pop record that I have ever heard, in the way that the synths build up until the moment the band shouts out “Everybody, Everybody in the house of love”.

 

In those days you might remember that the group was a five piece band, though not exactly standing shoulder to should with ‘Take That’ seeing that the band was comprised of Tony Mortimer, Brian Harvey, John Coldwell, John Hendy and ‘Levy’ the dog.

 

The dog became the band’s mascot and the band became linked with a number of illustrated dog head logos that were developed in a way similar to the ‘2wo Third3’ ‘Biff’ head. Actually this comparison is not that surprising seeing as both bands were managed by Tom Watkins and both had a number of the same personal working behind the scenes, though ‘2wo Third3’ were more 1980s ‘electro-pop’ sounding, whilst ‘East 17’sounded like the pop ‘Shamen’ at the time.

 

You might also remember that John Hendy acted as the synth player in those early days, playing his keyboard upon an ironing board at the back of the stage, whilst later on it would be Tony Mortimer who would be shown to possess the musical talent. Brian Harvey on the other hand had a good pop-soul singer’s voice and most of the time sung like he wanted to be in either ‘Jodeci’ or ‘Shai’.

 

I doubt that I need to bring up all the following problems and frictions that have happened post ‘E-17’ in the last ten years, as they will have been documented in depth elsewhere, though this has taken some of the shine off their amazing pop success from the early 1990s.

 

Forget Stay Another Day, this song remains their pop classic IMHO:

 

East 17 - It's Alright

I preferred Take That at the time though I liked House Of Love, which I think was thier best hit they had.

Yes, either that record or ‘It’s Alright’, though both records are of a similar sound, especially in comparison to the ‘E-17’ R&B pop hits.

East 17 got so far up their own behinds, I actually thought they were utter rubbish. Tony Mornitmer thought he was John sodding Lennon, while Brian Harvey thought he was some amazing gifted singer. Then again, Take That were lame and wet... and are now worse than ever!!!

For a pop singer he was good, but I think he really wanted to be D’angelo or ‘Jojo’. Maybe he could be seen as Walthamstow’s answer to Bobby Brown, that might be a more agreeable comparison for him and in some respects, nearer to the truth.