Status Quo: Mighty Innovators of 70s Rock

Andrew Cope

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351025881
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Status Quo were one of the most successful, influential and innovative bands of the 1970s. During the first half of the decade, they wrote, recorded and performed a stream of inventive and highly complex rock compositions, developed 12 bar forms and techniques in new and fascinating ways, and affected important musical and cultural trends. But, despite global success on stage and in the charts, they were maligned by the UK music press, who often referred to them as lamebrained three-chord wonders, and shunned by the superstar Disk Jockeys of the era, who refused to promote their music. As a result, Status Quo remain one of the most misunderstood and underrated bands in the history of popular music. Cope redresses that misconception through a detailed study of the band's music and live performances, related musical and cultural subtopics and interviews with key band members. The band is reinstated as a serious, artistic and creative phenomenon of the 1970s scene and shown to be vital contributors to the evolution of rock.

1 Quo Vadis

Status Quo are surely one of the most maligned bands to have emerged from the UK hard-rock scene of the 1970s. Their music, both recorded and live, engendered a barrage of mockery and derision from the 1970s music press, who frequently portrayed the band as lamebrained musical halfwits carving out a career for themselves using just three chords.¹ Although such allegations were fantastically absurd and riddled with misapprehensions, it is easy to see how such a misguided logic came to be applied to the early rock performances and recordings of Status Quo. For example, following some chart success in the late 1960s, as a psychedelic and middle-of-the-road pop band, Status Quo transformed their musical styling and emerged in early 1970 as a hard-rock outfit replete with long hair and a scruffy denim ‘street’ look. Part of that process involved the adoption and adaptation of specific blues techniques—namely, the twelve-bar form (a method of structuring songs using just three chords) and the 12-bar riff (a technique closely associated with the three-chord twelve-bar form)—and those techniques quickly became associated with the band. Thus, it came to pass that the apocryphal and spurious ‘three-chord wonders’ legend, founded and promoted in certain quarters of the music press, gained currency and momentum.

The three-chord wonders tag actually appeared very early on in the hard-rock phase of Status Quo’s career; the band had barely struck the opening bars of ‘Down the Dustpipe’² when the music press launched their anti-Quo crusade. It all kicked off with a few sniggers about their, apparently, senseless lyrics, but soon evolved into grumpy complaints about the quality of the music. Francis Rossi explains:

After several more ‘meaningless’ hits, the critics took to accusing us of having a magic formula which allowed us to simply recycle the old stuff over and over, giving birth to the heads-down-three-chord-mindless-boogie jibes that still haunt us to this day…But all that kind of talk is rubbish. You can’t just go to the cupboard and grab a hit; we’ve had enough flops along the way to know that better than anybody.

(Rossi, Parfitt and Wall 2004: pp. 131–2)

Rossi’s complaint belies just how toxic some of the 1970s music critics could be when reporting on the musical worth of Status Quo. Many considered them appalling, musical pariahs barely worth the print ink, and reviews found in weekly music papers such as New Musical Express, Sounds, Melody Maker and Disc, made that very clear. Roy Hammond’s review of Status Quo’s gig at Chatham Central Hall on 9 March 1973 provides a succinct example of such and is typical of the invidious and contemptuous tone heralded by much of the music press of the time: ‘Musically Status Quo are atrocious…They bring neither originality nor inventive presentation to the rock scene. They don’t even bring proficiency’ (Sounds 17 March 1973).

They might have been momentarily offended by such cynicism, but the band never seemed to be particularly perturbed or dispirited. They relentlessly gigged their new music and the fan base grew accordingly. Importantly, the hardcore fans seemed completely uninfluenced by what the press wrote; they eagerly bought concert tickets, stood in long queues through all weathers to be sure of a good view, bought the band’s records despite little or no airplay and, eventually, sent the band to number one in the album charts—the first of many. Keep calm and carry on rocking became their mantra as the Quo machine bulldozed and crushed every bad review into insignificance. It seems, then, that the pariahs were really budding protagonists.

So, the churlish asseverations of the critics had no impact on the fans of the 1970s and neither have they had any impact on the fans of subsequent decades. Where they have scored, however, is in making a lasting impression on everyone else. Even to this day, any mention of Status Quo outside of the fan base seems to inevitably invoke ridicule—anything from simple mockery right through to unremitting salvos of denigration. Time then, to undertake an objective assessment of Status Quo’s actual musical proficiency; one where the critics’ subjective judgements and the general public’s misguided and patronising misconceptions give way to a fair and rigorous analysis of the band’s early rock albums to offer an informed, accurate and true evaluation of their musical accomplishments.

A detailed evaluation of those early recordings must also be accompanied by a study of the context in which they evolved. In this respect, the band’s origins as a rock ‘n’ roll covers band, their subsequent dalliance with psychedelic pop and their conquering of the UK gigging circuit each played a vital role in influencing their development as composers and recording artists. The band’s ontogenesis as a live touring act was particularly crucial to the emergence of their style during the early 1970s. That phenomenon was evidenced in an interview with Alan Lancaster in the late 1970s when he said: ‘The concerts affect everything we do. The albums grew out of the live performances…Without the concerts there wouldn’t be a band—it stretches out into everything else you do, the way you work in the studio, whatever’ (Shearlaw 1979: p. 115).

This chapter, then, is all about Status Quo getting established—their subjugation of the UK gigging circuit, apprenticeship as composers, their phenomenal dogged determination and their unique adoption of 12-bar/twelve-bar conventions and techniques. The chapter title, Quo Vadis (a Latin phrase roughly translating as where are you going?),³ is meant to reflect that the same sense of discovery as the chapter retraces the formative steps of the band as they set out on a journey that would see them profoundly influence the landscape of British rock music as it emerged during the 1970s.

In 1968, the Status Quo⁴ released their first album, Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo (abbreviated to Matchstickable Messages for the rest of the chapter). The band had been in existence for six years and consisted at that time of Francis (then known as Mike) Rossi on guitar and vocals, Rick Parfitt (then known as Richie Harrison) on guitar and vocals, Alan Lancaster on bass and vocals, Roy Lynes on keyboards and John Coghlan on drums. Released on Pye and produced by easy listening impresario John Schroeder, Matchstickable Messages is generally recognised to be an example of psychedelic music, so I examined the musical elements of that recording to establish how accurate that assessment might be. I was also interested to find out what bearing the writing and recording of that album may have had on the band’s development as composers and musicians. Therefore, I have drawn on a number of key works by established authors to use as a yardstick in my assessments. Such works include summative accounts such as those provided by Shuker (2002) and Borthwick and Moy (2004), collections of essays that explore the contribution of key bands in the establishment of the genre, for example, Reising (2002, 2005) and Everett (1999), detailed pieces that are presented within a wider historic account of rock, for example, Covach (2009) and works that explore psychedelia and its effects as a single topic, for example, Whiteley (1992), Kleps (1975) and Hicks (1999). It is not my intention to add to, or review that debate but rather to extract and summarise some of the key points in order to relate it to the discussion in hand.

All the above works concur in suggesting that psychedelic music began as a musical and phenomenological expression of an acid trip (or a similar drug-induced hallucinogenic experience) achieved by the peculiar use of specific instruments, techniques and effects to simulate the kind of out-of-body and mind-altering effects induced by those hallucinogens. Although the list of such techniques and devices in a general sense is broad, the following analysis only considers instruments, effects and techniques pertinent to this discussion. A more detailed analysis may be found within the established academic works noted above.

Two similar but important effects used in psychedelic music are the modulation devices phase and flange. Whereas Moylan (2002) has provided a detailed exposition behind the mechanics of signal processing, others have provided more specific discussions on the use of phase and flange in the context of psychedelia. Everett, for example, has highlighted the importance of the Beatles in establishing the use of such effects in the expression of psychedelic colour, noting that ‘the Beatles’ most original colours come from their mid-period studio experimentations with various pedals and distortion effects [including] heavy phasing and filtering’ (1999: p. 147). Zak, too, has noted the importance of the Beatles in establishing the ‘timbral extensions of phase and flange during the Beatles’ psychedelic period’ (2001: p. 72). Phase has an other-worldly, swirling effect, and Flange has an undulating, whooshing effect. These effects are clearly exemplified on the album’s lead single ‘Pictures of Matchstick Men’. Both effects can either be added in the studio, as part of the recording process, or at source via a small effects pedal. Rick Parfitt, in the film documentary Hello Quo (2012), recalls with joyful glee the studio engineers adding those effects to ‘Pictures of Matchstick Men’ by ‘turning a big wheel’.

Put simply, modulation devices such as phase and flange split an input signal (from a microphone or instrument) and alter one or more versions of that signal to produce numerous possible configurations of out-of-sync and altered states of harmonic normality. The altered state of harmonic normality produced by phase and flange connote with the hallucinogenic trip in psychedelic music and this is abundantly evident on Matchstickable Messages, where those effects contribute to the overall psychedelic-pop identity of the music. The use of a wah wah pedal combined with these effects further strengthens the psychedelic styling of the album.

Also of significance to the psychedelic styling of the album is the very specific use of an instrument called the combo organ. The combo organ is a portable transistor organ designed in the early 1960s, and various companies made them—two of the most popular models being the Farfisa Compact and the Vox Continental.⁵ Roy Lynes made effective use of the Vox Continental to strengthen the psychedelic elements of Matchstickable Messages when he conflated those reedy and distinct organ sounds with other psychedelic effects such as phase and flange. In this respect, Status Quo seem to be drawing on the work of early Pink Floyd on recordings such as ‘See Emily Play’, ‘Arnold Layne’ and The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (all 1967), where Richard Wright’s contextualised use of the Farfisa Compact Duo appears as a key element in the seminal formation of psychedelic styling.

A further important element of psychedelic styling is found in the deployment of reverberated double-tracking of the vocals. Double-tracking, according to Zak (2001: p. 85), is an important textural element in the production of popular music recording. It is a common technique and used in a variety of ways for a variety of purposes. It involves recording an initial take of a vocal or instrumental track and then recording a second, live, take over the top. Essentially, it is like two people singing or playing at the same time but, in fact, it is the same person delivering both lines. In the context of psychedelic music, and that includes Matchstickable Messages, this technique is used to produce a distant and disconnected out-of-body feel, which has clear parallels with its hallucinogenic counterpart.

Michael Hicks, in his compelling work on psychedelic rock—Sixties Rock: Garage, Psychedelic, and Other Satisfactions (1999), claims that, for music to be stylistically psychedelic, three qualifying factors should be present, dechronicisation, de-personalisation and dynamisation—all three relating to the fundamental effects of an acid trip. Whilst the first two do not apply to the music found on Matchstickable Messages, the third one, dynamisation, which is partially to do with the treatment of key and harmony, does. I have referenced all three aspects, however, because I wish to refer back to this concept in Chapter 2 where all three become relevant to the discussion of Status Quo’s later work.

Key changes frequently occur within pop songs but normally follow rules to make the transition from one key to another either smooth and unnoticed, or, as an excitement builder at the climatic end of a song. By dynamising the harmony, performers and composers of psychedelic music were able to ignore those conventional rules and freely create unusual and unexpected forms of harmony, texture and structuring. As such, the music attempts to mimic the mind-altering effects of acid, where the perception of shapes and forms appear fluid, surreal and perplexing. For example, composers of psychedelic music will sometimes juxtapose seemingly incongruous elements, such as unrelated keys, themes, moods and tempos, to form the structure of a composition. Doing so can be aurally disconcerting in the context of conventional Western tonality (something that the Western mind is conditioned to expect) and, therefore, making it highly effective as a means to emphasise the absence of order and reason.

A well-known example of that technique is found in ‘A Day in the Life’ (The Beatles: 1967). The two main vocal-based themes in ‘A Day in the Life’ originated as ideas for two separate, unrelated, songs—the first one written by John Lennon, the second by Paul McCartney. Although originating as two unrelated songs, Lennon and McCartney’s growing autonomy as artists and rock auteurs in the psychedelic 1960s allowed them the freedom to use both ideas within the framework of one single song. Those very distinct and thematically unrelated sections, along with the central unfettered and discordant orchestral climax, and the quadruple grand piano chordal finale are juxtaposed to create a miscellany of musical ideas that fly in the face of traditional form and harmony. Walter Everett’s 1999 exposition of the song is enlightening and fully upholds the notion of juxtaposition:

In Cavendish Avenue, John played his verse to Paul, who offered as a bridge an independently written song fragment (p. 117)…The progression from G to E [the two key or tonal centres of the discrete sections] is ultimately non-functional, and as in ‘Being for the Benefit for Mr Kite’, neither tonal centre can claim total authority. Transcendence, the orchestral goal, is much more to the point than structural harmonic conclusion.

(ibid: pp. 119–20)

Whilst there is no such extensive drama on Matchstickable Messages, there are clear elements of dynamised harmony at work which draw on a similar concept of structural juxtaposition. For example, the Rick Parfitt song ‘When My Mind is Not Live’ is based on the juxtaposition of three very contrasting ideas, I will identify them as A, B and C to aid clarity. (A) This theme is used for both the chorus and intro (albeit with some subtle variance). It features a tense chromatic musical figure that alternately descends and ascends through a-a♭-g the bass line of the intro variant of this theme also has a clear diminished harmony feel to it which further enhances the tension. (B) This acts as the verse theme and features bright, major-chord harmony, but has an ambiguous tonal centre due to the two pairs of oscillating chords (E–D and A–G) to create a sense of floating or drifting. (C) This tertiary theme is centred briefly on a D minor chord and moving bass lines to bring a further element of striking contrast.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Quo Vadis
• 2 A new recipe for Pye
• 3 Modus Vetus
• 4 Rockin’ All Over the Swirls
• 5 Praegressus Quo
• 6 Softer ride or a softer side?
• 7 The Q Factor
• Bibliography
• Discography
• Index