12 Aug '07 - 426 W, 1 I - + 2 - 5 Sal Solo, Classix Nouveaux and me...
Classix Nouveaux are one of the great ‘forgotten’ New Romantic bands. When I say ‘forgotten’, I don’t mean to be rude. But it’s a simple fact that, these days, many people who could name all the hits of Duran Duran and come up with half a dozen of Boy George’s most memorable quotes, haven’t even heard of Classix Nouveaux...
To be honest, even back in their heyday, they never really hit the really big ‘Big Time’. In fact they never even had a top ten record. The closest they came was number 11 with ‘Is It A Dream?’ in 1982. I just checked that in my dog-eared old copy of The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles – and I must say, it surprised me. I felt sure they’d had a top five hit at some time. In fact, ‘Is It A Dream’ was their only Top 20 hit ever. Even their great 1981 single, ‘Guilty’ only made it to 43.
The funny thing is, in spite of being relatively minor celebrities, Classix were regulars in the teen magazines in the UK. Well, they looked so darn’ great in photos. And, what’s more Sal Solo was a pleasure to work with. Unlike some stars of the period, he didn’t take himself seriously. In one issue of Flexipop!, for example, he played Lex Luther in a photo story while Buster Bloodvessel played Superman! (I still have a copy of that somewhere. I really must put it online one day).
The photo at the top of this article, by the way, is one that I took to illustrate an interview I did with him for ‘Jackie’ magazine. The theme of the interview was ‘My Hobby’ and Sal (bless him) claimed that his hobby was psychiatry...! Incidentally, in case you are wondering why he’s covering up his famous bald head, apparently (or so he told me) it was because he had a cut on it after hitting his bonce on the chimney. No, I’ve no idea what his head was doing that close to the chimney – he wasn’t saying... (you can get a full-size version of that pic for your Windows desktop on the Dark Neon Back To The '80s Site).
Anyway, as a reminder of what a great band Classix were and what a wonderful frontman Sal was, here is a tasty clip of one of their songs that really should have been a big hit but wasn’t - Guilty...
