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June 13, 2007
Retrohump Day: Dada with Juice
Scots indie pop pioneers Orange Juice have been covered twice by this column already. If this footage wasn't of one of their best songs, or if it didn't have such a head scratching backstory, or if it weren't so dang goofy, I might have been content to leave well enough alone. But here we are...
Orange Juice - "Simply Thrilled Honey"
(Dada With Juice, UK Channel 5, 1985)
This clip is taken from a 1985 Channel 5 special (from their Mirror Image concert series) and subsequent Polydor video release, called Dada With Juice. Though the title suggests madcap weirdness, it was actually a pretty straightforward concert film of the band's performing at the famous Hammersmith Palais. Occasionally, as with "Simply Thrilled Honey," an amateurish music video would accompany live footage. While seeing Edwyn Collins done up in Laverne and Shirley garb is slightly jarring and it does seem odd that food packaging employees would be so chipper, the idea to set an Orange Juice song in an orange juice factory is hardly the work of a master surrealist.
What's weirdest about this thing is that it exists at all. By 1985, Orange Juice was considered a complete failure in the eyes of Polydor. Their sublime 1982 album, You Can't Hide Your Love Forever, failed to make a dent in the charts. Its funkified successor, Rip it Up, despite its top ten Motown homage "I Can't Help Myself," wasn't much more successful. 1984's the Orange Juice , was a complete failure commercially and artistically. So much so that the label would eventually drop the band and retain the services of only their drummer, Zeke Manyika (which is never a good idea, see: Phil Collins). So why put out a costly video production for a band who they couldn't stand and didn't want? That mystery is our gain. The band wasn't quite as sharp in these late days, but this gem of a song is hard to mangle.
Of course, the soft disco Dada version can't match the windswept romance of this recording, one of the legendary Postcard label's very best...
Orange Juice - "Simply Thrilled Honey"
Posted by Jeff Klingman at June 13, 2007 04:40 PM
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Comments
Jeff, It may not surprise you that I not only own the Zeke Manyika solo LP, but also the maxi-single for "Bible Belt," his anti-apartheid song which is actually quite chilling. Come over some time and I'll play it for ya. Trivia question; is Manyika the only Zeke in rock?
Posted by: david at June 13, 2007 04:49 PM
So his LP is actually good then? I always though they went downhill once he joined. Have you heard "the Glasgow School," the compilation of the Juice's early singles and scrapped first album? That's the stuff...
Posted by: Jeff K at June 13, 2007 05:05 PM
I'm not saying the solo Zeke LP was GOOD, exactly, but the single was. Haven't heard the Glasgow School, but somehow I suspect I might, and soon...
Posted by: david at June 14, 2007 08:57 AM
i think they're trying to do a whichever motown girl group it was in the car factory pastiche for the five people who remember the car one...
class stuff.
you might like the orange juice bbc session tracks available over at dusty7s
x
Posted by: ally at June 15, 2007 05:41 AM
