For my sins I'm both Scottish and was 13 going on 14 when the Rollers became the big teen sensation in Britain, later America of course, which makes me apart from not being female, about as receptive as you could be to them at the time. The group's time at the top wasn't long but it was certainly memorable, remember that no other teen-oriented group here had conquered America since the Beatles in 1964. If you think of groups like say The Herd, Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick and Tich, fellow Scots The Marmalade and glam-rockers like T Rex it shows how hard a market America was to break. Nowadays we can see the massive success of One Direction and before that the likes of Wham and Duran Duran but for five young tartan-bedecked lads from Edinburgh barely able to sing together or play their instruments, they must have been heady times.
This Scottish Television production does well to track down most of the major players in the tale, with only Eric Faulkner absent from the group's most familiar line-up to give his version of events today and of course their now-deceased Svengali-type manager Tam (Where's the Money?) Paton later disgraced in a child-abuse scandal. I enjoyed the interviews with the group's hit-making songwriting and production teams Martin and Coulter, followed by Phil Wainman while media-watchers and sometime original participants in their story, from both sides of the Atlantic, most notably Rolling Stone photographer Bob Gruen, try to talk up the Rollers musical legacy (good luck with that) but are better when giving anecdotes of the group at the height of their success.
The four group members themselves make for affable witnesses to their own past success, although you'd hardly say they've aged well in appearance but it was obvious that the producers were playing it safe, with no references to Derek Longmuir's criminal conviction for offences similar to Paton's, no real explanations as to why the band turned over so many group members in a short period of time and last but not least, how Paton swindled them out of the millions their records and merchandising must have made.
Still I guess the aim here was for a loving, light-hearted look back at the dark days of the high inflation, oil-crisis, dole queue infested mid 70's when the Rollers provided some short-lived light relief and helped open up the pre-teen market for succeeding generations of pretty boy and girl bands to part their followers from their pocket money. The songs were catchy and fun, no more than that, although it's amusing to hear BBC pundit Stewart Cosgrove and song-writer Bill Martin try to elevate them beyond their station. I mean how can you defend a line like "Shimmy Shammy Shom, we used to singalong", although I can't deny that even I can't resist punching the air to the chorus of 'Shang-a-Lang!" when the mood takes me.
Fun, disposable and ultimately forgettable (none of the group managed any degree of solo success), I still enjoyed wallowing in nostalgia with The Rollers although I doubt very much if kids today would understand their success. T'was ever thus.
This Scottish Television production does well to track down most of the major players in the tale, with only Eric Faulkner absent from the group's most familiar line-up to give his version of events today and of course their now-deceased Svengali-type manager Tam (Where's the Money?) Paton later disgraced in a child-abuse scandal. I enjoyed the interviews with the group's hit-making songwriting and production teams Martin and Coulter, followed by Phil Wainman while media-watchers and sometime original participants in their story, from both sides of the Atlantic, most notably Rolling Stone photographer Bob Gruen, try to talk up the Rollers musical legacy (good luck with that) but are better when giving anecdotes of the group at the height of their success.
The four group members themselves make for affable witnesses to their own past success, although you'd hardly say they've aged well in appearance but it was obvious that the producers were playing it safe, with no references to Derek Longmuir's criminal conviction for offences similar to Paton's, no real explanations as to why the band turned over so many group members in a short period of time and last but not least, how Paton swindled them out of the millions their records and merchandising must have made.
Still I guess the aim here was for a loving, light-hearted look back at the dark days of the high inflation, oil-crisis, dole queue infested mid 70's when the Rollers provided some short-lived light relief and helped open up the pre-teen market for succeeding generations of pretty boy and girl bands to part their followers from their pocket money. The songs were catchy and fun, no more than that, although it's amusing to hear BBC pundit Stewart Cosgrove and song-writer Bill Martin try to elevate them beyond their station. I mean how can you defend a line like "Shimmy Shammy Shom, we used to singalong", although I can't deny that even I can't resist punching the air to the chorus of 'Shang-a-Lang!" when the mood takes me.
Fun, disposable and ultimately forgettable (none of the group managed any degree of solo success), I still enjoyed wallowing in nostalgia with The Rollers although I doubt very much if kids today would understand their success. T'was ever thus.
