TV Cream

Singles

‘I Am The Beat’ by The Look


TAILOR-MADE three-button side-vent sharkskin ‘Mod Revival’ anthem with added Cheggers Plays Pop friendliness for those blokes who wore long green coats to school to do that neck-jerking staring-eyed ‘dance’ to. Ambitious lyrical conceit had something to do with being the anthropomorphic embodient of the concept of ‘beat’, how this made one in ‘demond’, and using your rhythmic capabilities to entertain martians, cause complete mental collapse in teenage girls, convince mariners to commit acquatic suicide, and raise the dead – all of it sung about with a Phil Daniels Meets Grange Hill – They Early Years vocal braggadocio that suggested the above were somehow considered very much a Good Thing. The Look didn’t stick around much longer, unlike this single itself, which concluded with one of those ‘permanent grooves’ which went on and on repeating ‘BEAT! BEAT! BEAT! BEAT!’ to increasing amounts of surface noise.

11 Comments

11 Comments

  1. Arthur Nibble

    September 25, 2009 at 1:18 pm

    Phil Daniels? Surely more like Anthony Newley,

  2. Dave Nightingale

    September 25, 2009 at 8:59 pm

    “I’m in de-marn-d….I am the Beat”.Mind you,how many times does Gene Krupa ever get a namecheck on a record?

    Last heard on the 80’s night on KCFM with Steve Jordan…which sadly is no more….shame on you,KCFM!

  3. John Firth

    September 26, 2009 at 1:27 pm

    God…I had forgotten this song.

    It’s not that bad

  4. Rob Free

    September 26, 2009 at 6:16 pm

    Is this the same bloke who sung the “Oi!!! Scream for cream!” advert?

  5. Boojum

    September 28, 2009 at 8:16 am

    This used to get a weekly play by Radio 1 DJ “Adrian Juste” on his Saturday, “Music-n-Funnies” show.

    They had a follow up called something like “Feeding Time at the Human Zoo” which bombed, despite Adrian plugging that one too.

  6. Glenn A

    October 16, 2009 at 6:17 pm

    I’d totally forgotten this until TV Cream reminded me and brought back all the memories of the local Mod Squad, Overend School and fishtail parkas. However, the singer is a bit too long haired to be a true mod, but still a good song.

  7. Arthur Nibble

    October 19, 2009 at 4:30 pm

    Reformed after a 22-year split and released an album in 2005!

  8. Mike Reynolds

    October 20, 2009 at 11:44 pm

    I do a seventies and eighties revival show on my local station on Sundays, we played this last week. Great track.

    Will post link if allowed but don’t want to tread on toes.

  9. Arthur Nibble

    October 22, 2009 at 9:58 am

    I’m told the single was pressed with a rut in the run-off groove, so you got the last ‘beat’ repeated ad infinitum until you took the stylus off the record. Can anyone confirm this?

  10. AndyD

    April 23, 2010 at 11:10 pm

    Yes the run off on the single went on forever………..

    Believe it or not this was my fave song as a nine year old and I played the single to death.

    Yep….I love this tune.

  11. Glenn A

    April 24, 2010 at 3:33 pm

    I recall the mod revival from 1979 to 1981 well as it was the most popular youth cult locally. Local graffiti at the end of 1979 used to read, ” mod is news punk is history”, and suddenly punk had become as irrelevant and as old hat as the glam rock that preceded it. However, the eighties being the eighties fashions seemed to change at a rapid rate and a year later the smart money was on new romantics and mods locally became regarded in the same way as chavs are now, a bit socially dubious.

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