The Hit Parade  
THE HIT PARADE

The Hit Parade by Cath Carroll

To give a thorough accounting of the Hit Parade would involve delving deep into the heart of England, into the nooks and crannies of Gerard's Cross and off on a trail of heartache and longing, through the blithe lawns of the Home Counties and then off into the swinging heart of West London. It would also involve me getting a proper discography and group member-ography from JULIAN HENRY, the man behind the music. Which I will.

It is Spring 2003, ten years since last I played with the Merrie Gang of Hit Paraders. Every month I get a new email from a new person looking for Julian and Hit Parade information ( hello, Alberto from Mexico, I hope you haven't given up on those song lyrics), so here's a place to start.

I met Julian in 1985 when when our day jobs caused us to collide. I was freelancing at the NME and he was doing press at Magnet Records- we drove to Colchester to see one of his bands. Along the way we discovered we felt the same way about a lot of music. And the bits we didn't agree on, that was OK, cos he was so serious about liking The Jam. We had a friend in common, the much-missed Philip Hall who left this earth in 1993. It was Philip who brought Julian to Stiff Records to release the Hit Parade single 'See You In Havana', written by Julian and sung by me, which was my first contribution to a Hit Parade song. It was not the Hit Parade's first single, so more about that at some later time. His first singles came out on his own label, JSH Records and he later went on to release songs through Heavenly Records.

From The Independent Catalogue (UK), January 1994 issue.

It's the sound of the Home Counties, Monkees-style...The Hit Parade has a second album out (‘The Sound of The Hit Parade’), a Japan-only release on the Polystar label . We are gathered together from our other lives for ye annual trip to Japan; Julian Henry, Mr. Hit Parade, writer of the songs; Harvey Williams of Blue Boy; Raymond Watts of the very un-Hit Parade, and often naked, Pig; his brother Mike Watts and, laying down the big beat, Matt Moffat, drummer, lighting director and pal to the world. Oh and me, the Paul Rutherford impersonator.

At Narita Airport we are met by the secret King of Tokyo, Mr. Yoshi Hoshina, together with Toshi from the Smash agency. Together with Kaz Miyayama from Polystar Records, these gents will go on to map uncharted zones in the realms of patience and tolerance whilst shuttling us around their fair nation.

Our first surprise, another plane trip, to Osaka. Here we were met by two more sweethearts, Nobuko and Chie, who are friends of Watts Major. Lord knows how they knew we were there. This happened a lot. We would be met in places we didn't even know we were at by smiling young strangers who knew us better than we did ourselves. Kaz joined us in Osaka, a smiling man of few words with the look of a young John Belushi about him. This Belushi thing became increasingly disconcerting as time went on. We stay in Shinsaibashi's American Village area where we are THE ONLY PEOPLE OVER THE AGE OF 21. Until, that is, we spot fellow Anglos and all-round Glam Goths, Dogs D'Amour. Hello, Dogs!

We perform unplugged at Tower Records where Osaka's beauteous youth listen soberly. Someone organises a rowdy tickets contest in the form of a boisterous game of Stone ,Scissors, Paper. Next, Yoshi takes us to a reggae club to witness Tokyo's Rankin' Taxi. Over the PA, someone with a Ladbroke Grove twang is shouting in Japanese at local boys in wrap-around sunglasses. It's back to the hotel. If the hotel rooms had windows, we'd've seen the moony glow of the sentry-like vending machines guarding the Osaka street corners, offering beer and Carpenters CDs to anyone with the right change.

Next Day- Bullet Train!! Also, we are introduced to the Olympic sport of Dashing For Trains With Gear. Cue, lots of wheezing from us Hit Paraders. We arrive at Nagoya and repair to the hotel for naps. Julian awakes to find Matt has let some awestruck giggling HP fans into their room. I awake to find someone has let a disagreeable biting insect into mine.

Last night at Club Quattro, Winger packed 'em in, tonight, it's us. We are told that key members of the band Flipper's Guitar, trend-setting former cuties, have proclaimed that the Cutie Scene is dead and Tuff is in. We shudder fearfully, "Are Hit Parade 'Cutie'?" we quaver to each other. Oh well, consolation comes our way in the form of some gurlies who fete the boys with chocolates and whacking great genetically engineered apples. Raymond generously shares his Nuts on Parade bar with me and it makes us both feel pretty tuff.

Morning! The cuisine of Japan has a special charm but it does leave you feeling, after a few days of sea urchin and such, like you've chewed a leg off Brighton Pier. Who knew Neptune's pantry had so many things in it? And they're all being served for breakfast. Before we run for the train, we run to a McDonald's, feeling sheepish, ungrateful and strangely desperate. At the station, an elderly porter comes to help us. He will be our pace setter in the Running With Gear 1000 metres. He straps an entire back line over his shoulders and runs upstairs. We bring up the rear with the guitar strings and our toothbrushes, knowing we should have eaten more of those sea urchins. Our gear goes back to Osaka and we take a detour to the ancient capital, Kyoto.

This is the best place ever, lots of low hanging telegraph wires and enigmatic Japanese homesteads. We tromp around some temples, suitably chastened by the loveliness. Raymond has an existential crisis in the Zen Rock Garden and announces he's going to die. We see our first westerners since Dogs D'Amour (Germans).

We also see some elderly gents parading around with placards. We are told they are vagrants, which wasn’t immediately apparent to us. What about the placards? "For a sex shop", explains Yoshi, evenly. On several occasions, Matt and Raymond are mobbed by schoolgirls. The gurls throng around them, making two-fingered peace signs and sticking their thumbs in the air- so much to answer for, Mr. McCartney. We are lead up a steep hill for some tea and the streets are suddenly filled with geisha girls in full make-up and costume, all of whom seem to know Matt.

Osaka: Julian has written a song on the bullet train using his porta-sequencer. “It’s called 'Osaka Girl’," Julian explains with his very special blend of twenty different strains of self-deprecation. Heady with spontaneity, we perform it that night. Later in a cafe, Matt cheerily engages the owners in a long conversation. "I've got a dog. I don't speak a word of Japanese" The owners speak plenty of Japanese in response and they all rattle away together in this Esperanto of the soul. Later at the hotel, Chie and Nobuko stop by to give us a party, the refreshments being smoked cuttlefish and self-combusting cans of sake. They give us things and we don't want to go home.

Finally, to Tokyo: We meet Ricky from Polystar, a fluently American Japanese fella, and our American interpreter, Brian. Another Kaz, this one from Crossbeat magazine, cruelly tries to make us reconcile the sound of the Hit Parade with that of Raymond's Pig. Then the lads are hauled off for some TV and radio and I get to stroll through Tokyo in the rain. Who could want more?. I happen upon a Kensington-ish residential area of green, bonsai silence. It is hard to imagine anyone moving inside the homes, they must be lying low, steeped in sake steam and octopus juice. The only sound comes from some carrion crows. The only other humans abroad that day are three phone engineers waist deep in a side street. In the rain, Tokyo smells of London, and its parks have that same stale duck food smell.

Back at the hotel, I make the mistake of listening to the US Army radio station. It's a phone poll. The question, delivered with hearty, stentorian clarity, "How LONG do YOU expect to LIVE?" Thank you, Pacific Stars and Stripes.

We 'do' several more performances, and suddenly, we are in a restaurant again. Kaz M's wallet is smoking. A lot of the people who had colds are starting to feel better and someone demands we all exchange exotic holiday anecdotes. Of course that someone goes first, with a story involving Thailand, a teaspoon, an oriental hallucinogen and, consequently, haemorrhoids. His recital climaxes with a gruesome reenactment of a scene previously presented to a group of concerned Thai pharmacists. Harvey was deeply pained by the vulgarity. He would have us believe he is a young man of delicate sensibilities. However, we had seem him after shows, surrounded by Blue Boy fans, murmuring, “Yes, I do work at the BBC, actually" whilst holding some of those mutant apples.

It's raining like a bastard out there and we only have three umbrellas, so Yoshi Kubota, Pig's record company man in Japan, does a selfless mercy dash through the sheets of water and comes back with more- enough for us, but still none for him. He waves off all offers of sharing lest we get wet.

Kaz and Yoshi H. remain gracious to the end, even during Matt and Raymond's beer and eggs eating competition. We are later shepherded to the London Underground club. Tonight's host, our pal Kaz from Crossbeat. Julian organises an impromptu records give-away. People swarm and accidentally suffocate Raymond who had been ‘mellowing out ' on the floor by the DJ booth. Later, Julian claims, Raymond (6'5" tall) accidentally slid out of the window of a taxi cab at a stop light. You know it's time to go home when that happens.

So it was back to Narita airport with the delightful Toshi, who graciously hid his relief in finally giving us the farewell boot. But soft! We spy alien gig gear next to ours in the baggage check. Which venerable rock geezers will share our flight back to fair Londinium? Sweet Mother Mary...it's Brian May! And he's wearing the same white clogs he wore back in '74! This is too excellent. We see his leonine-maned entourage in the galley during the flight, amongst them, the godlike Cozy Powell. Yep, the Brian May group. You'll always find them in the kitchen on long flights, as Jonah Lewie would say, if he knew. -Cath

DISCOGRAPHY SO FAR

The following discs came out in Japan. Here's what's what:

With Love From...THE HIT PARADE 1990
19 fabulous early HP stuff, including the early singles. Julian was never afraid to be English. He loved pop music and it was to pop music that he offered up his broken heart. We'd rehearse in an old fashioned piano and voice rehearsal room near Harley Street. It was dusty and leathery and populated by theatrical types from the 1930s, and it was so very Julian and such a wonderful break from the gaudy glare of the 1980s. Yes, that's me singing on some of these.

Light Music (1992)
This followed Julian's first jaunt to Japan where he managed to find, yes, heartache. Hit Paraders here are (on bass) childhood pal Raymond 'Nains' Watts and drummer, Matt Moffatt.

Absolutely Fantastic (1992)
A four song EP from the Light Music album with my favourite being track 6, 'Explanation of Songs', which is Julian doing just that. Also includes a radio ID in case you want to pretend Julian is the guest of your personal show.

The Sound of The Hit Parade (1993)
12 more songs , recorded in London in 1993. Same band as before with the addition of Harvey Williams on other guitars and Raymond's brother Mike on piano. Oh, and me, yes, they let me in the studio to warble. Contains several of my HP faves, 'Hello, Hannah, Hello', 'Farewell My Lido' and 'So This Is London'. Glorious songs.

Sixteen Weeks (1993)

A 5 song mini album detailing some more of Julian's heartache. We went over the Raymond's flat on some blustery November nights to record it. It features another song about Christmas, Julian really liked writing songs with the word Christmas in them and I am sorry that I gave you such a hard time about this, JJ, if you're reading this. It also features a song we wrote together, "The Dispossessed' and my fave song on here, 'Autobiography'. The album tells the story of sixteen weeks in the life of the Hit Parade, from Christmas Eve, through the holidays, back to work, and on a weekend away by the seaside. Hit Paraders are as listed on The Sound of the Hit Parade. Julian was kind enough to take me to one of the locations which inspired the album, an absolute classic English seaside hotel near the white cliffs of Dover. It was the sort of place where eccentric colonels live out their last days. The lounge bar was gloriously stuck in some Sixties maritime motif and the owner had a decrepit poodle which poohed all over the rather posh carpet, and we were sternly told to take the poodle's welfare into account whilst negotiating the hall and stairways. It was the MOST wonderful place, surely a dream, a mirage of antique gentility. And until next time, that's where we'll leave it.

© 2004 Superclammy, Ltd. Publishing

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