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Fact #125358

When:

Short story:

Hippychick by Soho enters the UK singles chart for the first time. It will peak at 67 but, on re-release eight months later, will reach the Top 10 in the UK and USA.

Full article:

WHATEVER BECAME OF SOHO?
(Interviews by Johnny Black November 2000, for Q magazine)

Pauline Cuff (vocals, Soho) : We got together quite by chance.

Tim London (instruments/songwriter, Soho) : I’d first seen them dancing together at the Camden Palace in 1982 at Gary Crowley's birthday bash, then I met them later at a gig in St. Albans where they were singing the Was Not Was song, Tell Me Am I Dreaming, with another band.

Pauline Cuff : Me and Jacqui were on stage and Tim and his band saw us and wanted us to be backing singers.

Jacqui Cuff (vocals, Soho) : That’s putting it nicely. They were interested in our bodies. We couldn’t sing.

Tim London : Yeah, they were useless singers.

Jacqui Cuff : We were terrible singers. A lot of people told us that our singing was awful, but that it didn’t matter ‘cos we looked good. They thought we sang badly on purpose, sometimes, to add drama.

Tm London : The first group we got together was called Groovelax.  Our music in Groovelax was much more serious. Some of our songs were even rude, subtly rude. We’d write songs about having an orgasm. We even had a song about fake orgasms. We didn’t fake them on stage though. The audience used to do that. We just used to go, ‘Uh!’ and they would carry on.

We were ahead of our time. We were mixing indie and dance grooves. We were trying to mix James Brown and The Clash, but then so were Shack, Gang of Four and Bow Wow Wow.

Pauline Cuff : As Groovelax, we thought we were the best thing since sliced bread. We went around to record companies and they kept telling us this or that was not right. They wouldn’t come and see us because we didn’t play in London.

Tim London : We formed Soho together with Dukey D in 1986.

Pauline Cuff : We were way ahead of all these baggy bands, but people weren’t ready for it.

Jacqui Cuff : When we started, we’d played the Bull And Gate about 100 times. We even played on the bloody Circle Line and just about every other toilet which existed in London. We like playing small venues. We had such a small back-line, we could play anywhere, and we supported people from Erasure to the Gipsy Kings.

In 1987, we were set to be the next big thing. Can you imagine the disgrace of not doing it right after all that press? Everybody took us to their hearts. Everybody kept saying, ‘If they’re not big by the end of this year, I’ll eat my hat.

We always had a problem that people wanted to change us. Stock Aitken and Waterman were interested, and we gave them a tape. They really liked us, but not the group, and we wanted to stay together. You know who they signed up after us? Mel And Kim.

Timothy London (songs/instruments) :  So, by the time Hippychick was released we had been around as Soho for some time.  From 1986 we were playing the usual dives and bars that pass for venues in the UK and occasionally gigged abroad.  We mixed the latest dance beats from Hi Energy, House, proto-techno and Hip Hop with pop and punk and played the mix live in venues where you would normally hear Smiths and Wedding Present copy cats.  Needless to say we didn't see many black faces at these places.  Eventually 2 Lost Sons, Jesus Jones and Adamski would be taking different versions of dance based music out live, but initially we were on our own.

Jacqui Cuff : We were still working as psychiatric nurses until early 88, so we didn’t even take it seriously until Virgin signed us. The problem was that they didn’t trust us.

Timothy London : We signed the deal with Virgin/Hedd after turning down various offers from, amongst others, Food (typically, Balfe and Ross offered us two thousand pounds and a cup of tea) and Trevor Horn's ZTT.  Trevor Horn sat us on his huge black leather sofa and asked us: "Do you want to be Madonna?  Or do you want to be some little pop group?  If it's the former then I will sign you to my label, produce you and do all the instrumentation."  Ironically, the producer we were forced to work with on our debut LP, Noise, had even less understanding of dance music than Trevor Horn and ended up sticking his sax, Fairlight samples and vocals all over the album.  We still hate it.
Pauline Cuff : We screwed up as well. We were quite naïve. Virgin had a lot of faith in us, but all along we were given the wrong producers. We’d rather have been in control of it ourselves.

Jacqui Cuff : We did the album, we knew it was crap. I can’t listen to it. I hate it.

Pauline Cuff : From then on, the support dropped. A lot of the black media hated us from the start – they said we were too white. We were given a bubblegum, five-minute-pop-group image, and we suffered for it. Few people liked the album, The Chart Show didn’t show our videos. We tried to get them on but they refused every single one.

Timothy London : Our next album, Goddess, was produced by me and gently re-mixed by a variety of engineers and re-mixers.  As Hippychick became a hit we encountered more of the music biz's famous peculiarities and prejudices.  The Gulf War was in full flight and we were secretly warned to shut up by a Radio 1 DJ when we criticised the station's policy of not playing music that they thought evoked images of war.  Our first appearance on TOTP was almost cancelled at the last minute when we refused to remove anti-war slogans and stickers from our clothes and instruments.  As a politically aware group we had always played benefits and supported right-on causes.  But I was shocked when I tried to organise an anti-war concert and found other musicians generally supporting the war.
By the time of our next album, Thug, our record company, Savage, had decided to leave the UK and set up in the USA, leaving us without a UK record company, although we remained signed to them until our lawyers got us out.  Thug featured a radical re-working of Serge Gainsbourg's Bonny and Clyde, set in fascist Jean Marie Le Pen's France, featuring two gay lovers and re-titled Hamed and Jacques.  Also on the album was Claire's Kitchen where we named the woman that Prime Minister John Major was shagging, a good year before that story broke.  As a consequence our phones were bugged and the LP never got a UK release.

Despite disappearing record companies and several changes in management we still had a great time, with a minimum of compromise.  Thinking that record companies would be unlikely to sign us up again as Soho we swapped the letters around to call ourselves Oosh, in a crafty attempt to fool them into giving us another deal.  We recorded two LPs, Yard and Dubwise, and signed to Magnet-East West, but the release was delayed twice with no reason given.  After the second time we found a get-out clause in our contract, which they wanted to extend, and left them.  Both LPs remain unreleased.  We released an LP in Germany in 1996 as Trafalgar, called 3 Headed Doll, and that was our last release to date.

Since 1996, working out of my own basement studio in Hackney, I¹ve released several albums under the name Yossarian.  It¹s the same principle as Soho - everything from psychedelic electro via deep dub reggae to live 2 step and guitar. No Rules and DIY.

Probably more self-indulgent. The most recent release was Alley Dog in January this year.
I co-directed and wrote a feature-length film, Gordon Bennett, in 1999. I¹ve also kept busy with some production work, and with writing film and theatrical music, but Soho has not been laid to rest. One of these days we'll put out some lovely old school electro-pop with punk rock guitars. We still exist, even if we are involved in other projects.

Jacqui Cuff (vocals) : I¹d agree with Tim that we had a problem with people trying to change us. Barry White¹s manager, who was keen to sign us in America, wanted Pauline and me to be classic soul singers with long straight hair and evening gowns, but we always stuck to our punky principles - pass me the clippers! Tim and I are still partners, and we now have a daughter, Charlie, who is eight. Pauline and I also have a new project with Tim called Family B.C., which is a CSAndN meets Mantronik in the dirty Californian surf type of thing. We¹ve recorded one LP but there¹s no deal for it as yet.

Pauline Cuff (vocals) : I¹m now a fully trained aromatherapist and massage practitioner, but Jacqui and I also sing with Copenhagen, a sexy black velvet adult pop group fronted by Neil Henderson, formerly of Shoot.  Tim produced our debut LP, Tales of the Forest, which is out in November on Flowershop Records and we are touring Europe in December.