"We had the name Geezers Of Nazareth before we had the music," explains singing Geezer Barnaby Reynolds. "And the banner has absolutely no connection with the music, except that if you have a mental name you can be really mental."
He's not wrong, either. Having grown up in the largely non-rock'n'roll hinterland of Hemel Hempstead, all-over-the-shop Geezer duo Reynolds and Anthony Meehan went to school with members of Vinny Jones' family and had a cult hit with their first single "Sunglasses" several years back. For anyone who may have forgotten its' faintly annoying "Sunglasses! Coconut Oil!" refrain (a tribute to an Indian beach hawker and his catchline sales pitch), its' supremely daft stoner-pop groove closes the album, and prior to that the Geezers come on like a right pair of chancers who seem to get away with it more often than they should.
Indeed, while you couldn't make outlandish claims for "Songs On The Radio" as a classic debut album, the pair's loopy wisdom and acts of creative pilfering that would aggravate even Noel Gallagher do nonetheless bear fruit on occasion. Recent single "Gold Rush" was a niggly and catchy affair with nervy guitars and suprisingly soulful vocals from Barnaby and even made the idea of a trombone solo sound sublime.
And it's not the only contender in the pop success stakes, either. Songs like "The Geegees" and "Day In Day Out" are full of naughty cheeky chappie charm and win through in terms of tunefulness and sheer bare-faced acts of plagiarism. The former is a beefed-up, trombone-addled skank concerning two sisters obsessed with gambling at the track and features a refrain ("I got my mind on my money and my money on a horse") that's mightily similar to Snoop Doggy Dogg's "Gin & Juice". "Day In Day Out" goes one better, stealing the chorus to America's "Horse With No Name" wholesale. The cheeky buggers!
However, while you can only admire their barefaced incorporation of such source material, GON are actually probably better when they're wooing us with rather more reflective material, like on songs such as "Car Song" and "6AM". The former is a dreamy pop confection that comes on like something the later-period Squeeze might have come up with, while the expansive, slightly Eastern backdrop of "6AM" could almost fit on Dodgy's "Free Peace Sweet", but is actually nothing to run away from, weirdly enough. The slower, lilting "Coming Home", meanwhile, is superficially a little too MOR for comfort, but lyrics like "I only came over to pick up my stereo/ I came to the grim realisation all of my stuff was in the road - up in smoke!" prevent it from descending into schmaltz and the beaten'n'scarred feel of it ultimately wins you over.
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Elswehere they're not so lucky, though. From kids who went to school with Vinny Jones' gang, the idea of writing a tune called "Hard Bloke" about a tough guy coming to terms with his feminine side might sound inspired, but its' clubfooted white reggae premise is too lumpen to succeed, while the album sadly dribbles to a close with a punch-drunk KO. The ponderously interminable title track comes first and seems to meander for an age before segueing into the aforementioned "Sunglasses" which leaves too much of a tang of novelty to convince after more than several plays.
Still, for all its' blotches, "Songs On The Radio" isn't a bad effort at all and has more than enough quirks and catchiness to ensure it's in contention of sorts. The Geezers Of Nazareth are hardly worthy of a Road to Damascus conversion job as yet, but they certainly don't deserve flogging and crucifixion either. Hold off accepting those thirty pieces of silver for a while yet.
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