Baroque Hoedown

tracks on LP: With A Cantaloupe Girlfriend | I Go Wild | Marjorie Tells Me | Feel A Whole Lot Better | Sorry | In Love In Too | Lucifer Sam | As Real As Real

Record label: Lolita 5003

Released: 1983
Purchased: 04/02/84

Cute? I guess it’s kinda cute that Three 0’Clock can do a version of “Lucifer Sam” and then bring on Gene Clark for a singalong acid-pop encore. The trouble is, it’s like all the revivals in England: if you can’t inject something new, if you can’t remodel, leave well alone. Every revival needs a maverick or a fanatic. a Dammers or a Rowland. LA’s are asleep. As usual.

Three 0’Clock are kiddie psychedelics, Herman’s Hermits play Sid Barrett Golden Hour. If singer Michael Quercio is a teen idol in embryo, his present confection is twee to the point of being arch.

Produced at the ‘Psychedelic Shack’ by ex-Spark Earl Mankey – the mixing desk behind such power pop milestones as 20/20’s “Yellow Pills”, The Pop’s “Waiting For The Night” and the Paley Brothers’ “Lovin’ Eyes Can’t Lie” – Three 0’Clock’s backbeat won’t lose you but it won’t seduce you either.

If Quercio really wants the world to be seen through his paisley-coloured spectacles, he’ll have to push harder than the Easybeats’ “Sorry” or “With A Cantaloupe Girlfriend”. How about The Cyrkle’s “Turn Down Day”? Or indeed “Lucifer Sam”? (NME, 02/07/83)