One little kiss isn't anything

Artist: The Mock Turtles
Title: Can You Dig It?
Year: 1991
Chart peak: 18

There's long been something a little bit special in the air in Manchester. It's usually been something illegal, mind, but whatever it was at any given time, it's made the city one of the great centres of popular music in Britain, and indeed the world. And especially so during the golden years c.1989-92, when Manchester became Madchester, everybody was freaky dancing and getting a little bit baggy.

How the Mock Turtles fit into this is a moot point, because despite hailing from Manchester their musical bag wasn't so much the good-time style espoused by the likes of Happy Mondays, but a more thoughtful sort of approach. Perhaps they should have been Liverpudlians instead. But they weren't.

Frontman Martin Coogan comes from a talented family - his brothers are comedian Steve and TV presenter Brendan. Coogan's first taste of musical success came in 1985 when when his earlier band, Judge Happiness, won a Salford University talent contest, and got to cut a single called "Hey Judge". Judge Happiness evolved into the Mock Turtles, with Coogan joined by Andrew Stewardson (bass), Martin Glyn Murray (guitar), Joanne Gent (keyboards) and Steve Cowen (drums).

The group cut several singles and an album for Imaginary Records, also contributing to the label's tribute albums to the Kinks ("Big Sky"), the Byrds ("Why"), elvet Underground ("Pale Blue Eyes"), Captain Beefheart ("Big Eyed Beans From Venus") and Syd Barrett ("No Good Trying"). By 1990, they were getting a good deal of attention from the music press, and their single "Lay Me Down" saw them taking on some of the mannerisms of the Madchester scene (shuffle, shuffle), to great effect. On the flipside was a song called "Can You Dig It?". Written in half an hour (while Coogan was supposed to be hosting a dinner party!), it was purpose-made filler, but even in its rough form, it sounded like hit material. Both sides featured on the group's debut LP, "Turtle Soup".

At this point, fate intervened, in the shape of a Siren Records executive with a chequebook. The Manchester scene, they had belatedly noticed, was quite hot at the time, and the Mock Turtles seemed like a good bet. The Mock Turtles signed up and for their major-label debut made a much slicker reworking of "Can You Dig It?". Bingo!

Unfortunately, as the Madchester scene faded, so did Siren's interest in the band. An album of catchy melodic guitar pop, "Two Sides", emerged in 1991, but was hardly promoted and died a death. The group went their separate ways, got proper jobs... you know, all that boring malarkey. A partial reformation occured in 1995 when Coogan, Stewardson and Gent formed Ugli. In 1999, Martin Glyn Murray joined and Ugli turned back into The Mock Turtles.

And then in 2002, fate intervened in the shape of an advertising executive with a chequebook. "Can You Dig It?" was used in a TV advertising campaign for Vodaphone and enjoyed a new lease of life, returning to the top 20 and leading to the release of a "best of" CD containing not1not2not3not4not5not6not7but 8 (that's eight) new songs. That's almost a whole new album's worth. They've been silent ever since but there's been no official split, so who knows? There could be more Mock Turtle activity still to come. Can you dig it? Oh yeah.