What on earth happened to JoBoxers? With impeccable punk credentials, after forming from the ashes of Subway Sect, and with the addition of frontman Dig Wayne from Columbus Ohio, when the anthemic ‘Boxerbeat‘ came out back in 1983, I loved it, with the following single ‘Just Got Lucky‘ being even better. At that point, I was convinced they were going to go on to become one of my favourite bands of all time. Then they committed commercial suicide by releasing ‘Johnny Friendly‘ as the third single from their ace debut album Like Gangbusters, which, after the giddy Motown-like highs of the aforementioned ‘Just Got Lucky‘, was a bit too much for the mainstream tastes of Joe Public.
If that seems like I’m being harsh, let me reassure you this is not a criticism. I absolutely LOVE ‘Johnny Friendly‘; it’s possibly even my favourite song by them, taking its inspiration from one of the greatest films ever made – On The Waterfront – but it definitely signalled the death knell for the band, chartwise, although weirdly, it was probably more in tune with the rest of Like Gangbusters than those two smash hits were. Much of that album was made up of the jazzy lounge pop that the likes of Bobby Darin would visit on ‘Mack The Knife‘, or songs that possess a Northern Soul kind of aura, and it’s a crying shame that people never quite grasped what they were trying to do. It’s a criminally underrated record. ‘Not My Night‘ in particular always reminded me of the early-ish Madness album tracks that were performed by either Lee or Chas, such as ‘Razor Blade Alley‘.
The most obvious single choice after ‘Just Got Lucky‘ would have been the funkier ‘She’s Got Sex‘, to my ears, and although they did release that too, the damage had been done and tragically the band sank without trace after that. Well, there was a bit more to it than that, if you read the sleeve notes, but I do think it made a difference.
Like most people, I’d never heard the band’s unreleased follow up Skin And Bone, from 1985, nor any tracks from their third record Missing Link, which suffered the same fate, until now, so it’s a fascinating release to me, the third disk of the set being a live one from London’s Phoenix Theatre at the height of their success in June 1983. It’s a vibrant, passionate performance that oozes the excitement of a band on the verge of what should have been a long and storied career.
What’s even sadder about the fact that the band never really made it past those three top forty hits, is that both Skin And Bone and, perhaps, to an even greater extent, the unfinished Missing Link, are every bit as good as Like Gangbusters was, arguably even bettering it.
The title track of Missing Link has such a fabulously intense build up by the rhythm section and, although being slightly downbeat in the same way that Robert Palmer‘s ‘Johnny And Mary‘ was, it’s just a mesmerising track. Other highlights from those two ‘lost’ include the highly danceable soul of ‘Lon Chaney Jr‘ and the amazing ‘Don’t Keep The Ladies Waiting‘ which, were it not for the label cruelly pulling the plug on Skin And Bone at the last minute, surely would have been a huge hit.
JoBoxers were a far better band than you might remember, and this three disc set proves that beyond argument.
Joboxers – Just Got Lucky, The Complete Works 1983-1986 is out now on Cherry Red.
