Lessons In Level 42
Before I knew anything about Level 42, I remember catching the video of their number 6 single Running In The Family . “I bet he can’t even play that pink bass”, I remarked to my brother as a naive 15 year old. Mark King’s white Levis, alongside the infectious sax and synth riff, irritated me. I cast them aside as a popular but unimportant pop band and continued to listen to Deep Purple, Whitesnake and Bruce Springsteen. Mark King on the Running In The Family Video A simultaneous TV and radio broadcast of their 1986 Wembley Arena show changed everything. Their perfectly crafted songs sounded far more exciting onstage with the thunderous slap bass of vocalist Mark King and the intricate keyboard lines of Mike Lindup, who looked like a call centre worker with his microphone headset. On guitar, the vastly underrated Boon, resembled a thin city banker in his grey trenchcoat, and on drums, his brother Phil Gould, in Hawaiian shirt and round black shades. During the Stevie Wonder influen...