Rowing Rollers wreck reunion
Plans for a Bay City Rollers reunion have been scrapped, because the band can't stop slagging each other.
Record moguls wanted the former tartan teen idols to reform so they could plug an album of their greatest 70's hits - including Shang a lang and Bye Bye Baby. But a spokesman for Arista Records, who released the "Absolute Rollers" collection yesterday, admittetd: "It would have been a nightmare to get them all together". He added:"Three of the original Rollers seem to be close, but they have fallen out with a rival version of the band. Former lead singer Les McKeown was originally involved in the album release, but we soon decided against involving any of the band".
The Edinburgh heart-throbs split in 1978 after bitter rows over music and money. And they've been squabbling ever since - mostly over who's got the right to the Rollers name. Les McKeown now fronts Les McKeown's 70s Bay City Rollers. And lead guitarist Eric Faulkner tours with the offical Bay City Rollers., with fellow originals Stuart "Woody" Wood and Alan Longmuir.
Arista wanted to release the album and a megamix single of four tracks, backed by a major TV advertising campaign, back in May. But the single and ads were scrapped, and the launch date put back to September. However, they're still confident the album will bring a bit of Rollermania back to pop. The spokesman added: "I think an album with every Bay City Rollers hit on it will do very well. After all, they were the Take That of their day. There have been several collections of Rollers songs before, but none of them have had all the greatest hits on the same album. Can you imagine a best of the Rollers without "Bye Bye Baby""?
"Absolute Rollers" is part of a series of Arista collections released yesterday for sale at pounds 8.99 . It also includes albums by M People and Lisa Stansfield.