Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie - Career

Career

The Mackenzies began when Martin Metcalfe moved on from his first band Teenage Dog Orgy in 1984. The band were named after author Jean Rhys's 1931 novel After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie.

The Mackenzies' first single was released through a pilot music industry course run by Bathgate College under the United Kingdom's then Conservative Government employment Youth Training Scheme, a split-single 7" format of "Death of a Salesman" in 1984. Limited to 1,000 copies, and with a track by Lindy Bergman on the flipside, it quickly sold out. Shortly after, The Mackenzies signed a management deal with Precious Organisation, who had just launched another Scottish group, Wet Wet Wet. Precious managed to include both groups on Honey at the Core, a 1986 compilation of up and coming Scottish acts compiled by Glasgow Herald journalist John Williamson, and released the band's first commercial single "The Rattler". The single suffered from a lack of distribution, but received airplay on Radio One and Radio Clyde. A home-made music video for the single was broadcast on The Chart Show. The band also performed "The Rattler" on The Tube. Precious organised an A+R showcase in Glasgow but, as the band did not receive any interest from the labels invited, they chose to leave Precious.

After leaving their management, The Mackenzies released an independent 12" single "Face to Face" in 1987, and signed a major label record deal with Capitol Records. Capitol issued three multi-formatted singles, of which a re-release of "The Rattler" was the most successful, charting at No. 37 in 1989. The label followed up the band's chart debut with Good Deeds and Dirty Rags, which reached a modest No. 23 on the UK Albums Chart. A further single from the album, "Goodwill City", reversed the band's upward trend, stalling at No. 49. Capitol ended the year by releasing Fish Heads and Tails, a mid-price live and B-side compilation, while the band relocated to studios in Berlin to record their second album. While at the studios, the band witnessed the Fall of The Berlin Wall.

The following year, the band were transferred sideways across EMI, from Capitol to Parlophone, who released two new recordings "Love Child" and "Blacker Than Black" (the latter being released across Europe and in North America) as taster singles. Both tracks failed to gain on the chart position set by "The Rattler" a year prior, and in response Parlophone cancelled the planned album release for the group's second set, titled Hammer and Tongs. However, the Mackenzies continued to tour supported by Scottish bands such as The Beltanes, and despite not gaining many fans south of the border, became radio mainstays on Scottish radio, and performed at the televised concert "The Big Day" on Glasgow Green.

Gary Kurfirst, who managed Talking Heads and Deborah Harry, bought the Mackenzies contract from Parlophone and signed The Mackenzies to his own label, Radioactive, a subsidiary of MCA. Radioactive were keen to release the band's stalled second set, but required a chart friendly track to launch the album. The Mackenzies completed recording a Spector-esque track, "Now We Are Married", in Edinburgh, and Radioactive issued it as a single upfront of Hammer and Tongs. Both releases again failed to chart,and the group were persuaded to leave the label by their management. Radioactive meanwhile released a compilation of the band's two albums self-titled as Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie in North America, Europe, Australia and Japan.

The Mackenzies continued to write material; Manson was also given the opportunity to record lead vocals on a number of tracks planned for the band's third album, titled Five. In the end, Manson only featured on a duet, "Normal Boy". The Mackenzies issued the album on their own Blokshok label, but like their previous effort, it did not widen the band's fanbase, and the three singles lifted from it did not chart.