Saturday, June 28, 2008

Mixing Pop and Politics (11)

Obscure Factoid of the Day

Better known as the tall gormless looking one in such pop bands as Altered Images, Hipsway and Texas, Johnny McElhone claim to mixing pop and politics fame is that both his parents were once Labour MPs, both representing parliamentary constituencies in the city of Glasgow.

Johnny's dad, Frank McElhone, was a member of Parliament from 1969 to 1982 when, upon his death, Johnny's mum, Helen McElhone, succeeded her late husband as the MP for the Glasgow, Queens Park constituency.

The picture of Johnny that accompanies the post dates from the early to mid eighties. If you do a quick google image search of Altered Images and/or Hipsway from this period, you'll note that Johnny avoids eye contact in nearly every photograph that you stumble across.

Please be reassured that this isn't rock star arrogance on Johnny's part, or even an undiagnosed case of asperger's syndrome. Johnny deliberately avoided eye contact in his everyday life during this period in the eighties to ensure that no one could look him in the eye and ask him to join the Red Wedge tour.

Turns out Johnny wasn't so gormless, after all.

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