From the Russian magazine Auto-Review.
MIKE AND THE MECHANICS, 'Beggar On A Beach of Gold', 1995 - Atlantic.
From a Russian magazine - "Auto-Review". Reprinted/translated without permission, the object is simply to provide an English copy of the article, not to take credit. All typos and problems with English are mine. I do not necessarily support the points expressed.
The name would fit some street band - "Mike and the Mechanics"!
But this band cannot be a "street" one, because "Mike" is Mike
Rutherford himself from the most famous band Genesis; and he is good
in the modern rock mechanics, he wouldn't just take somebody in the
collective to record the solo disk. So the people in the band of "the
mechanics" are handy and competent; Rutherford, the physicist one,
should have used such a band in his time, maybe then they'd invent
something useful for life, rather than an A-bomb.
As a rule, a superband member who decided to perform with his solo work, gets all the vocals for himself first thing, especially if he wasn't trusted to do such work in the main collective. (There is a wealth of examples to that: from Ringo Starr to Phil Collins from the same group of Genesis inclusive, - with Gabriel present the latter sat quietly behind his drums and seldom sang - from time to time, not constantly.) Mike Rutherford, on his side, took a completely different path, - i.e. he didn't start portraying a vocalist from himself, but gave the job over to his two "mechanics", kept his own keyboards, and even grabbed a guitar with bass. The material on his solo disk is mainly fresh and "self-made" except for one Stevie Wonder's thing and a composition of 'You Really Got a Hold On Me' from the classic Beatles repertoire, obviously played and recorded for one's own pleasure for the first one and the other turned out so good.
Looking back at Phil Collins' solo exercises, it would be logical to assume that the work of any other member of Genesis would closely resemble the music of the main collective, and to expect that Mike Rutherford on his disk would show us how the given group would sound in case if, God forbid, Phil took a sick-leave for a long time. But we are not given anything of the kind. Well, an experienced ear will determine right away what band this performer played in for a long time, but will fail to find any straight coincidences or borrowings. The music is quiet, rhythmical, pleasant, the lyrics are intelligent, and note that all of it is without that deep, meaningful sense that so many like to use to mask the lack of ideas and talent.
