4 posts tagged “glam”
Two Suede tracks: "Down" is a demo for Head Music (1999). It sounds to me like early solo John Lennon, but I like it more. A nifty example of how much you can do with very little, if what you start with is good enough. I was reminded of this by a conversation about "pub rock" yesterday that featured a clip of Dr. Feelgood banging out "Roxette" on The Old Grey Whistle Test: Pub rock was a minimalism thing. They had the right idea about getting back to stripped-down rock'n'roll, but for my taste they stripped it down too far, to the point where to my ears it's all fiber and not much flavor (ditto Spoon, actually). I prefer the glam crowd a couple years earlier: The same three chords in the same three minutes, but not so austere in the arrangements and overdubs.
But, OK, speaking of glam, there's this band called Suede I was just muttering about. On the album they tried real hard to make "Down" sound like something else, but unfortunately what they made it sound like was crap.
The other track here is a Beatles cover.
UPDATE
That Dr. F clip, Jeez... Not entirely my thing, as I said, but that guitarist's right hand belongs in the Smithsonian. But I guess he might be still using it.
ANOTHER UPDATE
"That guitarist" is, like, Wilko Johnson? Duh?
Right, Hello! Yeah, I never heard of 'em either before last month, but bear with me.
Ace Frehley from Kiss had a US solo hit (#13) with this thing in 1978, but these retards had a #9 in the UK (and #7 in Germany!) with it in 1975 (b/w "Little Miss Mystery"). Russ Ballard wrote it after he left Argent. Argent's big hit in the US (that I remember, anyway) was "Hold Your Head High", which Ballard didn't write. Cool song, though.
Hello got signed with the idea that they'd record Ballard's songs. They did that ("C'mon", "Ask Your Mama"), but they wrote songs of their own too ("Another School Day", "C'mon Get Together"). And they memorably covered the Exciters' "Tell Him", which hit #6 in the UK and stomped all over the Glitter Band's dickless version. Rock on! I figure they probably played their own instruments, because frankly the playing on their records is too consistently lousy to be explained otherwise.
They sucked, yet they ruled. You can call it crap if you like, but where I come from, we call that rock'n'roll.
Never heard of Mud, didya? Not if you're American, anyhow. In 1974 this single spent eleven weeks on the charts in the UK, four of those weeks at #1. Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, men of many hits, wrote it. Never drew flies in the US. Mud had two other #1 hits: One of those moronic Christmas singles the Brits love so much, and a cover of Buddy Holly's "Oh Boy". They started out glam-with-Elvis-overtones, and wandered into more sort of pure Elvis-tribute territory later on. All their hits, large and small, were worth hearing. No, really! But the glam stuff was key. And what was glam anyway, after all, but camped up, futuristicated '50s rock'n'roll?
They weren't a real band, right, because they didn't write their own songs, and I wonder if they really quite played all of their own instruments, either. And they did retarded dance routines on TV, while miming very badly indeed. But listen to the song! Listen! It totally rules.
Okay, here's a golden oldie from the dawn of the 1970s, or something.
It's called "Motorboat". It's by a one-off outfit called "Jimmy Jukebox" which included the quasipedophile/LA scenester Kim Fowley who a) named the Flamin' Groovies classic slab o' wax Teenage Head (1971) after he b) managed the Byrds circa 1970 an gave them even worse guidance than the catastrophically retarded ideas they had themselves at that point before c) svengali-ing and managing the Runaways, who were of course Joan Jett's first band (and Lita Ford, but that's not my thing). Among other varyignly moronic adventures: E.g. he turns up in some of the LA groupie group photos (his natural environment) in Please Kill Me. Which you have read, right?
But anyway it's a godamn great song. I found it on one of the RPM glam comps. Worth. Every. Penny. You haven't heard the last of them, if you keep reading this blog. If you don't, you'll never hear of them again, you poor unfortunate bastard.
Wait! Fowley produced and apparently wrote the novelty hit "Alley Oop" by the Hollywood Argyles! And now I remembar where I first saw the name: The credits on the first Modern Lovers rekkid. He was involved with Blue Oyster Cult in some unspecified capacity, too. Go figure. Not as much of a zero as I've always assumed.
