Glam Nuggets

Geordie, circa 1973.  Future AC/DC member Brian Johnson is on the far left.

I recently read David Thompson’s fascinatingly comprehensive history of U.K. glam rock entitled “Children of the Revolution:  The Glam Rock Story1970-1975”.  This is a guy after my own heart—he’s clearly a passionate fan (he also has written many/most of the reviews of various glam albums on All Music Guide) with a connoisseur’s appreciation for the finest musical and sartorial aspects of the genre, but he’s also an almost obsessively detailed oriented documentarian who has spared no fact in this book.  Instead of being written in a narrative form, his book is essentially a chronology—he documents the essential glam rock singles and albums released month by month in the period 1970-1975 as well as TV appearances, concerts and tours, and other key events in the history of glam rock.  The level of detail is staggering—Thompson not only knows the band members, their prior musical histories, and so forth, he faithfully records the producers, songwriters, and labels.   An interesting fact I was not aware of is how glam rock in the U.K. was very much an impresario-driven genre:  many of the big players were not in fact the bands themselves but the songsmiths, producers, and studio heads who were often responsible for crafting not only the look but the sound of a stable of bands.  I was totally unaware that bands like the Sweet and Mud and even Suzi Quatro rarely wrote their own material but instead were fed a steady stream of songs that became hit singles by behind-the-scenes songwriters like Mike Chapman and Nicky Chin, who’s Chinnichap songwriting factory cranked out a huge number of eventual glam hits for these and other artists.  Chapman would go on to further fame as a record producer in the U.S., producing such memorable albums as Blondie’s Parallel Lines, the Knack’s Get the Knack, and “Love Is a Battlefield” by Pat Benetar. 

The other thing about Thompson’s book is how many super obscure glam artists he brought to my attention that I’d never have discovered if left to my own devices.  Many of the singles by these artists were collected into glam compilations that were released in the U.K. and which were like a 70’s English glam companion to the excellent Nuggets series of 60’s garage band compilations.   Unfortunately few of these appear to be currently commercially available (particularly in digital format) but a handful of songs have been uploaded to YouTube.  One such example is “She Moans” by Alan Lee Shaw, which starts, and is punctuated throughout, with a funky wah guitar that sounds like it was lifted straight from the “Shaft” soundtrack.  Shaw’s vocals remind me of Alvin Stardust’s on this song, and its driving, rollicking guitar and piano line evoke Bowie or the Dolls.  Shaw is an interesting character:  he went on to work with Twink of the Pink Fairies in the short-lived late 70’s punk band the Rings and also worked on albums by the Damned, the Lords of the New Church, and Rat Scabies.

Spunky Spider grew out of previous north London bands Peyton Bond and Steam Machine.  “She Won’t Come” starts with a whooshing blast of sound, followed by a honking, bluesy guitar riff, that reminds me of nothing so much as “Journey To the Center of Your Mind” by the Amboy Dukes but then settles into a chugging, stomping glam groove.  The vocals are really rough, sounding almost more punk than glam, and evoking such protopunk antecedents as the Groundhogs or Edgar Broughton Band.  “Perchance” sounds less like glam and more like late 60’s heavy blues like the Yardbirds or even the Flamin Groovies in their first, pre-powerpop mode. 

The Winkies straddled the line between glam rock and pub rock.  Vocalist Philip Rambow’s vocals on “Trust In Dick” (what was it about glam rock that let bands get away with such racy song titles?) sound like a cross between Steve Winwood and Graham Parker, while the music surges catchily along.  I could totally see Graham Parker or even Elvis Costello covering this song.  “Long Song Comin’” has a bluesy, faintly countrified early 70’s Stones-y feel that also borders on the blues licks of Johnny Thunders with the Dolls.  “Baby’s On Fire” has a snottier, more nasal vocal and a winking glam androgyny to the lyrics and music alike; this song was covered in the movie “Velvet Goldmine” by none other than Jonathon Rhys Meyers in his Ziggy Stardust persona.  The Winkies went on to achieve some fame as Brian Eno’s backing band for his first solo album, Here Come the Warm Jets, which contains “Baby’s On Fire” as well as the other classics “Needles in the Camel’s Eye” and “Paw Paw Blowtorch”.

One song I love is “Standing In the Road” by Blackfoot Sue.  This song has an incredibly catchy piano-driven backing with a propulsive, danceable beat and sweet Beatle-esque vocals; the entire package reminds me of some of the best songs of Badfinger, most notably “Come and Get It”.   I can imagine this being played at Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco in 1973 and getting all the preteens onto the dance floor.  Another, less successful single by them, “Sing, Don’t Speak”, has the big pounding drums that characterized hits like Gary Glitter’s “Do You Wanna Touch Me?” and a singalong, nonsense chorus that evokes the best of Mud or the Sweet.  “Glittery Obituary” has a similar feel but its alliterative, snarky vocals also evoke “Ballroom Blitz” by the Sweet.  “Get It All To Me” starts with a very funk/disco inspired intro but then settles into another stomping, catchy glam groove not dissimilar to Slade only without Noddy’s leather-lunged vocals. “The Spring of ‘69” combines the orchestral grandiosity of Queen with the heavy prog feel of bands like Jethro Tull; this is less overtly glam but still worth a listen on YouTube if only because it underscores their incredible range.  Not sure why these guys weren’t as big as some of the better known glam bands.

Bearded Lady were another almost-was.  Legend has it that they were almost signed by famed producer Mickie Most three different times but held out for more money.  They eventually settled into a residency at London’s Marquee Club and released one single, the bizarre but catchy “Rock Star”, with its strange, almost Yiddish chorus, which sounds like something out of “Fiddler On the Roof”. They remind me of a band that came slightly later, Doctors of Madness.

Iron Virgin achieved their first taste of fame with their cover of “Jet” by Paul McCartney and Wings, which I always thought sounded very  glammy.  The second release, “Rebels Rule”  has the stomp of the Glitter Band but the vocals sound like a 60’s throwback.  Still, it’s a fun, catchy teen rebellion anthem in the vein of the Sweet’s “Teenage Rampage” or “Hellraiser”. 

“Beautiful Child” by Spiv also has the classic Sweet sound:  stomping beats, siren-like guitar, catchy chorus.  Can’t find much more info on this band; the term “spiv” in English jargon refers to a criminal who deals with black market or stolen goods, similar to a “fence” in American slang.  Cool name.

Speaking of cool names, the Damned was the name not only of the much better known punk band but of a glam band as well (seems like too negative of a name for a glam band to me).  “Morning Bird” has a buzzsaw guitar, catchy rhythm, and vocals that sound exactly like Paul McCartney’s on Beatles hits like “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You”.

“Make Me A Superman” by Stumpy is a catchy slice of infectious glam pop in the same vein as “I Only Want To Be With You” by the Bay City Rollers.  Another Rollers inspired band was Portsmouth’s Hector.  “Ain’t Got No Time” has that catchy, slick Rollers feel but also draws from the sound of early 70’s U.S. bubblegum like that of Ohio Express and 1910 Fruitgum Company.  “Bye Bye Bad Days” sounds more like an amalgam of the edginess of the Sweet and the sweetness of the Bay City Rollers, with a touch of the Glitter Band stomp thrown in for good measure.

Newcastle’s Geordie (“geordie” is English slang for someone from the northeast of England, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne in particular) were clearly based on the Slade formula:  take music with a big stomping, catchy beat, and add one leather-lunged lead singer, and create bombastic glam ravers with a touch of blues.  Geordie achieved a small measure of fame in their day but were eventually better known for supplying their lead singer Brian Johnson to AC/DC after the tragic demise of Bon Scott.  “She’s a Lady” has a rollicking rock backbeat and toned-down vocals; it sounds like a slightly glammier, poppier version of some of the music Johnson made early on with AC/DC, like on Back In Black.  This is more catchy hard rock than true glam.  Much closer to the original glam formula noted above is “All Because of You”, which sounds like it was a single written for Slade.  Johnson’s vocals sound much more like what they were like with AC/DC while the music has the classic glam stomp but also hews to a blues ethic as well.  “Electric Lady” has the proto-heavy metal feel of 70’s American bands like Legs Diamond and Starz.

Finally, Cuddly Toys straddle the musical divide both sonically and chronologically between glam and punk.  Formed in 1977 from the punk band the Raped, they created music that drew heavily on both the futuristic glitter rock of Ziggy Stardust era David Bowie as well as the then-emerging postpunk goth sound of Bauhaus (with whom they played several shows; it should also be noted that Bauhaus themselves were heavily influenced by glitter Bowie and themselves covered “Ziggy Stardust”).  The epitome of this Bowie-meets-Bauhaus sound is their first single, “Madman”.  Several other singles by them are uploaded on YouTube but none of them are as memorably derivative as this to me.  The video for “Madman” has to be seen to be believed;  it took a lot of guts to get up on stage dressed in full-on Spiders from Mars get-ups in the year 1979.  Nobody else would cultivate this level of Ziggy obsessiveness until the early 90’s LA glitter band the Ultras adopted this look and sound. 

Like everything, glam rock eventually ran its course.  But in England glam rock was both musically and culturally a segueway into punk rock.  Both genres went against the popular grain of the times and reveled in songs that were short and simple.  Flamboyant glam icons like Bowie, Bolan, and Bryan Ferry were critical referential touchstones for many first wave punk artists.  Its just too bad glam never made it big in the U.S.