Glam - Another Pretty Face

When researching my book about glam, one of the great pleasures was discovering music I'd never heard before. And best of all was hearing Another Pretty Face. (Not to be confused with the later Another Pretty Face, who were British and featured a pre-Waterboys Mike Scott ).

I wrote about the original APF on my previous blog and shall repost below my original comments. Here they are with 'The Great American Candy Bar Debate' from 1973:

And here are my comments from 2013:

When I was going through some old music papers a few years back, I came across a couple of one-sentence mentions in 1974 editions of the Melody Maker to an American band called Another Pretty Face. The reports simply mentioned that they covered songs by T. Rex and Roxy Music and noted that 'The lead singer imitates David Bowie depresingly well.' As far as I'm aware, this was their sole coverage in the British music press.

And then I found their album 21st Century Rock. As a neglected work of glam genius, it's in a class of its own. Recorded in 1973, it wasn't even released until 2004. Which might make you worry that it's going to be a ragged collection of demos and lo-fi live recordings. It's nothing of the sort - it's a fully fledged, lavishly produced, perfectly sequenced nine-track masterpiece.

To start with, those Bowie comparisons are perhaps inevitable. Particularly if you're going to open proceedings with a seven-minute epic titled 'Planet Earth' that uses science fiction imagery to explore sexuality. But the singer and main writer Terry Roth (known throughout as T. Roth, maybe in tribute to Bolan's band) is no copyist. 

Nor does he sit on the fence. One of the stand-out songs is 'Little Boys', which spells out its agenda in unmistakeable fashion:

People always say I only do this for the money
or I do it for the mass adoration.
Then there are the ones who assume I'm crazy
or I'm doing it for gay liberation.
No, not me, I don't want these joys -
I only do it for the little boys.

This is accompanied, it should be said, by a wonderfully trashy bit of rock with early-1960s backing vocals of the 'bop-sho-wop' variety, in a way that the New York Dolls would recognize, had they not been so addicted to garage guitars and had they enjoyed the services of a more sympathetic producer. (The man responsible here is Ed Stasium, shortly to work with the likes of the Ramones and Talking Heads.)

Elsewhere the music veers between the swaggering horn-riffing Stones-rock of 'Stuck On You' to the Cockney Rebel posing of 'Girl Crazy'. Without deviating too far from the basic blueprint of classic rock, driven by the melodic guitar of Rob Nevitte, each song retains its own identity, assisted by guest musicians, so that there's always some variation on the keyboard textures.

I'm not sure about the Roxy Music connection mentioned in that Melody Maker reference, but the bonus tracks here (also produced by Stasium) include a cover of T. Rex's 'Get It On' (under its American title 'Bang a Gong'), which is fun if a little too faithful. The only other cover is 'Da Doo Ron Ron' with the gender of the subject unchanged.

This is as good as American rock got in the 1970s, dominated by Roth's arrogantly confident vocal performance. Perhaps, though, he was the problem. At a time when even Bowie was seen as too gay for mainstream America, Roth was never going to achieve the stardom he deserved. So, better late than never, this is the best glam album you never heard. And in case you don't take my word for it, the sleeve notes feature tributes by David Fricke and Lenny Kaye, who ought to know - 'cute and deadly,' says the latter.

Corbyn, Country Joe and John Peel

I've been reading a lot of comments on Twitter about how extraordinary the crowds have been for Jeremy Corbyn's public meetings, and how this demonstrates his popularity. And there's been something nagging away at my memory, which I've only just identified.

It's a story that comes originally from Jonathan Green's very fine oral history of the 1960s underground, Days in the Life, though this condensed telling is from my own (much less fine) book My Generation:

'The underground was terribly small, and very, very localised,' remembered disc jockey John Peel. Puzzled by the apparent lack of success of the debut album by Country Joe and the Fish, 'I said to the record company, "Why isn't this in the charts? Everyone I know has a copy." But what I didn't realise was that it was the other way around: I knew everyone who'd got a copy.'

And I have a fear that something similar may be the case with the Corbyn surge.

Glam - Eno and the Winkies

When Eno left Roxy Music in the summer of 1973, it seemed like the end of a beautiful rivalry. The artistic tension in the group between him and Bryan Ferry had made for two extraordinary albums, and it wasn't clear that either would survive creatively without the other.

In the event, both immediately went on to better things. Roxy's third album, Stranded, was their best ever (and their first no. 1), while Eno's solo debut, Here Come the Warm Jets (1973), is a thing of beauty forever. It appeared that glam rock had gained a new star.

To promote the record, Eno recruited the group the Winkies to be his backing  band and went out on a British tour. It lasted just five dates before he suffered a collapsed lung and abandoned live dates for ever. Lying in hospital, he concluded: 'I decided that I didn't want to be a star - the kind of figure Bryan became.'

During their brief time together Eno and the Winkies recorded a radio session for John Peel in February 1974, and this is their version of 'Baby's On Fire' from Warm Jets. It's very good.

Paying the piper

For the first time in my life, I've just given some money to a political party. I was hoping that it might buy me a peerage, but it turns out that not even the Labour Party will give you one of those for three quid these days.

What I do get is not only the chance to vote for Labour's new leader and deputy-leader but also, excitingly, the party's candidate for the London mayoralty. Three pounds for three elections strikes me as a very good deal indeed, because I love voting.

It also means that I need to give serious consideration to the question of who gets my vote. To which I shall have to return when I have more leisure, because at the moment I really don't know. Though I suspect Stella Creasey will turn out to be my first preference as deputy leader.

Glam - Cockney Rebel

I wrote a book about glam rock a couple of years back. It wasn't as good as it should have been, but then I'm not sure it could ever have been as good as the subject deserved. Because glam was the highest point rock 'n' roll ever reached, the most absurd, beautiful, camp moment in the music's history.

I was reminded of the book last month when I heard that Paul Weller was reading it. Which made me go back to listening to my favourite glam songs. And I thought I'd share some of them over the next week. 

So where better to start than with the most over-the-top masterpiece (and/or folly) in the entire glam catalogue? 'Death Trip' is the closing song on the debut album by Cockney Rebel*, The Human Menagerie (1973). And it's worth bearing in mind that this is a debut, though it's hard to believe that any group could be this confident and audacious right at the start of their career. Also worth bearing in mind is that this song lasts for ten minutes - I wouldn't normally approve of that kind of thing, but it's entirely justified when you've got as perfect a creation as this.

* Note that this is Cockney Rebel, not Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel. The first two albums were released under the group name and are absolutely stunning. Then the band broke up, the musicians unhappy at not being given credit for their contribution by Harley. He recruited a new group, put his name at the front and scored his biggest hit with 'Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)'. But it was never again as good as this.

NDW - Populare Mechanik

I know nothing about Populare Mechanik at all. I bought this 1981 single and, as far as I can tell, it was their only vinyl release. There were two cassette albums, and apparently this year Holger Hiller curated a compilation album, comprising tracks from those releases. And that's it.

So not a wildly successful band, then. But they were fantastic: mostly instrumental, with elements of dub, funk and free jazz. Happily, there's not much jazz on this track 'Schnarfer Schnitt (No. 1)'.

And that concludes my journey this week through the Neue Deutsche Welle. To recap, we had: Fehlfarben, Grauzone, P1/E, Palais Schaumburg, der Plan and the Wirtschaftswunder.

I still think it was a fascinating, creative movement. And I still love it. I think I'll return to it in the near future.

NDW - Fehlfarben

If yesterday's NDW selection was famous, this one's surely a staple in everyone's collection. Still worth another listen though.

Fehlfarben were from Dusseldorf and they were mainly a thrashy, punky sort of group. This song, however, was an oddity, almost a disco track - or at least a disco track as reimagined by Killing Joke. It's called 'Ein Jahr (Es Geht Voran)' and it's their best-known song. It's also, I think, far and away their best: