Sep 222007
So Glam Rock seems to be the brief musical era Townspeople most suspect offers previously uncovered gems to even rock know-it-alls like ourselves. Can anyone among us point in the direction of cool Glam Rock that goes beyond the 3 or 4 artists we likely know?
Autumn Carousel, “Rock ‘n Roll Clown (Ritchie Keith demo)”
I bought the Zolar X reissue Timeless last year at the Tower blowout sale. It’s glam rock from LA in the mid ’70s and as such, it’s sort of a bridge musically between the glam rock of the early ’70s and the punk rock that came afterwards. They were also notable for wearing their costumes (they were supposed to be aliens) all the time. Since the Alternative Tentacles reissue of their mid ’70s material, they’ve actually gotten back together and play sporadically on the West Coast, I think.
Matt, you neglect to note whether you actually like the music on the reissue.
Since when is “liking” the purchase of an obscure reissue relevant?
Geez you people are thick sometimes! Of course I do, which is why I mentioned it. Do I like it as much as say, early ’70s Bowie or Electric Warrior? Well no, in all honesty, but it’s a fine collection nonetheless.
Then again, it’s a different beast entirely from the UK stuff, as it’s a more American, extreme (note the costumes), sci-fi oriented take on the genre that is musically rawer and akin to early proto-punk. I feel like in certain ways they had more in common with Alice Cooper and even early Kiss than any of the UK bands mentioned. I can put up some files if anyone’s curious.
I thrifted a particularly excellent undiscovered glam gem recently in the Sensational Alex Harvey Band’s “Next.” The music’s great, *and* the lead guitarist wears harlequin makeup!
Check ’em out here, then ask yourself what all the “punk rock” fuss was about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQoM9O0c-h8
What I want to know is, who are the 3 or 4 artists we’re all supposed to know? After T. Rex, I mean.
SAHB is one of my favorite bands ever. >em>Next is probably their most famous album, but I think Live! has the best memories of my wasted yoot. I can remember sitting in my friend’s room with the beginning of Faith Healer going and his mom came in and said, “That record is STUCK! Get UP and move the needle!” Right them it finally changed, but I’ll bet outside the room it was annoying. Alex was really popular in Cleveland and I heard Philadelphia in the 70’s. The song Last of the Teenage Idols on Next is autobiographical in that Alex won some teen star lookalike contest when he was real young in Scotland. Alex died a few years ago.
Alex would read stories to the audience and act out skits. The guitarist with the makeup was Zal Cleminson. He went on to play in Nazareth. I think he’s on that album that had Holiday on it.
I just assumed that in the initial query, Mr. Mod meant T Rex, Bowie, Mott the Hoople, Roxy Music and maybe Sweet or Slade. Does Queen count?
Great stuff with the Sensational Alex Harvey Band clip.
The clowntarist highlights one of my favorite rare rock band phenomena, where one member in a band is working a completely different gimmick than the rest. In such cases, it’s almost as if a band had a previous gimmick that they dumped and one guy refused to make the change, or maybe they all mulled over adopting a band gimmick (an all-clown band, in this case), changed their minds, and one guy decided screw it, he was really digging the clown rock idea, and just showed up in costume from there on out anyway.
I’m thinking Dr. Fink in the Revolution and the No Doubt drummer with the devil horns, but one that comes to mind is a Three Dog Night performance of “Joy To The World” where one of them is inexplicably wearing some kind of Leon Russell-as-Neptune costume and nobody seems even remotely bothered by it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fqumOeUGGc Check out the reveal at just about the 1:00 in mark.
I was also assuming T. Rex, Bowie, Mott and Slade for the unnamed three or four bands. I voted for Glam in the poll just in the hopes of a Bolan discussion and the possibility of clips like the one leading off this post and the Alex Harvey one turning up.
All this talk of the Clowntarist reminds me of a rare demo by Autumn Carousel’s Ritchie Keith for the band’s final single, “Rock ‘n Roll Clown”, during their brief-lived Glam era before splitting off into the ill-fated prog-rock outfit Rug. I’m going to add it to the end of this post for the record.
Mr. Mod, that video is hilarious. I haven’t seen guitar players move so much, to the point of making me squirm, since I saw a Dr. Feelgood video with Wilko Johnson. The bad Vegas ending was the cherry on top.