Nov 092010
I like Suzi Quatro, and I always have. There’s just something about her whole approach I really enjoy. She did some pretty cool sounding stuff until some treacly ballads made her label a couple of bucks, but I think by then she had decided to to be on Happy Days anyway. But this video, and a black and white one pretty much just like it, show a certain woman’s touch that most boys just couldn’t compete with. This really seems to me to be like a little sister teaching her older brothers a dance routine, and the older brothers being good sports about it, and then finding out that it was really kind of fun. I know we usually find all the flaws in videos, but there’s none in this. It’s just pure fun!
Great description of this clip’s qualities, 2K! Fashion-conscious rock nerd that I am, I was also amused by the band’s matching white socks (?!?!) pulled up over their “bloused” pants! Even the drummer leaves his post to show off the fact that he bought into this Look.
Is this one of those “If you can’t say anything nice…” threads?
No, jeangray. Feel free to point out anything I may have missed that wasn’t adding to the fun. What I found most interesting is that there is a black and white video that has the same routine. So it’s obvious that those guys were dedicated to Suzi’s vision, and it’s obvious that they spent countless hours learning the routine, and tucking their pants into their socks for that extra added wow factor!
That was certainly intended to be fun. The linked video of Can the Can was something else entirely.
I find it extremely strange that Glam Rock had this offshoot into Kids’ Music with things like Sweet’s “Little Willy” and the Bay City Rollers. When so much of Glam was gender-bending, sexualized music, I guess some salesman found that he could sell sparkly pants to little kids.
And down the end of this road lies Gary Glitter, ugh.
K. more or less anticipates my question, which probably betrays my ignorance: Is Quatro the product of the same Svengali who foisted Bay City Rollers, Sweet, and other bubblegum glam on the world? Name is escaping me, assuming it was one person.
And, yes, of course I like a few of these songs. Fox on the Run, for instance. But as a whole? No thanks.
I don’t think Suzi was really a Glam act. I always thought the cover of her first album was fantastic, and my mom hated it. They weren’t all dolled up. Her band looked like drunken thugs and Suzi looked much less than wholesome. I know she got lumped into that scene, but I think she sounds much more like Detroit than anything else. Her 1973 album has been one of my favorites since then, and I’m surprised how much I still like it, considering I was 11 when I first bought it.
I prefer Dos.
Detroit like the Stooges or MC5?? I gots to check that album out.
To pick up on k.’s post, I suppose it’s the Kids’ Musik vibe the song is giving off, that leaves me wanting.
I have three elementary age kids… Need I say more?
Sweet, yes, Bay City Rollers no. Chapman-Chinn is the duo here who wrote/produced for Sweet and Quatro (and Blondie, etc.), but the Bay City Rollers are part of the Scottish Pop Rock tradition that goes (at least) from pre-BCR members in Pilot (“Magic”) through Belle & Sebastian and Teenage Fanclub and all that.
I think Kids Musik sums it up nicely. Quatro was always better in theory than practice for me, Leather Tuscadero and all, and I think the Svengali factor is major here. Their/her music just never jumped me properly.
INTNERDLUDE OVER