from Dec 2 1989 Melody Maker
Since then I've come to really rather enjoy Mud (mainly "Dynamite") and nearly revere Suzi Quatro (if only for "Can the Can," "In the Morning" and maybe "Primitive Love,"). Wizzard, though, still I find hard to stomach.
An error but a deserving one - would that it were true! - Alice Cooper did not of course run for President in 1972, he only made a promo video in which he pretended to be a candidate. And my arithmetic's a bit off - the "and I don't care" in "Elected" is only five years before "Pretty Vacant"
Here's a slightly later premonition- a review of a similar VHS compilation of promos, but in this case all by the wunnerful Sweet
THE SWEET
Sweet's Ballroom Blitz
(Castle Hendring Video)
Melody Maker, 1990?
"SWEET'S BALLROOM BLITZ" attempts to rescue The Sweet from their longstanding reputation as mere 'pretty boy' puppets of Chinn and Chapman (the hit factory who wrote and produced their biggest chart singles). A noble aim, as The Sweet's role in the Glam Rock explosion is sorely under-rated, but one which this rather scrappy compilation only goes some of the way to achieving.
There's too much of Sweet's lightest-weight material: the calypso crud of "Co Co", some deeply unfortunate, acoustic balladry, plus the moony "Love Is Like Oxygen", which has twilight-era Sweet coming on like understudies for Smokie. And the interview segments with 'the band today' tell us little, except that the guitarist has put on much weight and singer Brian Connolly seems to have been left with permanent delirium tremens from the years of alcohol abuse that eventually caused the groups' break-up.
Happily, "Ballroom Blitz" does include almost all Sweet's biggest and best hits (bar the unforgiveable absence of "Ballroom Blitz" itself). The Sweet were supreme exponents of a kind of vacant outrage: their sporting of make-up and Nazi chic was "unsubstantiated" by the dubious art-house trappings of Bowie and Roxy. Everything in a classic Sweet smash was there for effect alone, was purely and emptily sensationalist: the torrid, Four Seasons/Beach Boys multi-tracked harmonies, the streamlined pop-metal riffs, the ludicrous scenarios devised solely as a pretext for hysteria. "Blockbuster", with its sirens and "Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle" kettledrums, is a tour de force of fabricated mayhem, even though this particular performance sadly doesn't feature Steve Priest camping it up as Hitler in drag. "Fox
On The Run" and "Lies In Your Eyes" are typically torrid, plastic-punk put-downs of discarded girlfriends. "Hellraiser", by contrast, has The Sweet running scared of a voracious libertine whose "ultra-sonic eyes flash like hysterical danger signs/say, beware where you tread/or you'll go out of your head". "The Six Teens" is flamenco-flavoured, bubblegum psychedelia that asks cryptically: "where were you in '68?". But The Sweet's greatest moments are "Action" (self-written after the break with Chinnichap) and "Teenage Rampage". The latter is Chinnichap's finest slice of mock-apocalypse, boasting one the most ominous intro/outro's of all time, and lyrics like "at thirteen they were learning, but at fourteen they'll be burning". "Action" is The Sweet's "EMI", a massive V-sign to all the corporate parasites wanting their piece, and a blast of sonic insurgency that anticipates punk by two whole years.
Mud's Tiger Feet - it's really easy to imagine that as the song playing on the jukebox of a flat-roofed pub whilst some unfortunate patron gets their teeth smashed out with a poolcue.
ReplyDeleteYeah both that and "Dynamite" are lumpen and aggro-ish - not so much proto-punk as subpunk.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely the best Sweet track is this one:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HZQZufePfk
Basically invented thrash metal, also the guitar solo at the end is incredible.
Tough tune. I like that doomy riff. The gong. The vaguely ceremonial synth-and-guitar doubled fanfare.
ReplyDeleteThey so wanted to be taken seriously as a hard rock band. And deserved to be.
One of the eternal mysteries stemming from glam for me is why so few people then and since have cottoned on to the advantages of having two drummers - it always sounds awesome, it always looks awesome, and it pretty much guarantees a hit single.
ReplyDeleteI know the extra drummer is inconvenient in all sorts of ways, and no doubt expensive too, but I can't think of a better way of making an immediate impact.
Are there two drummers on that track?
ReplyDeleteWell as an Adam and the Ants fan, I'm all for it.
Who are the rock bands that had two drummers? Allman Brothers? Magma? Butthole Surfers did - the great, late Teresa Nervosa - in their case as much about the visual impact onstage as the doubled attack.
In terms of glam.... did the Glitter Band have two drummers? I really ought to know this having writ the book! I seem to recall they did have two, just to be able to simulate what Leander did in the studio with layering drum parts and claps. And it looked more tribally.
Often with megabands doing huge tours you'll see a second drummer onstage, or at least a percussionist with loads of metal things dangling from a frame. But usually it makes no readily discernible impact to the sound. I think Pink Floyd went in for this and they're not the most rhythm-forward bands at the best of times, their primary mode is a sort of stately trudge.
Having a second drummer / percussionist in those circumstances seems to be more about a visual rhetoric of "no expense spared" - like having three female backing singers, a horn section etc. It's like, "look at all the equipment and personnel on stage! We're so huge we can afford it".
Yes the Glitter Band had two drummers, used to great effect in this late gem:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO0M63j5O94
The Fall went through instances of having two drummers, most wonderfully on The Classical:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZZZjD5F5_0
James Brown had two drummers in case one of them got a bit shirty (which was to be expected, considering Brown's dictatorial stance). At one point, he had five drummers in the group.
Of course, of course - should have thought of that. Was it only on Hex Enduction Hour? I actually saw that tour, when they played a disco called Scamps in Oxford. Super intense assault. Ears ringing for days.
ReplyDeleteThat incarnation of the Fall, and then Adam and the Ants on the cusp of breaking through, playing the "Dog Eat Dog" and "Kings of the Wild Frontier" material at Friars Aylesbury, those would be my two memorable double-drum encounters in the flesh.
ReplyDeleteMake that three - the Buttholes! Teresa with her flashing red hair and almost jackknifing at the waist as she pounded the shit out of the kit. Alongside King Coffey, who also had red hair but not quite as long as Teresa.
Nice Strong Arm on their debut album:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpWlmotQizw
One of the best albums of the Eighties, that. They claimed that they used two drummers in honour of Boz Scaggs.
That's weird, I was only listening to that album last week, for purposes that must remain for now shrouded... Great band, I did a little interview with them when they were in NYC for the New Music Seminar. Saw them live too. The second album wasn't quite as compelling though - and I hadn't even realised there was a third, Stress City I think it was called.
DeleteIIRC they slimmed from a five piece to a three piece when they moved from Austin to NYC, this of course meaning that they went down to one drummer and one guitarist.
DeleteThe result was that they lost their USP, and their sound went from being extraordinary to fairly ordinary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_drumming
ReplyDeleteWould having 2 drum machines count as double drumming?