Glam from Elsewhere in the Anglophonosphere

Well, if Canadian hauntology wasn't surprising enough, here's a whole book on Canadian glam

Yes it is an "untold story".

When I was doing my wide-trawling research for S+A, I did come across examples of glam 'n' glitter from Commonwealth territories.... but nothing that really asserted itself as essential to the tale. 

Mostly fairly straightforward Bowie-imitations. 

Sometimes well-done -  e.g. New Zealand outfit Space Waltz, fronted by Alastair Riddell

Canada's main claim seems to be Sweeney Todd, whose emulative pitch involved shoving the word "Roxy" into a song title. 

And it worked - it got to Number 1 in Canada. 

Then the band's Nick Gilder redid it as a solo song in an attempt to have a US hit.

But then Sweeney Todd rerecorded it - with a young Bryan Adams singing - also in an attempt to have a US breakthrough.

What a farrago!

(Gilder did hit on his own with songs like "Hot Child in the City")

It was also, around that time, covered by Suzi Quatro (whose image is rather toned down here - where's the black leather bodysuit?)

Ex-Runaway Cherie Currie covered it later too.

I feel like I came across some other Canadian groups that were a bit glammish but perhaps more proggish.

And then in Australia, the nearest to glam I came across was Skyhooks, who were probably more like 10cc pastiche-rock, or Down Under Buggles, or The Tubes meet Sailor. But who could really play, go head to head with ooh The Doobies maybe.

And then there was the Ziggy-damaged Duffo, who tried to jump on the punk wagon 

Lou Reed damaged too

Glam 'n' glitter from the UK was very popular in Australia - particularly the most lumpen kinds, like Slade - and overlapped with the sharpies subculture as discussed here earlier. 

New Zealand also had Split Enz were somewhere in a zone between glam and prog - a little bit Cockney Rebel, a little bit Genesis. And produced early on by Phil Manzenara. 

Via Down Underman Andrew Parker, some examples of AC/DC looking glammish 

And then Bon Scott in pigtails and schoolgirl frock to match 'n' mirror Angus's schoolboy get-up 

This is less glam and more partaking of that tradition of unpretty rockers dressing up in women’s clothing for a laugh, like local football teams did all around England, in order raise money for charity, or Widow Twankey in panto.  Keith Moon did it...  Fleetwood Mac's English Rose ...  Zappa and the Mothers…  

The Stones started it with "Have You Seen Your Mother Baby (Standing in the Shadows) -  the single cover, the video. 

In this lineage, the dragging is to look ridiculous or grotesque, not alluringly ambiguous and between-genders, as with Bowie wearing a frock and femininely draped over the chaise longue for the cover of The Man Who Sold the World. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The Robert Dayton book on Canadian glam is to be published by Feral House.

Who recently published a whole book on glam metal - titled American Hair Metal: Can't Get Enough, it's by Steven Blush (a name I associate with hardcore punk)

I got sent a copy - it's heavily pictorial, full-color glossy!

Another era of men dressing like women and slapping on the make-up - and in this case, very much doing to look gorgeous. To, in fact, attract women in the audience who looked much the same as the men on stage.  

Well, there's exceptions - Twisted Sister played it for grotesquerie 

American Hair Metal is a departure from the old Feral House days of Apocalypse Culture and that kind of thing. 

        

But then I suppose for your edge-walkers, at a certain point only the mainstream at its most gross and vapid becomes truly transgressive,...   authentic Americana... the kind of exoticism / slumming combo that leads brainy people people to get into wrestling or demolition derbies or what-have-you...  

Bit like how the RE:Search people started getting into EZ listening and exotica and the like. 

Jaded palates need new frissons.

It's the ultimate taste-move, in the sense of a 'checkmate' to other edge-chasers, but also "ultimate" as in  there's nothing left, nowhere else to go.... a kind of self-stalemate

Unless, unless, you go round the circle completely and go back to the middlebrow, 'The Beatles are great", type position.