From the Archives: Getting Away With It: Diao Yinan’s Neo-Noir
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The Gutter’s own Carol Borden isn’t available this week. Maybe she’s
tracking down leads. Maybe she’s lying on a cot in some tattered hotel
watching the ce...
1 hour ago
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Mud! The least glamorous glam rock name ever.
I'm also partial to "Moonlight Sally," "Tiger Feet" and "Dyna-mite."
Have you seen Julian Cope's recommended GlamRockSampler? Worth hunting down.
"Tiger Feet" almost won out by virtue of the synchronized dance moves in the TOTP clip, but I've always been more partial to this song. I recall hearing that they were some kind of hippie band before Chinn & Chapman got their hands on them, which explains the, uh, "earthy" name.
I haven't seen Cope's sampler. I'll have to hunt it down. Thanks.
Let me assist.
Julian's write up.
...and the music itself.
Julian's less interested in the poppier end of Glam and more with the stuff that trends between glam and prog plus the protopunk, but there's still very cool stuff here.
Thanks. That's an interesting list indeed. Maybe I'm too catholic in my definition of glam, but The Dictators? Even Be Bop Deluxe seems pretty liminal. Still, Julian definitely gets points for avoiding the usual suspects.
I've got to say the first Bebop Deluxe album was quite glammish and a total (excellent) Bowie ripoff. Then Bill Nelson ditched his original band for some dipshit musos and they got tweedly with the riffs.
But straight up Glam Rockers by them include: "Third Floor Heaven" and "Maid in Heaven" which are 100% glam genius. (Your mnemonic device then would be: "heaven is good.") And "Jet Silver and the Dolls of Venus" is fun because (a) Nelson is a certified guitar god, and (b) it's very closely modeled on "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars."
Back to Julian's list, I really learned to love Doctors of Madness, the first two Chrome albums and the bizarre story of Neil Merryweather (Canadian folk rocker gone glam). Check out Merryweather's song "The Groove" - it's great.
I heard that Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars and Jet Silver & The Dolls of Venus once played a gig together, with Benny & The Jets opening. Probably just a rumor.
I don't mean to slag Be Bop Deluxe. I was a fan back in the day. In addition to those you mentioned, I remember liking "Jets at Dawn" and, of course, "Blazing Apostles". I also think that "Drastic Plastic" is one of the more credible attempts by an established rock act of that period to go "new wave". It's just that I think of glam as being more song oriented, and many of Be Bop's tracks, as you indicate, seem more intended as showcases for Nelson's guitar wizardry.
The only thing I remember about Doctor's of Madness is that they were heavily featured in a prime time, network news documentary about the workings of the music industry.
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