Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle: Glam Rock

Showing posts with label Glam Rock. Show all posts

Tuesday, 3 June 2025

Come alive!

You know you're getting old when you discover...

...that the wonderful Miss Suzi Quatro is - gulp - 75 years old today!

The "mother of all pop-rock chicks", she may well be younger than Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, Kim Carnes, Bette Midler and Stevie Nicks, but she had massive #1 hits many years before any of 'em...

Her first chart-topper here in the UK was in June 1973:

Suzi Quatro - Can the Can

I can only imagine the impact this powerful, no-holds-barred leather-clad pixie with the big voice had on such budding artistes as Joan Jett or Chrissie Hynde - even Alison Goldfrapp and KT Tunstall cite her as an influence [she collaborated with the latter on a recent album].

Arriving as she did in the midst of that maddest of all musical "cults", Glam Rock, she obviously became eternally associated with the genre - despite never once being seen with anything resembling the layers of slap that The Sweet or Wizzard et al wore, and evidently having nothing in the slightest bit glittery in her "Biker's Moll" wardrobe.

...but she was the only girl - and had more balls than (just about) all her compatriots! She also just happened to sell over 50 million records worldwide. Here are a couple more of her memorable hits of the era:

Suzi Quatro - 48 Crash

...and my fave:

Suzi Quatro - Devil Gate Drive

Glam Rock faded as quickly as it had arrived, in a shower of discarded sequins, but unlike some of her unfortunate compatriots Miss Quatro never really went away. She continued to have chart success well into the Punk era, carved a new "icon" status as "Leather Tuscadero" in Happy Days, went on to take myriad cameo roles on telly in her adopted homeland of the UK - including in Minder and AbFab, and even Midsomer Murders - and has presented some rather good music shows on BBC Radio 2...

...and in 2026, she's back on tour across the UK! You can't keep a great rocker down.

Many happy returns, Susan Kay Quatro (family name Quattrocchi; born 3rd June 1950).

All hail!

Tuesday, 1 February 2022

Kung Hei Fat Choy!

Grrrr! It's the Chinese (Lunar) New Year - and "The Year of the Tiger" begins.

I'm sorry. I couldn't resist...

Mud - Tiger Feet

All night long, you've been looking at me
Well, you know you're the dance hall cutie that you longed to be
Oh well now, you've been laying it down
You've got your hip swinging out of bounds
And I like the way you do what you're doin' to me

Alright, that's right, that's right, that's right
That's right I really love your tiger light
That's neat, that's neat, that's neat, that's neat
I really love your tiger feet, I really love your tiger feet
Your tiger feet
Your tiger feet
Your tiger feet
Well, alright!

Well, flash your warning lights just as long as you like
I know you're aching to be making me tonight
I've got a feeling in my knees
It's a feeling only you can please
There ain't no way I'm gonna let you outta my sight

I'm knackered, now.

Monday, 3 August 2020

Let it hang

It's beautiful out there - and for once I can embrace the sunshine and gorgeousness of weekday weather, as I am on holiday.

I wouldn't normally be up at this hour, of course, but I have a dentist appointment this morning (for an extraction!), which does rather take the edge off it. It was, of course, the second thing - behind getting my hair cut, which I managed the other week - that I have been desperately waiting to get tackled during all this lockdown, so needs must.

Speaking of hair, here's a little something for a Tacky Music Monday dedicated to anyone who has yet to get to their hairdresser...

Catapult - Let your hair hang down

Wise words.

Have a good week, dear reader.

Saturday, 6 June 2020

We just haven’t got a clue WHAT to do!

It seems bizarre that I only mentioned the Sweet in my post about Suzi Quatro's 70th on Wednesday, and on Thursday came the sad news that the band's bassist and showman Steve Priest has left for Fabulon, glitter platform boots and all.

According to Alex Petridis in The Guardian:

Almost every [Glam Rock] band had a member whose lot it was to take the excesses of their look one step further – Slade’s self-styled “super-yob” Dave Hill; Mud’s Rob Davies, visibly uncomfortable in his dangly earrings and chiffon – but Steve Priest entered into the role with astonishing gusto. He slathered himself in so much slap that, in Priest’s telling, Bowie himself felt impelled to intervene backstage at Top of the Pops – “He said, ‘You know you really are putting much too much makeup on?’” – and camped up his performances with a cartoonish relentlessness...

...Priest’s onstage persona impacted not just on the way the Sweet looked but on how they sounded. Songwriters Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn and producer Phil Wainman packed their singles with special effects – air-raid sirens, explosions, timpani, stamping feet, fans chanting “We want Sweet!” – but the most striking were Priest’s hysterical vocal interjections. The most famous is his cry of: “We just haven’t got a clue WHAT to do!” on Block Buster, which he invariably delivered to camera with a pout and one finger querulously placed against his chin.

From the moment, at 9 years old, I first set eyes on these glittering creatures on Top of The Pops, and particularly Steve Priest in his eyeliner and lipstick, I was smitten. Was it merely because he was "funny", or maybe all that campery awoke something latent in a little budding gayer in Wales like moi?

Who knows, but I certainly have loved Sweet - archetypal Glam-era "dockers in drag" or not - ever since.

Here are three reasons why...

Sweet - Ballroom Blitz

Sweet - Teenage Rampage

Sweet - Block Buster

RIP, Stephen Norman Priest (23rd February 1948 – 4th June 2020).

Yet another piece of my childhood, gone.

Wednesday, 3 June 2020

So come alive, yeah! Come alive!

Sharing her day with another mixed bag of luminaries such as Josephine Baker, Tony Curtis, "Cousin Isobel" Dame Penelope Wilton, Curtis Mayfield, Flinders Petrie, Alla Nazimova, King George V, Paulette Goddard, Allen Ginsberg, Deniece Williams, "Grandma Walton" Ellen Corby, Lili St. Cyr, Bill Paterson, Patrick Cargill and Rafael Nadal, the "mother of all pop-rock chicks" Miss Suzi Quatro is - gulp - 70 years old today!

Although she's younger than Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, Kim Carnes, Bette Midler and Stevie Nicks, she had massive #1 hits many years before any of 'em...

Her first chart-topper here in the UK was in June 1973:

Suzi Quatro - Can the Can

I can only imagine the impact this powerful, no-holds-barred leather-clad pixie with the big voice had on such budding artistes as Joan Jett or Chrissie Hynde - and even Alison Goldfrapp cited her as an influence.

Arriving as she did in the midst of that maddest of all musical "cults", Glam Rock, she obviously became eternally associated with the genre - despite never once being seen with anything resembling the layers of slap that The Sweet or Wizzard wore, and evidently having nothing in the slightest bit glittery in her "Biker's Moll" wardrobe.

Nevertheless, she was in the "stable" of artists who were launched into the British consciousness by the avowed maestros of that early '70s zeitgeist, Messrs Chinn and Chapman (who also wrote hits for the aforementioned Sweet, as well as Mud, Smokie, The Arrows and Racey) and Mickie Most, and thus her name would be forever listed alongside those of other top "Glam" stars like Slade, Alvin Stardust, Gary Glitter and Marc Bolan...

...but she was the only girl - and had more balls than (just about) all her compatriots! She also just happened to sell over 50 million records worldwide. Here are a couple more of her memorable hits of the era:

Suzi Quatro - 48 Crash

...and my fave:

Suzi Quatro - Devil Gate Drive

Wednesday, 4 December 2019

I can't get no satisfaction; all I want is easy action

Such - erm - interesting fashions Mr Bolan wore...

Timeslip moment again...

This time, we've hitched a ride in Jon Pertwee's TARDIS waaaaaay back to ancient history, or what might as well be! It's 1972 - the year of the Watergate scandal, Bloody Sunday and the Troubles, expulsion by Idi Amin of Asians from Uganda, the new Poet Laureate John Betjeman, Under Milk Wood, the Munich Olympics massacre, Black Panthers, Nixon in China, Are You Being Served?, CND's Aldermaston march, Ken Russell's The Boy Friend, miners' strikes, dock-worker strikes, The Godfather, the first official gay pride march in London, Olga Korbut, Mark Spitz, Jesus Christ Superstar, Vietnam, Vicky Leandros, A Clockwork Orange, The Chancellor of the Exchequer Anthony Barber, What's Up, Doc?, The Joy of Sex, Willy Brandt, Graham Hill, Dirty Harry, Bobby Fischer, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, Cod Wars, and the discovery of a Japanese soldier who had spent 28 years in the jungles of Guam still believing WW2 was on; the births of Geri Halliwell, Ben Affleck, Jude Law, Cameron Diaz, Dita Von Teese, Jonny Lee Miller, Idris Elba, Sakis Rouvas, Claudia Winkleman, Atari, Shaquille O'Neal, Jimmy Carr, Home Secretary Priti Patel, Mark Owen of Take That, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Vanessa Paradis, Liam Gallagher, Gwyneth Paltrow, Eminem, Dana International, DNA molecular science and the fast-food doner kebab; and the year that Margaret Rutherford, Maurice Chevalier, The Duke of Windsor, the Brighton Belle Pullman car train, Louella Parsons, the Ford Zephyr, Mahalia Jackson, Charles Atlas, J. Edgar Hoover, Ezra Pound, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Esma Cannon and Britain's last trolleybus/tram system all died.

In the headlines almost half a century [eek!] hence, in December 1972: the famous "Blue Planet" photograph arrived from Apollo 17, Gough Whitlam was elected as Prime Minister of Australia, the death of former US President Harry S. Truman was announced, and news of the horrendous circumstances of the survival of passengers of the Uruguayan plane crash in the Andes shocked the world. In our cinemas: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, The Pied Piper, Dracula A.D. 1972. On telly: Mastermind with Magnus Magnusson, Emmerdale Farm, Doctor Who: The Three Doctors and Pebble Mill at One.

And in our charts this week forty-seven years ago? Chuck Berry's smutty sing-a-long My Ding-A-Ling ruled the roost (as it would for the next few weeks), holding at bay both The Osmonds and Slade in the process, as well as Rod Stewart, Elton John, Donny Osmond, Michael Jackson and his brothers The Jackson 5. Ironically, among all these Jacksons and Osmonds, it was "Little Jimmy" [groan] who was destined to topple dirty ol' Chuck in time for Xmas. However, there was one more megastar of the moment who gave it a try...

...Mr Marc Bolan (of course)!

T. Rex - Solid Gold Easy Action

I was nine years old that year, sitting in front of Top of the Pops, in awe...

Tuesday, 15 December 2015

Glittering Gladys

Knowing our perpetual fascination with uncovering new "wannabee-divas" from other cultures (and indeed, other times), I was overjoyed to read about another rather marvellous discovery, courtesy of Dangerous Minds...

It wasn’t an easy bit of searching to reveal the identity of this early ‘70s mystery artist... as searching for any musically-related “Bobby McGee” (or more properly, as I’d learn, “Bobbie McGee”), was bound to return thousands of Janis Joplin and Kris Kristofferson entries.

Eventually “Bobbie McGee” revealed herself as Lady Teresa Anna Von Arletowicz, who was also dubbed by the music press of the day as “Gladys Glitter” for her musical and sartorial similarities to Gary Glitter.

Her 1973 UK single Rock and Roll People brought her some degree of cult status which resulted in a few TV appearances, music press articles, and at least one vintage Swedish rock and roll trading card - but not much else. It seems that the UK music industry was only interested in elevating one Glam Rock queen to superstar status and it wasn’t in the cards for Gladys Glitter - Suzi Quatro was to be the anointed one. A shame, in fact, because you can’t really have enough ‘70s badass rocker chicks. Bobbie McGee released four more singles that went nowhere before completely disappearing from music history’s radar.

And, so, this being the traditional season for resurrecting all things "Glam Rock" (thanks, Slade; thanks, Wizzard!), let's gasp in admiration at that costume - and get rocking with the lady herself...

Bobbie McGee ["Gladys Glitter"] - Rock and Roll People

Tuesday, 20 December 2011

Bang a gong

On this, the 40th anniversary of the utterly brilliant, the all-conquering and seminal Electric Warrior album by T-Rex - at Number 1 in the UK charts on this date in 1971 - I thought it worth revisiting this succinct tribute by Chris Jones from 2003:

Hot on the heels of its 30th anniversary re-release, T.Rex's most consistent album still deserves to have its praises sung. Think of glam and you probably focus on the 1972-4 heyday with acts veering from the sublime (Bowie, Roxy etc) to the ridiculous (Mud, Gary Glitter...Jobriath anyone?). Yet this slice of pop heaven was on the shelves by autumn 1971, making it officially the first glam album in the world. What's even more amazing is how fresh it still sounds.

Bolan himself was never one to avoid a trend. In his own mind he was always a star: Stories abound of his early days as a persistent chancer in mod/psychedelic London. Yet, if John's Children and Tyrannosaurus Rex didn't hold the keys to his inevitable stardom they certainly allowed him to learn the tricks that would flower on his first hit Ride A White Swan. This was the point at which he and long-term producer Tony Visconti took the hippy-dippy lyrics and 'Larry the Lamb' vocal stylings and bolted them on to good old stripped-down, four-to-the-floor rock 'n' roll. For four glorious years they never looked back...

With superb sleeve notes by Visconti himself, it must never be forgotten that this is as much his album as Bolan's (not forgetting Mickey Finn's radical bongos, ho ho). Visconti was behind so much of the glam-defining process that his name becomes synonymous with the genre. On this and Bowie's early work (Space Oddity, Man Who Sold The World) he creates a warm, spacey reverb-drenched world full of hip-thrusting libido and pouty tongue-twisting. Bolan's lyrics often approach 'back of a bus ticket' status in their throw-away couplets (Girl, Motivator etc.), but what shines through is the irrepressible fun the whole team seem to be having. The two monster hits (Get It On and Jeepster) still stand as monuments to pop concision. Nonsensical rhyme riding on swaggering guitar and drums.

Add to this at least two other utter classics (the frenzied funk of Rip Off and the touching ballad Life's A Gas) and not one real filler and you've got an album that's always going to sound box fresh: 5.1 surround sound just adds a little icing on the cake. Life's still a gas...