Not much is getting done today as it feels like someone is banging a gong on my head all day! Here's a great T. Rex clip from an episode of The Midnight Special!
Nothing puts us quite in the mood for the Holidays like some early 70's English glam rock!
"Merry Xmas Everybody" would be Slades's best selling single of all time which is fine by us, its a great song! Plus, we're always suckers for Noddy Holder's lead vocals! MERRY XMAS EVERYBODY!!
T. Rex - "Electric Warrior" (1971) - Reprise Records
Hello Friends,
Sorry its been a while but we're getting back to the business of pouring cocktails and listening to records after a brief and unplanned hiatus. (Editors note: No bars can hold us!)
We're celebrating our return in style with T. Rex's seminal 1971 LP, Electric Warrior.
Their sixth album (and second under the abbreviated "T. Rex" moniker) this is the record that really gave glam rock its start. By 1971 elfin singer, guitarist & songwriter Marc Bolan (along with percussionist Mickey Finn and producer Tony Visconti) abandoned their mostly acoustic, folkie approach for a fuller, more electric and hard rocking sound.
The songs are all pretty much simple blues songs enhanced by Bolan's quivering vocals, his Chuck Berry-on-steroids style of guitar playing and Tony Visconti's glossy but balanced production. Mickey Finn's manic-sounding bongos are present throughout as are the background vocal talents of Flo & Eddie (The Turtles) and the sax playing of King Crimson founding-member, Ian McDonald. Even a young Rick Wakeman gets in on the fun when he lends his keyboard talents to the hit single, "Bang A Gong (Get In On)"-- a gig he took because he was desperate for rent money at the time!
Bolan's lyrics here aren't as "English" as they have been in the past (I'm looking at you, "Ride a White Swan") and are instead about getting it on, banging gongs, crooning beneath bebop moons, cosmic dancing, electric witches, hubcap diamond star halos and generally being an all around jeepster for your love!
Girl, I'm just a vampire for your love / I'm gonna suck you!
Electric Warrior is a classic from start to finish. From its iconic cover to the 11 mini-masterpieces contained within its grooves, this record and its follow-up, 1972's The Slider, capture Marc Bolan's band at its absolute peak. It would introduce the band to American audiences with the hit, "Bang a Gong (Get It On)" but in the UK, Electric Warrior would reach Number 1 and Bolan would be elevated to rock god status. Bolan would influence a generation of glittery, pan-sexual, cross-dressing, vampy glam rockers including Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Elton John and later Jeff Lynne of ELO as well as a bunch of young punks who sat in their dark corners and sneered. RATING: 5 planet queens perchance to dream she used my head like an exploder out of 5
Lou Reed - "Rock & Roll Animal" (1974) & "Lou Reed Live" (1975) - RCA Victor
Hello Friends,
We've got a Lou Reed twofer going on tonight! Rock & Roll Animal and Lou Reed Live are two albums from the height of Lou Reed's glam rock phase. Guitar-heavy live versions of some Velvet Underground classics ("Heroin", "White Light/White Heat", "I'm Waiting For the Man") as well some solo stuff from the Bowie-produced Transformer and the uber-depressing Berlin. Both albums were actually recorded at the same gig at Howard Stein's Academy of Music (which later became the Palladium) in New York City in December 1973. Why they just didn't release the entire set as a double album will remain a mystery!
"Aaah... Me Like Lou Reed"
With only 11 songs between the two albums, Reed's lyrics take a back seat to some more complex arrangements and some heavy extended jams. (Guitarist's Dick Wagner & Steve Hunter would eventually join Alice Cooper's band.) You can even fool your hipster friends by putting on the first song on Rock & Roll Animal (an instrumental that leads into "Sweet Jane") and have them guess as to who it is. We're betting you'll get more guesses for Zappa, Pink Floyd or even the Dead than you will for Sir Lou. Shine a light on love, indeed!
RATING (both albums): 4 Jim-Jims in this Town out of 5
Holy shit kids, Lou Reed turned 71 this weekend! How the fuck did he get to live this long? I think my grandparents are younger than him! Seriously though, good for him. A steady diet of uppers, downers, junk, promiscuity, peroxide, rock & roll and shock treatment can do wonders, I guess! To celebrate his birthday we're listening to his second (and arguably best) solo album, Transformer. Classic fucking record. With songs like "Vicious", "Satellite of Love", "I'm So Free" and "Walk on the Wild Side", it plays like a classic FM rock record, but with not-so-subtle lyrics about drug use, drag queens, blow jobs, sexual ambiguity and violence, its quite a bit darker than anything by Bad Company, for instance. And the colored girls go... Recorded in England and produced and arranged by glam rock gods David Bowie & Mick Ronson (who were at the height of their 'Spiders From Mars' incarnation), the album is fuller sounding than anything Reed did with the Velvet Underground or that would appear on his subsequent solo albums like the utterly depressing Berlin or the slicker, Sally Can't Dance, or the feedback and noise opus, Metal Machine Music. And who could forget the song, "Perfect Day"? A minimalist, nostalgic ode to a good day in the life of Lou Reed, who is always aware of the other shoe getting ready to drop: "You're going to reap just what you sow..." Its also the best scene in the movie, Trainspotting.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack (1975) - Ode Records
Happy Halloween Friends,
We're celebrating right this year... giving out candy, listening to records and polishing off a bottle of Amontillado while reading passages from Edgar Allen Poe by candlelight!
But Halloween just wouldn't be Halloween without Brad & Janet, the Time Warp, a sweet Transvestite (from Transsexual, Transyvlvania), Meat Loaf, Riff Raff and Susan Sarandon's sweet jack-o-lanterns in their prime!
Because of the film's incredible cult status the soundtrack is often overlooked, but trust us friends, its worth the listen! Its campy and glammy, with healthy doses of Broadway, Bowie, Queen and 1950's rock and roll. Its like "Grease"-on-Acid!
Happy Halloween kids! We're off to TP some houses!
RATING: 5 Science Fiction Double Features out of 5
Ian Hunter - "You're Never Alone with a Schizophrenic" (1979) - Chrysalis
Hello friends,
Tonight on "Vinyl in the Valley" we're listening to what is arguably Ian Hunter's best record since his days with Mott the Hoople!
Featuring members of the E Street Band as back-up musicians and Bowie's ex-guitarist, Mick Ronson, producing, "You're Never Alone with a Schizophrenic" is a great example of what happened to "glam rock" by the late 70's. Its good, with some really solid rocking songs, but its polished-sounding and not sleazy or sexy enough. Its glam without the gay... and who wants that?
(Even Barry Manilow had a top 10 hit with a saccharine cover of the song, "Ships", from this album!)
The best song on this LP, by far, is the epic, "Cleveland Rocks". This song is great for two reasons, (a) it was the theme song to "The Drew Carey Show" and (b) Cleveland does rock! The songs are all pretty good, but every time I hear Hunter's voice, I sort of wish I was listening to "All the Young Dudes"...
