Re-post/Re-mix/Re-wind

This is an edited repeat of the very first post on this blog for any one who missed it the first time around. I just wanted a bit of a re-cap about the philosophy behind the blog. The Sweet's live 1976 version of Ballroom Blitz has been added for good measure.

I bought my first 7" record in September 1973. I was ten years old. It was the Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz". I obviously had a lot of pocket money that week as I went out the next day to buy two more; "Angel Fingers" by Wizzard and "Life On Mars"? by David Bowie. That was only the beginning.

Glam Rock had some great music, (it also had lots of crap music) songs that would stand the test of time. But even at it's worst, it could still entertain, but with tongue firmly in cheek. Glam gave pop back to the kids after years of progressive rock doodling and fret-wank. To many it was a beacon of light in a country that was literally in the dark.

In most respects glam rock is totally fake, but to young kids like me it was real and alive. It may have been "Brickies in eyeliner" but to the kids it was "stardust for the dudes"?

This blog isn't here to give total insight into the glam rock genre and it's protagonists, it's here to give a taste of the sights and sounds of that era. The forgotten A-sides and album tracks that weren't fully appreciated the first time, and the equally forgotten and long lost B-sides that were the flip-side of what glam was all about.
I have tried to restrict myself to sharing songs from the period 1971 - 1975, these are considered to be the main glam rock years, but I'm sure songs either side of these dates will sometimes creep in. Others have walked through, and flirted with the glam world; the Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart to name two. For every Bowie and Bolan there was an Alvin Stardust or Barry Blue. But even some of these 'second generation' glam artists could produce a decent song or two.
Of course I am looking back on all this from the perspective of a 46 year old man; wife, children and all that comes with that, but when I write this blog I am ten years old again and it's perpetually 1973. So I guess I will always have my rose tinted specs firmly on when looking back at that time.

I have loved other music with a greater passion since, but not with the same youthful joy, or with such a sense of longing and nostalgia when I hear it played. And now 36 years after buying that first single I sit here writing this.

I think that maybe when you find yourself, like me, at 45 RPM in life, your mind naturally returns to the past and your own inner groove.

"Are you ready Steve? Aha!
Andy? Yeah!
Mick? OK!
Alright fellas, lets go"

Electric Light Orchestra: Ma Ma Ma Belle (Alt take)

"I feel that i've told the story of Marc Bolan playing double lead guitar with me on 'Ma Ma Ma Belle' so many times that I won't mention it again. Anyway it's true. What a nice thing"

"Marc Bolans a friend of mine from a few years back. He was in the studio just over-dubbing something, and we had a good laugh, a bit of a reunion. It was really good because it's given the whole thing a new feel"

Jeff Lynne sleeve notes from re-issue of 'On The Third Day' 2006

It's Christmaaas

It seemed like a good idea to get a bit ahead of schedule with some of the blog entries I was intending to write, and to set some sort of order to the songs being posted. So with that in mind I began planning this Xmas post way back in August at the height of the British summer. As it turned out we didn't get much of a summer (as usual).
Anyway the point is, that it nicely links in with the song posted here, namely "Merry Xmas Everybody" by Slade. It is now a well known fact that this song was recorded in the (not very Christmasy) heat of June in a studio in the USA, to be released in the winter of 1973. It went on to become one of Slade's best selling and best loved 45's.

Originally a #1 in December 73, it has been re-released (in the UK) almost every year since then, giving Noddy and the boys a nice little pension in the process. Rather than posting the 7" version that everybody has heard, I have posted a rocking live version by the band from 1975.
The glam rock years were a golden period for Xmas singles, with Wizzards "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" only a #4 in December 1973 (such was the standard of other singles released at the same time). Mud's "Lonely This Christmas" a #1 the following year, and other less famous ones such as "Step Into Christmas" by Elton John and even "Wombling Merry Christmas" by the Wombles obviously.

T Rex: Children of the Revolution (alternative version)

"Children of the Revolution" is a song by T.Rex. It was a #2 hit single in September 1972. The song broke their sequence of four official single releases all reaching #1 ("Hot Love", "Get It On", "Telegram Sam", "Metal Guru").

It did not receive a regular album release, but was featured in "Born to Boogie" a 1972 film based around a T Rex concert at Wembley Empire Pool. The movie was directed by Ringo Starr, and was released on The Beatles' Apple Films label.
Born to Boogie consists of concert footage; recorded studio scenes with guest stars Ringo Starr and Elton John, and various vignettes reminiscent of The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour, shot at Denham and Tittenhurst Park, Sunninghill. The Tea Party sequence was filmed at John Lennon's estate in the same spots as Lennon's Imagine video was filmed.
The song is about teenage rebellion, and upon its release, some critics blasted the song, as it marked a change in the band's sound. This is an alternative version played in the film with Elton John on piano. A string quartet version of the song also appears in the film.
"The film was made purely as a piece of rock and roll entertainment. I feel it documents the phenomenon that has been T.REX through the past year – and that was the purpose of the film initially. But as Ringo and I became more involved in the making of “Born to Boogie” we decided to add several more scenes, bringing in “accidental” humour and to shoot actually “live” without dubbing. By doing so we were endeavouring to to get a spontaneity which does not come naturally from some films.
In some of the scenes outside of the concert we let our imaginations take their courses and, with the aid of props and a dwarf, let which ever happened, happen. And it did. We made the film strictly for a teenage audience who demand youthful excitement of the cinema – as well as on television and in the theatre. I think the film does that – no more, no less".
Marc Bolan 1972

Noddy Holder: Coz I Luv You (acoustic version)

Noddy Holder, along with his co-songwriter in Slade Jim Lea, are responsible for some of the best songs in glam rock, in fact some of the best songs of the 70’s.

Noddy eventually left Slade in 1991 and has since appeared in numerous TV and radio shows, most notably The Grimleys, a TV series that ran in the UK between 1999 and 2001. The Grimleys is a nostalgic comedy/drama set in the 70’s in a council estate in Dudley, England. Noddy played a music teacher called Neville Holder (Noddys real name).

Other notable cameos in the series include Alvin Stardust playing a pub landlord. In one scene Noddy and Alvin share a beer at the bar and start be-moaning the lost opportunities of their youth. At the end of this episode “The Road Not Taken”, Noddy performs a melancholic, live acoustic version of “Cum On Feel the Noize” . The implication here is that the Grimleys takes place in an alternative 1970’s, where Noddy and Alvin have abandoned their dreams of being rock stars in favour of more sensible 9 to 5 jobs.


“I still love music and I still have a good time when I want to, but music is not the biggest part of my life anymore. It was probably the biggest part of my life for a long time. I was doing that for over 30 years. That’s a long time, but I don’t look on myself as doing that now. Now I’ve got lots of other things to do”.
Noddy Holder interviewed by Andrew Darlington, “Straight from His Own Gob”.

Other notable acoustic performances in the show include an alternative Easter version of “Merry Xmas Everybody” and a version of “Coz I Luv You” over the end credits of the series two finale.
“I remember getting a call at 10 o’clock in the morning to say that Coz I Luv You was number one. That was the reason I was in a band, so I could be top of the pops. Even though we had six number one records, the first one is always special”.
Noddy Holder, from Go2Birmingham magazine, October 1999.

Marc Bolan: Truck On Tyke (demo version)

This is the demo version of "Truck On (Tyke)", the song that would eventually become T Rex's 11th single.

Mary Hopkins (Tony Visconti's wife at the time) can be heard singing on this version.

All The Young Dudes (Bowie guide vocal)

"All the Young Dudes" the national anthem of glam rock.
This is a remixed version of All the Young Dudes that puts Bowie's original demo vocal over the full Mott backing track. A glimpse of what the song could have been like had Bowie recorded it himself at the time.