Blast from the Past – 1973

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I get a lot of questions about what kind of music I am into. Basically, I came out of the rock and roll scene in the 1970’s. Heavy metal, folk-rock, space rock, electronic music, glam, the works. In particular, glam, which was very much hated back in those days. I heard the second New York Dolls album in 1974 and saw God. This stuff was very underground back than. From there, to punk rock, on to Gothic and whatnot.

The New York Dolls doing Personality Crisis, Looking for a Kiss and Trash from 1973.

With David Johanson on vocals (still alive and looking fantastic at age 60), Sylvain Sylvain guitar, bass, piano (still alive at not looking nearly so good – or like a normal 59 yr old at 59), Johnny Thunders, guitar, vocals, (Dead! Heroin overdose at age 39), Jerry Nolan, drums (Dead! Bacterial pneumonia and bacterial meningitis at age 46), Arthur Kane, bass (Dead! Leukemia at age 55).

By the time of their first album, their first drummer, Billy Murcia, was already dead at age 21, barely a man yet, overdosed on booze and drugs at a party, forcefed coffee to revive him, suffocated on the coffee, dead in a bathtub. David Bowie’s song Time on Aladdin Sane is about Billy Murcia.

The second album was aptly titled Too Much, Too Soon. As might be expected, soon after its release, the band was already broken up. Too much high and fast living had caused their implosion.

They were punks before there was punk rock.

Glam!

Some of the greatest rock music ever made!

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10 thoughts on “Blast from the Past – 1973”

  1. He models his stage act on the androgynous Mick Jagger circa 1969…but he doesn’t move as fluidly…this is pretty good and I didn’t know it…on this side of the Atlantic glam rock was represented by the Sweet, ELO, T Rex, David Bowie, Slade and Gary Glitter, Suzi Quatro, Wizzard, David Essex, Mott the Hoople…who have I missed out?
    Alice Cooper…not from the Uk but I was really into Alice Cooper…
    Here’s Ballroom Blitz live by the Sweet, the height of glam!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B0b9tcjavE&feature=related

  2. The guy was a fuckin’ Pagan poet…

    Marc Bolan’s Ride a White Swan

    Ride it on out like a bird in the sky ways
    Ride it on out like you were a bird
    Fly it all out like an eagle in a sunbeam
    Ride it on out like you were a bird

    Wear a tall hat like a druid in the old days
    Wear a tall hat and a tatooed gown
    Ride a white swan like the people of the Beltane
    Wear your hair long, babe you can’t go wrong

    Catch a bright star and a place it on your fore-head
    Say a few spells and baby, there you go
    Take a black cat and sit it on your shoulder
    And in the morning you’ll know all you know, oh

    Wear a tall hat like a druid in the old days
    Wear a tall hat and a tatooed gown
    Ride a white swan like the people of the Beltane
    Wear your hair long, babe you can’t go wrong

    Da-da-da-di-di-da, da-da-da-di-di-da ….

  3. Hey Robert! I bet you’ve never heard of a band called The Darkness. Who? They’re from the 2000s. When? Around 2003. They’re from 30 miles down the road in Lowestoft. Where? A little town on the Suffolk coast, mainly known for its fishing industry. They have a lot of the elements of Glam metal, they’re cheesy, they’re fun, they’re retro, they have an excellent singer who sings falsetto, and they do guitar pyrotechnics…I’ll send you a copy of their album Permission to Land. It’s a throwback to 1973! Here’s I believe in a thing called Love:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB98os8pHkk&feature=related

  4. The Sweet’s swansong ‘Love is like Oxygen’ – a great and forgotten track.
    Not to forget ‘Little Willy’, ‘Fox on the Run’, ‘Wig-Wam Bam’, ‘Coco’ etc etc.

    Talking about that era, my formative years asfar as music is concerned, what about those great British middle of the road singer-songwriter acts of the time?, Gilbert O’Sullivan, Leo Sayer etc .

  5. I lost track of the various rock phases a long while ago. Occaisonally I ask a thirtyish or younger
    person what’s going on? Along those lines, what’s your opinion of this “emo” music? Sounds self-destructive.

    Last guy queried says all the best young bands do “fusion”..eg. “the Yeasayers.” Didn’t like their YT offering. He told me he even likes a genre everybody else “cool” puts down…”skater pop” or “skater rock?”

    Like teenager bottlesprocket or something?

  6. Wow? This is from ’73? Defiant proto-punk, for sure. They would have been right at home in the early 80’s, no doubt about. Ahead of their time.

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