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Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

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Very British
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IanB
IanB
6761 posts

Edited Dec 11, 2007, 16:35
Re: Very British
Dec 11, 2007, 15:01
I think a lot of the motivation behind people climbing on board the Punk thing was that our home grown suprestars of the mid 70s were happy to spend months touring America and would then come to the UK and do a few Earls Courts for the home crowd. Much bitterness ensued. Especially around Zep in 75 and the Stones in 76.

The fact that the Stones sound was abysmal and people felt that they were phoning it in didn't help. Knowing now the state Keef was in it was amazing they played those dates at all.

Yes used to regularly do the regional theatres but by 75 / 76 were also playing football grounds (QPR and Stoke). Then there was Rod selling himself down the river with all that Cannes / LA / Brit Ekland shit. Gabriel and Genesis got themselves to arena level and then wisely went in other directions.

Then there were the bloated / idiotic / bland / disappointing albums - Song Remains The Same (which sounded shit at the time but is much better in the expanded version with more short songs), Topographic Oceans, Black and Blue, Atlantic Crossing, Come Taste The Band, Run With The Pack etc. Roxy were paddling in shallow water at the edge of self-parody, Clapton had given up being a guitar hero, Beck was doing jazz-rock, Koss dead, Bowie (like Clapton) had walked into a Fascism row, Crimson had jacked it in and all the good art-rock was being made so far off the commercial radar as to be irelevant to mainstream audiences.

So all the big artists 'lost' some credibility as working fan's acts by the end of 76. And to be fair there was no one coming up in their wake with the same creative rush. Lone Star, Nutz, Druid, O Band, Streewalkers, Baker Gurvitz, John MIles, Jack The Lad, Camel, Jess Roden, Frankie Miller, Cado Belle, Boxer, Graham Parker, Dr Feelgood, Crawler, Moon etc etc. Not exactly in the same class as Zeppelin, Yes, Traffic etc. One might say "What about Queen or Supertramp?" to which I would say "Fuck right off".

I'd argue that for mainstream rock and roll Lizzy and Be Bop Deluxe were just about the peak of what was available. The world's tallest pygmys.

Left the scene wide open for Reggae and Punk to sweep the board and capture hearts and minds of the hard core rock fan. Which it almost did but a quick look at the weekly top 40 of that era tells another story in terms of what the mainstream pop fan was buying.
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Very British (zphage)		 Replies:
Re: Very British (machineryelf)
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