Neglected Glam Albums 1 - Another Pretty Face

Having spent some time in the last year living in the world of glam rock, one of the great pleasures has been revisiting old albums and - even better - finding work that I didn't previously know from the period. So here's the first item in what's intended to turn into a series...

When I was going through some old music papers a few years back, I came across a couple of one-sentence mentions in 1974 editions of the Melody Maker to a Boston band called Another Pretty Face. The reports simply mentioned that they covered songs by T. Rex and Roxy Music and noted that 'The lead singer imitates David Bowie depresingly well.' As far as I'm aware, this was their sole coverage in the British music press.

And then I found this album. As a neglected work of glam genius, it's in a class of its own. Recorded in 1973, it wasn't even released until 2004. Which might make you worry that it's going to be a ragged collection of demos and lo-fi live recordings. It's nothing of the sort - it's a fully fledged, lavishly produced, perfectly sequenced nine-track masterpiece.

To start with, those Bowie comparisons are perhaps inevitable. Particularly if you're going to open with a seven-minute epic titled 'Planet Earth' that uses science fiction imagery to explore sexuality. But the singer and main writer Terry Roth (known throughout as T. Roth, maybe in tribute to Bolan's band) is no copyist. Nor does he sit on the fence. One of the stand-out songs is 'Little Boys', which spells out its agenda in unmistakeable fashion:

People always say I only do this for the money
or I do it for the mass adoration.
Then there are the ones who assume that I'm crazy
or I'm doing it for gay liberation.
No, not me, I don't want these joys -
I only do it for the little boys.

This is accompanied, it should be said, by a wonderfully trashy bit of rock with early-1960s backing vocals of the 'bop-sho-wop' variety, in a way that the New York Dolls would recognize, had they not been so addicted to garage guitars and had they enjoyed the services of a more sympathetic producer. (The man responsible here is Ed Stasium, shortly to work with the likes of the Ramones and Talking Heads.)

Elsewhere the music veers between the swaggering horn-riffing Stones-rock of 'Stuck On You' to the Cockney Rebel posing of 'Girl Crazy'. Without deviating too far from the basic blueprint of classic rock, driven by the melodic guitar of Rob Nevitte, each song retains its own identity, assisted by guest musicians, so that there's always some variation on the keyboard textures.

I'm not sure about the Roxy Music connexion mentioned in tht Melody Maker reference, but the bonus tracks here (also produced by Stasium) include a cover of T. Rex's 'Get It On' (under its American title 'Bang a Gong'), which is fun if a little too faithful. The only other cover is 'Da Doo Ron Ron' with the gender of the subject unchanged.

This is as good as American rock got in the 1970s, dominated by Roth's arrogantly confident vocal performance. Perhaps, though, he was the problem. At a time when even Bowie was seen as too gay for mainstream America, Roth was never going to achieve the stardom he deserved. So, better late than never, this is the best glam album you never heard. And in case you don't take my word for it, the sleeve notes feature tributes by David Fricke and Lenny Kaye, who ought to know - 'cute and deadly,' says the latter.

The Prettiest Stars I

For various reasons, I've been revisiting the glories of glam rock recently. Not that it takes much to get me listening to the Spiders From Mars, Roxy Music and Cockney Rebel. That brief moment (the period from, say, David Bowie's single Starman in June 1972 through to Mott the Hoople's swansong Saturday Gigs in December 1974) remains the highpoint of British rock and roll, as far as I'm concerned: funny, camp, theatrical, pretentious - it was wonderful.

There's some dispute, though, about who was part of glam. So - for the sake of those with whom I've been disputing - here's some clips of the kind of thing that I think counts:

First, Steve Harley with the first incarnation of Cockney Rebel performing a live version of their debut single Sebastian on German television:



Sadly, it's not the full song (I love the fact that a band considered it reasonable to release a seven-minute song as a first single), but it's magnificent even in shortened format.

Then, slightly more arguably, there's the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, who often got considered as a hard rock act, though surely there's no argument that the drama of this performance of Jacques Brel's Next makes it part of glam? Is there?



Part of what I love about glam was that it was sold records. It was genuinely popular in a way that didn't always make sense. It could be as witty, as weird, as oddball as Sparks and still attract a crowd of screaming teenyboppers. Well, here are the boys making the point in 1975 as they try to deliver a version of the great single Amateur Hour:



And one of the other things I love about glam is that it inspired others to push themselves to new levels. Take Leo Sayer, for example (yes, I know I'm on much thinner ice here). Clearly not a glam star as such, but when he first appeared, the presentation was heavily influenced by the theatricality of the time. And while I know he's never been a critically approved act, if this performance existed in isolation, without the later career, would it not be considered comparable to some of, say, Jobriath's work?



Now to me, that's much closer to the spirit of glam than the likes of the Sweet and Mud, who frequently get associated with the term. Not that I've got anything against either of those bands, mind - it's just that glam wasn't simply a question of dressing up for Top of the Pops: the obsession with style came from within the music, not as a coat of facepaint afterwards. Oh, and the subject of the song draws from the well of glam.