"Are you ready, Steve? Aha.
Andy? Yeah!
Mick? OK.
Alright, fellas, let's go!"
That's the beginning to "Ballroom Blitz" by the group The Sweet. You may recall that it was played by Wayne's girlfriend's band in the movie "Wayne's World". The original was a catchy little tune from a campy genre known as Glam Rock, sometimes also called Glitter Rock. Glam rock started in the U.K., presumably in response to boredom with the Woodstock Generation. Glam rock musicians frequently resembled drag queens with guitars. They had bright flamboyant costumes, heavy eye makeup, outrageous hairstyles, theatrics, and a penchant for high heeled boots.
One particularly influential glam rock band was Slade. Gene Simmons points to Slade as one of his primary inspirations for Kiss, who also like dressing up and exhibiting their own distinct brand of theatrics. Slade was also known for intentionally misspelling their song titles. You may recall that the 80's rock band Quiet Riot had a couple of hits with covers of Slade songs "Cum On Feel the Noize" and "Mama Weer All Crazee Now".
Another purveyor of glam was Gary Glitter. His legacy lives on perennially at football games when High School Bands play Gary's immortal classic "Rock and Roll, Part 2", while crazed fans chant "Hey!" along with the chorus.
My three favorite Glam Rock bands were:
1) David Bowie (Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars)
2) Mott the Hoople
3) T. Rex
David Bowie is one of the few survivors of glam rock because he continued to develop new and interesting music, morphing from Ziggy to the Thin White Duke, to establish himself as the Godfather of Alternative Music. His influence is everywhere. During the glam rock era, Bowie penned a tune called "All the Young Dudes" and shared it with another of my favorite glam rock bands, Mott the Hoople. Evidence of glam rock's eschewing music of the 60's is found in the lyrics to "All the Young Dudes" which said "...my brother's back at home with his Beatles and his Stones; We never got it off on that Revolution stuff; What a Drag...". Like Slade, Mott the Hoople really ROCKED. They had some stellar tunes, like "Jerkin' Crocus", "One of the Boys", "All the Way to Memphis" and, as a solo artist, lead singer Ian Hunter wrote one of my all-time favorite rock tunes "Once Bitten Twice Shy"; still a staple on Classic Rock radio stations.
T. Rex were in a class by themselves. Marc Bolan of T. Rex, who died at 29 in a car crash, wrote the immortal "Bang a Gong (Get It On)". Listen closely to T. Rex songs and you will hear them paying tribute to the early Rock and Roll masters, like Chuck Berry. Basic rock riffs were the launching pad from which T. Rex blasted their glam rock masterpieces into outer space. For those of you who may be less familiar with T. Rex, I recommend you download their albums "Electric Warrior" and "The Slider". Their lyrics are deceptively simple, almost Dr. Seuss-ian, in nature, as in the song "Telegram Sam" wherein Bolan speaks of various characters known as "golden nose slim, purple pie pete and jungle faced jake".
Glam rock may be gone from the radio, but it is playing in the background of our lives. In the movie "Juno", reference is made to Mott the Hoople, and young Juno thinks that "All the Young Dudes" is decent. And Madison Avenue has certainly embraced Glam Rock. In 1991, Levi's jeans had a commercially starring Brad Pitt with T. Rex's "20th Century Boy" playing in the background. It was also used in a 2002 Mitsubishi commercial. If you turn on your TV right now, you might see the Mastercard commercial showing Marlon Brando, Carlos Santana, John Wayne and the Ramones, all wearing jeans, while David Bowie's "Jean Genie" seals the deal.
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