POP
Boys in bands
Duncan Fallowell
Kinkier and kinkier it gets. Rock, that is (among other things). It is one of the peccadillos of living in the 'seventies, while the planet slithers inexorably on to Ultimate Ecological Catastrophe (at which point, one imagines, things get very kinky indeed). But, since short of convulsive revolution Rome will continue to burn, I do not see why we shouldn't continue to fiddle as fulsomely as we know how. The muscular protest of a few years ago is giving way in rock music to, or at least being augmented by, a less principled hedonism which assumes rather than agitates for its freedoms. ' Significance' is replaced by ' fun' according to the tenet that if you cannot break the ice you might as well skate upon it.
I think the Stones, and the girlish golden-haired Brian Jones in particular, were the early pioneers. They always were a good hurdy-gurdy rock band and appeared on-stage in get-ups which in almost any other context would have been those of amphetamine drag queens. And the result? Sex appeal for all. An otherwise aggressively 'straight' cement mixer once told me with attractive piquancy how he would "love to make it with Mick." There must be some feedback here because the Stones' sexual record could be described as neither modest nor orthodox.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Warhol's Velvet Underground were weirder than they admit. And the late Jim Morrison of the Doors, who usually came on in leather gear and immediately began taking it off, used to crack jokes about "guys rushing the stage." Also from the States are the Alice Cooper who seem to be trying to supplant the Stooges as America's most demented group. They were in this country recently and received an awful press. I am not sure why. Maybe the pressmen were put off by Alice Cooper himself, the lead singer. He daubs his face with make-up, wears laddered tights and has hair that might comfortably accommodate a nest of termites, three or four fruit bats and a rookery or two. Their latest album on Warner Bros, Killer (£2.25), is rock and roll, rough and nasty, and I like it, possibly because it is reminiscent of early Stones music. On the other hand their highly theatrical stage act, with electric chair, straitjackets and things swinging from gibbets, gives one a more resolute idea of what they are up to. But wasn't Arthur Brown doing similar things in this country four years ago?
So at a different pitch was Marc Bolan. He began as King of the Mods, then unaccountably metamorphosed to Elfin of the Flower Children (and incidentally Britain's best selling ' poet ': ingenious, lightweight stuff derived from the Sitwells). His group, T. Rex, having undergone some showbiz therapy which turned them into teenybopper androgynes, emerged as the most successful of 1971. Even more extreme Is another Englishman, David Bowie, who some years ago had a big hit with Space Oddity and has been making obscure and curious albums ever since. His most recent on RCA, Hunhy Dory (£2.15), although derivative, has some splendid moments and a lot of well-made songs. It is about time he emerged from the umbra and if 'ii'. telligent camp' can help he should soon be somewhere near the top. He claims to be the Greta Garbo of the 'seventies but I gather he wows them in New York clubs in ankle-length silk and cherry boots and permed hair.
There are lots more. The Faces, for ex' ample, now one of England's biggest and best rock groups, who in Rod Stewart have the faggiest-looking lead singer of all time. Or the Kinks, whose ultra English songs always seem to flirt with the deviant without ever quite stating it (Muswell Hill' billies, RCA, £2.20). By the way, then* leader, the melancholy and underrated RaY Davies, is another one on a Garbo kick, Or in America the Cockettes, straight-down' the-line transvestites who thought rock and roll might be jolly. And so on. All the signs are that this disregard for immutability in sexual roles is going from strength to strength. The male groupie has a future.
Previous page
