BEFORE THE RIOT WAS QUITE, THE METAL WAS GLITTER

BEFORE THE RIOT WAS QUITE, THE METAL WAS GLITTER

FEATURES

Toby Goldstein

And there arose from the stage such a thumping and a pounding that our eardrums were sore afeared: the clash of cymbals in the neon-lit night, the steady cascade of drum rolls that posed the unfathomable question. “Dave Clark isn’t still on the road, is he?” But our attention was soon diverted to the shine of satin clothing, woven in a million colors that nature knew nothing about. Shimmery jackets and vests, topping wildly flapping flared trousers, or, in later years, knobby knee-revealing skin-thins of black spandex. Cascades of long hair were teased, cut, sprayed or curled in elaborate patterns. And, rising high to meet the stacks of Marshalls halfway, were the platform shoes or boots— silver, white, black, red, with stars or dragons emblazoned up the sides.

The image and the sound were equally loud, equally relentless and equally unforgettable, though now, looking back over a decade later, the hairdos and clothing seem hopelessly dated, immune to even the most perverse fantasies of style recyclers (or so we can always hope). The music, however—the bashing and the hooks, the guitar frenzies and the sing-along choruses—is very much with us. Because these were the practitioners of glitter rock, an underappreciated form during its brief lifetime of the early to mid-1970s, yet one which has been frequently emulated in recent years, especially by modern heavy metal bands. And in at least two cases—that of the glorious and outrageous Slade and Kiss—yesterday’s glitter shines with a new radiance from heavy metal rock.

Of course, there were plenty of true-toform, down and dirty heavy rock bands around when the first glitter guys (with rare exceptions, it was a man’s, man’s world) challenged the rock establishment around 1971 or so. The Who, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Ten Years After and many other bedenimed blueswailers were selling out arenas with wails of lemon squeezing and 20-minute drum solos. Yet along came these upstarts, who not only-knew how to be masters of volume, but could also write tunes that were singable—and three or four minutes long—which put them regularly into the Top 10. In England, that is.

Not until punk came along and was steadfastly ignored by terrified/disgusted/ignorant radio programmers did any music have as tough a time getting American exposure as the glitter rockers. Used to adulation and gold discs at home in Britain, bands like T. Rex and Sweet came to these shores and couldn’t raise a bubble of indignation. Even their American counterparts, mainly Alice Cooper and early Kiss, found the road to rock success littered with prejudicial stumbling blocks. While Alice and the Kiss Krowd eventually overcame resistance through sheer headlineassaulting behavior (and some very welloiled publicity machines, saith the author, who should know, having been involved with the flack attack for both), less adaptable though equally unique bands, such as the New York Dolls and the female Runaways never were appreciated by the masses during their lifetimes.

So why, you may ask, eager to flip over to the next hot foto of Ratt, Crue, W.A.S.P. or the one syllable HM band of your choice, should we care about glitter rock anymore? Because, responds the know-it-all rock critic, it was (and still is) the glitter brigade who influenced many, many, many of today’s top metal bands. Joan Jett openly sings the praises of Gary Glitter, Quiet Riot built a career for themselves covering original Slade tunes, and eight years after leader Marc Bolan’s untimely death, the wit and beat of T. Rex influences everyone from metallians to punks to soul stirrers like the Power Station, who saw fit to cover the classic “Bang A Gong (Get It On).” The glitter rockers were guys who got away with wearing make-up and dresses, and girls who got away with wearing leather and chains. Sound irrelevant? Not to Twisted Sister, Motley Crue or Joan, just to name a few.

And there’s another bottom line here, for every metal fan who feels that the radio is placing HM bands at an unfair disadvantage to what seem like more palatable fads and trends. In the absence of other support, glitter rock thrived because critics and followers wouldn’t let it be ignored. We did, a decade ago, what metal freaks do now—wave our hands and stomp our feet. Believe me, in those platform boots, you had to feel the noize. Particularly when the noize was coming from someone like David Bowie, circa his “Ziggy Stardust” incarnation. Oh yeah, he was a glitter boy first, too.

AN INTRODUCTION TO

THE UNSUNG HEROES AND

HEROINES OF GLITTER ROCK:

BRITISH DIVISION

David Bowie: The former David Jones had already gone through stylistic phases of being a Mod and a folk-rocker, when his fellow scenemaker of the ’60s, T, Rex’s Marc Bolan, helped inspire an influx of flash. Between 1971 and 1974, Bowie was the Lord High Ruler of glitter rock, and the only British practitioner to make it to American superstardom. Bowie, a transformer if ever there was one, had all the right moves: he was married to an equally attention-getting woman and they had a son, Zowie (the child’s gender was debated in the press for years); he suddenly announced he was gay, or at least bisexual. Of Bowie’s three albums from his glitter rock era —The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs, Ziggy was the most inspirational to future rockers. Now way past wearing dresses, Bowie sported orange hair, space-ranger make-up, sky-high platform boots and wildly imaginative costumes that often veered perilously close revealing Zig’s private contours. You can bet the Prince child watched him a lot, but so did everyone else. David Bowie, who at the height of his glitter reign produced Lou Reed’s classic Transformer and wrote Mott The Hoople’s anthem, “All the Young Dudes,” was undeniably leader of this particular pack.

Cockney Rebel, featuring Steve Harley: Hoping to find a niche somewhere between Bowie’s sharp style and Bob Dylan’s mid-’60s wordplay, Steve Harley and his band Cockney Rebel had their biggest hit (and only U.S. one) in 1974 with “Come Up And See Me (Make Me Smile).” Harley had the right clothes and defiant pose for the glitter era, but his pretentions ultimately got in the way. In particular, the British press had a field day with him. Harley crops up every few years, but at present, his whereabouts are unknown.

Gary Glitter: Wishing made it so for Paul Gadd, an Englishman who was already a little paunchy and close to 30 when he became Gary Glitter in 1972. Knowing a good bandwagon when he saw one, Glitter took for his own the style’s very name, but his singles, especially “Rock And Roll, Part II,” were among the era's most successful. Glitter, decked out in a suitably flamboyant outfit, encouraged hand-clapping and thudding foot-stomping, which remain hallmarks of his records. Joan Jett’s escalation to solo stardom was helped a lot by her cover version of “Do You Wanna Touch Me.’’ Music made for yelling, several of Gary Glitter’s tunes have recently been reissued, and sound as if they could have been recorded yesterday. As a now-elder statesman of glitter rock, he is still a crowd pleaser, which his brief U.S. tour last year proved.

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Elton John/Rod Stewart/Queen: Bona fide 70s superstars who used glitter rock trappings to make them seem more cultish and hip. In Elton’s case, his zillions of flashy glasses and wild shoes stood out in sharp contrast to the actually rather gentle type of music he performed. Stewart, a blueswailer from the old days, wore an infamous “pineapple” haircut and fluorescent satin jackets to reinforce his dictum of look rich/act rich/get rich. For a while, at least, it worked. And led by the grandmaster flash of pomposity, Freddie Mercury, Queen blurred the distinction between glory and overkill. They toppled into the ornate with “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which you couldn’t really sing, but at a worldwide #1, who cared? In all three cases, the music was mainstream rock, sufficient to keep these artists confined to the charts.

Suzi Quatro: Born in the U.S.A., Detroit to be exact, but belongs to the British division because that’s where her black leather bad girl image resulted in almost a half-dozen Top 20 singles. If the guys in glitter wore make-up and dresses, what other way for a woman to go than act like a lean, mean, sex and fighting machine. Suzi played her image well, managing to pose with a seductive sneer. It worked while she was teamed with songwriter/producers Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman (the latter aimed for the same results during the late punk era with Blondie, with mixed success). Suzi’s singles were three-minute classics of aggression, with titles such as “Can The Can,” “48 Crash” and “Devil Gate Drive.” But her energy had been somewhat defused—not to mention the glitter era being long gone— when Quatro portrayed Leather Tuscadero in 1977 on the Happy Days series. You know Joan was watching.

Roxy Music: Rather more sophisticated than the obvious glitter gods, Roxy Music really represented revolt via style. With Bryan Ferry’s immaculate suits and arched vocal phrasings setting the scene, Roxy aimed at sophistication rather than stomping. What they shared with glitter rockers was the attitude that fashion mattered. Too sedate and ironic to have been a metal influence, Roxy Music opened a pathway for the Cars and Duran Duran.

Slade: Lord knows, they weren’t pretty, the four Wolverhampton lads who constituted (and still do) Slade. A frenetic conglomeration of “bovver boots” (for kicking your way past unfriendly doormen), satin, plaids, and in singer Noddy Holder’s case, a top hat, Slade began as a skinhead group in the late ’60s. They soon abandoned that selflimited subgroup. However, they never lost the aggression, and single-handedly brought the rage and cheers of sports fanaticism into rock music. Managed by Chas Chandler, who had previously played with the Animals and managed Jimi Hendrix, Slade began their shows with a scream; then they got really loud. In Britain, during the early 1970s, they were rarely off the charts, and had #1 singles with “Take Me Bak ’Ome,” “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” and “Cum On Feel The Noize” (you may have heard that one). Acknowledged privately if not publicly as an influence by bands such as Kiss, Slade never broke through to American success. Then Quiet Riot covered “Noize,” which channeled new metal fans into giving Slade their biggest U.S. success with last year’s “Run Runaway”—over 10 years after glitter rock was long gone. Boyz, weer glad you’re still around.

Sweet: One of the great names for a group whose songs were anything but. Another group within the Chinn/Chapman axis, Sweet added four-part harmonies to their stomp rhythms and neatly put over a half-dozen hits into the British Top 10. Unlike most of their colleagues, Sweet actually did cross over to the U.S. at least twice, with “Little Willy” in 1975 and the cataclysmic “Ballroom Blitz” two years later. The latter wound up being covered by no less an anarchic bunch than the Damned, who promptly renamed it “Great Big Tits” in performance. Sweet’s songs were sometimes more blatant than even the sex-obsessed glitter rock movement could get away with, and they eventually adapted the hard beat to less controversial material.

T. Rex: If the Power Station’s cover version of “Bang A Gong (Get It On)” resurrects half the interest in T. Rex that Q.uiet Riot did for Slade, they should be nominated for rock ’n’ roll sainthood. Following his original success as an exemplar of flower power, T. Rex leader Marc Bolan modernized his image and turned into a guitar-shrieking, glamorized elf of a rock tycoon. He soon became an undeniable teenage crush, and the subject of much mania, but T. Rex’s music never lost either its chunky danceable beat or instantly identifiable melodies. And were they loud! On the few forays they made to America, unsuccessfully attempting to duplicate their string of 11 Top 10 British hits, T. Rex quickly garnered a reputation as the most ear-shattering band of glitter rock. He may have looked like the “bopping elf”— as he was so often described—but once Bolan got on a stage, he was a powerhouse. Sadly, Marc Bolan’s fame did not always have the best influence on him, and at one point, he let himself dissipate; his weight ballooned, which rendered him almost unrecognizable. And, most tragic of all, Marc Bolan had begun to support (and get respect from) the early punks when he was killed in a car crash in 1977. As one of his most high-powered songs screams, “It’s a rip off...”

AMERICAN DIVISION

Alice Cooper: Snakes alive! When wildly painted Alice first emerged from the subterranean cellars of Los Angeles in the early 1970s, no one was safe. Alice defied current categories of the time. From the outset, his game lay in taking classic U.S. symbols—school, politics, parents—and turning them into screaming anthems of frustration. When Cooper direly proclaimed, “School’s out...forever!” and “I wanna be elected,” he was scarily believable. Even though his subsequent records and tours never equalled the first thrills of Love It To Death and Killer, Alice Cooper earned respect as a trailblazer.

Kiss: What Alice began as a cult, Kiss raised to a rampaging army. An ambitious quartet of New Yorkers, Kiss were unabashed fans of volume—and they knew the power of an image. By burying their faces in make-up all the time, Kiss merged life and art, and became successful at both. Typical of the metal bands which they directly influenced, including Motley Crue and W.A.S.P., Kiss’ hugest impact came from playing live, LP sales and merchandising—though they did put the odd single into the charts. Kiss’ super macho leather costumes put them on the extreme fringe of glitter. Forget about androgyny; who knew if these guys were even human!? Widely forsaken by their audience when they later moved away from true metal, Kiss managed to peel off their paint, survive several personnel changes and surge back to new hits and sold out shows. They remain Gods Of Thunder—and Rock ’n’ Roll.

New York Dolls: What to make of a quintet who painted themselves not like demons or aliens, but in some grotesque parody of women? The New York Dolls, led by David Johansen, whose pouting lips placed second only to Jagger’s, pushed gender confusion to a degree that may have been acceptable in Britain, but alienated audiences at home. Very few (mainly the rock critics) suspected that the Dolls’ roar of guitars and sputters about people with a “personality crisis” would help to shape the punk revolution in Britain just a few years later. Malcolm McLaren knew, though, because after working with the Dolls at the bitter end of their career in 1975, he returned to England and found this evil little venomous soul named Johnny Rotten.

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Runaways: Underage Los Angeles girls who wanted to play in the boys’ big leagues—and caught hell for it. No weeping willows or earth mothers here—the Runaways wore black leather and spandex all the way. Back in 1976, their talents may have been rather limited, but they looked dangerous and called themselves “Queens of Noise,” so what else mattered? History proved that neglecting this group was a serious mistake, as members Joan Jett, Lita Ford and, to a lesser extent, Cherie Currie firmly established themselves with solo careers.