Tag Archives: T. Rex

Brother JT – Celebrate Your Face (2013)

by 2010s • Tags: , , , , , ,

The Brother JT saga (proper) begins in the early ’90s. The Brother had been doing a bunch of solo recording that he felt were outside the scope of the Sins. One night he ended up on a Siltbreeze tour that alighted at the rural homestead of bald, music fatty, Byron Coley. Chemicals were in the air, and when JT played him some tapes, the results were released as the first Brother JT album, Descent,on Wayne Rogers and Kate Biggars’ Twisted Village label. This led to an array of other JT projects, many of which paralleled the Sins’ trajectory, until he decided to pursue the Brother JT psych-path more exclusively. Results appeared on such labels as Drunken Fish, Siltbreeze and Drag City, and man, they were great. Now he has made his debut on Thrill Jockey, and it is, perhaps, his most outstanding effort yet. The Svelteness of Boogietude is a typical of JT’s output in certain ways — rockers mixed with ballads, all of them crafted with causal elegance — but there are new elements here as well. In particular, there’s an attention to the legacy of later-period T. Rex, which results in tunes that kick total ass. Mr Coley, having seen Bolan play during his Zinc Alloy/Zip Gun Boogie period, went so far as to claim that “JT’s approach to this stuff equals that of the Master — huge riff-based anthems that balance glam dynamics with mystical history on the head of a pin.“ [Source]










brotherJT

T. Rex – Childlike Men (2012)

by 1970s, 2010s • Tags: , , , , , , ,

The first track from Tony Visconti and Morgan Visconti’s T.REX REGENERATION project. Morgan and Tony have taken some of T.REX’s classic FLY Recordings, and selected elements from multi-track recordings – which Tony originally produced for FLY between 1970 and 1972 – to create this ‘new’ track ‘CHILDLIKE MEN’ to commemorate what would have been Marc Bolan’s 65th birthday on the 30th September 2012. [Source]







Mott the Hoople – All The Young Dudes (1972)

by 1970s, Glam Rock • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Regarded as one of glam rock’s anthems, the song originated after David Bowie came into contact with Mott the Hoople’s bassist Peter Watts and learned that the band was ready to split due to continued lack of commercial success. When Mott rejected his first offer of a composition, “Suffragette City” (from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars), Bowie wrote “All the Young Dudes” in short order specially for them, allegedly sitting cross-legged on the floor of a room in Regent Street, London, in front of the band’s lead singer, Ian Hunter. With its dirge-like music, youth suicide references and calls to an imaginary audience, the song bore similarities to Bowie’s own “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide”, the final track from Ziggy Stardust. Described as being to glam rock what “All You Need Is Love” was to the hippie era, the lyrics name-checked contemporary star T.Rex and contained references to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones (“My brother’s back at home with his Beatles and his Stones/We never got it off on that revolution stuff”) in a “wearied swipe at the previous generation”. Bowie himself once claimed that the song was not intended to be an anthem for glam, that it actually carried a darker message of apocalypse. According to an interview Bowie gave to Rolling Stone magazine in 1973, the boys are carrying the same news that the newscaster was carrying in the song “Five Years” from Ziggy Stardust; the news being the fact that the Earth had only five years left to live. Bowie explains: “All the Young Dudes’ is a song about this news. It’s no hymn to the youth, as people thought. It is completely the opposite.







[via Mark Stewart]

Electric Light Orchestra – Ma-Ma-Ma Belle (1974)

by 1970s, Classic Rock • Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Taken from the 1973 album On the Third Day. In the UK, the single version had a slightly different mix from the album original featuring a descending string crescendo and was edited in length. Marc Bolan plays twin lead guitar on the track alongside his friend Jeff Lynne, the pair had previously played on Bolans T. Rex hit Solid Gold Easy Action. “Ma-Ma-Ma Belle” also featured on the ELO EP in 1978. In the UK the B-side “Oh No Not Susan” found its way on to various DJs play lists at the BBC unaware that the songs lyrics contained profanity. In the US “Daybreaker”, the single,s flip side, proved more popular and the song was relegated as a b-side in 1976 on “Livin’ Thing”. Early working titles for the song were Auntie and My Woman. Both of which have found their way on to various compilations.

A-Side:

TV performance:


B-Side “Daybreaker”:
“Daybreaker” is an instrumental song on the album On the Third Day. It was the first of two instrumentals on the LP. A prominent feature of its arrangement was Richard Tandy playing arpeggios on a Minimoog synthesizer.
The song was the B-side to the single, “Ma-Ma-Ma Belle”, in the United States; however the B-side received more airplay than the A-side, thus “Daybreaker” charted instead. Despite its US hit status, the song is rarely included on any of the band’s extensive compilation albums.

TV performance:




B-Side “Oh No Not Susan”:
“Oh No Not Susan” is a song written by Jeff Lynne taken from the album On the Third Day recorded in 1973. The song tells the story of a wealthy Socialite who has grown tired of her privileged status. Despite the songs lyrics containing profanity, it received much airplay at the time being the UK B-side to “Ma-Ma-Ma Belle”. On the LP’s original lyric sheet the offensive word was omitted. Bev Bevan remarked: “On [On The Third Day] there is a song called Oh No, Not Susan on which Jeff sings: ‘Oh, no not me, that’s all she says… her money and her place they just don’t mean a fucking thing…’ The BBC played it many times, despite their policy towards such lyrics. It just goes to show that if you keep quiet about it and don’t make maximum fuss to get publicity there isn’t anyone listening closely to words on the radio.”

T. Rex – Metal Guru (1972)

by 1970s, Glam Rock • Tags: , , , , , , ,

“Metal Guru” is a song by the British rock band T.Rex, written by Marc Bolan. It was the band’s fourth (and final) number one on the UK Singles Chart when it topped the chart for four weeks in May-June 1972. It was also included on the album The Slider in 1972. Here are the three tracks from the United Kingdom E.P.: “Metal Guru”, “Thunderwing” and “Lady”. Produced by Tony Visconti.

“Metal Guru”:

“Thunderwing”:

“Lady”:


[Dedicated to Mikael Simpson and Morrissey]