Eddie & The Hot Rods
For a while in 1976 Eddie & The Hot Rods were the hope for a music scene that had gone stale. The way had been kicked open by their aggressive suited and booted neighbours from Canvey Island, Dr Feelgood, playing short sharp bursts of gritty tunes. Eddie & The Hot Rods were younger, rockier and sang songs that the audience clearly identified with and had a dynamic stage show to boot.
Described as ‘Punk’ before that term even coalesced into a movement, the tag alternately helped and hindered them. While others Punked themselves up, visually and sonically the Hot Rods remained true moving from a covers-based R&B sound to something more akin to the MC5 circa Back In The USA.
Scoring a massive hit with Do Anything You Wanna Do in the fall of 1977 should have been the launch pad for greater things. Instead, it became virtually their epitaph as the music scene changed from Punk to New Wave, to Power Pop and the Rods lost first momentum, a manager and then their label before splitting up.
How good were Eddie & The Hot Rods? They might not have captured their incendiary live act, but hell they put down some classic toons that rival any punk band for energy and spirit.
In the beginning there was ….. Dr Feelgood!
Eddie And The Hot Rods burst out of Canvey Island in 1975 following in the footsteps of local pub rock heroes Dr Feelgood. It was this back to basics approach that forged the band. Following various early members dropping out of the band they numbered ex-boxer and vocalist Barry Masters, harp specialist Lew Lewis, guitarist Dave Higgs (ex Dr Feelgood roadie and player in Southend’s the Fix), 15 year old schoolboy bass player Paul Gray and drummer Steve Nicol.
Graeme Douglas: Dave Higgs originally called the band Eddie and the Hot Rods as a hotter/more speedy name than the name borrowed from one in which I was a part time member before the Kursaal Flyers ie Eddie and the Blizzards. The funny thing is that I originally intended to call that band Slim and the Lizards, but the other guitarist (Barrie Martin – the Hamsters) forgot what I told him and vaguely remembered something and the somethings. Punk77 Interview
The tried and trusted approach to gigs – working mens clubs and obscure pubs where the pool tables got more attention honed the bands act.
Barrie. It makes you work ‘arder to try to draw the audiences attention. We’d get so frustrated from being ignored, that we ended up pushing the P.A over an stuff… that kind of thing actually got them to respond, you know. Zigzag #60, 1976
Also part of the act was their ‘additional’ member Eddie who was later dropped.
Barrie. We made this 6’6″ guy with a trilby hat, pin stripe suit and shades- and we’d ‘ang ‘im up on a sort of budgerigar cage stand/ mike stand at the back of the stage where it was all dark…I’d go and talk to ‘im during the set, and the punters thou. At the end of the act, we’d wrench ‘im to the ground and beat ‘im up. We used to call him Eddie – which is where our name came from. Zigzag #60, 1976
One very important member they also picked up following his attendance at a club the band had started was Ed Hollis a DJ from Southend and friend of Higgs who became the manager who not only penned lyrics for the band but also turned them onto harder acts like the Stooges and MC5 which obviously influenced their sound.
If a comparison has to be made…then it probably shouldn’t be with the Stones or the Feelgoods, who are the most obvious choices, but with the unutterably magnificent MC5. Not that the Rods have the same political cross that the Five were forced to bear, but they play a similar brand of of short and sharp teen anthems, that comes from the heart and the gut, rather than the intellect….Manager Ed Hollis reckons that when the Rods do get around to doing an album, they’ll be aiming for the sort of feel that the MC5 got on ‘Back In The USA’. Paul Kendall, Zigzag, May 1976
Years later the ever-acerbic (but a bit of a twat) journalist Tony Parsons would refer to the relationship of the band to Hollis in the NME as “Conservative, fascist puppets of a megalomaniac Canvey Island Kim Fowley.”
Hollis would also come to produce their records. However, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Courtesy of the Feelgoods they got a gig in London which secured their place on the London gig circuit. Eddie & The Hot Rods quickly developed an enviable reputation as a live act that provided a combination of 60’s style garage r’n’b action and thrills, harking back to the early Rolling Stones gigs at the Railway Hotel in Richmond, but with a more energised and grandstanding flavour (their elongated version of Them‘s “Gloria“ was the climax to their set, though it seems contemporaries the 101ers may have pioneered the song in this format). As a result of this, regular positive mentions in the music weeklies got the buzz going about them.
Howard Thompson: The energy on stage was infectious and it wasn’t long before they started to attract decent sized audiences at all the pubs and clubs around town. Me? I had no real reference point as to what the hell I was doing. I didn’t know if they were going to sell records. All I knew was I liked ’em. A lot. They played the kind of music I grew up with but gave it a rawer edge and a life-or-death intensity that was hard to ignore. Their shows were thrilling. Back in the office I told Richard Williams [Island Records] that I’d seen something that I really liked and asked if he would come along and give a second opinion. Uh…and a green light. North Fork Sound
Their growing standing on the circuit resulted in an offer from Chris Blackwell’s Island company by their A&R whizzkid Howard Thompson (now a prog-minded outfit having dispensed with most of its early Reggae rooster) and their first single “Writing On The Wall“ appeared just as a residency at the Marquee was beginning, a set of gigs that was to be eventful not least for the fact that they broke all previous house records. Anchor and United Artists were said to be interested in signing the band and who knows if things would have turned out differently. As it was Island had little knowledge of promoting bands like the Rods. Later they would sign Ultravox and get them nowhere, famously promise Stiff Little Fingers a contract and dump them, sign The Slits but not know what to do with them and get the record for the quickest recording of an album to shop (24 hours) with Warsaw Pakt.
Undoubtedly one of the early turning point of the Hot Rods career was their Feb 1976 Island showcase gig at the Marquee Club in Wardour Street supported by the Sex Pistols. There has been some debate that there was some collusion between the two bands respective managers to make this something of an event. But what is sure is that a few chairs were thrown around, Jordan stripped to her waist and the Pistols lost the support slot for the Hot Rods residence, but gained much more.
Johnny Rotten Eddie & The Hot Rods to me was everything that was wrong with live music. Instead of fighting all this big stadium nonsense, they would narrow themselves into this tiny clique by playing in pubs…when it came to the actual gig, somehow the monitors were turned off. I call this industrial sabotage! No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs
Dave Higgs: They can’t play or nuffink. They just insult the audience. They wrecked our PA. We waited for them to apologise, but they had fucked off.
This resulted in the Hot Rods looking like bemused pub rockers shrinking back from the edge of punk rock and putting the Pistols over as the scene’s legitimate rebels. Steve Jones succinctly summed up the difference between the band – “Actually, we’re not into music, we’re into chaos!”
Lew Lewis, who played the harp so hard his mouth often bled by the end of gigs had dropped out of the band mid 1976 and formed his own outfit Reformer. Later Lew was imprisoned in 1987 for his part in an armed robbery on his local post office using a fake gun and bicycle as a getaway vehicle but not before contributing to The Stranglers Old Codger and making the superb Caravan Man. His last contribution to the band was the b side of Woolly Boolly – Horseplay.
However it was not immediately apparent that this fissure had occurred to the nascent Punk scene and the Rods continued for a time on a decidedly upward path. The band regularly sold out the Marquee and set attendance records at the venue and also a live ep from there which perfectly captured their early sweat stained, energy filled shows. The single was released in August 76 and was an adrenaline infused live rendition of covers 96 Tears, Get Out Of Denver, Satisfaction and Gloria and reached no43 in the UK singles charts. The band also played the Mont Marsan Festival with The Damned, Nick Lowe, Pink Fairies and Gorillas among others.
A month later contrast the predominantly old guard Mont Marsan with the 100 Club Punk Festival featuring The Damned, Clash, Buzzcocks, Vibrators, Subway Sect, Siouxsie & The Banshees and the Sex Pistols and you can see the cataclysm coming. At that time though gigs and energy were enough to roughly coalesce a scene that could bring together a liking for bands as diverse as Blue Oyster Cult, Eddie & the Hot Rods, Deaf School, New York Dolls and Jonathan Richman.
The first few issues of “Sniffin Glue” featured rave write ups on the Rods and it was only really at the turn of the year things got more defined and the Rods found themselves deemed “unfashionable”. Just as the gulf between the Hot Rods and bands like the Pistols, Buzzcocks and Clash was becoming clearer the Teenage Depression LP emerged.
It was felt, despite the slight controversy of the title track (“spending all the money and it’s going up my nose”) and the front cover art capturing the feel of 1976, that the record itself was a disappointment (certainly this was the feeling at “Glue”) and most people seemed to feel it was only as a live band Eddie and the Hot Rods truly excelled.
They bring music back to us kids. The band are not removed from us by big auditoriums separated by fierce security guards. The band are part of the audience and they know it……They’re playing for us. They reflect the way we live, our whole lifestyle. Steve Mick, Sniffin’ Glue, Nov 1976
There’s no feel to their stuff, no distinctive sound to build on… a live album would have been better – that would have been an instant classic. Mark P on ‘Teenage Depression’ Sniffin’ Glue, Nov 1976
As a predominantly live band they moved fast. The debut album was recorded with Vic Maile (Feelgoods and Motorhead producer) and done in 4 days. in October. Their first John Peel session consisting of 4 songs in February 1977 was done in 2 hours with only possibly the Damned being quicker!!
As Punk hit at the beginning of 1977 the band’s future looked rosy. NME had them as the most promising emergent act, their debut album had a bit of controversy and balls and they appeared to be part of a wave of exciting aggressive music.
Their first appearance of the year was surprisingly on the back of The Damned’s first album as 2000 copies were mistakenly pressed with the wrong photo shown below. More likely this was Jake Riviera cashing in on the Rod’s popularity!
Nevertheless it must have come as a disappointment to the band that their first release in March was I Might Be Lying coupled with Ignore Them which died to death and which the Hot Rods blamed on Record Company inactivity referring to Island as ‘Wankers’. Later they would admit
Barrie: We’ve been working solidly for the last 18 months, we were just trying to get Graeme into the band then. That single came at the wrong time. It’s just a matter of timing. Record Mirror 17.9.77
In fact Island posted full-page ads consisting mainly of glowing reviews for previous singles and live shows in the music weeklies and was the first single to be advertised as the Rods. The single was also a watershed for the band. The A side was strictly pub fare while the excellent B side was the first to feature new boy Graeme Douglas of local pub heroes the Kursaal Flyers on guitar. Douglas had been sacked from the Kursaals managed by Jonathan King after registering his distaste with the choice of producer, Mike Batt of Wombles fame, and the fact the band were heading for more MOR territory. Coupled with his compositional boost their manager Ed Hollis would again provide the lyrics for the songs replacing Dave Higgs as the primary supplier of songs and the band would gain an extra depth with a second guitar.
Graeme Douglas: Dave Higgs was the person who wanted me to join the Hot Rods, because he admired my guitar playing and wanted to fatten up the sound a bit with him concentrating on rhythm guitar (he is a bloody master at amphetamine rhythm). Ed, always one for the main chance though, sold me the idea by convincing me that HIS IDEA was that the Hot Rods should emulate The MC5 with Fred Smith and Wayne Kramer. Consequently, I never really got the chance to collaborate with Dave on song writing until much later. Punk77 Interview
Another live single At The Sound Of Speed ep followed again doing nothing really retreading old songs. However from here on in 1977 was to prove their most successful year as the effect of the Douglas/Hollis partnership came into play.
This move immediately paid dividends when in July they released the now classic single Do Anything You Wanna Do (penned by the duo themselves) and again released under the shortened name of the Rods with the classic Aleister Crowley with Mickey Mouse ears on the cover. In many papers, it was the single of the week and it went top 10.
Paul Gray: It wasn’t long afterwards that what was to be known as the Curse of the Hotrods struck. In retrospect it wasn’t the best of ideas to mess about with Alistair Crowley. The single cover featured the image above featuring Crowley’s face with a pair of Mickey Mouse ears, a play on Crowley’s mantra – “Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law” . It wasn’t long before the letters started coming from his followers, saying we were playing with fire and threatening dire retributions on us all. At the time it was unnerving and we tried to laugh it off, but uncannily enough we suffered more than our fair share of tragedies soon after. In no particular order one of the guys responsible for the cover committed suicide, our manager died of a drugs overdose and all sorts of other troubles befell band members that I won’t go into here. Paul Gray, Archives
A second John Peel session in October was followed by the release of the fantastic Life On The Line (with a second suicide-themed sleeve) in November to great reviews in the music weeklies. The album also made number 27 in the charts.
With all this chart action and great reviews it was a full six months before another single bar the backing of the band for former MC5 vocalist Rob Tyner on the single Till The Night Is Gone (Let’s Rock) and Flip Side Rock which wasn’t exactly life-changing stuff.
Another single Quit This Town was released in December which should have been a hit but which stalled at number 36. A third single Life On The Line was released in March 1978 and flopped.
Disappearing over to the US on tour with the Talking Heads, Ramones and Tom Petty didn’t help them make the breakthrough in America. Maybe they had their own similar type of heroes in Springsteen and couldn’t connect with the likely lads from Canvey. Much like their forerunners Dr Feelgood, touring the US not only didn’t lead to stardom there but also killed their momentum in the UK too.
Away from the recording scene for almost a year things had changed beyond all recognition. If the Hot Rods were somewhat removed from the cutting edge in 1977, by the start of 1979 they might as well have been a Mersey beat outfit. To add to their woes, they split from their manager Ed Hollis leaving a band that had seemingly toured hard and had success but with very little financially to show for it.
Max’s Kansas City
Paul Gray: He was an essential part of our success, but from being the major driving force behind the band we started to lose faith. For a band that had constantly toured and sold tons of records we had little to show for it, and later we realised that we were effectively broke. Tax etc had been deducted from our wages – at the height of our success I can’t remember earning much more than £75 a week – but had not actually reached the Inland Revenue. He was also spending more time on other projects, with some Very Dodgy People, and had succumbed to the excesses of practically everything. Paul Gray, Archives
Graeme Douglas: On the first tour of USA late 77, the band had developed so much that Dee Dee Ramone commented, after one show in Boston, “How come you guys manage to play so hard, so fast, and with so many chords?”. We had blown them all away. On our return to the UK, Hollis, as Paul has said, had taken leave of his senses by developing a taste for heroin, originally to come down from massive ingestion of cocaine, but then because it was a better, if not more productive, high – consequently, and unbeknown to us, we toured more and more to keep a manager’s drug habit manageable.
The Life On The Line tour of early 78 spring was the last that the band, and Ed, were together and focused. In the beginning, Ed had the notion of the English MC5 – when we got there he had lost interest in touring and wanted to become the Kim Fowley for others. He might even have become Simon Cowell, had he lasted this long! During the following six months it took a long while for the band to realise what had been happening to the money we should have been earning. We were doing short trips here, there and everywhere. Punk77 Interview
With the song writing partnership split up and Douglas now sole composer and writer he admitted struggling.
The trouble is I tend to find too many words and they’re too long. I had to get my razor out and cut them down a bit. NME, 3.2.79
A reflective interview with Higgs and Douglas in the NME saw them bitter, at times angry and reflective (as the picture below shows)
Douglas: We were slagged off by the punks in the same way that the hippies slagged off Scott McKenzie….the thing is as soon as you get a movement, you get a narrowing of ideas and people get hard line ethics. You have to think this, you have to wear that, you have to like certain things. That’s what happened this time. NME, 3.2.79
Commenting on the length of time between records Douglas commented:
They didn’t just allow us to take our time,…they insisted on it.
You mean they didn’t like what you offered them at first?
You could say that, says Douglas a bit ruefully
For the Hot Rods it couldn’t get worse. They returned then with the downbeat Thriller LP in 1979. This LP had a decidedly bitter edge, a sense of glories denied and press back biting pervades (“The Power And The Glory”). Despite featuring guests like Lee Brilleaux, Jools Holland and even Paul McCartney’s missus Linda the record was only a minor UK hit. Island wasn’t interested in another record by the band who was just about spent musically and personally.
Paul Gray: In the spring of 1979 we set off on yet another long UK tour supported by The Members. They were actually getting more airplay than us for their single Offshore Banking Business. Where we were starting to sound tired and, dare I say it, jaded, they were fresh and enthusiastic. Looking back on it now we were knackered, we’d been worked to the bone, and there was no fooling the punters. We were drinking loads – a bottle of Jim Beam for me, Southern Comfort for Bazza, Vodka for Dave – it would all be gone before we left the dressing room, and on top of that we were almost single-handedly supporting the Colombian economy! What had once been a great adventure had ceased to be fun and, although we wouldn’t have admitted it we were going thru’ the motions. Paul Gray, Archives
Graeme Douglas: The material wasn’t all it should have been. ‘Power and the Glory‘ and ‘Circles‘ were classic songs – the others were not up to scratch. There was no fire in the grooves because the the creative energies had been burned out of the Hot Rod team by hustling for short trips to pay the wages that week. Punk77 Interview
The band signed to EMI got a new manager and found themselves dispiritingly on the end of being reinvented as an R&B band again and a grueling US tour.
Paul Gray: Not long after, at The Lyceum, scene of so many Hotrods triumphs in the past, Graeme finally lost the plot. Well, someone had to. Halfway thru’ the show he handed his guitar to the puzzled photographers in the pit at the front and started crawling about the stage on all fours, up on the drum riser and tried to bite Steve’s ankles. The memory of Steve valiantly trying to keep time whilst simultaneously bashing Graeme on the head with his sticks is one that will live with me forever. That very night he was sacked. We limped on for a few more gigs without him but I had lost heart. The fun had gone, we had no dosh and I had no faith in the manager or the direction EMI wanted us to go. Paul Gray, Archives
With Paul Gray leaving to join The Damned in 1980 all that remained was the Fish And Chips LP on EMI before the first incarnation of the band folded.
Why weren’t Eddie & The Hot Rods massive?
Bands who are primarily a live act always have a problem in the studio capturing that energy. NME Book of Modern Music 1978
So it was with the Hot Rods but they also had a few more obstacles in their way including lack of top notch material and a clash with the turbulent times of Punk Rock. Teenage Depression had them as contenders but at a time When Anarchy and New Rose were still fresh and Grip and White Riot were coming out, releasing the Retro pub rock sounding I Might Be Lying firmly put the band with the old guard. If you think this is being harsh look at The Stranglers, Clash, Damned or Sex Pistols discography and you can see song after song of quality. With the Rods there’s a lot of hit and miss as you roll through theirs.
Then you have the two periods of the band. Pre Douglas with the Higgs/Hollis more R&B sounding band and the more rockier edgier twin guitar attack of Douglas/Hollis. Add to that a manager that contributes lyrics and produces and you have a reliance and lopsidedness in the band. In January 1978 the Rods were top of their game and the question has got to be why was there no new product to keep them in the public eye? The answer was the classic combination of mismanagement both by their manager Hollis and their Record Company.
Graeme Douglas: The ‘Life On The Line’ tour should have started in the USA and finished in the UK (in Jan and Feb 78). There should have been a few weeks off for song writing and rehearsing, then some serious recording, had Ed still been capable – if not, then another producer should have been acquired by Island before it was all too late to get back and crack the USA with a new album.
Island was being run as a social club, not a record company – there was no-one on the ball enough to advise the main bands who were having management and direction problems (ie us); they were all jockeying for their chance to take over as MD. Punk77 Interview
Because of this, they didn’t release anything until 1979 and by then it was a different world. We were into post punk. The Stranglers were nearly onto The Raven, The Clash London Calling and Siouxsie The Scream. By then the Rods were out of steam and out of time.
Eddie and the Hot Rods are still around today after various reformations through the years and like compatriots Dr Feelgood, have no original members. (Barry Masters the last original member died 2019)
Graeme Douglas: It would be easy to say that the Hot Rods were amphetamine rock. What they lacked lyrically they made up for in sweat. You didn’t need to think, you didn’t need to pose, all you needed to do was dance or jump up and down as fast as possible.
On record, as we tried to develop, as the Stones had found, there were pharmaceutical problems. Whereas the Stones were able to survive, the Hot Rods weren’t. Playing on stage with the Hot Rods was the most fun you could possibly have with your clothes on (and more-often-than-not) with them off as well. Punk77 Interview
Wooly Bully / Horseplay (Island June 1976)
After the failure of the first single Writing On The Wall, Island supremo Chris Blackwell tried his hand at producing this cover of Sam and The Pharaohs number before passing on the duty to Roxy Music’s Andy McKay. Again the single did nothing chart-wise. More remembered for its controversial cover of a young man about to blow his brains out that was pilfered from a True Detective magazine and which would be used again for the ‘Teenage Depression’ album art. This was the last single featuring Lew Lewis as well.
96 Tears / Get Out Of Denver / Gloria / Satisfaction
(Island August 1976)
In the long hot summer of ’76 the Rods and AC/DC were vying for who could break the house attendance records at the famous Marquee Club in London. All covers but done in a way that captures the high paced adrenaline of the band and the hot steamy nights at the Marquee. Reached #43
Boy! Here is yer real steamin’, sweaty, sweet, street-punkie Rock’n’Roll. This fast little platter is a gift to the hardcore pub following and…fans should see them soon before they lose their edge. Caroline Coon. MM 31.7.76
Teenage Depression / Shake (Island October 1976)
While The Damned’s single is acknowledged as being the first punk single, you can’t deny the attitude, balls and velocity of this fine single of teenage angst.
They are the first of the new-wave punk band to trail-blaze into the national chart and they are a fine measure of the storm brewing on the horizon. Everything about the single works – the explosive power, the convincing presence and the intense sound focused into sharp definition around the concept of ultra-fast, no-messing rock. Caroline Coon, Melody Maker, 30.10.76
Teenage Depression
Well I’m spending all my money and its going up my nose
My Daddy’s found me out and he’s tearing up my clothes
My probation man says you know you ought to quit
I said now don’t you hang me up now with none of that shit
I got the teenage depression that’s what I’m talkin’ bout
If you don’t know what I mean then you better look out
Same thing every day, well I cant get out of bed
Too many questions are confusing up my head
I cant stand the thought of another day at school
But I know the weekends coming so I gotta keep my cool
I got the teenage depression that’s what I’m talkin’ bout
If you don’t know what I mean then you better look out
It really makes me mad when they always ask me why
That I never comb my hair and I never wear a tie
School teacher bugging me it’s the same old thing
Get out of my way I need another shot of gin
Do Anything You Wanna Do / Schoolgate Love
(Island July 77)
Single of the week across most of the music weeklies and rightly so. A 24 carat bona fide rock’n’roll classic that is sheer perfection and which hit the Top ten of the singles chart. More than that the b side ain’t no slouch either!
Forerunners of the punk movement, they came too early to take full advantage of the current punk boom. I suspect that this record will reach the widest audience so far: slowed-down and tuneful enough to get pop air play, hard and fast enough for the street. Alan Lewis. Sounds 30.7.77
Single of the Week. Their best single so far, superior even to the Live Marquee EP recorded in the halcyon daze of last summer. Tony Parsons. NME 30.7.77
Do Anything You Wanna Do
I’m gonna break out of the city
Leave the people here behind
Searching for adventure
It’s the kind of life to find
Tired of doing day jobs
With no thanks for what I do
I know I must be someone
Now I’m gonna find out who
Why don’t you ask them what they expect from you ?
Why don’t you tell them what you’re gonna do
You get so lonely, maybe it’s better that way
It ain’t you only, you got something to say
Do anything you wanna do
Do anything you wanna do
I don’t need no politicians to tell me things I shouldn’t be
Neither no opticians to tell me what I oughta see
No-one tells you nothing even when you know they know
They tell you what you should be
They don’t like to see you grow
Quit This Town / Distortion May Be Expected
(Island December 1977)
How this wasn’t a bigger hit I’ll never know but it’s the Hot Rods at their best with a taut rhythmic belter of a tune. Rightly single of the week across all the music weeklies. Disappointingly it stalled at number 36.
Single of the Week. They pulsate, vibrate, innovate, captivate. It never loses tempo or gets directionally confused. Nothing I would write could be as good as this is. Donna McAllister. Sounds, 12.12.77
Single of the Week. The melody and hook represent the team of Douglas and Hollis at their glossiest. Bob Edmands. NME 17.12.77
Till The Night Is Gone (Lets Rock) / Flipside Rock
(Island December 76)
Legend or not MC5 singer Rob Tyner’s songs backed up by our boys was not what rock ‘n’ roll dreams are made of. But hell what would you do if the great man came a calling and you had the chance to record with him?
Rob Tyner: Now I realise that it’s not fashionable to dig the Rods…Being your basic rock and roller at heart, I really do dig the Rods. Maybe the dudes in plastic bags and fuchsia hair don’t know, but the little girls understand…I’ve developed a real affection for [them] both musically and personally, and I believe that they have the best chance for America of all the bands I’ve seen here. NME, 1.10.77
Life On The Line / Do Anything You Wanna Do (live)
(Island March 78)
Ok so the Rods were midway through a three month UK tour in support of the Life On The Line album but was there really any mileage in releasing a third single from an album that though very good had yielded one hit and that some 9 months ago and a live version of it on the B side? Not surprisingly it sank without trace. That’s not to say it’s not a good song!
Single of the Week. Topside is the title track from the album and it would put any well-oiled carburettor to shame. Ian Birch, Melody Maker, 18.3.78
Media Messiahs / Horror Through Straightness
(Island January 1979)
Why oh why did Island reject the ban’s choice of song ‘Circles’ and pick this? Having been away for over a year you have to question the wiseness of releasing a caustic comment on bands and journalists and a song, though catchy, that falls under the weight of the heavy subject matter.
Catchy enough after a few plays with a production that wavers between Spector and ‘Rubber Soul.’ Hugh Fielder, Sounds, 20.1.79
A disappointing single that starts well but quickly loses its way, suggesting that the Rods have lost the touch that made ‘Do Anything You Wanna Do’ a worthy hit. Jon Savage, Melody Maker, 20.1.79
Power & The Glory / Highlands One Hopefuls Two
(Island March 1979)
What is going on with the cover? Fuck me it’s atrocious! Which is a shame because the song is an absolute belter displaying all the best sides of the band with a world weary maturity.
The Rods’ newie comes as something of a surprise so soon after ‘Media Messiah’ which, bad reviews and all, was a strong number. This, sadly, isn’t nearly as effective. Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 3.3.79
A much needed vitamin pill on their repertoire. Robin Smith, Record Mirror, 3.3.79
Three very distinct albums. The first was in essence a cobbled togther souped up r&b affair as Thompson their A&R man recounts.
Teenage Depression was assembled using some new songs, some old, a new recording of (the now Lew-less) Horseplay and a couple more songs from the Marquee show.
But it came at just the right time with its cover and eponymous lead track; a premonition for the Punk zeitgeist. In Sounds, 6.8.77 the band stated their aim.
Barrie Masters: The problem is…no one’s really written any memory pieces and that’s what we’re aiming for, rock n’ roll classics.
Douglas: It’s encapsulating a mood in three minutes.
Life On The Line came pretty close, and is the jewel in the crown, featuring the additional guitar and compositions of Graeme Douglas and manager Ed Hollis. It was their biggest album success and featured their biggest hit Do Anything You Wanna Do but its packed full of great tunes.
Thriller is a different kettle of fish. Ed Hollis had gone. Time had moved on and the Hot Rods were virtually starting from scratch but with nothing left in the tank. It was all over bar the shouting.
Teenage Depression (Island 1976)
Amazon Review So Malcolm McLaren might have invented the term, but this album, which appeared before the Sex Pistols hit the scene, tuned straight into a young, music-loving public who were fed up with the self-obsessed and pretentious rock sound of the mid seventies. I was a Feelgood fan, but then I heard this album: how could the beat be so fast, the lyrics so anarchic? The title track says ‘I’m spending all my money and it’s going up my nose’ in an unashamed reference to the glue-sniffing that was epidemic at the time ‘My probation man says ‘you know you oughta quit’, I say don’t you hang me up now with none of that sh**t!’.
It’s commonplace now, I know, but at the time it was mind-blowing. The energy of the playing wasn’t bettered through the whole of the punk revolution and I always thought of the Sex Pistols as just jumping on the already-rolling bandwagon. Pangolin (Aylesbury, UK) Amazon Review
Life On The Line – (Island 1977)
Still, don’t let any of that detract from the fact that this is a superb effort for a band who looked dangerously like a prematurely spent force before Graeme Douglas joined. Any one track has got more sheer energy than most bands muster in a year, and now it’s being deployed with great flair in a style that is fresh and exciting. Phil McNeil, NME 12.11.77
Living On The Faultless Line ***** PETE MAKOWSKI. Sounds, 29.10.77
THE RODS’ debut long player, Teenage Depression, was pretty straight forward /straight ahead In its intentions, a class party album. Since then the band have added the playing and writing talents of Graeme Douglas and produced the classic single of 1977, in ‘Do Anything You Wanna Do’. Apart from generally beefing up the sound, Douglas’ incisive soloing counteracts neatly with Dave Higgs’ primal chord work. The success of ‘Do Anything You Wanna Do’, proved that the Reds can progress forward musically without losing their raw energy appeal. Both factors contribute largely to the brilliance of this majestic vinyl pancake. Like a mate said after copping an earload of this, “The Reds have gone a step up the ladder”. And he’s right, this album has the depth and dynamics to appeal to anyone who likes energised music.
LISTEN! The album kicks off with the aforementioned single featuring Jess Yates’ clone on keyboards at the intro, and from then an there’s no stopping them. By the time you’ve finished listening to this, you’ll be falling about the flow, frothing at the mouth like a rabid hyena, with eyes bulging set like twin telescopes and enjoying it!
There’s nine cats executed at breakneck speed (the tracks all go into each other, giving you even less time to breathe) demonstrating the commercial sass of this band. Now when I say `commercial suss’ I don’t mean sell out, it’s just a natural perception they have to what audiences want to hear. They don’t alienate themselves from any potential audience with a pat on image. They reflect the same roots of today’s heavy metal kids who were Into bands like Sweet, the Sabs and Hawkwind.
I’m sure my ol’ pal Beefy’ Barton will be clicking his heels and banging his head against the wall to this one in unison with yours truly.
“What”! you may be exclaiming, that the Rods only do standards and twelve bar boogie woogie,” Listen chief, is my retort, this has got some dizbustin’ metallic rock that would make Steve Tyler’s make up melt and make Nugent’s bearskin muffs recede in fear. For a start, the production is rod hot, capturing the band’s tightness, solid fail frontal assault But it ain’t all on one level, there’s a lot of light and shade, capturing some tight harmonies, a well balanced sound.
Playing wise the group have improved immeasurably since the first album. Paul Gray’s bass bounces along vigorously with Steve Nicol’s frantic drumwork, an inventive team in the grand tradition of Steve Preist and Mick
Tucker and (for older readers) Entwistle and Moon. Like I’ve already said the guitars are blistering, and there’s plenty of fine soloing to satisfy axe fiends. Masters’ vocals have also matured, more gutsy.
Cripes! there’s even an instrumental on this entitled `We Sing … The Cross’ (featuring son of Stanley Holloway on intro) which will undoubtedly turn a few heads. It’s got a selection of choice material (all original) showing the wide scope of the band. Tracks like ‘Telephone Girl’ have that same latent Texan `BOOOOGIE!’ backbeat a la ZZ Top, getting even more frantic during `Ignore Them (Still Life)’. Then there’s `Life On The Line’ (an anthem to phone freaks?) rock’n’roll, Rods style.
This album has all the potential ingredients of breaking the band in the States. This album’s a dizbuster of the highest order, right up to the raging powerdriven closer, `Beginning Of The End’ where Masters’ vocals rage over the group attack -‘We were almost young, when you pushed us out of the WAAAAAAAAAAAYYY!’ (someone said it reminded them of Daltrey’s vocal attack in ‘Drowned’). This ain’t pretentious but it also ain’t a single dimension job. The Rods have got their fingers on the proverbial pulse and it’s beating. This is the Rods doing what they wanna do, the best way they can and it’s bloody good.
Like they say in `Ignore Them’… ‘Don’t take no shit from no-one/Just keep on havin’ fun.’ They are and you will. Natch.
Thriller – Island 1979
Although not as well received, or as successful as The Hot Rods previous two albums “Thriller” is a lost classic album showcasing the powerful vocals of frontman Barrie Masters and the brilliant guitar playing of Graeme Douglas with strong support from the rest of the band.
The first track is “The Power and The Glory” probably the best song on the album, but there are more great songs to come that highlight the diversity of the band at the time, compare the heavy r’n’b of Dave Higgs “Out to lunch” (complete with harmonica and piano), the spacey rock of the Douglas/Higgs composition “He does it with mirrors”, the good-time rock of the Douglas/Masters tune “Take it or leave it” and the 100mph energy of “Living Dangerously”. hotrods2008 “Ian” – Amazon Review
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Saw them many times over the last 40 odd years.Lastime at the final Brilleaux memorial gig.Only Barrie left then.Wonderful underrated band.Barrie dying was one of the most depressing pieces of news I’ve ever experienced.Truly great band wether playing at a festival, a pub or a 3000 seater.