It’s worth remembering that the world has been through much stranger times than these. I was just listening to a podcast on the Thirty Years War of the early seventeenth century. A professor casually mentioned that one theatre of war in northern Italy was affected by an outbreak of plague.
Yes, that plague. This was only 300 years ago – in the heart of Europe. And coronavirus is about one tenth as virulent as ‘plague’ and, for most, about one hundredth as unpleasant.
Still. Everything’s weird right now. The ‘panem et circenses’ that keeps the populace happy in the good times all gone. No gigs, no sport. Actually plenty of ‘panem’ (bread) just no toilet paper for afterwards. Good times for bidet manufacturers.
The early ’seventies were not wildly dissimilar in the England in which I grew up. The miners were discontented and the consequences were profound. You’d go to the bus stop – no buses. Settle down to watch TV – the lights would go out. Football matches were played on weekday afternoons, because no floodlights (at least the matches went ahead).
Into this benighted world stomped glam rock. Bright and loud, garish and glittery, unashamed. The seeds of gender fluidity sewn into the sequins. Periodically over the years groups have reincorporated its sound into their music and that music is also featured here.
But though the lights came back on, the bad times never seemed to really go away. As the ‘seventies lurched on, the joke was so unfunny that the ‘virus’ of glam mutated into something altogether darker whose effects were felt even further afield. Punk rock is the subject for other episodes, but listening to ‘Holidays in the Sun’ by the Sex Pistols sure sounds like the bastard 1977 son of its 1974 parent.
Tracklist:-_
At home, at work, at play, Sparks
Your gang, our gang, The Auteurs
Roll away the stone, Mott the Hoople
Glamorous glue, Morrissey
Virginia Plain, Roxy Music
I believe in a thing called love, The Darkness
Do you wanna touch me there (oh yeah), Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
Clap your hands and stamp your feet, Bonnie St Claire
Some weird sin, Iggy Pop
Glam-racket, The Fall
Dog eat dog, Adam and the Ants
Metal guru, T Rex
White car in Germany, The Associates
See my baby jive, Wizzard