MUD - Groups I'm really starting to get Part 1

Who knew Mud started in the 60s? I thought they must have formed in about 1972 as a bunch of charlatans jumping on the glam bandwagon to make a fast buck. They obviously had deep talent and a love for for music though. This was released in 1967 and didn't bother the charts but it stands the test of time, reminiscent of contemporaneous influences The Bee Gees. I don't know what they did between 67 and 73 but that's a big wait for success innit? I know they released several singles on different labels but with no chart action. For some reason they kept on truckin. Mickie Most saw something in them in 1973 and signed them to his RAK label. Mud finally hit pay dirt with 3 singles from 1973 all Chinnichap productions and compositions. These are the following three videos of which two were top 20 hits and Dynamite reached no 4.

This is fucking fantastic. Mud could have been a serious proposition. I mean I guess they were were with huge record sales by the mid 70s. Lead singer Les Gray was so charismatic. But they kinda had a bit of the class clown about them which wore thin after less than a couple of years. Then again Glam was all about good times and having a laugh was it not? This one carries over a bit of freak beat into glam as well as almost inventing new wave at the same time. One of the coolest tunes ever surely. Talk about atemporal. Absolute classic!

Hypnosis puts me in mind of like a cross between Love and Abba. Who would have thought that would have been a good combo? I'm not even sure if Abba had records out by that stage, anyway who cares this a tuuune and and half.

Classic glam jam right here. Gee the Chinnichap team had a winning formula didn't they?

The Cat Crept In was released in April 1974 and reached number 2 on the UK charts. Les's Elvis-isms start creeping in at this point and would really come to the fore on their Christmas No 1. Lonely This Christmas later that year. Although there was quite a bit of The Big O on that one as well. I guess the use of Lonely in the title was a bit of a giveaway. I can't bring myself to post it though. All those years of waiting to make the big time and by their 7th hit, the aforementioned Christmas single, they'd lost it. They were still reaping in the rewards though weren't they?

This one actually reminds me a little of one my old band's tunes which I didn't write, Greg our drummer did, maybe he was referencing it. The only song of Mud's I vaguely knew back (Youtube not yet invented) then was Tiger Feet from when I was little which must have been on some kind of mid 70s hits compilation. I certainly wouldn't have known who it was by. Mud mustn't have been as big in Australia as Slade, Sweet, Suzi, Marc, Gary Glitter et al. Anyway Rocket's got more Elvis inflections in the verses here. This was issued in 1974 and hit the number 6 spot in the UK.

Undeniably infectious pop smarts are displayed on their early 1974 single Tiger Feet. which became their first UK No.1 smash. Tiger Feet stayed on top spot for 4 weeks running. This tune brings out the shoulder jive moves when heard amongst the company of my wife's side of the family who come from North Wales.

Anyway a good little run of tunes over an 18 month period, I reckon. Better than anything Blur or Oasis could come up with.

Mott The Hoople - Groups I Never Understood Part 1

I can just see the attraction to this one as it's a classic Bowie penned tune. Bowie apparently loved Mott The Hoople so he gave them this gift of a song so they didn't break up. Did he realise it was one his greatest tunes? He must have been a really nice bloke. The following Mott tunes though I just didn't get and a few years ago I really gave them a good go to try and see what all the fuss was about. Don't get me wrong I love me Glam in particular Bowie, T-Rex, Suzi Quatro, Sweet and Gary Glitter. 

Perhaps doing this post is giving me a very late understanding of Mott The Hoople who I always saw as a 2nd rate tired Bowie, like his older brothers riding his coat tails or something like that. People love em though! This above tune is now growing on me.

Still dunno about this one? Then again if you listen back to those early 70s Bowie LPs there is a fair amount of a Rolling Stones influence on those. It's not that so much as the little bit of musical theatre in this one and hey I didn't like it when Bowie played this card either. I dunno Mott The Hoople just didn't have that instant Wham Bam! impact of an early Suzi, Gary Glitter or Sweet tune or the that insidiously glamorous androgyny of Marc Bolan. 

How about that for an outfit! They don't wear em like that anymore. I guess this tune kick-started it all.

More classic outfits and tunes. A really excellent short and snappy history of UK Glam resides here. Where they called this one The Glam Theme Song. I'm not gonna disagree with that.

A late bewdy for The Sweet just before glam's demise but then came the beginning of pub and punk rock in the UK.

Honorary Australian citizen Suzi Quatro. A Chinnichap classic! I did a bit on her here a while back. 

One of the few tunes by Skyhooks I actually liked. Kinda late 'got it wrong glam' but in a very good way. Sonic Youth's Dirty Boots always reminded me of this, probably just me. Of course not the only Aussie connection to Glam, Mike Chapman of Chinnichap fame was from Queensland and co-wrote and produced half of Glam's greatest hits along with his UK partner in crime Nicky Chinn. Chapman was also responsible for er... Smokie, Racey and Toni Basil. Don't hold that against him though he also used his powers for good ie. Suzi Quatro, Sweet and Mud. Actually come to think of it Mud were a band I never quite understood either until recently. Mud do have that instant Wham Bam! Glam Thrill.

No it's definitely there. Sort of half of the riff is very Horror Movie. Anyone agree?

More On Sharpies & Bogans

I've seen footage of Sharpies so many times in my life, it never occurred to me it might actually be of interest to anyone outside of Melbourne or the state of Victoria. The national broadcaster the ABC has trodden these images out ad nauseam throughout my life so now it's uniqueness is totally lost on me. The music part of it remains of interest but the sharpies kinda attached themselves to those bands. I'm sure those bands wanted an audience and I guess beggars can't be choosers but the bands probably didn't want the ugly controversy & media campaigns that came with it. The Coloured Balls, Australia's finest rock band of the time broke up because of the trouble surrounding the band, not any kind of musical differences or anything. This of course left a huge opening in the pre-punk era for someone to come in and fill that spot. AC/DC were that band and hey they didn't just fill that spot, they filled every nook and cranny throughout the world with their minimal driving guitar rock.

*Simon Reynolds points out similarities to sharpie dancing and the shoulder dance performed here by Mud here

At Coloured Balls shows towards the end of their existence there was just too much violence between Sharpie gangs and a new element that had entered the fray Skinhead Boot Boys. Previous to that the Sharpies had been a cool subculture to play to according to Loyde. The media got themselves an angle and the band were accused of inciting the violence, even participating in it themselves. A writ was even issued to one newspaper for their preposterous lies. I think we can all guess which gutter press paper that was er...there was only one.  So Lobby got fed up, as the shows became a pleasureless experience for the band, and walked away.

I guess the natural progression from the Sharpie was the Bogan. This was more of a loose generic term for a subculture like indie or something like that and it wasn't a gang thing. The hairdo turned to your more traditional mullet ie. shortish on the top and sides (longer than a Sharpie) with much much more business at the back. AC/DC, Cold Chisel, The Tatts and The Angels were the bands that were followed by this lot.

I guess ex-Sharpies who had the gang mentality deeply ingrained in their souls would have later joined some of those skinhead gangs or biker gangs once they were old enough. Gang culture usually leads to some kind of life of crime. A fine example of this would be that Australia's most loved and successful criminal Mark 'Chopper' Read who claimed to have been a Sharpie and is perhaps glimpsed in the above short film. Other international subcultures would have attracted some of the other ex-Sharpies like punk, anarcho-punk, hardcore etc. Then I suppose the rest of the ex-Sharpies would have just grown up, got jobs and started families. But on occasion after a bit of booze on a Saturday Night some sharpie dancing would have ensued, like that scene in the film Mallboy (2001), which I can't seem to find on youtube. The ephemerality of it all (Sharpie culture) is a bit of a mystery though. As far as I know there haven't been any younger generations taking up the lifestyle as a revival. That could be ripe for the picking now! There have been comedy sketches on Sharpies on television's D-Generation, Fast Forward and the like.

Sharpie culture was very white, as white as you could get so it definitely fits parallels with Gabber, Skinheads etc. Although I have read that other ethnicities apart from those from the British Isles were also included in some Sharpie gangs. It was predominantly white though. This could be a reason why it hasn't been revived as Australia became way more multicultural from the 80s onward. Take a very popular underground band from the 80s like The Hard Ons. They were a punk/thrash/pop band that had no members with their roots in Anglo-Saxon culture. The original three piece had backgrounds from Sri Lanka, Yugoslavia and Korea, I think. This was the face of 80s youth culture.