SE 3, EP 19: T. Rex - Electric Warrior

Tonight on . This Is Vinyl Tap . use my head like a revolver , a flying saucer . Take me away , give me your daughter . You've got the universe reclining in your hair . In 1948 , columbia Records introduced the 33 and the 3rd RPM Long Player Record . One year later , rca Victor introduced the 45 RPM Single .

Hello everybody .

And Jonathan JM Rowe , the defender of bass players everywhere .

Good evening Tapsters .

And we're in the Ben Agaroon Saloon on a lovely night just before All Hell is released in Texas and we go over 100 for around 30 days , maybe our last 90 degree day for a while If you hear a sweating next week , you'll know why We're talking about a band . That , i'm going to say , reminds me a little bit of our podcast on the jam . That's interesting .

Why is that ?

interesting . Which side of the Atlantic were they ? Oh ?

yeah , yeah , yeah , i see what you're saying .

We're talking about T-Rex tonight , ladies and gentlemen . They are absolutely huge in England and I think a lot of Americans think they're a one hit wonder . Yeah .

And the hit was made by somebody different . No , it was a bigger hit .

It was a bigger hit by T-Rex , but it was still , i think , most people associated with . Robert Palmer . and what was the band Power Station ?

Which is a great injustice , but that's the way it is and that provides a need . Ladies and gentlemen , this is vinyl . Tap is here to fill that need . Yeah , now , tony , did you pick this album ?

No , I did not pick this album .

Jonathan JM Rowe , did you pick this album ?

I did not , but I probably would have .

Really .

That's interesting .

Okay , i did not pick this album . That means it was a listener choice .

Yes , It was a listener's choice , and before you ask me who the listener is , i don't remember .

I know that there's more than one who wanted to hear this There was , but we usually name a few and I forgot to pull it up , so I apologize to everybody who . You know who you are . So if you had to say one thing remarkable about this album , this is a landmark album . Because of what ?

That's the . Are you asking about the glam thing ?

What's the marvelous , fabulous reason this song is , this album is ?

I think it's because it's the first time that marvelous and fabulous could be used in the context where it was distorted guitars . So it gave it a little , i think , when you get to the essence of glam , i think that's what glam is .

This is the first glam rock album This is the birth of glam in the UK . This is the birth of glam .

That's right . An album form , yeah , this would be like the Ramon's first album , or any of these people who Chuck Berry's .

I was going to say something about that , though . I was about to ask can I say something ? But no , i can't . I want to say something about it . The weird thing about glam is trying to pin it down to what it is , because there's such a fashion consciousness to it that has nothing to do with the music .

I think so too , and I think that the way that I think of glam is just rock and roll with arrangements where there's I mean .

I'm sorry , I'm not laughing at that comment . I'm laughing at Doug's response to it .

To me it's the first time where I mean , I'm not talking about their stuff with the Beatles and where there's a bunch of string arrangements and everything .

We've talked before about glam artists . A couple of glam artists Lou Reed . We talked about Transformer which is a glam album , i think . I think you can call it that . We talked , we did the album War of Bowie .

He's talking about The way , yeah , the way he's talking about it , though , is very flowery and Well .

The phrasing , the phrasing I think attitude and phrasing more than structure of music . Yeah , i had to . after listening to Mark Bowen all the last three weeks I had to put on Johnny Cash and I balanced myself out . There is a way . First of all , there's an attitude .

Yeah definitely .

It's flamboyant .

Yes , yeah , it is expressive Yep , it is effeminate . And then there's the phrasing , which I don't know . If you have much left of glam rock , if you made those guys sing like Bob Dylan or somebody Yeah , i think the phrasing is . When you listen to this album , it's blues riffs over and over again , absolutely .

I'm going to disagree with something you said . I don't think there's , I don't think the attitude is feminine at all on this album .

This album to me . The delivery though .

The phrasing is feminine .

Maybe the phrasing is but the Take me away . I feel like this guy is oozing .

I'm not saying he's not heterosexual as hell . In fact , I saw the interview with him when he was trying to say he was bisexual and that was so unbelievable . It looked like he was .

It wasn't like watching Bowie say the same .

It was like he was trying to be with the cool kids .

And I don't want to get mired down in that stuff because I don't really care one way or another . But what surprised me in listening to this was how I felt how masculine it was , compared to those other albums which were deliberately trying to be something else .

And this isn't ?

At least , it didn't seem that way to me .

Well , I don't think there's anything feminine about it except for the phrasing . And he's wearing a dress and he has glitter .

Yeah , yeah , yeah , we got that Right .

Back then they didn't know that they couldn't wear glitter just as well as women .

Yeah , one of the things that I think that Mark Bowlin does . It's a little different from Lou Reed and David Bowie is especially Bowie .

Tyrannosaurus Rex is previous band with the bongos and the guitar and the . I'm Bob Dylan or Dion or Donovan Donovan . He does like the on two earlier .

Anyway , that had fairies and oh yeah even the world , mythology , stuff all over it . Up until I'm sorry to go , i'm just going to say .

He comes by that naturally and considers himself a poet .

I will . I do want to make a comment , though , on something you said , jam , and I'm not going to disagree with you . We can talk about it later But I you may be the first person that I've ever heard user word earnest talking about Mark Bowlin .

I think there is an earnest , i think that there is this sort of . I love this and I've read interviews and seen interviews with him where he does just seem like he want he takes himself very , very serious .

Well , i'm not going to disagree with that . I do think he takes himself very seriously , probably more than anyone else , but I think that he is the epitome of a musical chameleon .

That's true . I think if you laid out three paths to start him music acting whatever else is left He would have he would have chosen the one . that was a sure bet . I don't feel like he was compelled to do music the way some people .

I think that I think that's right , i think that's right , and that's not to take away from anything that we're going to be talking about tonight . I just think it's really interesting because star was the prior that was the priority for him Yeah , and and he did it .

And that one of the things he did was he walked up to some guy who wanted to help arrange his records and the first thing I'm going to be a I'm going to be a big star .

He was saying that everybody I've at least at 12 years old .

Yeah .

He's . Even when he was mighty Joe Young , he wanted to be Cliff Richard . Yeah , that was his , it was his idol , so anyway , before we go any further , i want to talk to the Americans . The British are out there thinking they know all this already . They know what a big deal T Rex was .

I don't know who , but it's the sound of old T Rex . Not the Hoopal , obviously .

Yeah , they show up in , they're admired by all the bands American Americans think of the huge bands And he was at the top in the early 70s . He was up there with all of those guys and something . There's a disconnect with the United States of America . I spent some time asking people . Tell me a hit by T Rex . Zero responses .

What's interesting is that there's some comparisons . Obviously he was enamored by Sid Barrett , but there's some comparisons there too , because Floyd didn't get big until Barrett was gone And I'm not sure they would have ever caught on When they took .

Well yeah . Okay , we've got people in the audience who hate America too . I didn't say I hated America . I just think , oh , i'm sorry , do I misunderstand that You did ? Well , let's talk about . we're going to talk about a guy , because the guru of glitter We call T Rex a band .

Basically Mark Bowlin and a guy who played bongos .

That was , yeah , turn out of source . Rex was a psychedelic folk deal with a guy with a guitar and a guy with a bongo . But when we get to T Rex , even before T Rex , this is Mark Bowlin .

Mark Bowlin and and maybe somebody who's a little bit slightly under the 50 percent mark . Never , never , 50 , 50 . But it's , yeah , you're right , there's interchangeable players . He's the commonality for all of this stuff .

It would , you'd have a really good rhythm section .

So well , it's funny . It's funny you say that because I'm pretty sure who was the guy , who Mickey Finn , i think toured as Mickey Finn's T Rex for a while after . Is that right ? Yeah , and I don't know if that was before or after Mark Bowlin died , but yeah , they definitely did it . That's tacky .

Yeah , yeah .

So we're dealing with a guy named Mark Feld And he was born . You won't tell us a little bit . He was born in Hackney , Is that right ?

Yeah , 1947 , to a Jewish working class family And he's named after his father's brother , i think , who had died the year before . That's right And you know , like a lot of people we talk about , although that we did mention the trajectory or that the impetus for for doing it was a little different .

Well , he said that his parents didn't have money , but if they asked , if he asked for something , they eventually made sure he got it , even if it took a long time .

Yeah , yeah , and I said he was born in Hackney .

He was outside of London , yeah .

Yeah , he's . as we already previously mentioned , he becomes enamored with Cliff Richard and even started sounding like him a little bit . His first band was formed when he was 11 . And it was a group called Susie and the Hula Hoops and Helen Shapiro . Do you guys know who Helen Shapiro is ? She was . she was a vocalist for the band . Any idea who she is ?

So she was a big deal .

Wow , yeah , and he's . you know , when he's in school he's struggling with school . He's not really getting . There's some speculation . He might have been dyslexic I don't know if that was ever diagnosed or not but he starts writing poetry at a fairly young age . His big influences are Dylan Thomas and Rumbald The , the torn down .

Yeah , oh , i'm sorry .

I always pronounce it wrong to you . How do you ?

say it , rambo Rambo , thank you . I only know that because of the Van Morrison song .

Oh , there you go . The funny thing is is like a lot of post British kids , boys in particular he becomes what a mod . And in 61 , he's 14 . He's kicked out of school for bad behavior And he looked really sharp when he Oh yeah , he's hanging out at the Stanford Hill Jewish Youth Club where he's the leader of a mod gang . The next year he's at 15 .

You know , I wish we could get our gang kids to dress so nice .

Yeah , my mod , there's something about that . It's a sharp look . It's a sharp look , yeah .

It appeals to us , obviously , with all three of us wearing black t-shirts .

I think mine's a little off gray , but It's only because it's been washed . He ends up signing with a modeling agency . So he's as early on he's a model . You know , he gets a few gigs as a model a catalog shoot . He's up in shop windows , Oh yeah , they have him , like he's a cut out shop windows . Yeah , I'd forgotten about that .

David Jones .

The guy who was the engineer that crashed his train .

The person who would eventually become David Bowie .

Yeah , and they meet because they happen to be managed by the same guy named Leslie Kahn . This is how they meet , though One day Kahn calls him both into his office , but not for any sort of musical reasons . They're not doing much and he needs his office painted .

Are they ? they're not , i mean , there's not a rivalry , really No there's a rivalry .

Well , from Bowen's point of view , i think , i think he was jealous of Bowie , but I don't think Bowie I don't know .

I don't think Bowie gave him the time of day eventually , but I don't know .

They shared a lot .

Some people better at hiding it , they shared a lot of the same personnel in their bands , especially one of the guys we're going to be talking about later , tony Viscotti .

Well , and also Rick Wakeman .

Yeah , Rick .

Wakeman , which is interesting . I want to get when we get to that . I want to talk about that . But what's kind of a couple of funny side notes with a Bowie thing . When Bowen actually got some success as Tom Tronsor's Rex , he asks Bowie , who still wasn't very known at that point , to open for him .

Well , I mean , probably everything was easy after that .

And so the interesting thing that happens to him in 65 , like a lot of other people that we've talked about , he has a life changing experience when he discovers Dylan Yeah , bob Dylan And he eventually leaves the mod thing behind , starts dressing like Dylan Again . We're talking about Chameleon here .

There's pictures of him wearing the hat .

It's so funny . The first the corduroy hat that Bob Dylan wore on the cover of his . This is his first album , right .

I think , so . Yeah , the first way it's got him holding the guitar looking down at the camera .

And so he meets this guy named Alan Warren who is later becomes a famous portrait UK actress photographer , But at the time he was the host of this kid show called Five O'Clock Club . He moves in with this guy .

Drum drum , drum , drum , drum , drum drum drum .

He's still Mark Feld when he goes in the studio , but when they're writing out , i guess on the acetate or whatever , he changes his name to Toby Tyler for some reason .

Yeah , i would too , if I just sang that .

But here's an interesting and I'm going to slide into a connection , doug , oh yeah , maybe .

Where's ?

the doobie .

So he submits a track to EMI around the same time to try to get a contract with EMI , and the track is a version of Betty Everett's You're No Good , which was recorded by Linda Ronstadt .

And Van Halen .

I'm going to bet that her version was better .

I'm guessing too . But yeah , so he recorded it . He and Linda Ronstadt recorded the same song . Did it have a Beatles guitar solo ? I have no idea .

That's a good connection .

That is a great connection . I forgot about that .

Well , while we're on connections , we have an extremely connected person , Jonathan Jim Ro . would you like to connect him to solo , besides David Bowie ?

I am going to . OK , here's one , maybe out of the blue . No one else has Roy Thomas Baker .

Ah , that's right , I didn't have that one , but you were correct .

Yes , Roy Thomas Baker was the engineer on this album . He was , and on previous albums as well . He was one of Tony Viscotti's right hand men at the time . Yeah , he's worked with the cars . He's worked with Queen .

He did the Cars album when we talked about it , yeah , and he's a big , big influence on the way Queen sounded in the studio And he also worked with .

we haven't talked about Cheap Trick , but he's also worked with Cheap Trick .

Why haven't we talked about Cheap Trick ? I don't know Because there's so many .

I mean everyone we've done was a good one to do .

So that's one Got others .

No , you , I've game on you , Doug Well , we get the who .

We do . They opened for the who for a little while . Who did T-Rex ?

Oh well , there's another One of his other bands , John's children open for the who as well .

That's what I meant .

Well , i don't . He maybe turn our source . Rakes did too . But the funny thing about the John's children thing is that They were trying to one up , they were trying to out who the who on stage , and They're touring in Germany and they cause a near riot where the who almost didn't .

Yeah , that's what I'm talking . Didn't get to , they didn't get to finish that tour .

No , they didn't . The who sent them home , and the funniest thing about that is that Pete Townsend's response to it is he said . He said , yeah , they were too loud and too rowdy .

You want to go home with bragging rights .

Yeah .

Anyway , T you got another one for us .

Yeah , this is . This is very ten , tenuous , but I think it's kind of funny . That's why I'm bringing it up . So , tony Visconti , he was his . He was a . When he came over to UK He worked with Denny Cordell . That's who he He was .

Denny Cordell mentored him for a while and I think he worked for him for a long time . He produced The Willis Allen Ramsey . Yes , that's what I was gonna say .

Denny Cordell produced the one will solve . So I was gonna say there's a little bit of a . He also produced the moody blues and the move and he worked for shelter . That's why he produced the willis-alls Ramsey thing . But yeah , that was my tenuous connection . I thought was kind of funny .

Well , it's a pretty good there . Yeah , and he also worked with Tom Petty . Oh , he did , he did , so he's kind of responsible for getting Tom Petty career going , yeah , and then we mentioned earlier Rick Wakeman . He played piano on one song on this album , but he played the piano on Kidori honky-dory .

There's rumors he played on Transformers as well , but nobody so I find that , since we're talking about Rick Wakeman , it's amazing to me that a guy who was so tied to Prague rock Namely , yes , but also his solo stuff as well was so much a part of this Glam Rocks .

Yeah .

I mean , and so he put in he actually the song he plays on is is the hit .

Yeah , yeah .

Is uh would get it on yeah , it's not .

It's like a boogie woogie style piano .

It's not know what he's known for well , the reason he's on it is because , oh well , we'll get to that when we talk to the Yeah anyway , but Rick .

Wakeman . Rick Wakeman said his favorite thing that he's ever played on his life on Mars . Well , come on .

That's one of the greatest songs ever recorded . So I have one more connection Tony Secunda .

Hmm , I sound like a soprano's character .

Now Tony Secunda was the manager of the moody blues and the move . Oh , and he's the guy who gave Chrissy Heiner first break . He she was evidently not doing well . He helped her with rent And was her first manager . They ended up not they ended up parting ways before she ever really recorded much of anything .

So , yeah , we keep coming back to this theme , ladies and gentlemen , Yeah , don't be creative , and a coke at it . All right , so that's it for connections . Oh , we were rolling on with mr Bowen's rise to fame .

Yeah , Yeah , so I think we left off with the Linda Rons that song . But and he's he's enamored with Dylan and And Richard well , he , and he's so enamored with Dylan that that that Toby Tyler persona doesn't last very long , and he changes his name to Mark Bolin , and Bolin is evidently a contraction of Bob and Dylan . That's how you get .

I heard also heard that that was not his idea , that was his . He's like a lot of different . Yeah , he blamed it on his the and I heard it was also From a friend , that so anyway yeah , there's about three or four different versions . I did hear three distinct .

Well , yeah , and as we talked about him being enamored with Dylan , his hope was to be the UK version of Dylan . That was a little bit shattered by Donovan's first release . He's like well , i guess that got beat me to the punch Yeah he did get a deal to record a single with Deca that was released in November 65 called the wizard .

I'm around . You walk the woods without a single sound .

That's wizard the wizard that sounds like mouse with the underbite .

You know , it bombed surprise . Surprise even though he did do . He did appear on , i think , three different Television shows , including ready , steady , go to promote that single and it didn't do anything . And then he were . He recorded another single in . It was released in June of 66 called the third degree .

Yeah , I can . Yeah , it is better . I picked your girls and go-go boots and mini skirts with frilly dresses .

Well , I don't see much . I don't see a whole lot of of space Necessarily between what we're talking about tonight and that you can hear that in what we're talking about tonight . I think I think so , Yeah but he does .

Trannosaurus Rex , take some , some turns , yeah that Make . They're highly regarded and they may be the most tedious music of everything sounds the same like , at one point I actually thought I was listening to the same song .

No , it's not , that's funny .

Anyway , that that single also did not do . Well , then this is this becomes sort of an MO for him . Later that year He shows up at the doorstep of Simon Napier Bell . Do you guys know who that guy is ? I do not . He shows up with guitar in hand on this guy's doorstep . He was the yard birds manager .

So this is this guy's a big deal at some point Yeah .

Bullen , bullen charms this guy , and so , through Napier Bell , he records his third single single , and this one's for a parlophone called hippie gumbo .

He's no good .

Something he's trying to be Robert Johnson and just can't .

Again , he is a . He appears on ready , said he go to play it , play that , promote that single and the single flops . This is what's sort of funny . Napier Bell said that Bolin was completely unaware of his shortcomings , in particular how bad a guitarist he was , and And and he just just soldiered through . So what ?

Ladies and gentlemen , So what ?

what's interesting about the last three songs we played is you can hear elements of things that he's doing now .

He doesn't , he doesn't sing on that . Yeah , but you can hear elements of everything that are , come that , the sort of warbly voice , yeah , and In the drums , the way that the drums are kind of taking a kind of a Keith moon type aspect .

Well , and they're also , i mean , i think one of the things that's sort of , i think you would say , very , very much a part of the T-Rex sound is they are front and center .

Yeah .

I mean , maybe that's from him playing with a guy on bongos and acoustic guitar .

I don't know , but just left of center anyway .

So it's around this time that Bolin decides he doesn't want to be in a band , he doesn't want to do a background anymore , he wants to be the guy the star , and so he plays as an ad in a Music rag to try to get people to join his new band . And one of the people who answers this ad is a 17 year old drummer named Steve .

Middle Earth . Well , who ? who was it I think it was Bolin that said if you want to understand me , you have to read Tolkien .

Lord of the Read , yeah , yeah so This is right before Bolin's 20 20th birthday , and so he forms this band , toronto source Rex . They were initially a five piece until they had one horrible performance at the electric gardening .

Was that the one where everybody got there two hours before they had to play ?

Oh , I don't know about that .

Maybe they all answered is All these guys answered the ad and he said , okay , we're on it two hours .

Well , and it was a disaster one of the yeah , that may have been it one of his mOs early on was he didn't think you needed to rehearse , he just thought you just get together and do something and , and and and . That was most of the bands well . And that was one of the things with with John's children that we didn't talk about they .

They needed a rehearse , or is that just ignorant ? I ?

think it's hubris . I think yeah , i don't know , maybe it's both .

But this is an important theme , that this vibrato is a large part of why he became such a big deal . Yeah , yeah , because if he'd gotten up there , oh , i'm so shy if the whole thing wouldn't know .

Yeah , yeah and we'll talk about that when he meets Tony Visconti . There's a funny story about him , the bravado there . But so what happens is that that band ends up disbanding . They take all the electric instruments with them , so he's stuck with an acoustic guitar .

Oh , they're like the company company possesses everything .

So all he's got it Well they say that there's two .

That's one of the things he said . The other thing is he just he was so embarrassed by the performance that he thought that he .

Think , i think one of the and I don't want to sit here and throw this guy in the bus the whole time , but I think one of the things that's interesting interesting about him is it's difficult to parse what is actually what he actually Really believes in what he's saying after the fact to kind of there's just some of that like the interviews that you Read or

There's just stuff that just doesn't make sense Like he's going , i've been asked to write a science fiction novel . I'm like I , who the hell's gonna ask you ?

watched a lot of interviews . Yeah , never once did . I think Bolin's priority was telling the truth . I felt like there was something else he was selling him . Oh , you just sounded like oh Yeah who never got past 29 , so That's young and I Remember being around that agent . I wouldn't trust much of what I said . Well , what ? what ends up happening ? I wouldn't .

ones end up happening is a he the everybody leaves , but but Steve Peregrine took , and so they continue on as an acoustic duo And they a lot of their songs are wrapped around the Tolkien mythology .

Perrigan was one of the hobbits from the Shire .

Yeah , it was Pippin Yeah that was also the fastest bird on earth .

And then that guy when he left transverse Rex , he's formed a band called shagrat , which was it was named after . I think it's an orc , and also an orc in Lord of the Rings . But what's what's really right ? Yeah , shagrat .

We didn't talk about . He was heavily impacted by Elvis and Donovan I mean a Dion . That too , but he did see Elvis , like everybody else did , and it's so interesting what he said about the guitar . He wasn't amazed by watching Elvis play the guitar . He was amazed about the guitar as a prop , yeah , and that to me that was a big giveaway . This .

Yeah , i think that's true and that may . If you think about glam , that's kind of a key component of it as well .

Well , what do you have left if you take away the phrasing and the and the glitter and all that There's ? there's not a lot .

Well , unless you've got Mick Ronson playing with you .

But I mean , i mean Mick Ronson probably do it every once .

I bet he could do a pure Prairie League album . I bet he could do What .

What's what's funny about Trouser ? Rex was at the time there a duo took still has his full drum kit , and But they're living together and they can't pay the rent . So he sells it to pay the rent . And then they start busking and As he he quote quote , or a quote I read by him He says , as it happens , pair of bongos is all we needed .

They both start what switching off on bass , yeah , yeah . And so the songs get a little bit more Interesting . It first it's like those first albums . You ever see that sorry , not live skit . Or Kevin Nealon and Kevin Bacon are Playing musical partners and the only thing that the Kevin Bacon character would do is clap .

But then they then they split .

Kevin Nealon's character had a great career and then Kevin Bacon tried to do a solo clap a little clap album . That's kind of how I thought First started when I first heard Tyrannosaurus Rex with the bongos . This is unnecessary but that guy that guy was super talented . He was telling and , and very much like his .

You know he had somebody that could help sort of Do things that mark bolt like . He found somebody that could be the strengths to mark Bolin's weaknesses in terms of arranging and stuff . We got to talk about John Peele because John Peele is the reason why this band ends up getting on the radar of Tony Visconti and ends up getting signed and and forgot about .

Yeah , I talked about him in a recent episode a Nick Drake episode .

He was the producer for the first two Nick Drake albums . He was also the producer for those early six couple , those early Sid Barrett Pink Floyd singles . Yeah , so Boland signs with black kill in enterprise ?

Yeah , you should not . Oh , yeah , cuz , cuz something bad Oh yeah , that's right , and thought about that .

He so Boland signs with black kill enterprises , which at the time was Pink Floyd's management company . This is when Sid Barrett was still in the band and he's Attracted to them because of Sid Barrett being in the band . He felt the connection there .

So so I heard Visconti said he thought that bowling wasn't genius Like he's one of . He just saw sure genius coming out , yeah , yeah another was it was raw , but No , it's .

He also said at the time No , but nobody wanted to touch bowling because he was so odd . And one of the things was odd And we heard it in one of those songs is that vibrato . He does that real high-pitched vibrato And and he found out that this is how he came to sing like that He , he would listen to Bessie Smith . 45s at 78 RPM and sing along .

I'll tell you what .

I'll tell you something funny . I think I've said this before , but Accidentally put spring steam down long plate . I put it down 45 , the price you pay . I put it down at 45 and I swear it sound just like Stevie Nicks .

Oh , that's so funny . I did the opposite one time . I put even in the quietest moments by Super Tramp had a 45 of it and I put it on 33 . Oh , that's one of the most beautiful songs .

That's hilarious . Well , and then what's really kind of a cool I mean this was a partnership Visconti , i think , produced the VAT . I mean he produced all four of the Toronto source Rex albums I think most of the T-Rex albums and And it was eight .

Yeah , he a guy from New York . He was educated in music . He played in . He plays a lot of different instruments and he's played a lot of different instruments and different bands . He played in a jazz band . He knows how to play piano really well And he knows how to arrange and he knows how to do string arrangements . He's a really important guy .

Well , i just I there's . There's this really great podcast On , or a rhino podcast and yes , i'm talking about another podcast , rhino records podcast , where they interview him and they talk specifically about Electric Warrior . Did we even mention that was the album we're talking about tonight ?

Hopefully it will say that on the web page .

Yeah , anyway , he talks about it and he's so just yeah , there's no ego , that he's nonchalant about it .

He realizes how good it is , but he downplays his Contribution . Well , he talks about it as a partnership .

And he said early on I think he learned this from Denny Cordell the way to be a producer is to try to listen to the artist and figure out what they Want and help them figure out that vision , rather than go in and say this is what we're doing .

Yeah , isn't that what Todd Runger ?

So , but he just seems like a really cool guy . He's now on my list , and not that anyone cares my list of people I'd like to have a beer with . Yeah , so if you're listening , tony , give us a call and he .

Yeah , he produced .

Alejandro Escavado , which is which why we're experts .

My way we're experts .

So they they release their first single called Deborah . This is Tyrannosaurus Rex and it's released in 1968 and it hits the top 40 , tops out at number 34 and the top 40 UK charts And it stays in their charts for seven weeks . There's those Bongos , yeah , but it's a little less .

Yeah , and that's probably not as bad as yeah , a lot of the other stuff It's . It's much more , isn't less , sprawling and almost sound like he's trying to make a pop song .

Yeah so they , before they the name change , they end up releasing what ? four albums ? right the right , my people were fair and had sky in their hair , but now they're content to wear stars in their brows . That's a Tolkien reference , i think , and boy what it just rolls off the tongue .

Yeah , I'm gonna go pick that .

Uh , I want this obel peak to number 15 on the UK charts . Profit seers and sages , the angels of the ages , that is that also , i'm sure , charted . I don't have what it where it hit . But you know , visconti kind of down and we talked about it briefly . Down plays the whole . Oh , they changed the name to T Rex . The electric guitarist came out .

Yeah , instead of mono .

Yeah , and so So they would come and they'd listen to records , and he also happened to have two electric guitars in a bass And so the three of them would jam to old rock and roll songs together up there . And so the Bolin was always interested in interjecting that element .

I think and he starts at what Paisle shape . Yeah , we bought it , it wasn't it Sid Barrett's , Oh I don't know .

I had a good day to get it from .

Sid Barrett's was mirrored I think this is another one that he huh , i did not know that .

I bought it either Barrett or it was .

How do I know that ? but so that he's he . You know he starts to introduce the electric guitar at that time , so that's after their second album and That's when took starts playing the bass as well .

It said when you got busted back then it was shameful , it wasn't , oh yeah it's a rocker dude on the party .

Oh , mccartney going through and .

And and then also a Bolin one letting up the songs on the records .

Yeah , that was the thing he said . That was the cut . Maybe the straw that broke the candles back was . He said , i'd like to , i'd like to have some songs I'd like to do , and it's the whole sort of .

No , well , put that . Let's put this on the refrigerator with a magnet . You can look at it .

It's kind of the jellyfish way of doing business , right , anyway ? so yeah , so when they recorded the fourth album , beard , beard of stars , he gets Mickey Finn to join as the drummer at the time and he starts putting on electric guitars And he starts working on the rock sound .

Yeah , so anyway , this is the one that has Swann song on it .

Well , none of their . That was a single that wasn't released on any album . And and that's the thing that Tony Visconti says and I I don't know how I feel about this I think I kind of agree with it and maybe I also don't agree with it He said that Bolin was adamant about not making people have to buy an album to get a single . I mean , he didn't .

I appreciate the part where you don't have to Buy the song twice .

Yeah , that's what I mean .

So yeah , how many times have I bought the song twice .

So Then that there's , there's sort of a sea change , and the band , for their next album , shortens their name to T-Rex , which is short for Tyrannosaurus right , which means Thunder . No , that's Tyrannic lizards , that's right . It's been a while since I've studied my Dinosaurs .

I tell you what you're right . This is not an easy ban to research because you're led in all sorts of directions .

It's like jellyfish We look up jellyfish , you get jellyfish .

You look at T-Rex Yeah you get taking all sorts of directions .

It Doug went back in time and recorded an actual Tyrannosaurus rex . I did here's .

You know there's a lot of controversy around that . Was T-Rex primarily a hunter or primarily a scavenger Scaven that used to size to push people off their own ?

kill . Oh yeah , it would be tough to hunt with those little arms . I would think you know they had .

Well , we're gonna talk about the little arms a little later , but spoiler alert Next to the turkey vulture . Mm-hmm the Tyrannosaurus rex had the largest nasal capacity of any . Huh , oh , there you go .

So that makes us think it's a scavenger . That's interesting Things you learn on . This is violent .

So do you know where the name T-Rex came from , why they shortened it ? Somebody takes credit for it .

I did read this , but it wasn't me , so I didn't remember .

Tony Visconti . What he would do is whenever he was blocking out stuff in his musical calendar to deal with a band , he didn't want to write Tyrannosaurus .

Rex now , yeah , i don't blame him because I don't like the smell Over and over and over again .

So he abbreviated for T-Rex , and evidently Mark Bullen wasn't real happy with that and called him out on it , and so Visconti goes okay . well , why don't you write it down then , four times in a row ?

and see how you feel .

So he didn't immediately change his name based on that , but it stuck a chord and eventually , i guess because of the sea change , he decided that they would do it .

Well , that's the exact same reason we started calling you Tee . No one wanted to write out Tony anymore .

Well yeah , so , anyway . So they released the album T-Rex , but before they do that , they released a single called Ride the White Swan .

That's a good song .

That's one of my favorites . they've ever done That became famous .

on what program was it Were ? they built a white swan for him to ride . What , yeah , after they started their decline , some program had them on and he's up on top of a white swan singing it Anyway .

So that brings us to well , a couple of things before we get to the album we're talking about . but so that song is pretty big , It's huge , but it only hits number two in the UK top 40 .

There's not going to twos only . Well , two sounds pretty good to me .

I'd be okay with two Okay .

Number two .

Anyway , these days there's no drums . There's no drums on it , It's just got Tamreen and hand claps , which you know I'm a big fan of . The rhythm is played by Mark Bullen . puts a capo on the fourth fret of a bass and just hits a pick up pick against the base .

I don't think I've ever heard of a base with a capo . It's how they pop right off .

So yeah , then they release the TRX album , but between that album and the one we're talking about , they release a song called Hot Love . And what's interesting about that song ?

is anything that gets credit for the lyrics on that one .

Well , you guys know who's on that singing background on that song , right I ? said David , david Bowie , flo and Eddie .

Oh , that's , right , Flo and Eddie .

And who are Flo and Eddie jam . For those who are listening , they are .

I don't know why they go by Flo and Eddie , but they've been on so many albums . They've been on everybody's album from , i think , springsteen to the psychedelic furs .

I mean Todd Rungren . He's Howard Kalin and Mark Volman , but who are they ? What band were ?

they in .

In the Turtles .

Oh , that's right I always forget about that .

The connection here is they were I think they were touring the UK with Zappa because they played with Zappa's band at this time And the thing that connects Bolin and Zappa is they both love that old doo-wop music because , Zappa loves that stuff And so it was a natural fit . So Flo and Eddie's on that song .

Yep , they are . They sing a lot of the backup on this album , and that's a connection .

Who was it that we did that wrote a Turtles song ? Oh , warren Zivon .

Warren Zivon . Warren Zivon And I think Flo and Eddie might have been on another album we talked about and I don't remember , but this is at the point when Hot Love comes out . This is at the point they expand the band beyond two people . They get Steve Curry Jones on Bass and Bill Feifield on drums .

This is what T-Rex sounds like It really is exactly , and that's the number one .

Hit Yes And it is very portentious about it's about to come And what's kind of the other thing about that is his parents on top of the pops to perform . that song is when Glam was introduced to the British music public , but that's why he put the glitter on .

Everybody else is Yeah .

Yeah , and so that's sort of the announcement that this is the direction we're going Well .

What did they say ? That's the beginning of Glam Rock , right there , yeah .

Right , and so they do a mini tour in the US at this time , right before they're . You know the album we're talking about , and the reason why that's important is because they get a Visconti , gets a call from the label and they're like , hey , this hot love song is really , really doing well , you got a follow up ?

That's the diversity that we're looking for .

That's another connection . It's recorded part of it's at Trident .

Right And I'm sorry , three different cities , not .

Trident No New .

York .

No , it's London .

London . So it was .

I'm sorry , No it's okay .

I think we're Bowie recorded , that's right Yeah .

And so it was three different cities , not countries , so it's LA , new York and London and four different studios .

That's different countries .

La is a different country , that's true , so Visconti has to carry the tapes around . They don't have digital files , so he's carrying the tapes around with them And they're not light , by the way , no .

They're 16 track tapes too , It's like let's me earn a Shackleton and the crew of the endurance carrying those giant plates of photographs through the Arctic .

Yeah , another thing that those things every time they get played they stretch out a little bit . So you have to be real . That's why there are so many pulleys , or so many . if you look at it , there's like little pulleys and stuff on it to actually keep it taught , taught , yeah .

One of the things he talks about in an interview , tony Visconti is how he and Bowen realized that they've recorded in three different cities and four different studios and this album needs to sound like it's unified . So how did they do it ? What they did was it took them 10 days to mix it down .

There's a couple of times where you can tell it's real double track , Right right , And we can talk about those .

He learned that ADT thing from Glenn Johns when he was working doing stuff . But so , yeah , they did these kind of little studio tricks to make the album sound as unified as possible And it really as you said , Doug , it's kind of fascinating that it was , I mean because studios . It's very unified .

I might say It's one of the most A little more unified than I care for , yeah .

There's times when it doesn't need to be as unified as it is , but it's still a Yeah .

One thing I want to say , though when everybody talks about the switch being the sound of this album , electric Warrior , being kind of , this is why this is the first Glamrock album , but it also and I know there's elements of this , but it's really the subject matter is different than any T-Rex album prior to this as well . There's not .

It's steeped in the elves and the stuff . Yeah , yeah , that's absent .

Yeah , very absent , yeah , and the first album , except for one of the songs . The first album has it on there . This album yeah , this album doesn't really , and so no , i don't I haven't seen anybody really talk about that , but to me that's a . Is it important to switch as anything is getting away from that sort of Tolkien-esque elf type ?

you know , fairy , yeah , getting out of the mythology and you're getting into .

They're leaving .

They should have called this album Leaving Middle Earth .

Well , and it's what the subject matter focuses on , then , is sex pretty much .

Yeah , it's pretty much . yeah . It's not love , Oh , there's nothing .

There's I guess so sure .

I don't know , get it on . Is that really Yeah ?

Yeah , you guys know who . I'm not a big fan . I'm not I shouldn't say I'm not a big fan . The cover is not striking to me , but I love the cover .

I think the cover is really cool and I think it looks so different than the music .

It's Hypnosis . Did it ? who is the people who did Pink Floyd ? And the Zeppelin album we talked about It's It's Bowlin Into the other way With the Gibson Standing behind a stack .

A stack of a Marshall .

Yeah .

And it looks like I think it's exactly . Huh , because that .

I don't think that That sounds like a Marshall .

I think , because the guitar sounds like it's going through a Marshall stack . Well , i mean it does .

but when I see a stack of Marshalls , I expect more aggressive , noisy and in-your-face guitars and I got a different view on Marshalls . but that's , I think , a new young one . Sorry , but I said no young , so we can put that in the . That's funny .

So we've talked about some of the players on this , Rick Wakeman being one of them , Flo and Eddie being the others . It's another guy on this , Ian McDonald .

Oh yeah , is he British .

He's British .

He was one of the founding members of King Crimson .

He was a founding member of King Crimson and he went on to play with Foran . He founded Foraner as well .

But yeah , he was a sax player for King Crimson .

Yeah , he played a lot of instruments . but yeah , he was a sax player and floutist for King Crimson and he plays saxophone on this And then who's Bert Collins ?

I don't know Bert Collins . He plays the Flugelhorn .

Yeah , he's from the United States and I think he's worked with One of our best Flugelhorn players . I think he'd worked with Piscani before in bands in New York .

He's played with a lot of jazz and soul people . Yeah , flugelhorn is . It's like a trumpet only No , that's what .

He's the guy from King of the Hill Place Oh .

Bill Huh , oh , you're talking about What ?

is that guy's name ? He's the King of .

Yacht Rock .

Oh my God , what is his name ? Yeah ?

you said Oh , Chuck Manjione .

Chuck Manjione . That's right , chuck Manjione , chuck Manjione .

The .

King of the Flugelhorn , oh , that song .

We won't be doing that . ladies and gentlemen , Next April 1st .

I don't know if this is the appropriate time to talk about this , but this album was huge .

Yes , it was , it was , it was number one .

I mean it's funny . I didn't realize again , being American , how big this was . I mean people talked about TRX and the same breath that they talked about the Beatles in terms of their Oh , they said they were bigger than the Beatles when this started .

It's so weird researching this and finding out they're being put ahead of Led Zeppelin and the Hulu and all these other bands that are in the United States loom much larger , but these guys were enormous . They had . What is it ? T-Rexot ? What is it ?

I'm trying to say that , oh yeah , like Beatlemania , what was it Torexia ?

Torexia , no Torexia .

Oh God , torexia , I can't read Latin backwards .

So we're about to enter the period of T-Rexotia .

What was T-Rexotia Doug ?

That was . Have you ever heard of Beatlemania ?

Uh , vaguely .

Yeah , So that's the same thing , except instead of the Beatles , it's .

It's like IBM mania , so we're going into the album .

You're the host , aren't you , doug ?

I was when we started , so you , fellers , ready to get into this record ?

Yeah , Like I am very much .

Ladies and gentlemen , we're about to hop into T-Rex's album and it's called Electric Warrior . Is this because he went electric ?

I think they just had a really cool album cover and decided to put that on .

No , I think there's a concerted effort to make this kind of a whole package , if you will . The subject matter's different . The picture on the cover of the album is different . It's not If you look at the cover this picture compared to .

It's not the same pastiche .

Look at the cover of the first T-Rex album . It looks , you know , they're sitting in a field or whatever . he and Mickey Finn .

Yeah , Got makeup on and it's just .

This looks like an album that would have been marketed five or six years after this album was marketed . It reminds me a lot of the Transformer cover . Yeah , you know it's very stark , but anyway , yeah , and I think Electric Warrior was just part of that whole packaging .

Oh , and still I think the I don't think the cover matches the album very well at all , because it looks like someone's about to do . Well , there's a couple of things that I . It's like a guitar . Look , what you'd expect is a guitar guy . that's just kind of I have a question for you .

Tear things up . Yeah , doug And JM , you can answer it too , but mainly Doug , because you're the one who brings this phrase up all the time , which is a guitar album . Is this a guitar album ?

No , I think it's very not .

Well , okay , I have this opinion about it . It's not a guitar album in the same way that we've been talking about other guitar albums like television or Is it a guitar album in the sense that Ziggy starred us in this ?

Is that a guitar album ?

No , no . But I think what's Why I ask that question is because the guitar is doing things on this album that aren't normally done . I mean , there's sounds coming out , there's things It's front and center in a way that's not showy but is showy , if you know what I mean .

So I was just curious if that The guitar does take precedence almost over almost every other instrument , except for the drums .

Here's . Yeah , here's what I think . Yeah , you're right . When I think of a guitar album , i think of an album . the guitar players are going to clear the deck and say I got to hear this over and over and over again . This is amazing what these guys are doing .

Yeah , there's only one guitar player , almond .

Brothers or Derrick and the Dominoes . Yeah , these albums .

Sorry , almond Brothers , derrick and the Dominoes Insert Band . Tony doesn't like .

Well , television Or television . Okay , there's a band I love , two guitar players on television , or the Matthew Sweet album , i think so . But when you hear those , they don't necessarily interrupt the song , but they do make you think okay . I want to hear the guitar . Here's the easiest thing with YouTube . Do you hear the album ?

And want to watch them And want to see the guitar player . Okay , that's a fair point .

Like Southside , johnny . No , i want to see Southside , i want to see the horns .

Mark Bowlin . you're not looking to see him play guitar , Mark Bowlin .

I don't want to . I mean Good point , Yeah , In fact . Well , I saw Jackson Brown playing steel guitar today on YouTube .

That was cool And he looked pretty competent , i was surprised . I think he's a pretty decent steel guitarist .

Well , I guess . so He probably had a good teacher .

He played steel on one of the albums we talked about . Yeah , I know , Oh , the Warren Zemon album . I think he played steel .

Steel or slide .

No , he plays steel . No well , I'm sorry , I was talking about bottleneck .

Oh yeah , Anyway , I said steel because he had a steel bottleneck .

I think he plays steel on that Warren Zemon album .

Wow , i would believe it . Anyway , we're way off , so no Okay .

I would agree , because it's the guitars are not the focal point right , and when you're listening to Derek and the Dominoes , when you're listening to television , i mean there's just so much guitar interplay .

I was just when I was listening to it today . Again , i was kind of enamored by the little sounds it was making .

I am So . I wanted to ask that question just to get some clarity on it . I'm enamored with guitar playing on this album .

Yeah , it's not technically brilliant , but it's interesting . Yeah , you know .

Yeah .

All right . Well , we have this album before us , ladies and gentlemen . Track one , side one Mambo Sun .

I love those . We're just talking about guitars .

The guitar playing is so slinky on this Well that's a great word , slinky Because I read someplace and I thought it was a perfect description for this song . They called it a sexually charged strut And I think that's an absolute perfect description of the song . I think you're absolutely right . Slinky is maybe even better .

The thing I hear more than anything else are the background vocals .

That's exactly it . That's another thing .

I'm thinking . This is the most interesting part of this song . Who thought ? of that noise .

And that has been used . Why does it work so good ? But and Bowie employs that Well , who ?

else employs it . Rocky Horror Picture Show .

Yeah , stole this . Yeah , i think I mean the big elephant in the room tonight . JMU and I talked about it briefly before we started is that we had to kind of flip our mindset about we'd listened to this ago Instead of this is ripping off Bowie . how much Bowie ripped off .

Yeah , exactly , D-Rex especially this album .

And those vocals I mean Bowie does those vocals and spades and subsequent albums And that chugging guitar he uses off and on , and there's certain songs on this album that sound exactly like he just lifted it . Well , one of the things .

That is definitely and it's going to come up later , but that is definitely a Les Paul , because it's got that sort of Les Paul pop on it And you know , and if you got one of the things about Marshall's that people don't , i mean it's got a great distorted sound , but it also has really unusual sound when it's not used at high decibels and it's not .

Ladies and gentlemen , without a camera , I have Marshall headphones on right now .

I think it's funny . The lyrics of the song are basically different ways to describe this guy's yearning for a girl .

Yeah .

My favorite being I got a powder keg leg and my wigs all poofed for you . I think that's kind of funny .

The . That's the theme of the album .

Yeah , And then there's a line I got Stars of My Beard . We talked about that . That's in reference to the Tyrannosaurus Rex LP , which was the last album they did before the name change was called Beard of Stars .

That's interesting . That must be natural , because it doesn't seem like he would work at that .

And Flo and Eddie are on this . This was one of the songs they recorded in LA .

Yeah , And up next Cosmic Dancer .

Oh .

I like that song a lot .

I like it , and one of the things I like about it is it's so preposterous .

Completely preposterous .

Yes , just cracks me up This baby coming out of the movie .

Did I get ? out too soon .

You know it's what's .

They want there to be death in shallow water , but it shouldn't be , but that's the thing that I'm talking about . This is the perfect example of where Bowlin and Bowie are different , where Bowie is talking I'm an alligator , i'm a mama , papa , coming for you .

That's a great line .

Which is a great line .

Love that line .

But he doesn't , what the hell ?

but there's no seriousness , we've had a lot of alligators lately , yeah .

I think there's an alligator in this album .

There's an alligator in Steve Miller , but when I'm dancing , when I was 12 .

Yeah , why 12 ? Why ?

12? . All the other ones make sense , because they ride Yeah .

Well , maybe that's when he first , because he was 11 when he formed his first band .

Maybe that's in reference to that , but he was dancing .

This is a song that you listen to the song and this is where you can hear like everything that came after it that was influenced . This song is . You can hear Bowie .

Oh no , love , you're not alone . Oh man , i mean , you could just .

When the phrasing that we talked about earlier this is the ultimate .

And it's a satellite of love by Lou Reed . Yeah , exactly , and it's just a simple acoustic guitar and drums and strings And active bass .

That's what that's . one of the things that I was talking about earlier that I think Glam does very well , is like the strings are used . They're not used to be syrupy , yeah they add , they add something .

They're like a floor . Yeah , exactly Yeah .

I mean , they're different every time And it's like this The cellos come in Right , right right .

No , it's good , It's good . The one thing that we didn't get to hear is the guitar solo on this song , which is backwards , and I was fascinated listening to Tony Visconti talk about how they . I mean , you guys probably know this , but I didn't really know how to do it , so it's evidently pretty difficult .

Yeah , it's always great , it's really appropriate And it really is , and more so than most backers . Backers are solos right .

And I think everything has everything to do with Visconti . Talking about his , this is the one thing not control , as in I'm doing this , but his preciseness and making sure that they weren't going to record over the wrong track , that they knew exactly where the thing , like he had everything lined up And that that that's why this works so well .

You know it does .

It does work .

And then it's the delivery bothers me a little bit , really Be honest with you .

Oh , I love it . I love everything about this song .

I love it because there is nothing grounded in reality . It is so over the top .

But again it sounds to me like he's taking himself seriously .

Dancing about five feet off the ground , throwing flowers everywhere , and it's just .

Well , going to the thing , like I said , people online , one of the things that they said , when it goes back to so he dances in the tomb and then it goes back to dancing out the womb . Well , he's talking about reincarnation .

No , he's just repeating the line again . It's what he's doing . He's just being marvelous . Just leave him alone . That's right . And the drums on this song are so The drums are amazing .

They're so far up in the mix and they don't make it doesn't sound like anything else . It's . It's so great .

I love it .

The drums are really like this song . That's a stand .

Well , we've talked about it Drums are a stand up .

Up next is a , a noun , i don't know , it's Jeepster . Now , this is . This was a single . This was a single .

Yeah .

It did pretty well , didn't it ? You said so good with going so fair . You've got the universe reclining in your head .

Show my baby . Yes , you're my love . So Jeepster is a Jeep , it's just . I guess it was a slang at that point , and I don't know if this song is about him being somebody who's shooting for somebody out of his league because he describes the girl as a jaguar , or if it's just that the Jeepster is utilitarian , so his love is you know .

I always thought that what's the Jeep for going anywhere ?

I got you .

He's going to pursue her over all kinds of that makes sense . I don't know that's for a fact , but I'm kind of my and I'll tell you something else . I'm not going to die on any heels trying to say that this guy was saying this or that , because I don't know that he knows .

Yeah , he would tell you something one day and tell you something different . Yeah , and it's a fun song . It's a yes .

It's got that .

It's got very T-Rex rhythm .

It was . It was a single , as we mentioned . It was . The B side was Life's the Gas . It peaked at number two on the UK singles chart . It was a couple of interesting stories about the single . It was released after he left the label and the label released it without talking about it as a single .

Yeah , they were on there . They were on there .

They were on the T-Rex album or Tyrannosaurus . That's hilarious .

Well , so there's overdub , cellos and bassoon on this song . This is considered one of the band's greatest songs The people .

Oh yeah , i think it's one of the it's a can , it's part of the glam cannon , definitely .

I'm going to play you a cover version of it , which is a connection , so hold on a second . Any idea who that is ? No , it's fish , fish from Meridian .

Wow , wow , yeah , he recorded a song , not fish the band , fish the singer No fish from Meridian It's .

he recorded a bunch of cover versions and this was one of his best songs , and so he put it .

It's kind of hard to screw this song up .

Yeah . Anyway , I just thought it was funny It does sound like it's a Mustang Sally type of song , where all kinds of bands could cover it . It's got that sort of rock and roll you know that's the Yeah , Yeah , well this whole album is really basic , booze based Yep .

Since there's four on the floor .

The T-Rex chug Yep .

All right .

Did you .

I didn't tell just a second . Hey , mom .

Anyway , not the also spray Xerathutra . But we have The monolith , and this is not about teaching monkeys how to kill pigs with the bones .

No , This is one of the ones where . I think the yeah , the guitar is sounds like no other guitar that existed before .

Is that him playing it ? I think it is . Yeah , yeah , that was , that was cool Yeah this to me , is the one song .

There's others , but this is a song this elevates to . If you were gonna have a , a Musical picture next to the word glam rock in the dictionary this song be the one . This is a contender for that song .

It really is . Yeah , it's that funky slow beat that reminds me a lot of .

I mean , if you're a drummer , this is be a fun , fun song .

It's , it's so compelling to I again . I don't know what's going on with the guitar , but it's , it's pretty great .

Well , and then the vocals yeah , background vocals Yeah , just so on the whole album . Yeah but on this this is one of the standouts on . I love how it starts off those background vocals and then Bolin's voice kind of comes in .

It's almost just jarring his voice is perfect , you almost expect .

Yeah , you expect , like Isaac Hayes or somebody to come in or Barry White coming .

Oh baby , It's um . I'm just a jeep , simple . It's so important . How new his voice must have sounded oh yeah , this time and how How much it was imitated after oh yeah , but we're talking . A huge number of people imitated this .

Yeah , no , i think . I think it's that that thing we talk about all the time , about how hard it is for us to hear that Because we've got all this history behind you can't again .

You can't get away from how Bowie , what Bowie took from this one of the Bowie had has a much stronger voice .

Bowie's a much . Yeah , then , without a doubt , and I think he's his breath of songwriting is That's something I'll talk about later , but yeah , well , there's , yeah , there's no , There's no life on Mars and Mark Bowlin's catalog .

No , but there's But you're right all of all the people . There's a lot of people that said , hey , mark Bowlin can sing , i can sing too .

Oh yeah , I didn't thought about that , but you're right , That's probably . it's one of those Dylan influences that lean woman blues .

My life . And then you're gorgeous me with a knife . I'm new .

Weakest song on the album really . I think so .

I wish all blues sounded like it .

Well , i was gonna say that this is you get to see the sausage made Better than any other song , and what I mean by that is most of these songs are based on a pretty traditional blues . And this one doesn't hide it at all , all right , and all it does is just glam it up .

I love how snarky Bowlin sounds on this song .

I don't like the the way that it starts off . Bad for me , just that . Count off one , two . Buckle my shoes like what ? Why ?

do that . Why don't just come in What glam rock supposed to do ?

Yeah , I mean , it's just that bit we heard there where he says the way he says lightning and frightening .

I eat that up , I mean it's , it's all fabulous over the top . It is , it's all , perform , performance art and You compare this to muddy waters . Yeah , you go . What happened ? I can see those .

I know exactly what . That's exactly what I had in my head . It's like muddy waters and you got how ?

Where's this guy ?

You need to . You need to go back and listen to the bass on this song jam . The bass is phenomenal on this song .

I know the bass is phenomenal on this . I'm not . I'm not dissing the base , i'm not . I'm not dissing the playing either .

I'm kind of think it's . It's funny to see a Genre completely Readjusted like this .

Like I said , it's it in terms of blue stuff . I like a lot .

Well , this is gonna come out when I get my reviews , so yeah , so there , yes , well , i mean , it's speaking of snarky . No , what you guys are talking about is like I . I had to readjust Myself a lot listening .

Hey , this is a family podcast . Jm , come on .

Seriously , this isn't baseball . Yeah , anyway , all right . Well , ladies and gentlemen , we're gonna flip over .

And it's one of the first times in a while We get to talk about the lead off track on the second song . That track and what ?

is it Doug's ? It's track six , as they always are . It's the hit . Get it on , baby Is .

This is an ode to the gong show is happy about .

Actually , this was before the gun And there's no gong in this no gong at all , but this is a almost flawless song .

It is so infectious It is everybody's on Pete game on this song .

It's this . It's the second number one for the band .

It's in the UK and if , if you were trying to talk to someone and tell them who T-Rex was and they didn't know , this is where you would start .

Yeah , i talked about this a little bit with you , doug , before we started . I really hate the fact that I had heard The version by power stations so much when I was younger , because it's such an inferior version of the song .

This is Robert Palmer out there in his breasted suit .

Yeah , that's Tony nailed it . The attitude of this song , yeah , really , really important .

The whole T-Rex Shuffle is really important , and then those that saxophone .

Again , that that's the one played by , and it's hard for me to shake that memory of that song out . I I I've got like a visceral sort of uh with this song that I don't like having because the song doesn't deserve that luckily I heard it before Robert Palmer version came out and I Instantly recognized that the Robert Palmer power station version was .

Although I I don't have the reaction , I thought that they did a pretty good job Recreating it . It's just like why do they recreate and power station .

just so we can put it on the record , it's Robert Palmer , it was John Taylor and Andy Taylor , no relation from Durandur and and Tony Thompson from chic , and Their version reaches number nine in the US and only number 22 in the UK . So it was less of a hit than the T-Rex version , at least was in the UK .

No , it did .

I think it was 10 or something Yeah .

I think so . Well , there's a . The video has . I guess . I don't know if it was top of the top top of the pops with Elton John on it .

Yeah , that's got . Yeah , that was a fake , though . It was him playing over Rick Ritman .

Yeah , it's , it's yeah , it's , elton John is miming the piano on it And that's the video that everybody sees when they go on to see a lot of quote-unquote live version of the song . Yeah , this was the one . Like I said , according to the Scottie , this was recorded in LA . It's got flowing Eddie on it .

As well great .

They do great . It was number 10 in the US It thanks , doug , that's , that's it .

So it started in New York when they were touring , boland went to the drummer and said hey , can you help me brainstorm some drum patterns for the song he had and what he wanted to do ?

And I know that , and then I don't hear .

I don't hear that much . Shall we play a little little Queenie , let's shake it . Go , go , go little Queenie , go , go , go , little Queenie . So I can see a little bit of it . I mean Chugging around to it . You know , this is also the song when we talked about how important John Peel was to the band early on .

Play on that bit like a seven to a yeah so .

Anyway , it's been four to one , two a six , four weeks on the top top of the UK chart . Yeah , no , as you said , number one in the US It was number 12 , cash box number ten , hot 100 . So it was a big is . It was their breakthrough and , as you said , most Americans probably think of it as their only song .

But a lot of people would recognize that song and not be able to tell you who did it . Oh , they think it's power station , or .

Or they would just say Ah It sounds and the thing is , it sounds like this album . It does know and why I'm saying that is because , again , coloring it with every , all the history behind the song It , it doesn't , it doesn't feel out of place on anything else on this album , right ?

There's only one song that , yeah , jars you out of your comfort . Yeah , your easy chair , i agree and it's not Planet Queen , no , just next .

I don't know how he does that , but it's another song where you can hear Everything that comes after that's right .

Yeah , it's it sounds .

If you're born when we were , you think oh , he's copying everything .

I've ever heard right and then you find out .

Oh , he was first .

I mean , i can even , oddly enough , just listening to that one just this last time . I Remind me of a class song I can't really think of , but there's like it . There's so many bands that built off of that , yeah , and the vocals are so important to this song .

It's not just his vocals but the background vocals and just that , the weird It's . It takes you to a different place and he is saying some weird lyrics , but It's a good one It is . It's one of my favorite songs on the On the album and you got to talk about outer space .

If you're doing a glam album right , or even just this period of time yeah . Not bring up , yeah , outer space , and I love that these flying saucers come and he tells them take me to your daughter . That sounds like the gangster alone , but he's the . He's not the gangster of love , he's the warlock .

I'm hanging out in the middle earth . Oh , now I want to be in a flying saucer .

All right , then we have Good rock song wrong band wrong band in society .

Still , you are visually fine . Oh yes , you are a mentally dying . Oh God , hide your fears . Come and be real for us . Are you with your mind ?

Oh , Time takes a cigarette . I was thinking the same thing , sorry .

If I told you that was .

I told you a boy song or boy I'll take you think ?

I would , but the there's something that is Not quite cooked on this song . It the horns to me song like a junior high . I like the horns . They don't sound right to me . They don't . It sounds like they . Just Like I said , it's not like a junior high stage band playing horns my , my only Beef on this song .

If there is a beef is that , unlike rock and roll , suicide , which actually goes somewhere , this song is just Pretty monotonous , is pretty much the same well same thing .

You know that's I did on this , on unique to this song .

But I don't disagree with that . But the other songs are interesting , in a way that this song I don't dislike this song but it just if there is a knock on it Is that it doesn't rise to the level of those other songs that are sort of the same structure in terms of their repetitiveness .

I wonder if I heard this before I heard Ziggy or About to wake up Alexa ? No he just woke her up anyway , i I just you know , like we're Handicapped in that we can't hear this before . We heard everything that copied it . Yeah right .

Yeah , it's tough .

Is there anything on the album that sounds more like bowie than this ?

No .

I mean this now okay .

No , I don't think so .

I agree with you , Yeah .

I mean , you can hear bits of Bowie and other things , but this song in particular just sounds like Bowie heard it was oh .

I'll just add some different lyrics to it . Yeah , yeah , the motivator the motivator . Are there better rubies in Egypt than other countries ?

Oh yeah , it's a lyric . This is get it on part two .

Yeah , i was gonna say the same thing . We've been here before . This is the . This song is Again . Just , it's a minor knock , but it's , it's very much . Get it on part two . I even wrote that down here . Yeah , i'll actually , because I'm not familiar with it , like it a little bit better because of that , you know .

Well , it's got . The guitars is double tracked , which I find a little more interesting .

It's doing some weird too during the solo . I don't know what that's making a sound I don't get .

I mean There's not a lot of effects on these guitars and they're all pretty straight , except we know they're doing backwards effectations in the Yes in the vocalization .

And I get that . I didn't quite get what you were saying before we started , but now that we're listening to it , i absolutely get what you're talking about in terms of the phrasing and stuff . Again , minor knock , like tambourine . I would have been happy if the tambourine wasn't in this song . It's a little over , it's a little much .

Oh god , i think about that up next .

Next life's a gas Sky .

I love this song .

I do too . It's my favorite one on the album . I love it . It's fantastic .

Yeah , it's also the shortest one on the album .

It's so infectious This song will get in your head and then it'll just stay there and bounce around make you say I can't do that .

But And it's got that . I I'm guessing this is one where the vocals are double-tracked .

I don't know that for a fact , but maybe yeah .

Because there's just some things where he doesn't quite do the exact same thing . It's not slap , it seems like there's something a little bit . and also The guitar solo , yeah , i think has one of the earliest uses of what they call an octavider .

Yeah , i wanted to know what that was , that that's that kind of grungy , yeah , so yeah and .

I've got one and it Makes your guitar Isolates two harmonics and they're at the octave . So , it's really cool to play one , and you usually have to play it , um , at the higher or lower register if you want to , but you can't like do anything in the mid . Okay , so that I'm pretty sure that's what's going on here .

I can't .

I can't imagine that this was done . Like a lot of jazz players , they do octave stuff but it's always so smooth sounding and , from what I know , if you want to play oct , have an octavider , you have to have distortion involved in it .

Yeah , it's a cool sound , whatever it is I . I love the vocals on this song . I love the lyrics is my favorite lyrics on the album because they're so odd . I could . I could have loved you , girl , like a planet . I could have changed your heart to a star . I could have built a house on the ocean . I could have placed our love in the sky .

It's great . It's a really really good song and it's one of my favorites , yeah , and now we , we change .

Yeah , we go to mc5 . That's sure , this is a big change . Ladies and gentlemen , i don't understand ending with this . Yeah , this is this is not .

I don't think this is a song where the three of us would go . What a great way to end the album .

I think this is where viscani got to have his heyday and go . I want to put a bunch of strings and horns on the end of an album .

Well , what he says is this the bowlin wrote this song specifically for american audiences . Well , I'm insulted by that , yeah , and he thinks that bowlin was actually satirizing himself in the lyrics that it became too easy to sound like all the songs They were doing before , so it's a ripoff . Is about him talking about that ? I , i don't know again .

His vocals are totally weird .

Yeah , you say this a lot . Dug that When you talk about somebody understanding what their voice is , for his voice is not for this .

That's right . That's exactly I . I would have ended it with cosmic dancer Mm-hmm .

Oh , that would have been perfect , yeah , perfect , yeah , i would have sold this song to Somebody . You said mc5 , which is much nicer , was they get . I heard the song . I kept thinking of the electric mayhem , which is the Muppet group band . I kept thinking of that , the song for the Muppet movie that they do . This reminds me of it for some reason .

Well , i was just wondering if it's kind of like that jellyfish album that we Oh , where they just slammed everything .

at the end , let's put everything we can at the at the very end of this .

And Well , if it is , they should have called jellyfish to figure out how to do it Right .

I guess they couldn't it didn't I have the same reaction ? This was just like where did this ?

It's . It's a shame , because I really even the songs that I don't think are Like there's something about them that don't get like I don't like I still there was things I found interesting in it for the rest of the album and then this comes on and it just takes me out of it .

Yeah , it's like a gymnastics routine on , where everything is perfect and you're amazed And she's about to get a tan and then she can't stick the landing . Yeah and right , it's . It's a shame . Anyways , that's Electric warrior . Ladies and gentlemen . Mm-hmm . They continued after this .

Well , they continued a lot and they made some more good records and they did records that I did not . The second album is Or the album after this is the second , i'm sorry . The album after this is is really good And he gets a little Carried away with himself , i think later .

Well , you're not producing the best stuff . No , he would y'all say that the second album is the second Highly highest regarded slider , oh , you mean the one after this .

Yeah , yeah , i think so , but but it's like it seems like everything after this point gets Like people are less and less interested in it .

He starts well . He just keeps doing the same thing .

Well , but when he doesn't , he gets into a sound that people aren't interested in him doing well .

Then he gets away from Tony Viscani too .

Well , uh , yeah , not . To liana .

Eventually Yeah .

This is what I wanted to talk about is .

Okay .

Tyrannosaurus rex . The great weakness of Tyrannosaurus rex Is this for aesthetic . Arms yeah . I've never heard an explanation of What they could be done , what , what . I don't , i don't understand why it doesn't need arms . Why can't it use something ? Why did they just disappear into Too little forks that don't do anything ?

I think , i think He had trouble doing something new . Once he found something that was successful , he didn't want to leave that behind .

Yeah , I think he . I don't know if he he didn't want to leave it or if he couldn't leave it .

I think he changes so much up until this point , and then he finds something that gives him the big start on me once , and then he holds on to that for dear life . You know , i think that's , that's the thing , that this is , in my mind , an exceptional .

It's an exceptional talent . Yeah , and After I listened to a T rex album , i'm done for a while , and If you , if you can pair if you compare him to bowie Mm-hmm . I can go from one boy album . Okay , i want to hear another , and I think some of that is because bowie had more resources at his disposal he .

He was also more open to Shifting gears and incorporating whatever was happening at the time , and bowie was also a much better musician . Yeah , no , definitely .

I mean , but mark bowling , i think he had a broader vision .

Well , bowie could play multiple instruments , mark bowling could barely play his guitar .

I mean he got better at it . He's got much better . Pretty good guitar player , but he's not I mean early on .

He's not , but I mean he got better at it . Obviously , that's what I said , but yeah , he's .

Anyway , i just always take the side of the mediocre guitar . All right , fellas . Uh , tony , you gonna tell us what happened to mark after this .

Well , like you know , as retired money makes albums , that each one is significantly less Successful than the next . I think at some point he completely falls off the charts anywhere . And he's not charting anywhere He gets And I forget . I read someplace how this happens .

Oh yeah , that's the last last mark .

So he falls off the stage .

That was the last mark show he did um , and then he ends up dying In a car wreck that his girlfriend at the time was driving . His girlfriend was , uh , gloria Jones , gloria jones , who was in his band as well . That's who's ?

Quite a remarkable singer and she has really fun albums .

So I was gonna play a song that most people , most people would know well soft sell , soft sell did it .

But she recorded it in 1964 and it is a honey , so So yeah , that's tainted love which she's .

Yeah , she's fantastic . Anyway , he , uh , he ends up Having a kid by her , and the only reason I want to bring it up is because the kid's name was Rolling Bowlin , which , and then what was bowie's kid's name ? Zoe bowie ? I don't know what it is with these glam guys , and , uh , i think , i think zoe has since changed his name , i forget what it is .

You are Duncan jones you know that's right from uh mcbeth .

But yeah , so , um , he ends up getting in a car wreck .

She's driving the car , He's 29 and uh and it and it kills him , yeah and the odd thing is he never learned to drive , but he owned lots of cars .

Yeah , he liked . He liked sitting in expensive cars and one of his fears Um .

One of the reasons why he never learned to drive is because he was afraid he was going to die in a car .

Well , and , uh , and , and he was starting to have a bit of a resurgence .

Yeah , we were starting to come back . He got fat and was It's when he had the child . Yeah , everything changed . He said he should have had that child a long time ago because he got his life straightened out as soon as that child was born .

And uh , except for the But when they went to the bar and drank too much when you're talking about , uh , when you're talking about him being sort of Stuck in amber in terms of not willing to change . What's what's interesting about that ? now , I think about it when you watch the video of boey and him playing together .

I have blue . Uh , was it bluetooth ?

Yeah , maybe , but but the , the bands played live , right , yeah , and then there's the .

Is that the one where Bowie starts taking a solo and all of a sudden they they stop because boey can't do the solo ?

I don't know , i haven't , i haven't watched the one that I don't remember , the one that um , that toni was talking about .

Bowlin falls off the stage and it shows a close-up of Oh , yeah , yeah , laughing .

Yeah , that's that's it , that's when he stops playing . That's it . That's the one . Yeah , they have to stop .

Yeah , it had it had it been tough for him at that point because bowie had surpassed him , right , i mean immensely surpassed him , in terms of just worldwide popularity , yeah , and respect and everything else . um , so that had it been tough , but , yeah , he died at 29 .

And yeah , can you imagine being upset that someone has outdone you at 29 ? It's all this stuff happened so young , and it always seems like these guys clean themselves up Right before and then right before there's an exit Yeah anyway ,

Chris Bell . Chris Bell , I don't think um , I think he still had some issues , but it's yeah . That's a shame that he wasn't able to .

He didn't die because of his issues . I thought he just died in a . Anyway no he did .

He died in a car wreck as well .

I know he wasn't high or anything .

No , no , no , no , I mean he still had some . when you said clean up , i don't know if he was entirely cleaned up , but that's a different we'll cut all that out .

Yeah Well , ladies and gentlemen , we're about to be daylooshed here in Austin , texas . Obviously , there's a big thunderstorm going on , which is the worms are coming . Very appropriate for t-rex .

And we got it . We got a recent email from somebody saying Dug song or the sir Douglas quintet . What's the deal ? Why not yet ? So we may have to think about that . I can't . I can't answer that question .

We're in Austin , texas , and we haven't done .

We got to explain that and the The 13th floor elevators .

That's another one , i know we got to explain .

Anyway , i'm gonna ask everybody for their review of this record . I'm gonna start with our Loyal and humble producer , jonathan J M Rowe . You didn't get to talk about yourself very much to that , would you like to ? Okay , i'll go first . Yeah , thanks for letting me uh .

Stroke in my ego or let me go first .

You're showing your guns over there , J M .

Sun's out guns out Um .

All right , i'm gonna give my critics rating first . It's a little bit more . I'm gonna give my critics rating first . It's a four or five . It is Really hard to overestimate the importance of this that this album had on the future of Not just glam but in rock in general .

Yes , doug , oh , you know what I'm gonna say .

I'm sorry , yeah , you had it you .

you had an elevated tone , like you're gonna ask me a question , so well , that was the question tea .

All right I .

Agree with James , critical 4-5 . I , when you said originality , that's the thing that struck me is how difficult it is wrap my head around that . But once you do , you realize how people built on this sound and how much of what I like is a result of this , this album , and this , this band .

Well , i Am going to give a critic straight . Let me say something first . I've listened to old episodes and I've noticed I rate albums higher than anyone else , and I don't know that we're working on the same standard , but I'm rating this against all albums and We don't talk about Horrible albums on this podcast , right ? We only talk about .

That's true .

I mean , I think those are all very valid points and They're almost all blues songs adjusted For me , a blues guy . I'd rather hear the blues , but this is a remarkable album and should be an anyone's Collection that's serious about music . Yeah , end with that , end with the pouring rain . I'm gonna turn it over to Jonathan J M Rowe .

Thanks for that , doug , and thank you , listeners , for letting us fill your hour waves with another episode of this is vinyl tap , the podcast that always go to 11 . We want to remind everyone That we are having a contest right now Where you can come up with the new tagline for this is vinyl tap .

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