The late seventies were a very strange time for rock music.
For a variety of reasons, rock and roll had become extremely polarized at the time. On the one hand, you had the disco thing reaching the incendiary pitch of Saturday Night Fever, with the whole John Travolta/Bee Gees deal. A trend which mulleted, diehard rockers found troublesome enough to take to stadiums and burn records by anyone from Chic and Kool & The Gang, to bands like Earth Wind & Fire (who actually came more from the rock/funk/jazz fusion school of people like Hendrix and Sly Stone).
Whatever...
On the flip side, the record companies and radio stations of the day had long since come to see that the guitar based hard rock of bands like Led Zeppelin meant big bucks. This in turn led to the formulaic, radio friendly "arena rock" of bands like Journey and Boston. Of course, for those of us who took their rock and roll more seriously, there was the "progressive rock" option offered by groups like Yes, Genesis, and Emerson Lake & Palmer.
What this created was a handful of equally devoted, but seperate tribes of fans within the rock and roll fan community. You would rarely for example, see a Journey fan at an Earth Wind & Fire show—or vice versa. The disco kids just wanted to boogie, while the prog-rockers were more prone to long nights smoking a lot of pot, and dissecting the meaning of the lyrics to something like Close To The Edge.
As for the arena rock guys?
They'd just as soon as show up in their "Disco Sucks" T-shirts ready to beat anyone up who disagreed. What about "Crossover" you ask? Forget about it, as the eighties were still a couple of years away.
Sitting off to the side of all this musically divisive foolishness, were the illegitimate bastard twins of punk-rock and new wave. These were the two genres of that time who somehow managed to co-exist peacefully alongside each other, while thumbing their own collective noses at virtually everyone else.
Actually, there wasn't a lot of difference between the two genres—at least not musically. Which probably accounts for the unity there. Both shared a desire for a back to basics approach, and a distaste for the pretentiousness of big arena rock in particular. The Ramones (in leather and jeans) and the Sex Pistols (in spiked hair and safety pins), were the punk-rockers who played it loud and fast.
And before the days of Duran Duran and Culture Club, the "new wavers" pretty much did the same—minus the cosmetic props (well okay, maybe there was a skinny tie or two).
Article comments
1 - JC Mosquito
Now if there was just a real great Rockpile album to go along with it...
2 - Mark Saleski
great article glen.
to jc: what's wrong with Seconds of Pleasure?
3 - JC Mosquito
Seconds of Pleasure was OK.... but supposedly their live show put it to shame by a long, long shot. Most critics at the time were of the same opinion. I heard a boot years ago, and sound quality aside, I'd agree - they really kicked live.
4 - Mark Saleski
now that i believe. i mean, check out the Lowe's version of "I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock and Roll)" on that Live Stiffs record. really killer.
5 - JC Mosquito
Check these classic Rockpile performances (hope the links work)
6 - Glen Boyd
Thanx for the comments guys. Sketter, those links are really frickin' cool, and as you can now see I went ahead and added the one for "Down, Down, Down" to the article.
So thanx again!
-Glen
7 - JC Mosquito
No prob, Glen - greatgawda'mighty, they could sure rock and roll, couldn't they?
8 - Glen Boyd
Yes they could Skeeter, yes they could.
-Glen
9 - Leslie Bohn
The record company is being nice and streaming the whole album for free.
And of course, Jesus of Cool/Pure Pop really is a proper Rockpile album, just like Labour of Lust and the contemporaneous Dave Edmunds albums (Repeat When Necessary and Trax on Wax) are. The two guys were signed to different record companies, so they couldn't record as Rockpile, at least until Dave Edmunds eventually finished his deal with Swan Song.
True Rockpile nuts should seek out Carlene Carter's Musical Shapes from around the same time. Produced by Lowe (her husband) and backed by Rockpile, it's her best album, one that wouldn't sound out of place on the radio today next to, say, Brad Paisley or Miranda Lambert: smart, funny and very rock-informed.
10 - Glen Boyd
Seconds of Pleasure was the only "official" Rockpile album Leslie. The key word here being "official." Very cool that Yep Roc is streaming this. Smart too. Once people hear how great the record is, they'll buy it. Thanx for the comment.
-Glen
11 - Holly A Hughes
Nice review, Glen. But I'm not quite sure why you say Nick Lowe's a surprising punk/new wave candidate. I know what he's been recording lately sounds different, but the evolution makes sense if you listen to his albums in order. (Granted, the jump from his latest, "At My Age", back to "Jesus of Cool" is a bit surprising.) And if you think about it, the retro-country-soul place he's ended up isn't really all that different from where the Brinsleys were ages ago, and only a little bit away from the rockabilly sound he and Dave Edmunds were digging in the later 70s.
Still, you're right to point out what a classic craftsman of the pop song Nick always has been. If you couldn't say it in three verses and chorus -- and under 3 minutes -- then you were just being lazy. That's what punk and New Wave had in common, and for those of us who were weaned on it, no wonder we couldn't stand the extended solos of the arena rockers or the head games of the prog rockers.
12 - JC Mosquito
I liked the 3 mintues or less format since the time of the Monkees, but I also liked the songs that took up while sides of albums too (i.e., Deep Purple's live Space Truckin'). And most everything inbetween too, now that I think of it. For different reasons, obviously.
Punk & New Wave - in some ways, New Wave was a tag invented to sell punk and post punk popsters - I dunno - it was a strange but productive time, and I still don't know how the whole thing supported itself til grunge kinda blew in a newer wave altogether.
13 - Leslie Bohn
Mr. Boyd:
You lamented that there's no "real, great Rockpile album." Joyfully, there are four or five!
14 - Glen Boyd
Leslie,
I think you've got me confused with JC (comment #1).
-Glen
15 - Leslie Bohn
D'oh. Apologies!
16 - JC Mosquito
Technicalities, perhaps, Ms. B - but allmusic.com list only one album by Rockpile, and makes a pretty good case why Nick Lowe's & Dave Edmunds's albums backed by Rockpile are solo albums as opposed to band efforts.
And though they are all decent records, I just remember seeing Rockpile play Heart of the City on TV when I was younger, and wondering why their albums didn't sound as muscular.
17 - SlyStoneBio
Great article. Thanks for remembering Sly.