Hollywood Brats - self-titled

Back in the pre-internet days discovering new music - particularly new, old music - was pretty difficult. Record Collector could be useful once in a while but other than that? Fortunately there were record fairs and one stallholder in particular (Tony McCrory I think his name was) supplied me with some fantastic records.

The self-titled Hollywood Brats album was one such treasure. Recorded in 1973 the album languished in the vaults until Cherry Red picked it up for release in 1980 (by which time two members had achieved some success as members of The Boys, who re-recorded two Brats songs on their own debut album).

Supposedly unaware of the New York Dolls, the Hollywood Brats had much more in common with their Manhattan-based equivalents than anyone on the British glam scene (Slade, Gary Glitter etc). Like the Dolls, the Hollywood Brats were one of the precursors to punk (their cover of Then He Kissed Me turned up on a compilation of punk covers called We Did 'Em Our Way) - a classic case of right band, wrong time.