The Only Ones - Peel Sessions

One of the great things about working in a record shop (along with thinking that life couldn't get any better - I was 18, in a band and had a job that meant I could dress how I liked) was that I got to hear music that might otherwise have passed me by.

A case in point would be the Only Ones. At the time they were a forgotten band and their back catalogue deleted, but in 1989 they were afforded a Peel Sessions release. Guitarist John Perry says on the sleevenotes that they were his favourite Only Ones recordings, and to this day it tends to be the album I play most often. The original release kicked off with a great version of 'Oh Lucinda', which bears little resemblance to the Baby's Got a Gun recording and alone makes the album worth hearing, the picked chords having been replaced with Pete Perrett at his amphetamine-fused best (think of the energy of 'Another Girl, Another Planet').

I was eventually able to track down their three LPs in various branches of the Record & Tape Exchange, and The Immortal Story helped to fill in a few more gaps in their output and in 2004 their complete recordings were released as Why Don't You Kill Yourself. More recently of course 'Another Girl, Another Planet' (by now a staple in indie clubs) was used in a Vodafone commercial and the band reformed shortly after. Seeing them at Shepherd's Bush Empire last year meant that along with the New York Dolls and Hanoi Rocks I finally got to see a band that I thought would never grace the stage again (and unlike the others with all original members in place - Pete Perrett having survived despite certain lifestyle similarities to Johnny Thunders).

(For similar reasons Perrett has also been referenced as a forebearer to Pete Doherty - flattering for the ex-Libertine.)

The Peel Sessions have also resurfaced as Darkness and Light: the Complete BBC Recordings, along with a second CD of live recordings (although much of the Peel Sessions can be considered 'live', recorded as they often were in one take) and I'd recommend this as a great starting point to anyone intrigued by the Only Ones - no longer the forgotten band.

See also:
Johnny Thunders - So Alone

Redd Kross - Third Eye

I first heard of Redd Kross when they were referred to in connection with Jellyfish around the time of the latter's Bellybutton album. Even though I was working in a record shop I was unable to track anything down - Redd Kross's most recent album, Third Eye, had been deleted almost as soon as it was released due to the presence on the cover of a naked female body. Disguised with a mask, the body in question apparently belonged to someone famous who had not granted permission for the photo to be used (Cher and Brooke Shields were both rumoured to be the complainant). So I was surprised not just to see that the album has recently been reissued but that it also has the same cover (and to be honest, a very quick google search has failed to reveal any evidence of the above story and I have no recollection of where I first heard it).

Regardless, it was a long time before I got hold of a copy of Third Eye, eventually picking it up in a second-hand shop in Bristol. Gene Simmons called it right when he said that Redd Kross were the perfect mix of KISS and the Beatles (in fact, isn't that one Mr Paul Stanley supplying backing vocals on 1976?*), for even when the band rock that little bit harder they do so without losing their pop sensibilities.

The album's hit that never was - Bubblegum Factory - was notable for the fact that Redd Kross rarely played it live; the one time I saw them attempt it (at the now defunct Subterranea in Ladbroke Grove, bowing down to requests/demands from the audience) they struggled to make it to the chorus and eventually abandoned it. To effectively throw away a song that good illustrates the strength of their repertoire.

There followed a surge in interest in the UK around 1993/4 but, like Jellyfish, Redd Kross never made the jump to the next level and remained a 'cult' band, finally splitting in the late 90s (around 15 years after forming when the MacDonald brothers were aged 11 and 14) before reforming a couple of years ago, hence the long-awaited reissue. Don't let it get away this time.



*No! It's guitarist Robert Hecker doing a fine impression. Thanks to 20Eyes for correcting that .... (29/10/08)

Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds - self-titled

Izzy Stradlin And The Ju Ju Hounds

When wearing a black velvet cap I was often told I looked like Izzy Stradlin. Most bizzarely someone once congratulated me on a great show when I was in the toilet of the old Mean Fiddler in Harlesden, immediately after Izzy and his band had left the stage. Quite why this bloke thought Izzy would have raced off stage, changed his clothes and made a beeline for one of the customer toilets I'll never know.

We managed to end that night by blagging our way into the birthday party of Vikki from Fuzzbox. Charlie Quintana (the drummer in the Ju Ju Hounds) put in an appearance and when during a conversation a friend asked him for a cigarette, Charlie apologised profusely for not offering him one in the first place - not bad for a long-standing member of Bob Dylan's band.

Also in attendance was Rob Newman, then at the height of his fame and also around the time that his relationship with David Baddiel was in decline (this was late 1992) and we spent a long time talking. He left, and a few minutes later so did we. Rob was outside and called to me, correctly remembering my name and wishing me well ... my reply? "Cheers David .... um, I mean Rob."

Not my finest moment.

See also:
Guns 'N Roses - Appetite For Destruction