Aggravation Place

What do you get if you take the ex-drummer of  ‘60s psych-pop band John’s Children, the manager of kooky glam band Sparks (who had also been in John’s Children), add a guitarist, bassist and a singer-songwriter, throw in boots, braces and cropped hair, blend with some teen rebellion lyrics and top with a publishing deal from Mickie Most at RCA?  The result of that rather interesting mix is The Jook.

This mid-‘70s band comprised guitarist Trevor White, vocalist Ian Kimmet, bassist Ian Hampton and aforementioned drummer Chris Townson and were the brainchild of John Hewlett (he of Sparks management and earlier member of the Smashed Blocked psychsters along with Chris).  Being signed to RCA, who were also home to The Sweet and Bowie, should perhaps have helped this bunch to a higher slot in pop/rock history.  But none of their five singles had any impact on the charts – so who would remember them? My own pre-teen recollections of mid-seventies UK chart music are dominated by Mud and Gary Glitter…

Retrospectively, however, I find the look and the sound of The Jook quite fascinating.  It seems so obvious to me that they bridged a gap between the sparks and glitter (literally) of early ‘70s pop and the stripped-down, hard-edged presence of punk which was soon to follow.  It’s kind of power pop too.

Anyway, I present for you the track, ‘Aggravation Place’ as I like its guitar sound - not dissimilar to that of the Clash’s Mick Jones (the intro could have come straight off the ‘Give ‘Em Enough Rope’ album) – plus there are some Jam-like bits in there to my ears, with one of those great stuttered endings - and, well, it just has a great title and sentiment… I do like this.  I also love the pic of them shown here, looking tough and bored in their bovver-boy style clobber, photographed in very un-glam monochrome against that graffiti-daubed wall. 

I’m not so keen on other songs I’ve heard but overall they seem very much to be an integral stepping stone in the path from glam to punk (see also Iron Virgin’s ‘Rebel Rule’).  In fact, The Jook were quoted as saying in the music press at the time that they wanted “...to be masculine but not violent. We just want to have a good time.  We want to cater for working class kids, not just on a visual level, but by giving them the music they really want to hear”  - a sentiment which rings a good few bells with the words of many a punk protagonist.

(‘Aggravation Place’ can also be found on the compilation CD ‘Glitterbest, UK Glam With Attitude 1971-1976’ on RPM Records)

Once you pop you can't stop

I recently went for a trip on the tube and I didn’t want to get off!  YouTube, that is, not the Central Line…

That’s the thing about YouTube though, isn’t it?… A desire to satisfy a nagging curiosity about something or other starts me off on a journey that I could never have predicted.  Just because, after finding what I originally searched for, I glance over at the right hand side (oh, those fateful ‘Suggestions’) and something catches my eye.  And then something else.  And something else.  And so it goes on.  From then on I’m enslaved. Next thing I know I’m miles away from where I began and going down Google side-streets too, amassing a load of probably useless information but feeling strangely satisfied at having crammed a few more pieces of music trivia into my poor, overcrowded brain.

Well, this time it started off with The Eyes (as so many things do…!)  The Eyes were a great ‘60s mod/freakbeat band who I’d discovered during the ‘80s when a lot of obscure beat and psychedelia was gathering renewed interest and being reissued on some brilliant and fascinating compilation albums.  Well, I fancied hearing ‘You’re Too Much’ again – it’s so good… 

Then, looking over at the right hand side, I spotted something unexpected… a track by the Nerves, who I vaguely knew to be a ‘70s band, and the song was ‘Hanging On The Telephone’.  The original.  It appeared on a Nerves EP back in 1976. I don’t know why it was a suggested track but I’m glad it was there.  I just had no idea that Blondie’s excellent chart-topping single from 1978 was a cover version, I’d always thought theirs was the first.  It’s such a great song so I was intrigued to find out a bit more about the Nerves….

To cut a longer story short, I found out that the songwriting talent behind ‘Hanging On The Telephone’ is Jack Lee, who also wrote ‘Will Anything Happen’ – again, a song I only know from hearing Blondie, as this is the B-side of their 'Hanging On The Telephone' single and also appears with that on the album ‘Parallel Lines’.  (For trivia fans, Jack Lee also wrote ‘Come Back And Stay’, covered by Paul Young – he of '80s chart fame, who had great success with it.  Lee's original is on his solo album 'Jack Lee's Greatest Hits' and is far more emotive.)  But the best part of this journey was that I found, totally unexpectedly, two other songs that I’d never before heard and now love.  I had no idea that I would fall for this '70s power pop quite so much.  So here they are for you too.

The Nerves: When You Find Out.

The Plimsouls (a later offshoot from the Nerves): A Million Miles Away

And just so you can set off on the same trip too if you like, travelling on a parallel line perhaps - although your final destination may turn out to be somewhere quite different, here's where it all started...