Doctor Feelgood: heroes of pre-punk, or the Canvey Quo?

300ft GOLD LEE BRILLEAUX

http://focalpoint.org.uk/e-petition/

oooh that boxset looks very tempting ..

Just been sent the boxset. Very nicely packaged. Stupidity sounds great so far, though possibly not the sort of thing I'd want to listen to again and again. It's easy to see how spare and aggressive it must have sounded at the time. Also, the DVD appears to have all the live material that was cherry picked for Oil City Confidential.

Also ... when I was 12 or 13 or something, I remember my dad asking me if I liked Dr Feelgood. This would have been 81 or 82. I think he must have heard the name because of the frequent assertion in news stories that they were Princess Diana's favourite band. But at that point, it's hard to think of a band who sounded more out of date and irrelevant than them - even allowing for guitar rock's mainstream unfashionability, they seemed this old man's abstraction of an idea about being hard and tough, compared to NWOBHM, which I was listening to at the time. A bit like a kid in 65 who liked the Stones and the Who being asked if he liked Fats Domino or something. Ageing, of course, accounts lots of my perspective change, but it does make me wonder: was the early 80s the time when blues-based rock was at its lowest ebb? Later in the decade you'd get the emergence of bands like Black Crowes, Quireboys etc whose R&B debt was explicit, but was there anyone with any cultural capital mining the blues in the early 80s?

maybe rory gallagher? or was that earlier?

Rory Gallager was out in the margins by the early 80s.

George Thorogood, certainly. Dire Straits, at a push?

The were quite a few non-mainstream bands who were fueled by the blues in the 80s, from Captain Beefheart (Doc at the Radar Station, Ice Cream For Crow) on through stuff like the Birthday Party, the Gun Club, the Scientists, the Cramps.

If you're looking at bands coming out of pub rock though, Dire Straits put out Making Movies in 1980 and then obviously went huge from there onwards like what Anagram said. Quo were still scoring plenty of hits, although their harder, blusier songs were behind them, but I sort of think ZZ Top as picking up the boogie baton in the charts from Eliminator onwards. Never exactly trendy this second bunch of bands though.

in america there were shitloads of those types of bands - mojo nixon, flat duo jets, pussy galore (if you have a wide definition of blues haha), but roots stuff really NEVER goes away in america, it's always there

los lobos....eric clapton i remember being really popular in US as a kid...john fogerty had a big album...the fabulous thunderbirds

stevie ray vaughn, robert cray

the movie Roadhouse, jeff healey band

marty mcfly and chuck berry's band

lee atwater

famous dave's BBQ restaurants

paul reed smith

Want this box really, really badly.

I remember reading in New York Rocker: My Life in the Blank Generation with Blondie, Iggy Pop, and Others, 1974-1981 by Gary Valentine that people from Blondie, Television and Talking Heads were spinning the first Feelgood record at parties a lot. It was one of the few things that had a pretty spare, clean sound. I wonder if they ever played any gigs with Motörhead? Lemmy may have been influenced by them some.

Motörhead's On Parole was what I was thinking of. I guess it was recorded in 1975 but not released until later.

Kinda like AC/DC's '74 Jailbreak too!

Need more Wilko in this thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVAVuHLH3vg

Man that Telecaster is like a +10 to kick ass. Apparently recorded in a schoolyard somewhere in France, 1976,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0Q9Zc7nZjw

Best part of this is that Feelgoods drummer Big Figure himself starts replying to the YouTube comments. (and folks call him Mr. Figure)

Me on the Feelgoods' only number one (live) album: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/dr-feelgood-stupidity.html

pushing this one back up for Sunday morning readers.

rightly.

Watching the DVD from the box now. Brilleaux really is a terrifying coked-up psycho in the Kursaal footage.

Oof.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jan/09/wilko-johnson-terminal-cancer

well that fucking sucks

Shit. Apparently he used to have a residency at the Standard in Walthamstow (now closed down) but this seems to have stopped prior to me moving there, so I never got to see him.

Very sad news. I sold my Feelgoods vinyl somewhere along the line, and I really need to start recollecting some of their music.

Bad time for iconic guitarists what with Vini Reilly being in some difficulty. Hope he can keep on going and make the most of his remaining time. If you haven't seen 'Oil City Confidential' get to it, Wilko's quite an extraordinary character.

Was coming here to post that. I voted the All Through the City: With Wilko 1974-77 box my #1 reissue of last year in The Wire's critics poll. Really wish Oil City Confidential would get a US DVD release.

Damn.

no!

gutted to hear this... really sad for the guy..

Big respect to him for his decision to forego Chemo and spend his last few months playing and recording..

still the best thing ever - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rViBFgjChH0

Love how that's the clip everyone goes for, but then again, it really does say it all.

In that clip Wilko looks like a third Davies brother that the parents kept chained in the attic.

I dunno the one I always think of is Roxette on maybe the Old Grey Whistle Test? That's fucking awesome as well.

i was just thinking that too...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1VwjWXefFs

sad news, what a great player

yup, roxette is thee one but i've watched it so many times i've worn out the dvd.

Big respect to him for his decision to forego Chemo and spend his last few months playing and recording..

After watching Oil City Confidential I kinda understand the decision - he's crammed several lifetimes into one. Fucking hell, absolutely one-of-a-kind Character.

Wilko & The Blockheads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS5bxk89gQg

Wilko shows you how to play The Riff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPg9P1q2icA

Level 5 guitar geek video of Wilko's black-and-red Telecaster being restored.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LWaYFPX1No

Four farewell UK dates announced in March: London Koko, Bilston (West Midlands), Holmfirth (West Yorkshire) and Glasgow.

http://www.noblepr.co.uk/Press_Releases/wilkojohnson/tour2013.htm

looked through thread for a reference to the following, didn't find none…

was watching the beginning of game of Thrones, and saw a familiar face: "shit, that looks like Wilko!" he plays a mute soldier…

thought that he must regard being on that show like walking around in the kind of Roger Dean album cover that he would have actively despised in Doc FG's heyday…

link dnw

xpost -- Nah he gets to chop off heads and the like. Good for the aggression.