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

Saw them live in early '76 at the National Stadium in Dublin - they weren't Punk and a year later they sounded out of date, but in '76, they suddenly put short hair, short songs and no guitar solos on the agenda...... (it also became clear where the Boomtown Rats had stolen their whole schtick). Wilko is an amazing player and presence, and i bet the Cropper/ Andy Gill line extends to Albini too.

Not trying to get into a pissing match over anyone's claim to be the first punk band - God knows I'm not trying to make a case it's for them. I think Birdman's an interesting comparison, though: I don't find them any great shakes on record - the ratio of heavy to punk in their rock is too steep for me - but the clips I've seen of them suggest they were terrific live. And in both cases it's based on the same thing: the sense that either of them might contain at least one genuine psycho - not something that comes over on record, in either case. Lee Brilleaux just looks feral in some of the 75 clips - wiping his nose and mouth on the sleeve of that filthy white suit, always staring furiously at the crowd, pumping his fist randomly ... he looks like he wants to kill everyone within 50 yards.

This is from the Kursaal in 1975: the kind of thing I simply couldn't listen to on CD, but I can watch this with tinny computer speakers all day - and with a cinema sound system it all sounds amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFcgVJjzwao&feature=PlayList&p=ADBFF0043F7AB52E&index=4

I seem to remember a run of pretty handy singles, though I haven't revisited them for years. Will have to see the documentary.

xpost:Blaming the Boomtown Rats on the Feelgoods seems beyond harsh. And, yes, can we not do the 'who invented punk' thread derail AGAIN?

This thread inspired me to check these guys out - I don't know about pre-punk, but I'll say this: I bet Bill Carter (of the much-missed Screaming Blue Messiahs) owns all their albums.

another sweet clip! i might have to finally get an album by these guys

Malpractice was their ticket to nowhere in the US. I very much liked the album, still do. The famous Rolling Stone Record Guide -- the red version -- I seem to recall famously saying of the
album that it sounded like band setting the stage for a singer who never appears. Which was cruel but funny, even though it totally misses what Lee Brilleaux was doing. xhuxk still has a copy of the red book so he could check.

Anyway, "I Can Tell," "Don't Let Your Daddy Know," "Going Back Home," "Back In the Night" -- all great songs. After Johnson left I never liked them as much but with Gypie Mayo as guitarist they made a couple good ones. And you can still find good songs on albums up into at least the mid-Eighties.

"Milk & Alcohol," "Down at the Doctors," "Crazy 'Bout Girls" still summon a rise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ySdocMeBW8

X-post.
Re the Feelgoods/ Rats thing - until the Rats signed they were a fairly unreconstructed pub-rock outifit and stole much of their material pretty directly from the likes of the Feelgoods and the Hotrods. In those days - height of the troubles - not many British bands came over here, so there was an appreciable time-lag then. They wen't through a pretty intensive re- imagining before their first single, when, after dissing punk for ages, suddenly they were 'Ireland's top punk band'. (I know this happened to lot of bands in those few frantic months - I don't even blame them for that. Just for everything else)

As a weekly-inkie music press junkie at the time, I can confirm that the standard pre-punk critical line re. the Feelgoods ran: a great live band who could never recapture their greatness in the studio. But there was a lot of goodwill attached to that, and a general hope and faith that one day they would indeed make a great studio album. In that context, releasing Stupidity was a smart move, and its vastly increased sales compared to anything else they did was no surprise.

As someone who was impatient for UK punk rock to start delivering on record, the likes of the Feelgoods/Hot Rods/Count Bishops/Gorillas/Graham Parker/101'ers/Tyla Gang/Lew Lewis/Little Bob Story were my John The Baptist figures, rather than the likes of Television/Patti Smith/Richard Hell/Jonathan Richman etc. They were as close as I could find to what I wanted punk rock to be, so I made do with them for a while.

(Ack, that sounds meaner than it should have done. I enjoyed them all hugely, but UK punk rock eventually resonated far, far deeper.)

A bit of the opposite for me. I don't listen to Television, Patti Smith or Jonathan Richman
anymore.

But I can still find myself reaching for something by the Feelgoods or the Count Bishops, even the Tyla Gang. Surprisingly, I even have a Little Bob Story recording.

Oil City Confidential is definitely something I'll want to see. There's really no American counterpart to the beaten down lower working class thing going on in the trailer for it.

Springsteen? Who is also surely a big influence on the Boomtown Rats.

Watch the trailer. Having spent a lot of time in coastal NJ, there's no real comparison between it
and the Feelgood neck of the woods. Not much, if any, romanticism or myth-making in the early Feelgoods stuff. The Feelgoods defined taut.

Wilko was a huge influence on a lot of post-punk guitarists. Erase the vocal tracks from just about any Gang of Four song and it sound uncannily like the Feelgoods.

Also, didn't Lee Brilleuex lend Dave Robinson and Jake Rivera several hundred pounds to start Stiff Records?

Springsteen/ Rats

Only came out when they started making records: before that, definite Feelgoods/ Hotrods copyists.

Feelgoods/Hot Rods/Count Bishops/Gorillas/Graham Parker/101'ers/Tyla Gang/Lew Lewis/Little Bob Story

Still have records by nearly all of those. There was movie about Jesse Hector (Gorillas) wasn't there?

"Television/Patti Smith/Richard Hell/Jonathan Richman etc."

i'd take the count bishops over ANY of these people. but i'm in the minority. hell, i'd take ducks deluxe over any of them too.

Re this thread, you're not in a minority. Stupidity attained a chart high water mark not equalled by any other pub rock band in the UK. I think.

Unsurprisingly, the album was not released in the US. They were written off even faster than Slade and Status Quo in terms of being too English.

Andy Gill is interviewed in the doco, and gives full regard to Wilko as an inspiration.

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CZMLs8Ke40

That does look good. Quite the pub rock revival kicking off at the moment what with this and the Ian Dury film.

I'm gonna have to come out of semi-lurking for this thread! Totally great band and Wilko is absolute favourite guitarist, along with Verlaine/Lloyd. Dunno about them not being great in the studio - Jetty and Malpractice rock pretty hard IMHO - certainly they pack more of a punch than similar just-pre-punk stuff from the likes of The Count Bishops/Hot Rods etc. Part of the problem might be the FLOW of the studio albums, the Wilko-sung tracks break it up a bit, and there's always one where the mix is just plain wrong - e.g Vic Maile mixing the guitar too low in Going Back Home on Malpractice.

I think Mick Green is the biggest influence on Wilko along with Steve Cropper - have a listen to the Pirates or The Dakotas for that 'rhythm and lead together' style. Not easy to play - getting something like 'I Don't Mind' to flow is pretty difficult without using Wilko's fingers and thumbs method.

Like Mike T-Diva the more hard-edged pub-rock bands got me through in 1975 (as a 13 year old!) and I remember seeing this clip on the telly and being totally blown away. In Yorkshire, we used to get the Geordie Scene on a Saturday morning - compulsory viewing in my house. It was usually a mixture of glam, hard rock and the odd bit of proggy stuff, but done live in front of a TOTP-type audience. I can remember SAHB, Procol Harem, The Sweet, Mott on there. Oh and Nazareth were on every bloody week just about...

here's the clip...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eVyofFm0Rw

Fuck - I just saw elsewhere that Mick Green died YESTERDAY :( RIP.

Saw that, was gonna say.

I guess that Vic Maile is a central figure here if we're plotting a course from the Pirates and the Animals through Dr Feelgood to the Screaming Blue Messiahs and the Godfathers.

The Godfathers - now there's a band who never captured their live energy on recd!

The Godfathers - now there's a band who never captured their live energy on recd!

except the live album of course. but yes, i totally agree.

Great clip there.
One way in which the Feelgoods, maybe more than others, preseaged punk was that they had a thought out look. It may seem unstudied now, but most of their contemporaries were still stranded in a no mans land of post hippie threads and beards, and pub rock authenticity. The Feelgoods, with the suits and short hair and Wilko and Sparks little walk forward, walk back, move, were, in that context, riveting. (obviously there were bands at the opposite extreme as well - SAHBs, Roxy etc - but glam and pub-rock were pretty discrete cultures, they those bands didn't impinge much on the audience the Feelgoods were getting)

Godfathers a good comparison - though the Coyne brothers did get the live sound down on record once at least:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLOp8cE5zEw

fu*ck. thats a good track, ta for that ithappens.
i was a big godfathers fan, but to this day i dont have any SPE material.
clearly i have been missing out.

that 'geordie scene' clip is fantastic. i think "stupidity' surprised both the band and their label by going to no. 1 in the album charts and very briefly the feelgoods were the biggest band in the uk. my entry point was through hearing "milk and alcohol" (their only top ten single) on the radio relentlessly throughout the summer of '79 though it is to my eternal regret that i never saw them live. i cannot wait to see the film.

due to this thread, i have just dug down by the jetty (2 cd collectors edition) out of its unloved place in the archive and given it a blast.
wow.
after a few days of not getting any real buzz from music, this was a very much needed boost.

I voted for down by the jetty in the 70s poll.

http://www.godfathershq.com/images/svdm2010.jpg

another year, another chance to see them again dissipates (boring grown up shit).
the various times i saw them in 86-94 they never once disappointed, and in fact on a couple of occasions, scared the living shit out of me (was violence and audience antagonism part of all their shows ?)

i never saw them live but this is still one of my fave albums from the 80's:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_t6Gs_TbZqnY/RenQjmFWo0I/AAAAAAAAAGM/jtwFudsOVhU/s320/hit+by+hit+cover.jpg

All their chorusses were the title repeated 4 times.

Except for "Birth School Work Death" which was only twice.

scott, that was actually reissued by the band recently with an extra disc of session versions which are excellent, and live tracks, including a live rendition of that sid Presley experience track above that i didn't realise until 47 minutes ago.

and yes, mark g, i know of their limitations lyrically, but there was something about the venomous vocal attack and riffs that just hit this young impressionable 18 year old in 1986 hard.

I never saw them live, but they were on one of those late night live TV gig shows, and I had to really prove it to myself I wasn't actually there.

Or was I?

That's the Godfathers I mean.

I did see Dr Feelgood, way after the 'glory' days, Lee Brilleaux plus various lads half his age. Bit disappointing. Was with a mate who used to 'roadie' for them occasionally, which may have clouded things.

Saw the Godfathers a couple of times, and they were fun, but I never really got the point of them on record. At that time I was listening to a lot of 60s punk, so they seemd kind of superfluous. Saw SPE once, at Brixton Ritzy supporting Billy Bragg at a GLC Jobs for Change gig. I was 15 and they were great - the Godfathers were a definite disappointment after that. However, it's not like there's much to weigh them on - just two singles, I think, and a Peel session or two. The difference, in my memory, relates to what's exciting about Dr Feelgood in the live clips: the Godfathers looked like a rock band because of that guitarist with the shagpile hair, while SPE looked like a gang. Gangs look more exciting on a stage.

the Godfathers looked like a rock band because of that guitarist with the shagpile hair,

good point, and very true. he certainly did not look part of the gang.
still, each time i saw them the experience was very intense.

Now I want to go dig out my Godfathers cd

Couldn't resist knocking this up on Spotify:
Going Back Home: a UK pub rock sampler.

36 tracks, broadly chronological, mostly from 1975-77, with a little bit before and a little bit after. Strictly one track per artist - except for Dr. Feelgood, to whom the playlist is dedicated!

Track listing:
1. She Does It Right - Dr Feelgood
2. I Fought The Law - Ducks Deluxe (mis-labelled on Spotify, tsk)
3. Louisa On A Horse - John Otway & Wild Willy Barrett
4. How Long - Ace
5. Why Did You Do It - Stretch
6. Motor Bikin' - Chris Spedding
7. Home In My Hand (live at the Hope & Anchor) - Brinsley Schwarz
8. Going Back Home - Dr Feelgood
9. Teenage Letter - Count Bishops
10. Keys To Your Heart - The 101ers
11. She's My Gal - The Gorillas
12. So It Goes - Nick Lowe
13. Get Out Of Denver (live at the Marquee) - Eddie & the Hot Rods
14. Roxette (live) - Dr Feelgood
15. Between The Lines - Pink Fairies
16. Cincinatti Fatback - Roogalator
17. Hotel Chambermaid - Graham Parker & the Rumour
18. Styrofoam - Tyla Gang
19. Boogie On The Street - Lew Lewis
20. Hightime (live) - Little Bob Story
21. Showbiz - Downliners Sect
22. Police Car - Larry Wallis
23. Sneakin' Suspicion - Dr Feelgood
24. Mystery Dance - Elvis Costello
25. Razzle In My Pocket - Ian Dury (alas, no Kilburns on Spotify)
26. Whole Wide World - Wreckless Eric
27. Cat On A Wall - Squeeze
28. I Knew The Bride - Dave Edmunds
29. Mony Mony - Celia & the Mutations (aka Stranglers)
30. She's A Wind Up - Dr Feelgood
31. Dancing The Night Away - The Motors
32. Be Good To Yourself - Frankie Miller
33. The Walk - The Inmates
34. Driver's Seat - Sniff & the Tears
35. Sultans Of Swing - Dire Straits
36. Back In The Night - Dr Feelgood

i used to have this on tape:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b8/Hope_%26_Anchor.jpg/584px-Hope_%26_Anchor.jpg

A1 Wilko Johnson Band - Dr. Feelgood
A2 The Stranglers - Straighten Out
A3 Tyla Gang - Styrofoam
A4 The Pirates - Don't Munchen It
A5 The Steve Gibbons Band - Speed Kills
A6 XTC - I'm Bugged
A7 Suburban Studs - I Hate School
B1 The Pleasers - Billy
B2 XTC - Science Friction
B3 Dire Straits - Eastbound Train
B4 Burlesque - Bizz Fizz
B5 X-Ray Spex - Let's Submerge
B6 999 - Crazy
C1 The Saints - Demolition Girl
C2 999 - Quite Disappointing
C3 The Only Ones - Creatures Of Doom
C4 The Pirates - Gibson Martin Fender
C5 Steel Pulse - Sound Check
C6 Roogalator - Zero Hero
D1 Philip Rambow - Underground Romance
D2 The Pleasers - Rock & Roll Radio
D3 Tyla Gang - On The Street
D4 The Steve Gibbons Band - Johnny Cool
D5 Wilko Johnson Band - Twenty Yards Behind
D6 The Stranglers - Hanging Around

when i was a kid. i appreciate the mix of styles much more now than i did then!

Probably irrelevant, but I must protest the maligning of Status Quo in the thread title.

Fair point. Incidentally, if you're in a pub rock mood, the Ian Dury movie currently doing the rounds is good value.

Roogalator.... another great live band, lost in year zero puritanism.

I remember that Godfathers late night live show, I taped it and watched it a lot, iirc it ended with a cover of Anarchy. Gloriously couldn't-give-a-fuck uncool. One thing that also sticks in my mind is a Sounds piece on them that described one of the band (Kris maybe) of dressing like a 'blind mod with cruel mates'

is there anybody else who finds the term pub rock totally inappropriate for what dr. feelgood weres doing? they made rhythm and blues, pub rock is an insult.

maybe paul weller made pub rock.

Nothing wrong with pubs.

i never said the contrary.

Pub- rock in that context meant rock music played in pubs- venues like the Hope and Anchor, the Nashville, the Half Moon and so on, as opposed to concert venues and universites which were the staple of Brit rock in the 70s. And pubs in Britain are -or were then - very different from clubs.

Oh man, please let him be well again.

Still can't forgive him for not calling his collaboration with Roger Daltrey Roger Wilko, but other than that, fantastic news.

They must have avoided that one on purpose, as opposed to "never thought of it", but hey

Would be so great if he could "beat" cancer.

Would be so great if he could "beat" cancer.

― ۩, Wednesday, April 30, 2014 11:49 AM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It appears that he has!

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-29727632

This makes me very, very happy.

whoa, that's an amazing story.

been listening to them a lot lately, or watching as much as listening. the studio albums have great moments but there are always a few tracks that sound a bit too much like blueshammer for comfort. don't ever need to hear their version of "rollin and tumblin" again. but they had amazing stage presence.

i do wonder if in 50 years --presuming human civilization survives in some form-- the distinctions between the first wave of british R&B, the brit invasion stuff, mid-70s stuff like ducks deluxe and the feelgoods, and all the subsequent "revivals" of this sort of thing will mean anything whatsoever. it's tempting just to see it as one continuous thing that just happened to get more popular/surface nationally on occasion.

And a new interview with Wilko

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jul/10/wilko-johnson-interview-ive-got-a-future?CMP=fb_gu

Extremely moving paragraph:

He keeps chuckling while he says things like that, but the more he talks, the more clear it becomes how complicated his response to being cured is: he’s obviously incredibly grateful, but it isn’t as straightforward as “waving my arms in the air, going ‘I’m alive!’” After a lifelong struggle with depression, he found the illness evaporated when he thought he had 10 months to live. Now it’s back. “For instance, since coming out and recovering, oh man, I’ve started grieving for my wife, Irene, again. It’s 10 years, nearly 11 since she died, and I never, ever got over her. I just … ” He lets out a huge sigh. “I’m still in love with her. And it hurts now, to think of her. During all that year, I dunno, if you’ve got no future, you do think, ‘Well, I don’t have to sit here and think about how I’ve got to go on for years without her.’ So perhaps it receded a bit, just thinking about her every quarter of an hour instead of every minute. Now I’m recovered, I do find myself sometimes … ” His voice tails off, and there’s another mammoth sigh. “Oh man, it hurts.”

Man, Wilko's Ice on the Motorway album from 1980 is pretty satisfying. Basically a slightly punkier Feelgood vibe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V5WlQ8u3jA

they are playing berlin tonight. not sure if i should go.

Aww, Wilko finally passed. RIP.

aw no! i had been wondering about him a lot recently. what a hero.

One of the nicest and funniest people I ever interviewed, and his autobiography was an utter delight. RIP Wilko.

Oh no! RIP Wilko :((((((((

lovely interview Mike. i also recall reading your Guardian piece at the time. excellent work.

a sad day.

Absolutely brilliant guitarist who forged such an immediately identifiable, personal style and stage presence. RIP.

RIP to a legend

All the Youtube videos in this thread seem to have disappeared, I should do somehting about that...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzF0AETdRF8

john b "sparko" sparks's tache is a thing of beauty, and brilleaux's pale begrime suit even more so

"they looked as if they’d met each other in some unsavoury part of the army," as mick farren put it long ago

Three of them were called John so I assume the nicknames came in handy - and then Wilko was replaced by another John so they had to come up with another nickname!

Three of them were called John

not the only band to have had that issue tbh!

Some other observations:

1. I saw one of those expert Youtube guitarists trying to reproduce Wilko's guitar part on "Goin' Back Home", playing exactly like Wilko, and it is ridiculously difficult, especially if you're constantly striding backwards and forwards with your eyes popping out your head (he didn't do that part).

2. Not an instrument I'm especially interested in but Lee Brilleaux was a very good blues harp player (harpist?).

3. Had no idea The Big Figure did most of the backing vocals.

this guy does a good guitar tutorial...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LifmFE63kHQ

... that's the one! He had to admit "Goin' Back Home" was somewhat outside his comfort zone.

yeah comfort is not a word that springs to mind while watching any of that!

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

but Quo are heroes of pre-punk (in mah book)

Heroes of pre-punk, AND the Canvey Quo

(xp) Except not many actual punks in 1976-77 would have given Quo as an influence, which I thought was the point of the title. Dr. Feelgood seem a lot more 60s R&B than Quo, there are similarities but Dr. Feelgood rarely strayed about 4 minutes and guitar solos were kept short and sweet.

That's why mah book is different than the punks of 1976-77. They would have missed Is There a Better Way, and before that Just Take Me, and ignored Down Down's economical motorik totality.

Down Down is just unstoppable. I was extremely annoyed though when I bought the 7" single in Belgium a few years ago only to find out that it's the fuckin album version that I like.

Yeah I can't listen to the 7". As well as removing some of the middle it fades out right before one a whole succession of inventive parts, just when you think the music has disclosed everything. When the music unexpectedly goes 'up' and the bass drops out only to re-emerge as strange little wriggles, accompanied by arbitrary offbeat hats, before everyone locks furiously into step for the real, very splashy fadeout.

I LOVE that song.

I danced to Rockin All Over The World tonight, I have no shame.

looking a little into the life and times of MICK GREEN of the johnny kidd and the pirates, who wilko cites as precursor whose plectrum he is not fit to lick ect ect, i
(a) was reminded of the live at the hope and anchor LP, which attempted (tho i think failed) to establish 60s UK r&b, pub rock, power pop and punk as a unified broad new wave front (it sold fairly well but was beloved of no one much critically), and
(b) discovered that said mick green co-wrote some quo songs w/alan lancaster (quo bassist and co-founder), and
(c) noted w/pleasure that the post-kidd pirates put out an LP in 1978 called SKULL WARS and a ten-inch in 1981 called A FISTFUL OF DUBLOONS

as you can see my hints, quo are krautrock (this is canon)

(s/b as you can see me from westbury white horse hints etc)

Quo are basically Guru Guru with better songs, but maybe a discussion for a different thread.

Adrian's attempts to play like Wilko prove that you can learn all the technique you want, but if you're not an angry dysfunctional weirdo it'll never sound right.

Re: Mick Green, the guitar playing on this is absolutely brutal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS8uC7ea9oE

ditto the singer's hairstyle tbf

the angriest garfunkel

nevertheless, hfs at that clip.

HFS x 2!