Search & Destroy: Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel

Search: Side one of the EMI Greatest Hits LP: 'Mad, Mad Moonlight'/'Mr Soft'/'Sebastian'/'Judy Teen'/'Mr Raffles' (less 'Here Comes the Sun', which we can hardly blame this prince among ninnies for). Plus 'Make Me Smile'/'Best Years of Our Lives'/'Psychomodo'/and maybe 'Sling It' from Side Two.

Destroy: 'Love's a Prima Donna'/'Tumbling Down' (as he tried to get somewhat less ridiculous, boy did he get more useless...: PD has a coupla great silly moments, but TD is just lame knock-off Mott the Hoople)

"Only meh-tul: what a bore"

Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel "Mr. Soft" live:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVcuelx1ni8

I consider their first two singles - "Sebastian" and "Judy Teen" - their strongest, but there were lots of great moments later too. The strongest album when it comes to all over quality may be "The Best Years Of Our Lives", which features another two of their best singles - the aforementioned "Come Up And See Me", but also "Mister Raffles" which IMO was even better.

All I know about them is they have a song called "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)" that I put on my 1975 CDRGO! It is one of the greatest songs ever recorded.

Sebastian! your lips ruby blue!
My mother said steve harley invented symphonic rock with that!

http://www.themusicindex.com/commerce/pages/html/gottcd020.jpg

"Sebastian" is great. Possibly his best ever.

But symphonic rock was long since invented in 1973.

classic classic classic

i was about to reference SH in another thread, as well!

**covers eyes and winces**

No! Marcello did NOT speak badly of Timeless Flight! No! No one is allowed to speak badly of that record. No one. Okay fine, say it's not as good as previous releases if you want, but still...that album got me through about the most difficult period of my life, and I love every single song on it. And I don't really know what Red Is A Mean, Mean Colour is about, nor do I care. He likes to throw curve balls in his lyrics and I love him for that.

oh dear look what they've done to the blues blues blues

I just pulled out his bonus tracks from the Timeless Flight album. "Throw Your Soul Down Here". Jesus, he was good. I mean when he was good he was really fucking good.

MAD MAD MOONLIGHT FUCKERZ

WAY UP TO THOSE BIG FLUFFY WHITE CLOUDS

First two albums are total classics (especially Psychmoodo, which is perfect).
'Best Years' is good, but nowhere near the level of the first two.
'Timeless Flight' and 'Prima Donna' are totally schizophrenic: moments of genuine oddness mixed with total limp dick 70s soft rock. Oddly tune-less at times.

Destroy everything after that w/o hesitation!

Psychmoodo!

yeah i like timeless flight a lot, really odd record i can't really put in with anything else

Is this group more or less totally unknown in the States? Whenever I feel the need to put on "The Human Menagerie" I'm reminded that I hear this dude in a lot of different bands, like Belle & Sebastian, but I don't think I've ever heard them cited as an influence.

Yes, other than a few cities like Cleveland where he got play on WMMS.

i like timeless flight more and more as some weird midground between bowie and steely dan

Yes, I never knew who they were growing up and didn't discover who they were until a few years ago. Didn't even pick up on those tunes of those that appeared in movies or television series on the soundtracks.

I had access to promo radio 45s as a teenager, loved my copies of "Sebastian" and "Tumbling Down" and so ended up tracking down the early LPs. Eagerly anticipated Timeless Flight as a brand new import LP, and subjected everyone I knew to Face To Face Live, still one of my favorite 2-record live albums of the era.

The invention of Youtube was a godsend for finally seeing stuff like Cockney Rebel on Top of the Pops.

I don't really know anyone in the US who isn't over 50 and extremely invested in music who knows them. Kind of bizarre actually. I'm surprised that Noah Baumbach hasn't put them on a soundtrack yet (unless he has).

I am over 50 and still can't think of anyone I know who knows who they are apart from myself.

I don't why I never read about them in the Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock.

I'm 45!
Got into them after the Church cover of "Ritz" in 1996 or so.
You could pick their records up mad cheap in Boston. My first was that 'A Closer Look' comp for $5 at In Your Ear.

As an American, I guess I was thinking: Duran Duran cover (Reflex b-side), mentions around Suede, then the Church cover.
Plus, it seemed he was a figure of ridicule, at least in the press around Suede.
Seemed worth the investigation (and was).

The fact that "Come Up And See Me" hasn't been used on a major US movie soundtrack (to my knowledge) is completely baffling. Everyone who hears that song loves it, etc.

Believe it can be heard in Velvet Goldmine.

Duh to me. I haven't seen that since it came out. I was thinking of more mainstream movies, but yeah.

VG not exactly a US movie, but probably big enough to qualify in any real-world sense of the word. I had to double-check.

I don't why I never read about them in the Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock.
― Son of Shaftway (James Redd and the Blecchs)

Very influential book for me--you sure they're not in there? I'm picturing the entry...Anyway, love "Come Up and See Me." I'm not sure if I came to it through Velvet Goldmine or through it showing up once on a Frank Kogan Top 100.

They must have been in there, clemenza, I just don't remember them. Unlike the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, who seemed to be mentioned on every other page.

I'm not going cute here: one thing that delayed me hearing them was not realizing that they weren't Cockney Rejects. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that that was anot issue for others.

They're in the '77 reprint of the Harmony book under Cockney Rebel.

http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t427/sayhey1/harley_zpswv1rohqz.jpg

I was wrong about being able to picture the entry, though--I thought there was an album cover reproduced, but it's just text.

Cool. Never actually owned a copy of that book, just would go study it in a bookstore/gift shop. That and All Together Now, a Beatles discography. I learned a few years ago that Will Hermes grew up in a neighborhood close to that store and sometimes wonder if he might have been reading those books as well. Projection no doubt.

It's one of five books that account for a large percentage of my record collection (a third to a half?): the Harmony encyclopedia, the Stranded discography, the red Rolling Stone guide, Christgau's '70s book, and Lillian Roxon's encyclopedia.

Sure.

For me it was Rolling Stone guide, Xgau, and I'm embarrassed to say but the Spin Alternative Record Guide. Trouser Press added some interesting tangents. As I recall, the big question marks in my younger days were Can and Faust, who were completely outside of my record store experience growing up in NJ. Apparently things were different in England.

Sebastian

Oh crap, Brett Smiley died earlier this year. I was checking on other contenders in the affected glam rock genre. His bio is wonderful, and I was kind of rooting for him.

just dropping by to confirm that The Psychomodo is a goddamned masterpiece

the album and the song, but I knew the song already. the album however only now turns out to be a masterpiece

I still only know “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)” and “Sebastian.” Maybe I should rectify that.

There are north of 120 cover versions of the former.

I'd say unless you were there then, nothing other than Make Me Smile and possibly Here Comes the Sun is probably all that famous anymore in the UK. Although I had a question about Judy Teen when I did Popmaster.

Incredible song, used well in last year's Dali.

Can’t decide what I think of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti3U8HGc5Bw

I'm sure it made perfect sense in the scorching 76 summer heat, cute Moog warbles like scorching pavements, a nostalgic Beatles compilation and some huge Wings songs in the charts.

your challenge? repetition of scorching

"Judy Teen" was their second biggest hit, got to No. 5. Another sizeable hit was "Mr. Raffles (Man, It Was Mean)", which I can't remember at all.

Sinkah is right, “Tumbling Down” is not that good.

First two records are really quite special. The Psychomodo works very well as an album album. First one a bit more up and down. Wheels start to come off w Best Years of Our Lives (really high highs though!). Timeless Flight and Love's a Prima Donna are quite odd. Maybe not great, but worth a gander. Timeless Flight can be a bit boring, but it's also deeply strange, so there's that. The first three tracks of LaPD are a real trip.
The records that I got after that felt pretty terrible to me. The live album and Hobo with a Grin... big yuck. Getting very muso and proggy and recorded in LA with Toto (in a bad way) at that point.

I think I checked them out because the UK press would always mention Harley when writing about Brett Anderson's voice (typically meant as an insult, if I recall correctly).
Around the same time, I found this on vinyl for like $5. Great introduction to what they do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Closer_Look_(Steve_Harley_%26_Cockney_Rebel_album)

RIP Steve Harley. I’m so saddened by this. Fuck cancer.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/17/steve-harley-cockney-rebel-frontman-dies

Listened to the first two Cockney Rebel albums for the first time ever. I'll have to listen to "Psychomodo" again though before I make my mind up about it.

The first album wasn't really what I expected. I thought it would be a lot artier but most of the tracks are kind of lightweight 70s pop rock. The lack of a prominent guitar and Harley's vocals I suppose add to a sense of novelty, it's quite likeable but there's nothing as catchy as "Judy Teen".

The arty part of the album is restricted to "Sebastian" and "Death Trip", both of which are good songs but are overpowered by ludicrously bombastic orchestral arrangements. It works somewhat in "Sebastian", which is campily overwrought by design but not on "Death Trip" which is otherwise the best song on the album.

"The Psychomodo" is much more assured and fuller sounding - not sure that the songwriting has necessarily improved to match though. Also not sure why Harley spends so much of the record disguised as Ian Hunter. "Ritz" is a total banger.

I was enjoying those first two albums the last time I visited them and this thread but didn't listen long enough for them to really sink in.

Also still reeling a bit from learning that bassist Paul Jeffreys and his wife died at Lockerbie on their honeymoon flight.

Those two albums were hugely influential on young me. I can still sing along pretty much word for ridiculous word. I tried to convert all my friends but, as with Roxy Music and Sparks, getting past the vocals was a tough sell.

It’s weird that the debut can be simultaneously thinly produced and ludicrously bombastic, but both are true. (I love the orchestrations though.) The wiki entry has some good tidbits. The violinist recalls: "The orchestra we used mucked it up as well. I've only played violin for about three years, but I was quite a bit better than a lot of those blokes, and they've been playing donkeys years. They had the technical ability, but they had no feel."

Second album is better produced, but I miss some ofthe shorter, poppier songs like “Hideaway.”

Note: if you’re listening on Spotify or similar you miss that the end of “Ritz” trails off into a locked groove at the end of the vinyl. Spotify did just play me the b-side “Such a Dream,” which I had never heard. What a bizarre song.

Thanks for chiming in Tom D.!

I have a classic case of loving "the wrong album" (not that I don't love the right ones) but I had always seen the name Cockney Rebel and found Timeless Flight at a used record store once and bought it.

It really got it's hooks into me, from what I read it was not as well loved, but it hit some kind of middle ground between Countdown to Ecstasy and Hunky Dory that just hits me right.

I think I sounded a bit more critical than I meant to. Both albums are definitely worth listening to. I'd only ever heard the singles.

Timeless Flight is supposedly Harley’s favorite of his records. I love it too. I was amazed long ago to move into a shared roommate situation with a guy I didn’t know, and he had a cassette with that on one side and Dark Side of the Moon on the other. Maybe the Alan Parsons connection? Although Harley self produced Timeless Flight.

The overblown orchestration on "Death Trip" is probably my favorite part of that whole album!

it hit some kind of middle ground between Countdown to Ecstasy and Hunky Dory that just hits me right.

Whoa, I should listen to Timeless Flight.

I don’t know if I hear Steely Dan in it, but it’s lower key and less weird than the preceding records.

“Death Trip” is so amazing, that folky (for lack of a better term) middle section reminds me of The Incredible String Band. And it made me look up ipomoea.

We'll grow sweet Ipomoea to make us feel much freer
Then take a pinch of Schemeland and turn it into Dreamland

Funny you should say that but I kept thinking of Malcolm Le Maistre's songs for the Incredible String Band when I was listening to these albums.

Harley came from a busking and folkie background, so it’s not surprising that ISB is within that Venn diagram.

Harley came from a busking and folkie background, so it’s not surprising that ISB is within that Venn diagram.

He said, twice

Played this clip (not quite the original, I don't think, but close enough, and it's got lyrics) for a 2/3 class today. The fact that he died was interesting to them, so they listened intently. Right place at the right time: they were saved from a life of never having heard this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU6D6ef0prw

I never thought this was a great idea even when I was at the height of my Harley fandom.

What was a good idea?

Or rather not a great idea

Covering “Here Comes The Sun.”

Oh, yeah. Was that video “Here Comes the Sun”? Doesn’t look like it

I thought you might mean ISB center of “Death Trip”

Gah, I’m a dork. Clemenza’s vid was “Make Me Smile.” Which I do like a lot.

Heh. It happens

Listening to The Human Menagerie deluxe again now. It’s on the verge of sounding too thin and twee for me and yet, and yet I really dig it for some reason.

Maybe you were looking at the video for “Here Comes the Sun” that I posted at the end of last year, which prompted the following response from one ILX0r:

I'm sure it made perfect sense in the scorching 76 summer heat, cute Moog warbles like scorching pavements, a nostalgic Beatles compilation and some huge Wings songs in the charts.

i love make me smile and it always makes me think that robyn hitchcock must have been a big fan.

Onto The Psychomodo. "Ritz" seems to quote the stereotypical Morricone Spaghetti Western hook.

This conversation prompted me to pull out Stripped to the Bare Bones. If you find those early records too twee, this is a good antidote. The songs hold up, and it really brings out the Dylanisms. I would have given anything to have experienced one of these live shows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stripped_to_the_Bare_Bones

Looks great, thanks. Hard to access a streaming copy easily though.

The Human Menagerie and The Psychomodo are big favourites of mine, the latter in particular an easy all-time favourite. Spent the last few days playing his 70s stuff endlessly. Even though I still think the dissolution of the original band was a really big loss - as SH&CR his excels at individual songs on somewhat patchy albums, rather than excellent albums where my favourites always change.

Me and a friend were actually talking about all the unexpected future connections you can draw. Vampire Weekend in "Singular Band" and "Judy Teen", say, with the nimble off-centre rhythms, hearty indie-pop melodies and depth of space. Steel drums (and lyrics) aside I do hear later day Beautiful South in "Muriel the Actor" (that's not meant to put anyone off!) (The first time I heard the 'oh I'm a reminder' part in LCD Soundsystem's "Tonite" it made me think of the message flashing in the sky bit in "Sling It!", which is so trivial even by this message's standards I've had to stick it in parentheses). Plus there's the more typical Magazine, Adam and the Ants etc. comparisons to be made.

Good post!

Thanks! I also think of Japan's "Nightporter" as sharing some of its impressionistic DNA with "Sebastian".

have always heard a bit of Harley's snarled "destroyed" (in fantastic OTT Dylan mode) in Psychodromo in Rotten's "destroy" at the end of Anarchy