Search & Destroy: Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel

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