Pub rock (United Kingdom)

Pub rock is a rock music genre that was developed in the early to mid-1970s in the United Kingdom. A back-to-basics movement, pub rock was a reaction against progressive and glam rock. Although short-lived, pub rock was notable for rejecting stadium venues and for returning live rock to the small pubs and clubs of its early years.[1] It was the catalyst for the British punk rock scene.

Characteristics

The Hope and Anchor in Islington, a notable pub rock venue

Pub rock was deliberately nasty, dirty and post-glam.[2] Dress style was based around denim and plaid shirts, tatty jeans and droopy hair.[3] The figureheads of the movement, Dr. Feelgood, were noted for their frontman’s filthy white suit.[4] Bands looked menacing and threatening, "like villains on The Sweeney".[5] According to David Hepworth, Dr Feelgood looked as if they had "come together in some unsavoury section of the army".

Pub rock groups disdained any form of flash. Scene leaders like Dr. Feelgood, Kilburn and the High Roads and Ducks Deluxe played simple, "back to mono" rhythm and blues in the tradition of white British groups like The Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds, with fuzzy guitars and whiny vocals.[5] Lesser acts played funky soul (Kokomo, Clancy, Cado Belle) or country rock (The Kursaal Flyers, Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers).[6]

The scene was primarily a live phenomenon. During the peak years of 1972 to 1975, there was just one solitary Top 20 single (Ace’s "How Long?"), and all the bands combined sold less than an estimated 150,000 albums.[7] Many acts suffered in the transition from pub to studio and were unable to recapture their sound.[6] The genre’s primary characteristic is, as the name suggests, the pub. By championing smaller venues, the bands reinvigorated a local club scene that had dwindled since the 1960s as bands priced themselves into big theatres and stadia.[6] New aspiring bands could now find venues to play without needing to have a record company behind them.

Pub Rock was primarily restricted to Greater London with some overspill into Essex,[6] although the central belt in Scotland also produced local bands such as The Cheetahs and The Plastic Flies.

History

American country-rock band Eggs over Easy were the precursors of the movement when they broke the jazz-only policy of the "Tally Ho" pub in Kentish Town, in May 1971.[8] They were impressive enough to inspire local musicians such as Nick Lowe.[9] They were soon joined by a handful of London acts such as Bees Make Honey, Max Merritt and the Meteors, who actually were from Australia and had moved to London, Ducks Deluxe, The Amber Squad and Brinsley Schwarz who had been victims of the prevailing big-venue system.[6]

Most of the venues were in large Victorian pubs "north of Regents Park" where there were plenty of suitable pubs.[10] One of the most notable venues was the Hope and Anchor pub on Islington's Upper Street, still a venue.[5]

Following the Tally Ho and the Hope and Anchor came the Cock, the Brecknock, the Lord Nelson, the Greyhound in Fulham, the Red Lion, the Rochester Castle, the Nashville in West Kensington, the Pegasus Music Hall on Green Lanes, Dingwalls and the Dublin Castle in Camden Town, the Pied Bull at Angel, Bull and Gate in Kentish Town, the Kensington near Olympia, the Newlands Tavern in Nunhead and Half Moon in Herne Hill (lone south London outposts) and the George Robey in Finsbury Park. Out of London, venues included the Dagenham Roundhouse, the Grand in Leigh on Sea and the Admiral Jellicoe on Canvey Island.[6] This network of venues later formed a ready-made launch pad for the punk scene.[4]

In 1974, pub rock was the hottest scene in London.[11] At that point it seemed that nearly every large pub in London was supplying live music, along with hot snacks and the occasional stripper.[6] The figureheads were Essex-based R&B outfit Dr. Feelgood.[2] By Autumn 1975, they were joined by acts such as The Stranglers, Roogalator, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Kilburn and the High Roads, and Joe Strummer's 101ers.[12]

Pub rock was rapidly overtaken by the UK punk explosion after spawning what are now seen as several proto-punk bands. Some artists were able to make the transition by jumping ship to new outfits, notably Joe Strummer, Ian Dury and Elvis Costello.[6] A few stalwarts were later able to realise Top 40 chart success, but the moment was gone. Many of the actual pubs themselves survived as punk venues (especially the Nashville and The Hope & Anchor),[6] but a range of notable pubs such as the George Robey and the Pied Bull have since been closed or demolished. The Newlands Tavern survived and is now called The Ivy House.

Legacy

The Blockheads Live at The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, London, 1978

According to Nostalgia Central, "Pub rock may have been killed by punk, but without it there might not have been any punk in Britain at all".[7]

The boundaries were originally blurred:[4] at one point, the Hot Rods and the Sex Pistols were both considered rival kings of "street rock".[13] The Pistols played support slots for the Blockheads[14] and the 101ers at the Nashville.[4] Their big break was supporting Eddie and the Hot Rods at the Marquee in Feb 1976.[15] Dr. Feelgood played with the Ramones in New York. The word "punk" debuted on Top of the Pops on a T-shirt worn by a Hot Rod. Punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue reviewed Feelgood album Stupidity as "the way rock should be".[4]

Apart from the ready-made live circuit, punk also inherited the energy of pub rock guitar heroes like Dr. Feelgood’s Wilko Johnson, his violence and mean attitude.[4] Feelgood have since been described as John the Baptist to punk’s messiahs.[16] In the gap between the music-press hype and vinyl releases of early punk, the rowdier Pub Rock bands even led the charge for those impatient for actual recorded music,[4] but it was not to last. Punks such as John Lydon eventually rejected the pub rock bands as "everything that was wrong with live music" because they had failed to fight the stadium scene and, as he saw it, preferred to narrow themselves into an exclusive pub clique.[3] The back-to-basics approach of pub rock apparently involved chord structures that were still too complicated for punk guitarists like the Sex Pistol Steve Jones, who complained "if we had played those complicated chords we would have sounded like Dr. Feelgood or one of those pub rock bands".[17] By the time the Year Zero of punk (1976) was up, punks wanted nothing to do with pub rockers.[18] Bands like The Stranglers were shunned but they didn’t care.[19]

It was Stiff Records, formed from a £400 loan from Feelgood’s Lee Brilleaux, who went on to release the first British punk single—The Damned’s "New Rose".[19] Stiff Records' early clientele consisted of a mix of pub rockers and punk rock acts for which they became known.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Pub Rock | Music". Britannica.com. Retrieved 2016-03-15.
  2. 1 2 Savage (1991), p. 587.
  3. 1 2 Lydon (1995), p. 106.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Atkinson, Mike. "Give pub rock another chance". The Guardian. 21 January 2010. Retrieved on 19 January 2011.
  5. 1 2 3 Savage (1991), p. 81.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Carr, Roy. "Pub Rock". NME. 29 October 1977.
  7. 1 2 "Pub Rock". Nostalgiacentral.com. 2014-06-20. Retrieved 2016-03-15.
  8. ↑ Birch (2003), pp. 120–129
  9. ↑ "Pub Rock". Archived from the original on 17 July 2010. Retrieved 25 June 2010.
  10. ↑ "Pub Rock- Pre Punk music". Punk77.co.uk. Retrieved 6 January 2010.
  11. ↑ Savage (1991), p. 80.
  12. ↑ Savage (1991), p. 107 & 124.
  13. ↑ Savage (1991), p. 151.
  14. ↑ Lydon (1995), p. 94.
  15. ↑ Lydon (1995), p. 105.
  16. ↑ "The Dr Feelgood factor | Features | Culture". The Independent. 2009-02-13. Retrieved 2016-03-15.
  17. ↑ Lydon (1995), p. 87.
  18. ↑ Lydon (1995), p. 107.
  19. 1 2 Savage (1991), p. 215.

Sources

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