This is a tough one. Is it possible to look past someone’s reprehensible criminal behavior and enjoy their art? A question asked many times about many people. In this case, we ask this question of ’70s glam rock god Gary Glitter, one of the biggest pop stars of that decade in the UK. After many attempts at a recording career throughout the ’60s, Glitter finally concocted a signature sound with the epic “Rock & Roll Part 2″ (1972). Originally a 15-minute jam, once the song was cut up into the mostly instrumental single version (complete with football cheer “Hey’s”), it made the Top Ten in England and the States, one of the few glam successes on this shore.

Glitter followed that up “I Didn’t Know I Loved You (’Til I Saw You Rock & Roll),” (1972) (download) a bit of a sound-alike of his first smash, albeit with vocals and a more melodic hook this time around. Let’s face it: Glitter’s songs all pretty much sound the same. The stomping beat, the crunchy guitars, the shouted “Hey’s” – but I’ll be damned if they’re not all catchy as hell. While his second single was another Top Ten hit in the UK, it did noticeably less business here, barely denting the Top 40. It would also be his final chart hit in the United States. It wasn’t for lack of trying – Glitter toured sporadically Stateside and even did some local television appearances, like this Los Angeles-based dance show where he performed his second single. But first, Gary had to judge a dance contest:

While that was it for Gary in the US, the hits kept coming in the UK – “Do You Wanna Touch Me?” (remade into a Top 20 hit years later by Joan Jett), “I Love You Love Me Love,” (remade into a flop single by Joan Jett [her again?]), and probably his biggest hit overseas, “I’m The Leader Of The Gang (I Am)” (1973). (download) It’s a bit of a crime this single failed to even chart in the US. What was it about glam rock that scared America so? The make-up? The costumes? The camp? Then why were KISS so big here? Was it because they took every opportunity to remind everyone of how straight they were and that all this was just playing around?

As if to prove a point, super-butch Southern rock one-hit wonders Brownsville Station very nearly hit the Top 40 with an alarmingly similar remake of the song one year later. I guess it was safe for American radio to play that version. “I’m The Leader” had a long shelf life. Mock-metal group Green Jelly covered it in 1995 with wrestler Hulk Hogan handling the vocals and it even resurfaced in 1998 in the Spice Girls’ epic movie Spice World (Glitter had also filmed a cameo but it was cut after his arrest just before the film’s release):

Glitter had a couple more years of hits in him in the UK, then it all dried up for a few years until he made a bit of a comeback in the ’80s on the college tour circuit and he was recognized as a proto-punk icon (Adam & the Ants owe their careers to Glitter). But sadly, we know how this story ends – a conviction for having child pornography on his personal computer, obscene acts with a minor, heart disease, and exile in Vietnam. To this day, Glitter continues to proclaim his innocence and the convictions haven’t stopped “Rock & Roll Part 2″ from being played at nearly every sporting event in America.

“I Didn’t Know I Loved You (’Til I Saw You Rock & Roll)” peaked at #35 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1972.
“I’m The Leader Of The Gang (I Am)” did not chart.

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Nothing frustrates me more than watching shows like VH1’s Top 100 One-Hit Wonders and seeing Michael Ian Black or Frangelinellica (or whatever) struggle to toss off witty bon mots about artists like A Flock of Seagulls (three-hit wonders, thank you!) or Spandau Ballet (another three-fer, gracias) – I mean, sure, conventional wisdom dictates that these bands had one really big hit everyone knows, but facts are facts, people.  Just because the majority of Americans don’t remember “Pop Goes The World” doesn’t mean Men Without Hats are one-hit wonders.  Ask a hosehead!  They’ll tell you.  This is serious business.  Research!  Journalistic standards!  If we can’t get something simple like chart history correct, what hope do we have in finding out the truth behind Goldman Sachs?

Okay, maybe not that serious.  But, still.

Andrea True is one of those artists always unfairly singled out as a one-hit wonder.  But illuminating those forgotten follow-ups is the mission of the Lost in the… series, so I cannot shirk my duty.  A former adult film entertainer, in 1976 True found herself in Jamaica filming a television commercial when an attempted coup kept her in the country longer than she anticipated.  Being resourceful, she had disco writer/producer and former Jobriath sideman Gregg Diamond fly down to her, where they created the monster smash “More, More, More.”  A full-length album of the same name soon followed, along with a second single, “Party Line,” which quickly flopped.

A short year later True’s sophomore effort, White Witch was released, and while the album as a whole is much weaker than her debut, she was savvy enough to corral Diamond to provide another song, “N.Y., You Got Me Dancing,” (download) which was worked as the first single.  Bearing no small resemblance to their earlier success, the single actually got pretty far up the Top 40 chart, an impressive feat for such a blatantly unabashed disco tune.  Its success is even more impressive when you consider the, shall we say, uncertain vocal performance from Ms. True.  A follow-up single, “What’s Your Name, What’s Your Number,” got to #56 as well, but both singles were huge in the clubs.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to make White Witch a big seller.

A third album, the new wave attempt War Machine sank without a trace, and Andrea True soon found herself returning to porn.  Vocal problems soon caused her to retire from the public eye for good, but she’ll always be remembered for her one huge smash hit.

And in my world, her second, too!

“N.Y., You Got Me Dancing” peaked at #27 on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart and at #4 on the Club Play Singles Chart in 1977.

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Take, for example, “Cuts Like a Knife” rocker Bryan Adams.  Or as we will all now know him, Disco Chipmunk.

Yes, it’s true: our leather-clad, fist-pumping, “normal” dude next door was once shaking it on the dance floor, and he wanted you to join him. His first single at the tender age of 18, “Let Me Take You Dancing” (download) was cowritten by Adams and his longtime writing partner Jim Vallance. The original Canadian version, a snippet of which you can hear on Vallace’s website, was more in a Nick Gilder vein, but the disco beat was still there. The single made a little noise up north, so for its American release, disco remixer John Luongo was called in to disco-fy the track even more.

Luongo’s solution was to beef up the beat a bit, add some percussion and handclaps, and speed up the track a bit. Trouble is, he didn’t bother to have Adams re-record his vocal track to match the new, obviously higher pitch, so — bam! — Disco Chipmunk.

Adams was understandably unhappy with the end result, but it did score a bit of disco club play and ended up helping garner Adams a full-fledged record deal with A&M Records, so it all worked out in the end.

Now is “Let Me Take You Dancing” a bad song by any stretch? That really depends on your tolerance for disco. If you enjoy some disco, like I do, it’s really not that offensive, if a little bland.  The pre-chorus is actually sort of neat, and there are definitely flashes of Bryan Adams songs to come buried under the percussion and helium vocals. Unfortunately, Adams isn’t a big fan of the track, and so far the only place it’s made an appearance on CD is on a disc called Disco Box Vol. 2, Disco Heat released in  2000. If you have a real jones to own it, you can find it on Amazon, but you listed under Disco Heat Vol. 2.

Disco Chipmunk, awaaaaayyy!

“Let Me Take You Dancing” peaked at #76 on the Billboard Disco Top 80 Chart in 1979.

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Of all the artists who jumped on the disco bandwagon in the late ’70s, one of the most unexpected (and unwelcome) this side of Ethel Merman, was the Beach Boys.  Who thought it would be a good idea for the progenitors of surfin’ music to crank up the drum machine, put the foot to the wah-wah pedal, and cue the orchestra for a ten-minute plus disco opus?  Well, whoever it was, you better stay in hiding, lest you face justice.

Originally recorded in 1967 for the Wild Honey album, “Here Comes the Night” was re-recorded for the L.A. (Light Album) record and expanded to a full-fledged, nearly 11-minute disco opus, complete with a 12″ version (download). Released as a single edit, it actually came close to scraping the bottom of the Top 40, a sign of how much disco had permeated the charts.  Beach Boys fans who heard it were aghast, however, and after making only a few live appearances during a 1979 tour, the song was quickly and quietly dropped from the set, despite being the lead single from the album the tour was supporting.

So, is it really that bad?  Yes.  “Here Comes the Night” is the sound of a irrelevant group straining desperately to glom on to any hot trend, no matter how misguided.  Since he co-wrote it, I can say without hesitation, fuck Mike Love.  Seriously.  To be fair, it was written in 1967, but really, any excuse to say “Fuck Mike Love.”

L.A. (Light Album) was salvaged from complete commercial failure by the second single, a complete throwback to the doo-wop surf sound that made the Boys famous, “Good Timin’,” which peaked at a massive #40 in 1979, just barely disqualifying itself from making an appearance in Bottom Feeders.  And since “Here Comes the Night’ peaked at #44 that same year, you dodged that bullet as well, Steed.

Lucky bastard.

“Here Comes The Night” peaked at #44 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart and at #48 on the Club Play Singles Chart in 1979.

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In 1967, the Monkees sold more records than the Beatles.  And the Rolling Stones.  Combined.  That year they also scored their third number one single, plus another Top Five hit.  The assembled-for-television quartet were the biggest rock music act in the United States and United Kingdom.  Three short years later, they’d be stripped down to  duo and watch their final pre-reunion single peak at a pathetic #98.

So, what happened?

First, The Monkees was canceled after two seasons when the boys and network couldn’t agree on a new direction for the third year.  Then, the quartet’s feature film debut, Head (co-written by none other than a psychedelically-enhanced Jack Nicholson), was a confusing, resounding flop.  To make a bad situation worse, their first variety special for NBC was scarcely watched, scheduled against the Academy Awards.  Citing exhaustion, Peter Tork split, leaving the remaining three to release two more middling albums as a trio before troubadour Michael Nesmith rode off into the country-rock sunset.

And then there were two.

Reduced to a duo of Micky Dolenz and showtune/schmaltz-lover Davy Jones, Changes was the last gasp of a dying marketing construct, designed solely to wring every last possible penny from the project — songs were secondary.  Dolenz and Jones were as marginally involved as two remaining band members could be, leaving the bulk of the songwriting and production to Andy Kim and Jeff Barry, the team responsible for the Archies’ “Sugar, Sugar.”

“Oh My My” (download), the Monkees’ final charting single under the band name until their comeback in 1986, isn’t quite as bubblegum as “Sugar, Sugar.”  With a slinky blues lick driving the song and a typically stellar vocal from Micky (I’m not kidding when I call him one of rock’s best pop vocalists), “Oh My My” made a decent album track, but really wasn’t cut out to be a single — as its chart showing indicated.  There was even an early music video made for the single, directed by Micky (but where were they expecting this to be shown, since MTV didn’t exist yet?):

“Oh My My” peaked at #98 on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart in 1970.

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I bought and fell in love with Blondie’s Parallel Lines album when I was around ten years old, and always wondered who the mysterious “Lee” was who was credited for writing the disc’s driving opener, “Hanging On The Telephone.”   As a youngster, I pored over the album credits, noticing that no one in the band was named Lee – where did this great song come from?

It wasn’t until many years and lots of Rolling Stone and Musician magazines later that I learned the answer.  “Hanging On The Telephone” (download) was the lead-off track from Los Angeles-based power pop trio The Nerves’ only release, a self-titled  four-track EP from 1976.  Guitarist Jack Lee was the mysterious “Lee” who wrote “Hanging,” but each member of The Nerves ended up making their mark on power pop.  Lee went on to write more songs, including another Blondie track “Will Anything Happen” and “Come Back And Stay” for Paul Young in 1983.

Drummer Paul Collins wrote a song called “Working Too Hard” on the EP, but went on to form Paul Collins’ Beat, another well-regarded power pop combo.

And the third Nerve, Peter Case, who wrote “When You Find Out” (download) on the EP, formed The Plimsouls, most famous for their single, “A Million Miles Away.”  Case went on to have a critically acclaimed, if not commercially successful solo career.  Collins continues to perform with a new version of Paul Collins’ Beat.  Lee scored a hit in 1983 with Paul Young, recorded a solo album in 1985, then disappeared from the music business.  The Nerves EP, along with other demos and unreleased tracks, finally appeared on CD late last year on a compilation called One Way Ticket.

So, which version of “Hanging On The Telephone” do you prefer?  While I grew up with the Blondie version, I have to say, I quite like the tension and uncertainty, along with the rough edges of The Nerves’ version.  Cast your vote!

No single charted.

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Where to begin with Ms. Lear?  How about her modeling career in ’60s France?  How about her years-long romance with surrealist Salvador Dali?  How about her relationships with Bryan Ferry and David Bowie?

How about the (unconfirmed) fact that she began life as Mister Lear?

While several of her contemporaries remember Amanda back when she was Alain, Lear has never publicly admitted she’s had a sex change.  That’s okay, though, because plenty of her (former?) friends are more than willing to come forward to tell their tranny tales.  In either case, Lear became a rock star accessory by the ’70s, hanging on the arms of the aforementioned Ferry and Bowie.  That’s her on the cover of Roxy Music’s For Your Pleasure and she acted as emcee for Bowie’s 1980 Floor Show TV special, aired here in the States as an episode of NBC’s The Midnight Special.  There’s a bootleg of outtakes from that special that makes the rounds (*cough*torrent*cough*), and it’s hysterical.  Here Bowie and Lear try to get through an impenetrable exchange while futzing up over and over (skip to about the 1:00 mark):

I don’t wish to imply there was a lot of nose candy on that set, but yeesh, I think I can hear Stevie Nicks’ teeth grinding from here.

With all her rock & roll connections, it was only natural that Lear would try her man-hand at a music career.  In late 1976, she released I Am A Photograph, a nearly unlistenable blend of tepid Euro-disco and monotone “singing,” with Lear’s booming baritone barely bloating anything remotely resembling a melody.  Of course, it’s so campy, it’s irresistible.  Lead single “Blood And Honey” (download) pretty much encapsulates the whole train-wrecky mess.

While America recoiled in horror, Europe ate it up, giving Lear a Top Ten hit and a 30+ year career that has yet to stop.  She continues to record, host television programs, write books (My Life With Dali), paint, and deny she was once a dude.

“Blood And Honey” did not chart.

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Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, in the Seventies, it was next to impossible to escape hearing  Raspberries almost daily on the radio – not that that was a bad thing.  Emerging from the Mistake on the Lake in 1972, with the smash “Go All The Way,” still one of the best power pop singles ever, the boys were hometown heroes even after their split in 1975. With lead singer Eric Carmen yet to enter his Adult Contemporary phase, Raspberries took the Beatles and Beach Boys, roughed them up a bit and dragged them in the new decade.

Raspberries spent the rest of their career trying to follow up that first classic blast.  They nearly matched it with the lead single from their sophomore album, Fresh Raspberries.  “I Wanna Be With You” was another AM radio pop rocker and followed “Go All The Way” to the Top 20.  But while the group was unable to score a second hit from their debut album, they were able to squeeze another Top 40 hit from Fresh Raspberries.

“Let’s Pretend” (download) laid the groundwork for many a Carmen ballad in the years to come, the song wasn’t nearly as treacly as future Camen hits “All By Myself” or “Hungry Eyes.”  In fact, Carmen sounds borderline desperate and frantic during the bridge, demanding the object of his affection to hold him.  While such a delivery would make almost anyone else besides John Lennon sound downright creepy, Carmen pulls it off.

While it sounded great on AM radio, “Let’s Pretend” barely squeaked in the Top 40 and would be the group’s biggest hit until “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)” from their fourth and final record a year later. “Let’s Pretend” makes the cut for almost every Raspberries compilation, but you never hear it on the radio anymore, which is a shame.

Luckily, Raspberries have reformed with its original line-up, including a post-embarrassing DUI Carmen, and have a few concert dates lined up this year, starting as the warm-up act for this year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame & Museum induction ceremony and a show this Saturday, April 4, at the Hard Rock Cafe in, where else, Cleveland.

“Let’s Pretend” peaked at #35 on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart in 1973.

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Eight children, four each from different families, puréed Brady Bunch style in a $250-a-month, four-bedroom apartment in mid-’70s Elyria, Ohio. Inflation squeezed the wallets and coin purses dry, forcing both mother and stepfather to work full-time to keep Swanson’s frozen dinners, soup beans, and cornbread on the table, along with new clothes for the oldest son and daughter to pass down as they grew.

Eight children, two working parents, limited income — who was going to watch the kids after school? Daycare and nannies were out of the question, as were babysitters who would charge the going rate, so four days a week my mother depended on her niece, my Aunt Jackie.

Jackie was in her late teens/early 20s. She had long, straight black hair parted right down the middle, with stray flyaways here and there, like Janis Joplin. She was a child of the ’60s, absorbing as much hippie culture and flower power as she could in our small midwestern town, miles away from the communes of San Francisco and the sounds of Woodstock. Her manner of dress reflected her youth — long, colorful beads and smock tops over blue bell-bottoms. While Aunt Jackie may have looked like she was trapped in the ’60s, she kept herself current with the music of the ’70s.

And that’s where she took a special liking to me.

Aunt Jackie was a cool babysitter. She kept us safe and kept us in line but also allowed us to be kids, something my stepfather rarely let us do. We laughed at the dinner table, played games in the living room, had talent shows where we lip-synched to our favorite 45s on the family stereo. And since my older brother and sisters were already junior-high age, Aunt Jackie could lavish some extra attention on my little sisters and the middle kids, including a seven-year-old like me.

She noticed that while all the other kids spent hours playing outdoors, I was happy to stay in my portion of my shared bedroom, reading comic books and listening to the same 45s over and over. Allowance Day on Fridays was a big deal in our house — it meant I could take my weekly dollar and save it for our next trip to Clarkins or Uncle Bill’s Department Store, where singles were just 99 cents each. The 99-cent price point was a particular torture for me since the total ended up being $1.04, that extra four cents in sales tax continually eluding me. I can’t tell you how many times my sad puppy-dog eyes, peering out from behind thick, horn-rimmed frames, got the cashier to forget about the sales tax and let me run off with my newest vinyl treasure.

Aunt Jackie noticed my love of music and the pitiful selection of 45s I was stuck with, so one day she showed up carrying a big cardboard box. As everyone milled about the house doing their own various things, she sat on our couch and called out for me to join her.

“Johnny,” she said, “I brought you a few things, but before I give them to you, you have to promise me a couple of things, okay?”

“Okay, Aunt Jackie,” I replied, a little unsure of what was going on.

“You like the DeFranco Family, right? And ABBA?”

“Uh-huh!”

“Well, I’ve brought you some new records to listen to, okay? But you have to promise me you’ll be very careful with them, ‘cause I want them back someday, okay?”

“Okay!” I squealed, already dying to snatch the box from her hands and tear upstairs to begin listening to them.

“And you also have to promise me something else, okay? These are really new records, okay? Stuff that isn’t too popular here yet. So your mom and stepdad may not get it, okay?”

“What do you mean?”

Aunt Jackie paused for a moment, not sure if she should continue or not. Gathering her wits, she smiled and pulled out an album. She opened the gatefold sleeve, revealing a lanky man in a blazing red-and-blue leotard, sparkling with glitter, his hair a fiery red blaze, his face fully made-up and topped off with a blue lightning bolt across one eye that reminded me of my favorite Saturday-morning TV show, Shazam! I heard the sound of my jaw hitting the floor.

“This is a guy named David Bowie,” Aunt Jackie explained. “He started what they call ‘glitter rock.’ There’s a whole bunch of bands in England making glitter rock and … I don’t know, but I just thought you’d really dig it, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, rapt.

“Thing is, you know how your mom and stepdad are really into the church thing, right?” She rolled her eyes. “If they see this stuff, they’ll get really mad at me for giving it to you and they’ll take them away from you and you won’t be able to listen to them anymore. But I think you can handle it, right?”

“Yes! Yes!” I agreed. I understood what she was saying, yet I couldn’t wait to hear what this alien creature sounded like.

“I brought you a bunch of other stuff too. Some Suzi Quatro, Nick Gilder, Sweeney Todd, the Sweet. But here’s how we’ll do this.” She began taking the records out of their sleeves. “We’ll keep the records in these sleeves instead, okay?” From the box she produced some camouflage record covers: The Partridge Family’s Second Album, the Carpenters’ Yesterday Once More, various K-Tel compilations. “You get it?”

“Yeah, it’s like when I sneak up to watch Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman on the little TV upstairs!”

“Exactly!” Aunt Jackie laughed. “See, I knew you could handle it.”

I thanked her and ran upstairs, putting the record that intrigued me most, Bowie’s Aladdin Sane LP, on my tiny Emerson turntable with the built-in mono speaker. After that it was on to the candy-coated glam confections Aunt Jackie gave me: Nick Gilder’s underage-hooker opus, “Hot Child in the City,” and his slinky ode to getting laid, “Here Comes the Night”; Suzi Quatro’s uber-butch remake of “All Shook Up”; and a song that was eerily similar to one on Aladdin Sane, the Sweet’s pounding, nonsensical “Blockbuster” (download) (the line about “long black hair” still reminds me of Aunt Jackie). I would sit listening for hours, watching the Bell or Chrysalis Records logos spin endlessly.

“Blockbuster” and Aladdin Sane’s “Jean Genie” were both released in December 1973 and shared more than a few similarities. For example, while “Blockbuster” ruled the charts in the UK, reaching #1 while keeping Bowie at bay at #2, both singles were spectacular flops in the U.S. — “Jean Genie” peaked at a measly #71, and “Blockbuster” fared even worse at #73.

Oh yeah, Aunt Jackie never asked for her records back. And my parents never heard or found them.

Thanks, Aunt Jackie.

“Blockbuster” peaked at #73 in 1973.

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Unknown to nearly everyone save the most devoted power-pop and glam aficionados, the Quick were managed by legendary Los Angeles scenester and Runaways cofounder Kim Fowley. Fowley also coproduced the Quick’s one and only LP, Mondo Deco (1976), alongside Earl Mankey, formerly of Sparks — quite notable, since at first listen the Quick come off as slavish imitators of the Mael Brothers.

While tunes like the gimmicky “Hi Lo” (download) definitely have a Sparks-like sound, complete with helium vocals from Danny Wilde, various time-signature changes, and prominent piano, the Quick was truly a glam-pop band at its core. Nowhere was that made more apparent than on the Beatles remake that kicks off Mondo Deco, “It Won’t Be Long” (download). In the Quick’s hands it becomes a theatrical stomper, as slashing guitars and call-and-response vocals take it beyond the basic four-four pop song it was intended to be.

It was difficult to imagine anyone thinking the Quick would take America by storm, especially when the source material, Sparks, were barely able to get arrested here. But perhaps if hook-filled tunes like “Hillary” (download) had been released as singles, the ill-fated quintet would’ve achieved some level of mainstream success. As it were, the Quick were destined to be cult favorites, with devotees clutching copies of the long-out-of-print debut close to their breasts, never to see it issued on CD.

The band did go on to record some demos for Elektra Records in 1977 that failed to ignite any interest; however, those demos did make it to CD as Untold Rock Stories in 2002. One of them, “Pretty Please Me,” was even covered by the Dickies and Redd Kross.

While the Quick never broke through, lead singer Danny Wilde would eventually find success, albeit nearly 15 years later, as the notably helium-free lead singer of the Rembrandts, most famous for recording the theme from TV’s Friends. I’m sure that payday was worth the wait. I’d love to see Mondo Deco be reissued on CD or even as an official digital release, but I’m not holding my breath. Until then, it’s definitely worth hunting down.

No singles charted.

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