A love letter to Zip-Gun Teenage Punk Thunder from The Garage Band Appreciation Society, Maidenhead, May 1976

Just 18 catalogue entries separate the MC5’s Back in the USA and The J. Geils Band’s debut on Atlantic, released in March and December 1970 respectively. The matched pair share the same sleeve photographer, Stephen Paley, stripped back aesthetic and belief in full-throttle rock ‘n’ roll that spins out of the garage greased up, burning alcohol and smoking its own exhaust fumes.

The two albums were reviewed in Rolling Stone, in May ‘70 Greil Marcus covered the MC5; he thought Back in the USA a valid but flawed effort:

Phil Spector once talked about the difference between ‘records’ and ‘ideas’ – ‘The man who can make a disc that’s a record and an idea will rule the world’, he said in his typically moderate fashion. The MC5 album for the most part, remains an idea, because in the end it sounds like a set-up. ‘Teenage Lust’ and ‘American Ruse’ and ‘Human Being Lawnmower’ break through, and they belong on singles, and on the charts. All the way up the charts.

Bostonian, journalist and the MC5’s producer, Jon Landau reviewed The J. Geils Band’s debut in January ‘71. He loved it all:

The best album I’ve heard in sometime . . . It is a goodtime, modern piece of rock and roll; it is also totally devoid of the self-consciousness and pretentions that usually mar this kind of thing.

Where Back in the USA was all edgy, dry and hard-wired, the J. Geils album pulled in the oppositie direction with keys and harp filling out the middle and the upper reaches. The J. Geils Band’s choice of producers were Atlantic in-house Muscle Shoals and Critierion studio tyros Dave Crawford and Brad Shapiro, producers who brought the funk with them. Landau’s neophyte production of the MC5 careens into the corners and then skitters down the lanes. Crawford and Shapiro play for a less immediate impact. It is a more comfortable ride, but equally thrilling when they pile-in and threaten to spill out of control. Landau took what he heard here and used it to help shape the E. Street Band.

On the otherside of the Atlantic ocean, the matched pair's impact was most keenly felt in Essex, in its suburbs and in Southend and Canvey Island. Wilko Johnson was an admirer of the MC5 after witnessing their performance at Wembley in 1972. He was there backing Heinz, (you can catch him in the movie of the gig if you keep your wits about you. His hair is long, so be warned) and one of the few who wasn’t throwing cans at Rob Tyner. In April 1976, Eddie and the Hot Rods told the NME’s Max Bell that they were ‘bored to tears with long songs. We play short and punchy . . . We don’t want to be a heavy albums band. We come on with high energy . . to get the MC5 feel from Back in the USA, bang, two minutes, over and carry on.’ J. Geil’s ‘Hard Drivin’ Man ‘was a keynote cover version in their live set and in Lew Lewis they had, at least for a while, their own Magic Dick and his lickin’ stick.

The Feelgoods and Hot Rods never exactly hid their debt to either band, it’s written all over their lp sleeves.

The J. Geils Band’s ‘Wait’ was a Lew Lewis Reformer showstopper. Like J. Geils, the Feelgoods covered Otis Rush’s ‘Homework’ (on Stupidity), but the influence of the Beantown band on Canvey’s finest doesn’t really show through until Gypie Mayo gets on board. ‘Milk and Alcohol’ had copped its lyrical imagery from John Lee Hooker’s ‘It’ll Serve You Right to Suffer’ – “Your doctor put you on milk, cream and alcohol” – but they (and co-writer Nick Lowe) most likely nicked it from the J. Geils Band, who on their debut had taken the song uptown, downtown and all around. The whole of Be Seeing You, Otis Clay’s ‘Baby Jane most evidently, is cut from the same cloth .

Eddie and the Hot Rods finally got around to releasing ‘Hard Drivin’ Man’ on their second EP, about the same time as they backed Rob Tyner on his solo 45. Their keen pursuit of amphetamine psychosis meant they never really acquired the funk n’ grease of the J. Geils Band but that attack strategy did help them align with the MC5’s razor-edged rock ’n’ roll, even if it was more a shared attitude than aptitude that took them up and down Shakin’ Street. Whatever their merits, and there are many, I got to the MC5 and J. Geils Band by riding in the slipstream left behind as the Feelgoods, followed by the Hot Rods, pelted along the A127

Letters page, The Garage Band Appreciation Society, Maidenhead, *Sounds* (May 8, 1976) no doubt Hot Rods’ manager Ed Hollis’s concoction but mark me down for membership

Paul Barrett with Hilary Hayward, Shakin’ Stevens (Star, 1983).

On cover and format alone this looks to be just another exploitation title, a George Tremlett style cut n’ paste job to capitalise on Shaky’s chart success, but it is so much more than that. The first 3/4 are a first hand account of the Sunsets’ story written by their card-carrying Communist manager, Paul ‘Legs’ Barrett. It is a terrific account of the early 1970s rockin’ scene, the gigs and the band’s high expectations and low returns as they endless tour the UK and Europe taking their message to the people. And if you wanna know why so many of the revivalist discs suck, you’ll get the real dope here - no advance, no royalties, minimal recording time in cheap shit studios, and producers who were good at harvesting a fast buck and hopeless at the task they were paid to carry out.

When the band confront Lionel Burge, head of Contour Records (who released some Sunsets sides and LPs by The Houseshakers and Hellraisers), about getting paid directly rather than their funds being channelled through producer Donny Marchand, he tells them to agree to his way or he’ll get the Hellraisers in to make the album. What could you do? asks Barrett. In the end, the records helped them get gigs and that was where the money was and, eventually, good money too.

After 7 years of playing the circuit the band come to an end, killed not by Shaky jumping ship for the Elvis Musical in 1977 but by a new generation of rockers. Barrett tries to sell the band to Island Records’ A&R man, Richard Williams, but tells him, ‘Sorry I think you’re too old. I’m gonna sign Eddie and the Hot Rods instead.’ He then tries Danny Seconda at Track records, who are excited about having The Heartbreakers (if you don’t stare too long you can kinda see a potential synergy between the two bands), and tells the Sunsets to get some new clothes at the expense of the company. off they go to a King’s Road emporium, reserving themselves suede jackets, cowboy boots and fancy shirts’ and then they wait on the company to stump up. . . it never does. Tapes are made with Charlie Gillett, Vic Maile, and Mike Hurst, none are ever released. By the time Track does do something with Shaky he’s gone solo – the Sunsets are long gone . . . and that synergy with Johnny Thunders no longer looks so good.

Barrett stories are worth the price of admission alone, but it’s his depiction of Shaky that is the real draw. He paints him as naive, vain, semi-literate, overly sensitive and just plain dumb. Payback is a motherfucker, as they say, and Legs gets in a bank vault full. Is he bitter? The book’s final sentence:

To quote Paul Barrett, who has been watching Shaky’s career with the caring, concerned interest of a colleague who has been a friend, ‘he’s got what he always wanted, but he’s almost certainly lost what he had.’

A chance find . . . Letters page of *Disc Weekly* (April 3, 1965) . . . Paul was certainly a man of conviction

Record Mirror had run a Bob Dylan poetry competition, Paul Barrett came second, he was cheated . . .

Sadly, Paul ‘Legs’ Barrett died on 20 January 2019, 78 years old. His presence and voice is all over The Sunsets 1969 debut album A Legend (Parlophone, PCS 7112), including a dedication to Karl Marx. It is easily their best sounding disc, Dave Edmunds production gives it a depth and a dynamic that was never matched on their subsequent, rushed, recordings. ‘This album contains what was the most progressive music in the history of recorded sound’ writes Edmunds in his sleeve notes, while fans of Colosseum may dispute this fact, and his use of the past tense qualifies the idea somewhat, 50 years later it still sounds good n’ rockin’ to me.

Not sure of the date of this flyer . . . I bought it in 2022 from the eBay seller who is off-loading Ted Carroll’s garage contents. Lots of Sex Pistols flyers that go for £££££££££££££ but this was less than a tenner inc. shipping. What’s not to love about a band that can play three types of music