Old Enough to Forget

Suzi ... and Other Four Letter Words was another in a long line of Mike Chapman produced albums for Suzi Quatro. It's a mystery as to how Mr. Chapman found the time to work in Suzi when he had been working with The Knack and then Blondie on their breakthrough albums that same year.  I never really kept up with Suzi Quatro in real time. I was less than a casual fan and aside from when I heard "Devil Gate Drive" as a kid, didn't know any of her songs. The little AM station in my small town seemed to play it over and over back in 1974. Of course the reality was this all likely happened over the course of a week ... but hey, time is different when you're young. Other than Happy Days and that one song I really didn't know much about her, other than she looked good in black leather. 1979 was the height of new wave (disco was still huge too, but let's pretend it wasn't), Suzi Quatro dropped a glam infused collection of tight pop songs that were honestly a ...

Sweet was always a weird band for me to categorize, were they hard rock, were they glam, were they just a Chinnichap bubble gum act? I mean these were the guys who rocked my world as a kid with "Ballroom Blitz" and melted my face with "Fox on the Run" both from the North American version of Desolation Boulevard on Capitol Records. Much later I heard "Little Willy" and couldn't reconcile that this was the same band. It was written by Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn names I'd later associate with an awful lot of really questionable glam tinged rock, and some face melting goodness. They were the kings of bubble gum glam but they were so much more than that. However, let's be honest "Little Willy" is just a head scratcher, but "Ballroom Blitz" was sheer wonderfulness, and the stuff with Suzi Quatro was wicked. To me, they were a hard rock act, I had no idea what glam was a kid. Music was either good or it wasn't. By 1976 the la...

Let's play musical jeopardy.  "I'll take bands that made me want to poke a pencil into my ear drum for 100 Alex." "That's today's daily double. What band sold over 120 million records and turned the world tartan?" "What is Nazareth?" "No, I'm sorry that is incorrect. The answer was Bay City Rollers." Bay City Rollers were a big deal here in Canada for what seemed an eternity but was probably all of two years. Despite watching them on TV when The Krofft Superstar Hour first aired, and later changed to The Bay City Rollers Show, it wasn't cool to listen to their music. Oh, you had to give it up for "Saturday Night" because that was just pure fun ... but generally they were a bunch of guys who wore tartan shirts and were '70s teen idols, who along with David Cassidy and Donny Osmond were hanging on posters in little girl's rooms all over the country. I was rummaging around in the dollar bins, and I stumbled ...

Well, I am a little ashamed to admit that 11 year old me generally didn't think girls should sing rock songs. I mean, I liked some Olivia Newton John songs I heard on the radio, and will even admit that when Helen Reddy sang "I am a Woman" in 1972 I sang along. It was catchy, shoot me. Our shitty AM radio station where I grew up would occasionally play rock songs, and for what seemed like an eternity, "Devil Gate Drive" got special treatment and was played over and over and over. I really liked it. I remember my mum turning off the radio - that just made it better. I mean, it wasn't B.T.O. but she had a growl and she was killing it. I don't think I ever really thought of it again after that brief period of time. Sure, like a lot of other kids when she showed up as Leather Tuscadero on Happy Days it was like, "Ooh." In hindsight I think this pushed her into the realm of caricature and used up any rock credibility she has accumulated. This may ex...