T. Rex is such an interesting touchstone band. They're referenced in so many different songs, and so many different musicians have alluded to them or covered them.
Obviously Bowie made his whole Ziggy persona up after watching T. Rex mania (or "T-rextasy!" as it was called then) explode, and namechecks them in "All the Young Dudes." The Ramones refer to them in "Rock and Roll Radio" as did Hoodoo Gurus on "Let's All Turn On." Alejandro Escovedo named one of his bands Buick Mackane, and Los Lobos used to cover "20th Century Boy" in concert. Richard Barone also covered T.Rex fairly often. That's just off the top of my head.
And now even the Freak Folk types are going back to the early Tyrannosaurus Rex albums.
I'm always heartened by the enduring fascination and fandom of T.Rex.
I like 'em both, but Electric Warrior has the edge on The Slider for me.
More T. Rex fandom: Big Star both in early and late configuration covered a handful of Bolan songs. Loose Fur, the Jeff Tweedy/Jim O'Rourke collaboration, also covers a T. Rex song when they play live.
Obviously Bowie made his whole Ziggy persona up after watching T. Rex mania (or "T-rextasy!" as it was called then) explode, and namechecks them in "All the Young Dudes."
Back in the early '70s, some British music magazine referred to Bowie as "the thinking man's Marc Bolan." Ouch. But Bolan and Bowie were actually friends. So sad that Bolan died young in a car crash....
But Bolan and Bowie were actually friends.
Kind of frenemies, though that's how it always is with La Bowie. But Bowie is loyal, I'll say that. He even appeared on the last episode of Marc's kiddie TV show, just weeks before Bolan was killed in the car crash. (Car driven by Gloria Jones - the soul singer who originally sang "Tainted Love" back in the sixties.)
Cor, as a guitarist are Bolan's songs particularly fun to play? They seem like they would be. Such crunchy, groovy chords.
The only one I've ever learned was "Jeepster," but that's a fun song. I think the riff is a Willie Dixon rip-off, but there's nothing wrong with that.
I think the riff is a Willie Dixon rip-off, but there's nothing wrong with that.
Man, if we couldn't rip off Willie Dixon there'd hardly be any hard rock in the late sixties or early seventies.
Does anyone have a copy of Big Stick’s “Crack Attack” that they could throw up on b-rawk?
Here are Bowie and Bolan on "Marc".
Man! I just stumbled in here to squee about something in particular, but then got caught up in all the fascinating stuff you are talking about.
First, what I am so psyched about is the new Crash Test Dummies album featuring toy instruments...notably the Omnichord. I had one of them in the 80s!
Ergh. Board ate my badly formatted post that featured stuff about Poi Dog Pondering opening for Michelle Shocked (featuring Frank Orrall's death defying lighted globe swing over the audience and dancing with Michelle's manager), Rap Repleinger's Fate Yanagi, that awesome Florence and the Machines cut mentioned above and the fact that I used to perform Julie Brown's 'Cause I'm a blond all over SoCal. Too lazy to recreate it, with all the links.
It ended with, I came in for a moment and stayed for hours.
I should visit here more often.
If you were putting together a 70s play list, what would be on it?
