Gig 005 Be Bop Deluxe / Doctors of Madness

Be Bop Deluxe / Doctors of Madness
Oxford Polytechnic
Thursday 19 February 1976

Conventional wisdom would have it that by the mid-70s the UK in general and music in particular was in the doldrums, post-glam, pre-punk, all endless guitar solos, mass unemployment, garbage piling up, flock wallpaper, racist sitcoms und so weiter. In fact the garbage thing was just a few weeks in 1979 and mass unemployment came under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Casual and overt racism in the media had been endemic for a long time (thank God those dark days are behind us). Contemporary music wasn’t all bad, you had to know where to look, and at school debate raged over the relative merits of Lonnie Liston Smith and Van der Graaf Generator, but it’s true the imperial years of glam and prog were over and nothing had really taken their place.

I’d seen Be Bop Deluxe on the OGWT and heard them on (David) Kid Jensen’s Radio 1 show. They were essentially guitarist and singer Bill Nelson’s project, occupying a space between glam and prog, with a nod to Hendrix, and at their best they did it very well. I liked their short, punchy songs, the best examples being Cream pastiche Sister Seagull and Maid in Heaven which is just ace, both from the Futurama album. I also liked Bill’s short-ish hair, intellectual Cocteau-referencing (like I knew anything about Jean Cocteau) and dapper demeanour; not as cool as Ferry nor as audacious as Bowie, but there was nothing of the smelly hippy about him, and boy could he play guitar! Bill could wipe the floor with most of the competition in the world of rock, and he had the sense to keep his solos short for maximum impact.

It wasn’t always their fault but for everything Be Bop Deluxe got right they also seemed to get something wrong; not knowing quite where to go, they tried to cover too many bases. The new album Sunburst Finish had some good moments, notably the rather lovely Crying to the Sky, a slow soulful song in the vein of Hendrix’s Little Wing. On the other hand opening track Fair Exchange featured about 52 different sections in 4+ minutes (I exaggerate only a little), including a widdly prog-ish intro, a lumpen Stones-style chorus, a flamenco interlude and a brief Irish jig. By this time I could recognise lyrical twaddle and this was a good example, a desperate mix of unbecoming boorish innuendo, Dylanesque references to mystic muses called Tia Maria and Venus de Milo, and a mention of Bill’s guitar as his ‘axe’. Son, you’re trying too hard! (I can’t stand a bad lyric, even an ill-judged word spoils everything, as anyone who’s familiar with the David Bowie tune Time will tell you.) Then there was the cover, which featured a naked lady in a glass tube, wielding a flaming guitar. I don’t remember this even being remarked upon – what’s wrong with being sexy? They couldn’t know how naff this would look in a few months’ time. (Again, thank God those dark days are behind us.)

The gig was at Oxford Polytechnic, meaning in a hall which was used for exams, freshers’ fairs and the like – there were no seats. We went straight to the front and sat cross-legged on the floor because, it turned out, this is what you did. First up were Doctors of Madness, whom I’d read about in the NME. At this time there was starting to emerge some awareness of punk, based on reports in the music press from London and New York, and a lot of acts were trying to envisage what it might look like. Often this might involve a rather cartoonish, knowing and futuristic version of glam rock, as exemplified by daft US act The Tubes. Doctors of Madness main man Kid (Richard) Strange was a tall man with dyed blue hair and a guitar the body of which spelled K-I-D, the other members were Stoner, Urban Blitz and Peter DiLemma; another case of trying too hard. For all that they were very entertaining, and Richard Strange has gone on to produce work some of which is, well, interesting.

When the lights went down for the headliners a number of people at the front stood up, which meant we had to stand up, prompting a chorus of ‘sit down!’ from older types behind us. It was touch and go but we had to stand up or see nothing, so in the end everyone stood up. A breach in the wall of 70s gig etiquette had been opened, an early bridge in the punk wars unwittingly taken. I don’t know how he got there but Bill Nelson appeared stage centre, Spinal Tap-style, inside a glass tube, possibly the same one from the album cover. There was dry ice spilling off the lip of the stage. Blimey. The tube was raised and Bill strode forward in ample, sharply creased scarlet slacks and a white jacket with lapels you could land a Spitfire on, a bashful colourblind double glazing salesmen, rather upstaged by charismatic Maori bassman Charlie Tumahai. Bill wasn’t a natural frontman, lacking the front of a Steve Harley or the camp showmanship of Sailor’s George Kajanus (a name my friends and I found explicably funny). He subsequently seemed happier as a solo artist with a more selective, loyal audience, or as a producer or collaborator. Be Bop Deluxe were very proficient and enjoyable if not terribly exciting; much more than that I don’t remember.