For a period during the 1970s, Sweet were second only in my pop affections to the mighty T.Rex. The band's run of Chinnichap hit singles and the string of self-written hard rock nuggets tucked away on the flipsides, were chewed over and eagerly devoured by me and my music loving pals back in the day. One old school chum and I managed to see Sweet at The Rainbow twice in their 1973 glam pomp, their final UK show with the classic line-up at Hammersmith Odeon in 1978, plus a three piece Sweet show at The Lyceum in 1981, the last concert I ever attended with that particular old mucker as life gradually drew us in separate directions. About 10 years ago, 30 years after losing contact altogether, my pal and I reconnected, thanks to the miracle of the internet. We exchange Christmas cards, birthday greetings and the occasional email, but in spite of living less than 40 miles from each other, we've yet to actually meet up again.
Had he lived beyond his tragically short 51 years, Sweet's lead singer Brian Connolly would have turned 80 yesterday.
I was in the audience for what transpired to be Brian Connolly's last UK gig fronting the original Sweet line-up, at the Hammersmith Odeon in February 1978. By the Summer of that year, for well documented reasons, he was out of the band, though his departure wasn't officially announced until the following Spring. It was the first time I'd seen Sweet in concert since their Christmas show at The Rainbow in 1973 and much had changed in the intervening years. In 1973 I was 13, living in London, still pretty much glam obsessed, though beginning to feel my way into wider musical territories. By the time I rolled up to the Hammersmith Odeon, I and my family had been out of London for nearly three years, punk had happened and my eclectic record collection was coming along nicely - as were the pimples on my chin and the dodgy bumfluff covering my upper lip. My memories of that night in 1978 are of a triumphant performance. I was crashing at a mate's place in London and we spent the journey back to his gaff raving about the show and what the future might hold for the band. Little did we know.
Post-Sweet, Brian Connolly pursued a solo career while struggling with increasing health problems, dying 25 years ago today (or yesterday depending on your source) at the age of just 51.
Here's 'I Wanna Be Committed', a great Chinn & Chapman penned single that never was. Recorded in 1974, but left on the shelf in favour of the band's own 'Fox on the Run'.
For my 60th birthday in April 2020, I was scheduled to make a long overdue return visit to New York City, the flight a present from my cousin who lives in Lower Manhattan. The trip, the celebration and the family reunion didn't happen of course, instead I spent my big day filling shelves at work. It turned out to be a pretty good day in the end though. A bunch of work colleagues bought me a cake plus several bottles of beer, so I went home quite happy. With travel restrictions still in place, earlier this year my 61st birthday came and went and the credit note for the flight is still sitting in a folder on my laptop. I've tentatively started to make plans for April 2022, we'll see how things pan out.
Of more urgent concern however, is the fact that my cousin has been unable to visit her mum in London for nearly two years. Although she has an American husband, three duel nationality kids and has lived and worked in New York for nearly 40 years, my cousin has never taken American citizenship, so international travel at any stage of the lockdown was out of the question. Travel rules finally ease on November 1st and the following weekend she's flying into London for a very brief visit with her mum. I'm hoping to get down there to be a part of the family catch-up as well, even it's for only 24 hours.
One morning, during one of our trips to visit my cousin in the mid-noughties, Mrs S & I set out on a roughly 5 mile walk from the apartment in Tribeca, across the Brooklyn Bridge, through Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens until we eventually reached Red Hook - in those days fairly inaccessible by public transport. We picked up a couple of pieces of Key Lime Pie, from Steve's, a place that had been highly recommended, before wandering into the nearby Louis Valentino Jr Park, which offers impressive views across the bay to Liberty Island and Jersey beyond. I had a fairly basic point and press camera at the time and fired off a couple of shots, one of which is at the top of this post (click on it to enlarge). In spite of the distant grainy quality, it's a photo I've always been pleased with - the anonymous ferry on the way into Manhattan, the Staten Island Ferry on the way out and Liberty between them.
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Today's tune comes from 1972. While most of the kids at school were grooving to the Chinnichap glam of 'Wig Wam Bam' by The Sweet, me and my mates (and, no doubt, a certain Master John Medd) flipped over the 45 to dig into the heavy, self-written b-side 'New York Connection', featuring a rare example of a solo Brian Connolly vocal, devoid of the usual harmonies from Mick Tucker, Steve Priest & Andy Scott.
On Friday December 21st 1973 I saw Sweet at The Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park. It was only my third ever concert, but the second time I'd seen the band at the iconic venue that year. Five years would elapse before I saw Sweet live again and a further three years before I caught them for a fourth and final time, albeit in a Brian Connolly-less trio configuration - a three piece Sweet if you will.
Bassist Steve Priest passed away yesterday at the age of 72, leaving Andy Scott as the sole survivor from the classic line-up. The December 1973 Rainbow show was recorded and seven of the thirteen songs played that night appeared two years later on the double compilation LP 'Strung Up'. 'Hellraiser', which had reached No.2 in the singles chart earlier that year, opened the set.
I appeared in a few, inevitably
shambolic, infant school nativity plays when I was very young, but
Christmas 1969 was the real beginning of my
glittering showbiz career. I played the
snowman in the school production of, erm,
The Snowman - no, not that one. This little
play was, I believe, cooked up by one of the
teachers, though it no doubt shared some of
the values and themes of Raymond Briggs'
1978 book and subsequent 1982 film, albeit
minus all the flying and the dulcet tones of
Aled Jones. After this, I went on
to feature in many a future school
play and also joined some pals in the local amateur dramatic society (though we all called it the drama club).
In 1973, the drama teachers were preparing
one the school's occasional variety shows
and were looking for a musical item to slot
between two spoken word pieces. My mates and
I, having not a musical bone between the
four of us, got together and suggested we
mime to a pop hit of the day, the original
choice being '20th Century Boy' by T.Rex,
with yours truly as Marc Bolan. As T.Rex
were something of a one-man-band, performance
wise, we gradually came round to the idea of
The Sweet as an altogether more colourful
proposition.
'At 13 they were fooling....'
My memory is that the show ran to three
performances. One to the rest of the school,
one for the parents and a third that was open
to the general public. Me and my pals,
dressed up to the nines, myself in the Steve
Priest role wielding a mock bass made in
woodwork, mimed to 'Hell Raiser' and, well,
not to put too finer point on it, we went
down a storm! So successful were we, that
for every show, play and pantomime at school
and the drama club over
the next 2½ years, we were invited to
reprise our little act, which we did, to
often memorable effect.
Between 1973 and 1975, in addition to 'Hell
Raiser' we mimed to 'Blockbuster', 'Ballroom
Blitz', The Six Teens', 'Burn on the Flame'
(when a teacher played the wrong backing
tape!) and 'Turn it Down'. The best of the
lot, though, was 'Teenage Rampage', which we
performed for five consecutive nights as a
musical interlude in a pantomime in 1974,
the audience noise behind the song providing a great fake atmosphere.
(Here I am in full-on dramatic guise in a play written by myself and three friends. In this scene, bitten by something unknown, I had turned into a werewolf and proceeded to kill everyone in grisly fashion, wasting lashings of fake blood in the process. Good, wholesome, family entertainment folks!)
In addition to my ridiculously heavy, solid
wood bass, we also made two microphone
stands (one held together by gaffa tape so
that our 'Brian Connolly' could 'break' it
over his knee, rock vocalist style) and some
fake drums, all of which seemed convincing
to us at the time, but in retrospect looked
exactly as you would expect them to, made by a bunch of 13 year-olds in their woodwork classes!
For each successive show I (with help from Mum) tried to find more and more garish and outlandish clothes to wear, which were invariably complimented on the night by the make-up department going to town on my face with ever increasing relish, with the result that I often looked less Steve Priest and more Alice Cooper. As well as performing these little fake musical excursions, the boys in 'the band' also had roles in all the productions, so they were busy nights for us, after full days at school. On more than one occasion I walked home, exhausted, through the streets of Walthamstow in full Steve Priest costume - what was I thinking?
Are you ready Steve?
'Sweet Drama', as we were imaginatively
christened by one of the teachers, came to
an end in 1975 when my family moved out of
London. Myself and my chums were all getting
into prog by then and would have quite
happily performed as 'ELP Drama' if anyone
had asked, but after one last 'Turn It Down'
we were done, as indeed was my youthful
foray into the dramatic arts. I never
stepped on a stage again.
My closest pal in my formative musical years
was George. He, I and a select group of
like-minded chums would collectively take
our first tentative steps into the
mysterious worlds of Prog, Kraut and Heavy
Rock, learn the intricacies of air guitar and
spend many happy hours banging our heads in
unison while resting our thumbs comfortably
in the belt-loops of our flared jeans.
Initially, however, George's favourite group
was Sweet and together we saw the band on
four occasions. Twice at the Rainbow in the
March and December of 1973, again for Brian
Connolly's UK swansong at the Hammersmith
Odeon in 1978 and finally, for old times
sake, the three piece Sweet (sorry, couldn't
resist) at the Lyceum in 1981.
We had long-since been savvy enough to flip
over every successive Sweet single, to
reveal a self-composed and usually full-on
rockin' nugget tucked away on the b-side.
'Man From Mecca', 'Done Me Wrong Alright',
'New York Connection', every one a gem, but
at that first Rainbow gig, the show, their
performance and sheer musical ability was a
total a revelation to me, when compared to
the exotic looseness of the T.Rex live sound
that I'd experienced just 4 months earlier.
Sweet were an incredibly important band for
me, George and the rest of my pals. They
represented a kind of musical stepping stone, bridging the gap between the perceived frivolity of the pop and glam of our playground days and the altogether heavier, more grown-up form of rock we would go on to explore.
11 years ago today, drummer extraordinaire Mick Tucker died from leukemia aged 54 and
four days ago was the 16th anniversary of
Brian Connolly's passing at the age of 51.
Here's a terrific pre-Andy Scott tune from
1970, featuring Brian and Mick to the fore.
