Side 1:

Listen: Hard Drivin’ Man / Eddie & The Hot Rods
Hard

Listen: Horseplay / Eddie & The Hot Rods
Horseplay

Side 2:

Listen: Double Checkin’ Woman / Eddie & The Hot Rods
Double

Listen: All I Need Is Money / Eddie & The Hot Rods
All

There were few better live bands in the world than Eddie & The Hot Rods around the time of this EP. Depending on the moment, probably no better one.

They are seldom credited with putting the bpm’s back into sluggish radio rock, the type of poisonous stuff Lee Abrams was about to turn into a successful US format, proceeding to keep punk off of America’s airwaves for two decades. By then, bands several generations younger were glorifying or respectfully copying the original idea. Regardless, most of punk’s, and in the case of Eddie & The Hot Rods, pub rock/pre-punk bands never got the massive exposure they deserved.

AT THE SOUND OF SPEED EP followed it’s predecessor LIVE AT THE MARQUEE during the summer of 1977, almost exactly one year later. The former reintroduced the EP format to the UK singles charts after a solid decade, peaking at #43.

As a result, Island did a short series of EP’s at the time, including those with new music from by The Jess Roden Band and Michael Nesmith, as well as reissue four song jobs by Toots & The Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, The Spencer Davis Group and even Heads, Hands & Feet.

They’re a nice series to collect.

Listen: Peace In The End / Fotheringay
Peace

Turning October Island pink in support of curing breast cancer, I’m reposting Fotheringay from April 6, 2009:

Remember in the very early 70′s Warner Brothers did those $1 and $2 samplers you could send off for from the back pages of ROLLING STONE? Well A&M did one too, and only one if memory serves me well. Titled FRIENDS, it was nicely full of UK bands like Blodwyn Pig, Free, The Move and Spooky Tooth to name a few. Fotheringay were on there, this song in fact. ‘Peace In The End’ was my first taste of the band, which I was well anxious to hear.

I’d loved Fairport Convention, and when Sandy Denny left to join up with Trevor Lucas in Fotheringay, well there was more of them all to love basically. Unlike most fans, my most memorable Fairport Convention period followed her departure. FULL HOUSE, ANGEL DELIGHT and BABBACOMBE LEE were and are hands down favorites. The lineups with Dave Swarbrick and Simon Nicol are just perfect for me.

I didn’t fall in love with the Fotheringay album, but I sure did fall in love with it’s only single, ‘Peace In The End’. I must have played this hundreds of times.

Years later, during that first London trip Corinne and I made together in ’77, Howard Thompson brought us round to the Island offices, where he did A&R at the time. In the back, there was an up and running company canteen which did hot food all day for staff and whoever was in the studio at the time. It was still operational ten years later when I joined the label.

What an experience that was. Just envision, growing up and living in upstate New York, and to then be suddenly transported to London for a two week vacation, meeting someone in Howard who would unknowingly change our lives forever, well we literally died and went to heaven.

Rico and his band were there rehearsing downstairs, Simon Kirke from Free eating with Jess Roden, various members of Eddie & The Hot Rods and Ultravox. Over in a corner were Trevor Lucas and Sandy Denny. She was very quiet, but extremely sweet when I approached her for a hopeful talk. Her voice as angelic when speaking as in song. ‘Peace In The End’ will forever remind me of her aura on that day.

Listen: Love’s Melody / Ducks Deluxe
DucksDeluxeLovesMelody.mp3

is it just me, or are the bands like Ducks Deluxe always overlooked when time lining the evolution of UK punk? Although initially lumped in and credited, seems all the mainstream publications have now written them out, as well, Eddie & The Hot Rods and Dr. Feelgood. And never a mention of Canvey Island, while I’m having a moan.

‘Love’s Melody’ was from small handful of import singles that had some kids reeling with excitement at college radio and in the specialist record shops back during ’74 and 75. Other musically similar titles by Dave Edmunds, Brinsley Schwarz and Chris Spedding were no brainer companions to the newer singles by Scaffold, The Kinks, Sharks and Sparks. It was a good time to be alive.

Maybe proof of Ducks Deluxe as an important band lies in where it’s various members ended up: The Motors, The Tyla Gang plus Graham Parker & The Rumour.

Listen: Back To Africa / Aswad AswadBack.mp3

Don’t dismiss Aswad because they were an English reggae band. I can understand you confusing them with the generic Steel Pulse based on origin, but Aswad indeed were roots. And the hits they had years later, well, they were great singles. I still love ‘Don’t Turn Around’.

Howard turned me on to them back in ’76. He put them out with Eddie & The Hot Rods. Remember when reggae and punk happily co-existed? Well that tour may indeed be the one that gave Joe Strummer the idea to take The Clash reggae a year or so later – I mean he was copying everything else so why leave this idea on the table?

I initially had no idea Aswad were English, having been part of those 45 packages Howard would send along from Island: Augustus Pablo, Justin Hines & The Dominoes, Max Romeo & The Upsetters, Rico, Burning Spear and Junior Murvin. They sounded so authentic, I couldn’t tell the difference from their initial few singles, of which this was the first.

Listen: Looking For A Love / The J. Geils Band JGeilsLooking.mp3

I used to pretty much ignore The J. Geils Band during this period, well always if the truth be told. They were a six piece, one too many in my imaginary rule book, and man did they look bad. Endlessly touring, always playing upstate New York, mostly with some up and coming UK band as support. So, I’d go to the show, but usually found my way backstage to talk with said English group, stalking them for obscure info and details while they boogied through their headline set. It was way more exciting to stand in a crowded dressing room talking to Steve Marriott or Phil May than listen to The J. Geils Band’s blues jams.

Now I wish I could have found a way to do both. Eddie & The Hot Rods were big fans, and I started to appreciate them in hindsight. Barrie Masters constantly pestered everyone about them. So now, I can listen and appreciate them a lot more. Please accept my apologies guys, but you did need a visual make over I’m afraid.

Listen: Lookin’ For A Love / Bobby Womack BobbyWomackLookin.mp3

Bobby Womack, on the other hand, was always a favorite. Funny enough, the English group fan in me had a lot to do with that as well. I was very friendly with Rich Fazekas from United Artists’ LA office in the early 70′s, when they had two distinct sounds to their roster: one a bunch of UK bands like The Move, Hawkwind, Brinsley Schwarz and Family; then the other RnB via Ike & Tina Turner, Monk Higgins, Marlena Shaw, Donald Byrd and Bobby Womack.

It was Roger Chapman who cornered me at the label’s LA location on Sunset, giving a stern lecture about both Bill Withers and Bobby Womack. He took me into Marty Cerf’s office and forced several new tracks from Bobby Womack’s then current COMMUNICATION album on me, at the same time recounting he and Family’s first exposure to Bill Wither’s ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’. It was on the car radio somewhere between Houston and Dallas, and they would literally pull over every time it came on, drooling as it played. Being a Family freak, I hung on his every word of advice, hence my initial Bobby Womack crash course and eventual worship.

Listen: Africa / Rico RicoAfrica.mp3

Listen: Afro-Dub / Rico RicoAfroDub.mp3

The last two weeks of March ’77 were pretty amazing. Corinne and I went to England together for the first time, bought into one of those airfare/hotel packages that landed us at a very low rent lodging near King’s Cross. Even today, it’s not the most upscale of areas, but then – forget it. NOTHING was open past 11pm. By day, there was a nearby, old style cafe serving traditional English fry ups for breakfast, and a cornershop or two with loads of Cadburys, bottles of industrial strength, just-add-water orange drink, greasy cornish pastries and battenburg cakes. It drizzled the whole two weeks, and was cold. There was no room service and the TV went off around 12:30. All the other Americans in our traveling group hated the place. We, on the other hand, were in paradise.

Howard Thompson and I had become fast friends the previous fall, a mutual bonding over Eddie & The Hot Rods, who he’d signed to Island. Every day and night in London was spent with him. We went to every club, every show that mattered, and got to hang out at Island. Just off the canteen in the back was the Island studio, which on one particular day, Rico and his band were rehearsing in. MAN FROM WARIEKA had just come out. All the punk fans loved reggae as well, we were no different. And Corinne really loved it. We sat mesmerized watching these guys. The room was thick with pot smoke, they were on fire and we were in England.

The first thing Howard handed me on our initial visit to his office at 22 St. Peters Square was this single. Even more than a great record, it’s a time travel back to two weeks of every kind of bliss imaginable.

Listen: Anything That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll / Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers TomPettyAnything.mp3

This band got off to a slow start. Maybe it was simply his motorcycle jacket on their album cover, but Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers were thrown into the punk category by US radio programmers. Those radio gate keepers were a very intimidated, non-musical and paranoid bunch. Their heyday was nearing an end.

Proving their ineptitude, to them, Talking Heads, Blondie, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, The Ramones, Television, The Sex Pistols, The Patti Smith Group and Eddie & The Hot Rods all sounded the same: they were punk bands the American public didn’t want to hear. Wrong and wrong.

Sharing bills with both The Ramones and Blondie were probably temporary bad moves, because on to the unplayable scrapheap they went. Funny enough, fans of those bands were the first to appreciate them. Right up to the present day, it’s hard finding many folks, regardless of musical tastes, to hate on Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.

Howard Thompson was the guy who turned me on to them. He’d convinced Island in the UK to release their debut album. The single, ‘Anything That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll’, charted soon after over there, and he sent me a copy. I preferred it then, and now, to that first album’s eventual hit, ‘American Girl’ – and it unfortunately seems lost in the band’s history, never getting any mentions ever again.

Listen: Power And The Glory / Eddie & The Hot Rods
Power

Either you have it or you don’t. Eddie & The Hot Rods always did, despite little commercial success in the US pointing otherwise. When they returned to tour during summer ’08, it was made clear their cult rep was well in tact, with a sizable audience of very young kids freaking out up front. And live, well as powerful as ever. Those that will remember can verify they could tear apart a stage in the late 70′s.

I stumbled on them during ’76, pre-punk. One of the Canvey Island bands that included Dr. Feelgood and Ducks Deluxe, their lightning speed attack was a huge attraction. I was the PD of WITR, Rochester Institute Of Technology’s radio station at the time. I dropped a quick letter to Island UK about the reaction we were getting from the band’s EP, LIVE AT THE MARQUEE. It landed with Howard Thompson who’d signed them. We became close friends as a result, and he eventually hired me at Elektra. I’d still be stuck in upstate New York had it not been for him and that letter.

As for Eddie & The Hot Rods, I became a bit of a stalker. Happy about that too as it meant getting to see them many times, at BBC sessions, UK TV shows, in the studio. Great guys and Barrie Master is still a pal. The great news being their power on stage has never waned. That hasn’t changed, and oddly, neither has Barrie. Not one less hair on his head nor one pound more on his bones. Voice as strong as in the day. He even wore the same pair of white jeans as he did at CBGB’s in ’77. Amazing.