Here's Pointing at You, Glam

I've always loved me some glam—you know, that brief glimmering spell of music that gleefully traded flower power for handclaps and cocaine. (And by the way, I'm sorry: The '80s hair metal era was not glam. Or even metal. It was just a shame and a shanda, people!)

True glam was a very British phenomenon: About ten or twelve people in America vaguely understood it enough to say, "Hey, let's play Gary Glitter for every sporting event known to man!" But just clear of the top of the Top of the Pops, few of the lesser B- and C-card acts had a fair hearing in the States. It was mostly a hazy smidgeon of Bowie and a few vague curtsies to Queen.

Plus it all seemed like pretty poofter stuff, anyway. (Not that Yanks use the word, "poofter," but if they saw enough Monty Python, they'd likely cop the word.)

Nobody knew what a Slade or T-Rex was. ("Bang a Gong" did scratch the charts at number ten, let it be said, but it just didn't hold a candle to the all-out "T. Rextasy" of the UK.) Sweet and Suzi Quattro suggested some strippers you'd like to meet. And Mud, Showaddywaddy, or Chicory Tip?

People'd think you're talking about getting dirty and showing a daddy your chicory tip, man: We're talking unknown.

Whatever the case, here we are now—an international, postmodern era where the World's dormant cultural relics are just a click away. And after fully mining all the more obvious glam deposits as a treasure hunter myself, one day I got to digging for lesser-known gems—and then I found RPM Record's compilation, Boobs: The Junkshop Glam Discotheque. And I heard Turtle Dove by the Rats.

Wow! The hook, the melody, the solo, the Cockney accent ("M'tur'le dove!")—and all at a lean two and a half minutes. It's like a quick-and-dirty moonshine quaff of that fay, foamy drink called glamohol.

Well, long story short, I ended up muttering a lot about all my favorite music on MySpace, and—lo and behold!—the big talent behind Turtle Dove, cult guru David "Kubie" Kubinec, sent me a nice cyber hello, saying something like, "So you think I'm third-rate glam, huh?" And he's been very kind to me ever since.

Cheers to you, Kubie, and here's to the Rats' Second Long Player Record! (If you haven't already, get up to speed by checking out the Rats' First Long Player Record.)