You get too much you get too high

It's common knowledge around these parts that I have a soft spot for the Sweet. Always have had. And although Brian, Mick and Steve are sadly no longer with us, it's somehow fallen on Andy Scott, last man standing, to continue the band's legacy. I'm not sure why, mind. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan: I told him as much when I interviewed him back in the day. But he should let it go now. Andy and his cohorts came to my town in December for a show at Rock City and I didn't go. My bad. But the band of brothers he was so tightly intertwined with thru the whole of the 70s (and early 80s as a three piece) don't exist anymore. I want to remember them the way they were; only on record, in fans memories, and on those amazing YouTube clips does the glammest of all glam groups come close to recreating the excitement levels they generated back in 1973.

But fair play to Scott, he schleps around Europe with his touring band, year after year, like a travelling circus, trying to reignite the flame that once burned so bright. Ironically, the closest he got was a few years back with a cover version of an old George Benson number: clearly loaded with a reworked Love is Like Oxygen riff, they came as close as they ever had to replicating the sound that, for a period of close to ten straight years, guaranteed them VIP Lane access direct to the higher reaches of the UK singles charts week after week. It's a blinder...

The Sweet - On Broadway (2013)   

Grounds for Separation

I've just re-read Block Buster! by Dave Thompson. As the title would indicate, it's the definitive biography of glam rockers the Sweet; nothing to do with the chain of video shops.

Their rise to teenybopper stardom - and Top of the Pops ubiquity - followed later by (begrudging, often) critical acclaim was far from overnight; yet their demise was comparable with the speed with which Laurel and Hardy's piano came hurtling down those steps in the film 'Music Box'. Though, as you can imagine, not half as funny.

And the reason why they fell from grace with such indecent haste? Two words: Brian Connolly. Sorry, make that three words: Brian Connolly's drinking. In 1974 after releasing Sweet Fanny Adams and being invited by Pete Townshend to support the Who at Charlton Athletic football ground and play in front of 60,000 fans, Connolly went on a bender. A proper bender. Not for the first time he then got into a fight and was badly beaten up, suffering critical bruising to his throat (they really did kick his head in). As a result the tour to support the album (the album that should have been flying off the shelves) was pulled, as was their chance to play in front of the biggest crowd of their career supporting their heroes. The rest of the band weren't happy; to say the least. They seriously considered playing Charlton as a three piece; they even considered getting a replacement for Connolly. But they gave their friend another chance.

Fast forward a couple of years and, after an 18 month lay off from touring, the band sought solace at the Château recording studio on the outskirts of Paris. Armed with a shedload of new songs they recorded their most coherent album to date: In early 1978 Level Headed was promoted massively in the States where they were embarking on a massive tour with hopes of finally 'cracking America'.  With the album's lead single Love is Like Oxygen picking up airplay it was all set fair. However, Connolly's love of the bottle scuppered the band yet again. By now bloated and out of shape (physically and vocally) he was turning up pissed at most of the shows and the tour soon descended into farce. The record company pulled the plug on the remaining dates and the band were flown home in disgrace.

Connolly was kicked out of the band the following year. And with him went any last vestiges of future aspirations the band may have had. The remaining trio of Andy Scott, Steve Priest and Mick Tucker limped on with three wheels on their wagon till the Cherokees finally caught up with them in 1981. Game over.

...

When Andy Scott wrote Love is Like Oxygen it was no secret that he was a huge fan of Hall & Oates. Steve Priest alleges that Scott ripped off their 1975 track Grounds for Separation when writing his lyrics three years later. Scott will no doubt tell you different. The bridge Andy Scott may or may not have liberated comes in at 1:20. I'll let you decide.

Hall & Oates - Grounds for Separation (1975)

The Sweet - Love is Like Oxygen (1978)

Two sides to every story

I love unsung heroes. Especially in the music biz. Those foot soldiers who are quite prepared to sit in the wings while others, more worthy or (often) not, receive the plaudits. One such hero is Phil Wainman.

Without Phil Wainman there would be no Sweet. He's like a poor man's George Martin: he believed in the band from the time they played at his wedding in 1969 - back when they were a struggling little bubblegum band traipsing up and down the country in a beat up Commer van.

He took them under his wing, introduced them to (the go-to songwriters of the seventies) Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, secured them a recording contract deal with RCA and ended up producing *all* of their Top Ten singles.

In the film below he talks about his charges very touchingly ('the boys') in a wide ranging interview that spans all aspects of his illustrious career - Wainman was also at the helm of all the Bay City Rollers' anthems, twiddled the knobs on Next by Alex Harvey and even produced Generation X's debut album.

But his tour-de-force has got to be The Ballroom Blitz (fast forward to 37:48). Not surprisingly, as a drummer, for him it was all about the tub-thumping pagan skins. It was a song built around Mick Tucker's relentless syncopation; I know that, and you know that.

However, the way Andy Scott (the Sweet's axe man) tells it, it's all about the guitar. Drums, what drums? The rest of the band appear to have been airbrushed out of the story altogether. Guitarists, eh?

Name checks abound - Sandy Nelson, Chuck Berry, The Beatles - but, interestingly, neither he nor Wainman reveal the true identity of the inspiration behind their 1973 monster smash (#2 in this country, #5  in the US where it was released a couple of years later).

So where did Ballroom Blitz really come from? Take a listen to this. A Saturday night record, if ever I heard one.

Bobby Comstock - Let's Stomp (1963)

When two become one

 Chinn + Chapman = Chinnichap

40 years ago, in January 1973, The Sweet had their one and only # 1 single with Block Buster! (Their screamer, not mine). In the charts at the same time, and on the same record label - RCA, was David Bowie's Jean Genie: which had an identical guitar riff.

'It's actually an old blues riff' Andy Scott, Sweet's guitarist, told me many years later when I interviewed him for the paper. 'Mike Chapman, our producer, used to come and see us live and at that time we would play I'm A Man  by The Yardbirds and segue into FBI by The Shadows. Mike went away and (with Nicky Chinn, above right) wrote Block Buster! and the two songs became one.'