Marc Bolan and T.Rex - Remixes

Here we go - time for another (almost annual!!!) post. And this one will be fun - trust me!

So, around September last year (that's 2017, just in case you're reading this in the future!) there was A LOT of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth because, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Marc Bolan's passing, Edsel had commissioned a number of remixes of some of Marc's biggest (and, it must be said, not so biggest!) hits. This, apparently, was considered a venal sin by many of the Marc Bolan / T.Rex officionados, but I was willing to at least give it the once over.

 



 

It did take a VERY LONG TIME for this to arrive from the UK, I must admit. No fault of Amazon.co.uk or any other third party logistics service, but more a case of severe procrastination on the part of my skin-and-blister back over in dear ol' Blighty! Any-hoo, by the time I did get my grubby paws on it - early January 2018!!! - much of the 40th anniversary hullabaloo had dissipated into the usual background buzz, and I was more than happy to give the CD a whirl to see if the nay-sayers were justified in their gloomy prognostications, or, as I was hoping, these 21st century re-works of the 20th Century Boy's masterworks were every bit as listenable and enjoyable as they had been way, way back in the early 1970's.

 

And the verdict is...

 

In the main, I am blown away and delighted with the music and the way it has been refreshed to bring it into the modern arena. The majority of the tracks are actually AWESOME, and more than a few bring a lump of pleasure to the throat as they re-portray the fantastic and timeless work of the King of Glam Rock! I say "in the main" because I have to be honest and say that not every track works, and some could easily have been replaced with one of Marc's more popular or accessible songs. And, it does have to be said, repeats of the same song reworked numerous times - Children of the Revolution 3 times! 20th Century Boy twice! - begs the question, "Couldn't they have included more?"

 

Paradoxically, so that you don't get me wrong, I actually love all three versions of Children of the Revolution and the two versions of 20th Century Boy, and would have not liked to have missed them all - but would I have known?  And there are the misses - 2 versions of Light Of Love - never my fave Marc single - along with Precious Star, Cadilac, Born To Boogie and a dubious version of New York City that all could have made way for better (in my humble opinion) tracks such as Think Zinc, Dreamy Lady, Dandy In The Underworld or any of dozens of others. In fact, the very size of the Bolan catalog leaves me wondering why they chose the few they did, even being limited, as they obviously were, to the T.Rex Wax Co catalog.

 

Anyway, for the majority of the tracks, I was thrilled to listen to them, see the changes the crews had made, and enjoy them anew as further examples of Marc's brilliance. The DJ Sae One remix of Solid Gold Easy Action and the X. Ert remix of 20th Century Boy are foot-stomping phenomenal, while Castleman's treatment of Teenage Dream is thoughtful and emotive, and the Infuze edition of Calling All Destroyers could easily have graced the soundtrack of Black Panther! And the remix versions of Metal Guru (Book) and Telegram Sam (Kent Rockafeller) hold their own amidst the more powerful reworkings they are nestled amidst.

 

All-in-all, I think this is an album definitely worth listening to. I honestly believe Marc would have been very happy with all of the results, as he was always looking for new ways to present his songs - just ask Steve Harley about their last conversation - and if he had still been alive, I firmly believe the work he'd be producing would have included a lot of these tricks and renderings.

 

So give your ears a treat and listen to the new Bolan. Given these as examples, who knows what he would have achieved!

 

Amazon.co.uk link here: T.Rex Remixes

Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow

OK - so I have to start my musical odyssey with a Bolan post, don't I? After all, I AM the Bolanoid!!

So there I was, shopping out in the mall, when I was dragged by strange forces into a modern arts store, filled with swords and knives and film memorabilia. And there, under glass, I saw an artefact that stirred memories and made linkages I would not have thought possible.

 

The piece of jewellery in question was a Zinc Alloy Dragon - which immediately connected in my mind to one of the most underated Bolan albums - Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow.  At first I thought there was some strange resurgence - a new version of the album, or some other event, that I was unaware of, but it turns out that there was actually no connection between the two items - until now! :)

Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow is, perhaps, my most played of all the T.Rex/Marc Bolan albums I have - and there is over 50 of those!  For most Bolan fans from the late 60's to the mid-70's, it may seem odd that I find this album so interesting, as the Electric Warrior and The Slider albums were much more commercially successful than Zinc Alloy was. But, for me, Zinc Alloy is perhaps the most complete album conceptually that Marc ever produced, and it's change in musical direction, for me, is the most redeeming factor of the album.  Sure - the majority of fans and critics didn't get the change - the move away from the commercially super-successful glam rock formula that Marc and Tony Visconti had developed between 1968 and 1973 - and the seemingly overblown dramatics of Whatever Happened to the Teenage Dream didn't gel with the sexy stuff from the Electric Warrior period, but what they all missed was the overall concept of the iconic leader Zinc Alloy leading his underground army through the trials of their pseudo-sci-fi reality, to achieve something greater.

To me, Zinc Alloy is an (almost) complete story - a rock opera waiting to be exposed in all its glory, telling the tale of a futuristic leader guiding his team of misunderstood minions through to a possibly bright future. It has its own resurrection myth built right into the storyline, and is populated with numerous characters and tales, typical of some of Marc's earlier albums from the Tyrannosaurus Rex period.  As always with Marc, there are songs of love in the track list, but, even more so, there are songs of transformation and philosophical reflection that help us follow the metamorphical tale.

For me, highlights are Galaxy, Changes, Nameless Wildness and Liquid Gang, although there are many solid tracks - examples of Bolan's new Interstellar funk-rock sound.  Much has been said of the different direction Marc had taken musically, even blaming Gloria Jones for being the influence behind the new sound.  But Marc had spent some time studying the different funk and soul styles that were prevalent in America at the time, and had tried to assimilate many of these into his new, expanded group format.  The result was a much grander, broader sound than previous T.Rex offerings, offset with deeper, darker visions and a more complete storyline, echoing the glories of what Marc's other grand rock musical, The Children of Rarn, could have been.

As with the majority of T.Rex albums, all of the songs were written by Bolan.

Track List:
Side one:
     1) Venus Loon
     2) Sound Pit
     3) Explosive Mouth
     4) Galaxy
     5) Change
     6) Nameless Wildness
     7) Whatever Happened to the Teenage Dream

Side Two:
     1) Liquid Gang
     2) Carsmile Smith and the Old One
     3) You Gotta Jive to Stay Alive - Spanish Midnight
     4) Interstellar Soul
     5) Painless Persuasion v. the Meathawk Immaculate
     6) The Avengers (Superbad)
     7) The Leopards featuring Gardenia and the Mighty Slug

Trivia:

- Marc intended to ditch the T. Rex name, and wanted the group to be called Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow, and the album to be called A Creamed Cage In August, but changed his mind when friends said the new name sounded too similar to David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
- The group eventually became Marc Bolan and T.Rex because Marc wasn't sure how the current fluctuations in the then T.Rex line-up would impact the players on the album.
 

Welcome to Bolanoid's Blog!

I can hear most of you saying, "What the f's a Bolanoid?"

Short answer - me!

I picked the monicker up while still at school, way back in the early 1970's, when one of the biggest pop/rock stars in Britain and around the world was Marc Bolan and his group T.Rex.  As usual, it was peer pressure that formed the initial interest, but this grew the more I investigated the Bopping Elf, and I have remained an avid fan to this day, 36 years after Marc's untimely demise on September 16, 1977, just two weeks short of his 30th birthday.

 

So that's where the handle gets its root, but don't tune out suddenly in panic, thinking I am going to build a site dedicated to the adoration of the Bolan! LOL

 

Yes - there will be the occasional Bolan or T.Rex tune gracing the blog entries, but the real indulgence of this blog is to leave my impressions over a LOT of music from a LOT of artists that I have enjoyed over the years.  And believe me, there will be an incredible breadth of music and artists to listen to - From Bolan to Black Sabbath, Deep Purple to Devo, King Crimson to Kraftwerk, Jethro Tull to Tangerine Dream, with lots of progressive rock, glam rock, heavy metal, punk rock, bubble-gum pop, etc, etc, etc.

 

I intend to blab about them all - the thousands of songs and albums and artists I have been lucky enough to enjoy over the years.  And I want to hear what you think, too.  Please leave comments after each and any blog post to let me know what you thought of the music or artist I've showcased, and we'll have a jolly good chinwag about them all!

 

Those about to Rock - I salute you!

 

The Bolanoid