The Wolfmen's Jukebox Presents....Rex Rated

Marc Bolan (born Mark Feld) 30 September 1947 – 16 September 1977

It's another wolf-pack pick as Chris Constantinou writes a white swan...

October 1970 - I was 13 years old and living in Plymouth. I think I'd grown out of my Skin-Suede-Smoothie Period (which was just a passing phase for me) and had been listening to Tyrannosaurus Rex - in fact my first girlfriend was called 'Debora' (check this out) :-)

Tyrannosaurus Rex became T.Rex , teamed up with Tony Visconti and released Ride A White Swan - which I still think sounds amazing ! We worked with Visconti in '85, at his Good Earth Studios, when he produced Adam's 'Vive Le Rock ' album. I remember asking him about 'Ride A White Swan' - I'm sure he said that he'd played bass on it, and even showed me the bass he'd used.

July 20th 1971 - My 14th birthday, and I went to see T.Rrex play at the ABC Theatre Plymouth. A real disappointment - I'd expected them to sound like the records, but it was really rough, and they were quite obviously out of their heads with guitars out of tune and strings breaking etc... If I saw that same performance now, I'd probably love it. I like bands doing things differently for gigs, and you can't really reproduce classic recordings live. why should you want to anyway? Look at Lou reed live for an example of that - especially on tracks like Walk On The Wild Side ....

I love the arrangement of Ride A White Swan, the sound of the recording, the fact there's no drums , the small string section, with a string arrangement (scored by Visconti) that works so well - and all recorded on an 8 track machine.

Ride A White Swan - A Side



Summertime Blues - B Side



A few Swan facts you may, or may not know ..

Ride a White Swan was recorded July 1st 1970, and entered the Top 40 on October 31.

11 weeks later, it reached a peak position of No.2

A novelty record 'Grandad' by Dad's Army's, Clive Dunn stopped it from reaching No. 1

Naomi Campbell covered it in 1995

Naomi Campbell - Ride A White Swan

The Wolfmen's Jukebox Presents....Re-Riff/Re-Model

It's another hand-picked-classic from The Wolfmen's boom-box, as Marco owns up to some light-fingered pop lifting

Eagle-eared Wolfmen fans (and Chris) should be able to spot this week's bit of thievery - it's Bryan Ferry's '75 cover of The Everly Brother's 'The Price of Love'.

The great Chris Spedding's guitar riff somehow ended up on 'Jackie Says' (dunno how that happened on my life constable - honest!). The Spanish trumpet and twangy guitar intro also influenced the Start of Adam Ants 'Friend or Foe' - another caper I had nothing to do with - swear on my life etc etc... The Everly's version was produced by Chet Atkins, who also added a swampy version of the riff to their track.

The Ferry version, features Chris Spedding, Roxy Music's Eddie Jobson and Roxy Drummer Paul Thompson. It appears on the 'Let's Stick Together' E.P, which also has two other songs on it, the names of which I've forgotten as I never liked them. Chis Spedding's another hero of mine. I had the same SEX shop hi-heeled boots as him, and his guitar playing sounds like a black Cuban heeled, elastic-sided winkle-picker - if you could plug one into an amp that is - which you can't.I know, coz Iv'e tried.

If Yves Saint Laurent and Link Wray had ever formed a band together, they might sound something like this...

A Weekend Warm Up With.......Marco

The title 'Here Come The Warm Jets' is taken from an activity happening on the sleeve
Clue: it was also the inspiration behind another Eno title - 'Golden Hours'

We're starting something a bit diff' on the Bocca blog today, where one of The Wolfies handpicks a favourite uptempo thumper for the weekend, so punching the jukebox buttons today is - Wolfman Marco....

In the first of an irregular series of 'Trax That Made The Wolfmen What They Are Today' I have chosen the original version of 'Needle In The Camel's Eye' by Brian Eno - coz if you haven't heard it then you really should..

It's the opening track of Eno's 1973 album 'Here Come The Warm Jets', his first solo album after he found himself to be one Brian too many in Roxy Music, and had to leave. It's a Glam Rocking song with Velvet Underground guitar by Eno and Roxy guitarist Phil Manzernera, with a chord sequence that could have come from the 'Banana' album. Most people think I got my twangy guitar sound from Duane Eddy and Jet Harris, but this is the track it's really cribbed from.

When we covered this for The Wolfmen's first E.P I didn't change one note of Phil Manzernera's twangy Les Paul solo. I learnt it when I was 13, and it's one of the only guitar solos I ever bothered to work out in my bedroom with the traditional schoolboy beginners axe, the out of tune nylon strung acoustic.

In the days before becoming one of the worlds most overpaid producers Eno was full of quirky art school production ideas, on Needles the drums are double tracked and panned left and right, if you listen you can hear Paul Thompson go out of time with himself. Brian Eno later helped give the world Oblique Strategies, New Age music, and The Joshua Tree. He played oboe in the Portsmouth Sinfonia and for some reason appeared on the panel of 'Question Time', but this song comes from a time when he was just called Eno and wore purple eye shadow. its the best track from his best album and we present it here, for your pleasure.

Eno - Needles In The Camel's Eye