“NOW I SING WITH A BOOGIE BAND
BUSY KICKING MY SHOES TO THE GROUND
AND YOU CAN SEE ME ON THE TELEBOX
HIGH-HEEL BOOTS AND SILVER IN MY HAIR”

By the time heroin finally did for him in 1985 Gary Holton was every inch the Telebox star starring in an insanely popular sitcom opposite fellow Poliakoff passim Timothy Spall while tossing off appearances in a few tv commercials and walk-ons in “Breaking Glass” and “Quadrophenia”.

If the name rings no bells this was the guy with the Jack Wild turned bovver boy persona and an accent guaranteed to start a fight in any town centre north of Watford. 

Here was a man who sounded like he had worn a satin football scarf tied around his wrist day and night since 1972. He also made some records. 

This was no hideous Daniel Day Lewis-does-Nick Kent in leather trousers fakery either. A stint standing in for Dave Vanian on a Damned tour, a firm invite to replace Bon Scott in AC/DC and a glorious version of ‘Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town’ with Casino Steel testify to a man with a shiny toed boot firmly planted in both camps. 

So what have we got? A tale of a nearly man on the verge of getting it on in showbiz? Another wayward son of the stage cut down before his time by the needle and the spoon? 

Well yes and no because the sitcom Holton was but half the story and by the mid 80s no one but no one gave a second thought to the band that had bridged his Old Vic / RSC childhood with the Johnny-Thunders-from-Plaistow Wayne character of “Auf Wiedersehen Pet”. History was less than kind to the band who should have earned him every bit as much limelight as the thesping. 

In 1974 there were two bands the mention of whose very names could guarantee howls derision from a gang of inky reading snotty nosed 4th formers — Status Quo (of course) and Heavy Metal Kids. 

If you think The Stooges and Dolls were under valued then at least those behemoths of the kabuki boogie had some mystery on their side. You can probably count the number of UK shows those bands actually played comfortably on the fingers of two hands. They were all myth.

Where HMK suffered by comparison was their sheer visibility — The Kids were the only five men to come out of Alice Cooper’s diasasterous “Welcome to my Nightmare” Wembley stint worse off critically than Alice himself and they were the only band who could possibly make “Return To Fantasy” era Uriah Heep look good when it came to music press kudos. They played the Marquee and Roundhouse more often than Stray, built a solid following in London of 1000 kids who would turn up come-what-may and if memory serves meant naff all anywhere beyond the North Circular. 

They were certainly the only band who could get themselves signed to Atlantic and have the ill fortune to get Dave Harman (of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich fame) as their producer. DD does a decent job and the record is just polished enough for radio and while not too polite to be rocking it sure ain’t no “High Time”. 

When Atlantic hooked them up with Andy Johns (first choice Andy’s brother Glyn was busy on another record but kept it in the family) for their second record Johns’ efforts to transfer the energy of their shows to vinyl made Dave Dee’s work sound like a world beater by comparison. Johns seems to have a peculiar fixation with either getting a watery Kiss bass sound at the expense of all other considerations or making them sound more like the Stones than the Stones had sounded since “Sticky Fingers”.

As legend has it they were thrown off a Kiss tour when they were caught in the wings laughing at Gene Simmons running around with his hair on fire. Holton ended an American tour in plaster when he fell off stage and broke his leg. 

They headlined the Rainbow on their comeback tour (a comeback steered by New Faces judge and hack producer Micky Most) and found that the circle was roped off and the stalls no more than two thirds full due to their audience becoming ummm … more selective. By the late 70s Most and his RAK label was too out of touch to hype anything other than his own shtick as rock and roll’s Victor Meldrew. The Motors supported at the Rainbow, six months later they were pop stars and The Kids were no more. 

Get the picture? (Yes we see). 

Think of every hard luck tale in every road weary Ian Hunter song and you’ve got gist of the HMK story. It is indeed a long way to the top when you want to rock and roll. If it wasn’t for bad luck they would have had no luck at all etc

And what did they sound like? 

‘Hangin’ On’ from the eponymous first album is “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” via “Montrose”, “Mott” and “Long Player” with a nice switch back guitar bridge and some Thunders / Keef / Ronnie Berry-isms. ‘Ain’t It Hard’ is a piano driven Mott / Rod anthem with thrilling boogie verses. ‘It’s The Same’ is ‘The Journey’ via ‘Moonage Daydream’. ‘Run Around Eyes’ is possibly the only credible blue eyed reggae tune this side of ‘Police and Thieves’ giving Mick and Keef’s risible ‘Cherry O Baby’ and 10CC’s ‘Dreadlock Holiday’ a good kicking on the way out. ‘Cops Are Coming’ from the sophmore “Anvil Chorus” is SAHB’s Vambo raised in Upton Park’s Chicken Run. ‘Rock and Roll Man’ is from the same school yard as ‘Rock and Roll Queen’, ‘It’s Too Late’ and ‘Under My Wheels’ with a little Morgan Fisher / Mike Garson piano thrown in for extra measure and it punches its weight with all three gonzoid boogie classics. 

This is the band on OGWT doing ‘Hanging On’ 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMLKLkYLdx0&search=Heavy%20Metal%20Kids

When they teeter on the edge of Jimmy Pursey’s Noble Moron territory it is Holton’s Hunteresque humanism that pulls them from the brink. He’s taking the piss out of himself, out of Glam’s mockney grandour but never out of the audience. Lyrically they hadn’t yet learned to run to places anywhere near as poetic as Ian Hunter and had too soft a spot for hand-me-down Burgess ultraviolence but even when labouring under shitty production they always rocked like Bon Scott, were more Steven Berkoff sings The Stooges than Cockney Rejects and much more ‘Sweet Angeline’ than ‘The Jack’ 

Gary Holton had a Joan Jett heart. 

CAUTIONARY FOOTNOTE —

Keeping in mind the rules of the Unsung house I can’t pretend these first two HMK records aren’t patchy. They are all but impossible to find on vinyl and although allegedly available on CD are hard to find so therefore might cost a few bob or take some nifty safe surfing via Soulseek to hunt down but they are all spirit, all love of the form, theatrical and unsteady like a pissed-up Paul Thompson celebrating ‘Virginia Plain’ in the TOTP green room. Cool as fuck and utterly devoid of ironic distance. 

If you get that far you can also go to You Tube and find an ancient tv clip of the band with hilarious Open University sociological voice-over tut-tutting Holton’s depiction of street violence while a knot of spotty herberts shuffle about in front of the stage. If you weren’t around in 75 it tells you a lot about the world that Mick Jones and Lydon were born into.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y90O9YchAIA&search=Heavy%20Metal%20Kids