The Count Bishops - Train, Train
What a band, first part - thank Rev
THE COUNT BISHOPS – Punk foam in London pubs
So you want to know which was the most badass band of the short and ephemeral pub-rock phenomenon at the end of the 70s?
Well, folks, they came from London and were called Count Bishops. Their sound was hot, blended with soul, blues, and the hard beat of Kinks and Who; they were somewhat the English equivalent of bands like Real Kids or Hysptrz, but ahead of their time.
Speedball is the famous SW1.
That is, the Penny Black of British independent music.
The birth of Count Bishops and Chiswick is concurrent and dates back to the summer of 1975 when, from the ashes of the London Chrome and after recruiting a couple of new musicians through an ad in Melody Maker, Mike Spenser and Zenon Hierowski set the pub-rock powder keg of the old band aflame inside the tanks of Count Bishops. Roger Armstrong brings them into the studio to record a dozen covers and decides to release the tracks that fit into a seven-inch while holding back the others, setting up a label through which bands like Damned and Motörhead would be passing in the next couple of years. Speedball is released on November 28 of that year, “distributed” and sold from the trunk of Armstrong’s partner’s Peugeot until the thousand copies run out. Inside are four rock ‘n’ roll covers as tight as you hadn’t heard since the days of the Downliners Sect, of which the Bishops immediately legitimize themselves as the perfect heirs.
The “leftovers” from those sessions would finally be published in the “extended” version of that fantastic single and two documents from the only studio recording of Chrome, including a cover of I Want Candy, which a few years later, with Mike Spenser having stepped down from the car to form the Cannibals, would bring the English group considerable visibility at home. The rest of the world, however, would continue to ignore one of the wonders of English pre-punk, one that, with arrogance and ruthless punkishness, would allow itself to trim the branches of the tangled prog forest to bring the English botanical garden back to the unspoiled essentiality of the early Sixties.
What a band, first part - thank Rev
THE COUNT BISHOPS – Punk foam in London pubs
So you want to know which was the most badass band of the short and ephemeral pub-rock phenomenon at the end of the 70s?
Well, folks, they came from London and were called Count Bishops. Their sound was hot, blended with soul, blues, and the hard beat of Kinks and Who; they were somewhat the English equivalent of bands like Real Kids or Hysptrz, but ahead of their time.
Speedball is the famous SW1.
That is, the Penny Black of British independent music.
The birth of Count Bishops and Chiswick is concurrent and dates back to the summer of 1975 when, from the ashes of the London Chrome and after recruiting a couple of new musicians through an ad in Melody Maker, Mike Spenser and Zenon Hierowski set the pub-rock powder keg of the old band aflame inside the tanks of Count Bishops. Roger Armstrong brings them into the studio to record a dozen covers and decides to release the tracks that fit into a seven-inch while holding back the others, setting up a label through which bands like Damned and Motörhead would be passing in the next couple of years. Speedball is released on November 28 of that year, “distributed” and sold from the trunk of Armstrong’s partner’s Peugeot until the thousand copies run out. Inside are four rock ‘n’ roll covers as tight as you hadn’t heard since the days of the Downliners Sect, of which the Bishops immediately legitimize themselves as the perfect heirs.
The “leftovers” from those sessions would finally be published in the “extended” version of that fantastic single and two documents from the only studio recording of Chrome, including a cover of I Want Candy, which a few years later, with Mike Spenser having stepped down from the car to form the Cannibals, would bring the English group considerable visibility at home. The rest of the world, however, would continue to ignore one of the wonders of English pre-punk, one that, with arrogance and ruthless punkishness, would allow itself to trim the branches of the tangled prog forest to bring the English botanical garden back to the unspoiled essentiality of the early Sixties.
IlConte
20 feb 23
DeRank ™: 35,12
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