Tuesday, September 25, 2012


The Ken Russell of rock.

Bad For Good = another record I desisted from picking up in Sounds, the store in Tilburg.





Another Meatloaf-related artist whose solo album I toyed with for a second or two in the store: Ellen Foley and The Spirit of St Louis.


However this record (her second solo, from 1981) is actually more-or-less a Clash side project - Foley was dating Mick Jones ("produced by" is coyly credited to "My Boyfriend") and there's a bunch of Strummer/Jones compositions plus playing passim from Paul, Topper, Joe 'n' Mick.





Foley did the backing vocals on "Hitsville UK" and this unreleased tune


She also did a record with Ian Hunter (Mott-Clash nexus: Guy Stevens) and sang with Iron City Houserockers which was produced by Hunter, Ronson, and The E Street Band's Steven Van Zandt. 



The linkage between Meatloaf, Springsteen, Mott and Clash seems indicative of how razor-thin the at-the-time-crucial-seeming divisions between Old Wave and New Wave actually were (see also Boomtown Rats's punked up Springsteen-isms) and how quickly they collapsed and commingled into each other.

After a third solo record, Foley resurfaced on a second,Steinman solo project  (solo in all but  name: it was called Pandora's Box) equally overblown and commercially pre-doomed as Bad For Good.  Released in 1989, it was titled Original Sin and out of curiosity I volunteered to review it in MM  . Been meaning to dig that out for the archive blog.





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