If the real secret of success in Rock & Roll lies in choosing the right name, then Ace very nearly came a cropper. When rhythm…
Browsing: Pub rock
Formed in Yorkshire in 1972, Be-Bop Deluxe are one of British rock’s classic marginal bands. Everyone seems to have heard of them, and yet few…
Irish émigré Barry Richardson was playing bass in one of the part-time jazz combos which regularly appeared at the Tally Ho pub in Kentish Town…
Bontemps Roulez were based in the Pub Rock heartland of the Hope & Anchor, where they gigged and recorded between January and May 1975. They…
It’s a tad unfair that Brinsley Schwarz became a global laughing stock after their infamous “Fillmore trip” of 1970. The ill-fated jaunt saw them pay…
In Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers, Pub Rock revealed its hippie roots. Martin Stone, once the guitar lynchpin in much-touted London bands The Action and Mighty Baby, and…
Vocalist Mike Spenser arrived in London from Brooklyn in February 1975, met Zenon de Fleur (real name Hierowski) and joined a band called Chrome. By mid-1975…
Although they never strayed from their gritty R&B-based sound, Dr Feelgood was a fixture of England’s Pub Rock scene since the early 70s. While they were…
Ducks Deluxe was formed early in 1972 by former roadies Sean Tyla, Martin Belmont, Nick Garvey and Tim Roper. Taking their name from a slot machine…
Eddie & The Hot Rods formed in Rochford near Southend, Essex in 1975, originally as a garage band called Buckshee. Singer Barrie Masters had been…
Widely regarded as the band that gave birth to the British pub rock scene, this New York threesome – Jack O’Hara, Brien Hopkins and Austin de Lone…
Formed at The Duke pub in Deptford (south London) in 1979, the Electric Bluebirds featured members of The Realists and The Fabulous Poodles and moved…
Even in 1976, blue-eyed soul boy and ex-mod Graham Parker was seen as not quite of the top drawer, although he frequently came very close.…
Ian Robert Gomm was born on 28 March 1947 in Chiswick, West London. Beginning his musical career in the early 60s in a band called…
Kilburn and The High Roads formed at Canterbury College of Art in 1970 when lecturer Ian Dury let his inner Gene Vincent fan take control,…
Like every other self-respecting musical movement in the early 70s, Pub Rock had its own ‘supergroup’ in the shape of Kokomo. Named after an Aretha Franklin song (First Snow…
Nick Lowe probably has the greatest ear for melody in the modern world. But this is not just a pop melody-composing genius – this is…
The full story of Pub Rock can be read in Will Birch’s excellent book No Sleep Till Canvey Island (Virgin). In it, the former Kursaal Flyers drummer recounts how…
It was 1975, and the British music scene was in thrall to pub rock, the movement that would ultimately make superstars of Graham Parker, Ian Dury, Elvis Costello and Nick…
Pub rock was a British musical genre which endured from the early 1970s to the early 80s. It’s a genre that is defined less by…