Suave, knowing glam rock single that ended up as the Jook’s final one. The UK quartet included two former members of John’s Children (guitarist Trevor White on the far left and drummer Chris Townson on the far right). The band shared their manager John Hewlett (another former member of John’s Children) with Sparks, who marched to the orders of the American brothers Ron and Russell Mael. Shortly after the single came out in 1974, White and bassist Ian Hampton (middle right) snuffed out the Jook by defecting to Sparks, whose “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us” single had reached #2 in Britain the same year.

Here’s a portion of an interview (by Phil King) of Jook drummer Chris Townson in Jeremy Thomson and Mary Blount’s Wired Up: Glam, Proto Punk and Bubblegum: European Pictures Sleeves 1970-76 (2013) (pp. 206-207):

Phil King: Did you go and see Sparks play?

Townson: No, because there was a bit of argy bargy going on. I took a swipe at Russell over a table. He said something that I thought was quite disparaging. I used to be quite aggressive when I was a young man. I just caught his nose. They were really quite arrogant. I really didn’t like them at all. I went out for a meal with them once – Ron and Russ – and it was really one of the most unpleasant meals I ever had. There was no conversation…

King: Did they come and see Jook play?

Townson: They came to see Jook play and said “Yes, they sound like a rock band.” No further discussion.

King: What about the story about the Bay City Rollers stealing your image?

Townson: We were playing in Scotland and this rather scruffy long-haired bunch, who looked like we did a year previously, came in after the gig and said what a fantastic show it was and how impressed they were with the image. Not two months later, even less, we saw these same guys and they’d patched it up with lots of tartan and everything. It was essentially the Jook image….

King: That must have been another nail in the coffin.

Townson: It was, and it was also bloody irritating when you go somewhere and they say, “You look like the Bay City Rollers.” I think I came close to punching many people.

The Jook – “Bish Bash Bosh” (1974)

   

The songwriting/production team of Phil Coulter and Bill Martin pumped out a whole bunch of songs for the Bay City Rollers, many of which sounded like early ’60s fodder for American teen idols (“Summerlove Sensation,” “Remember (Sha La La La La)” “Shang a Lang” and the biggie, “Saturday Night”).  One of these that’s managed to get stuck in my head since the mid-seventies is “Give It to Me Now,” with its “shim-sham-sham-a-ram” chorus. The Rollers’ version, which appeared on their 1974 debut LP Rollin’, is a steamy, slowed down take of a 1973 UK hit (#38) by Irishman Tony Kenny, billed simply as “Kenny,” who was a squealing David Essex lookalike/Suzi Quatro soundalike. The B-side to Kenny’s single was, coincidentally, a song called “Rollin’,” which the Rollers never recorded. Producer Micky Most oversaw the Kenny records, all written by Coulter and Martin.

After “Give It to Me Now,” Kenny would wash his hands of the affair, but a new group formerly known as Chuff, with Rick Driscoll on lead vocals, would step in as the new “Kenny” and record a handful of additional charting hits. One of these was a UK #3 called “The Bump,” which the Bay City Rollers also recorded as a B-side for their 1974 hit “All of Me Loves All of You.”

Kenny – “Give It to Me Now” (1973)

Bay City Rollers – “Give It to Me Now” (1974)

Kenny – “The Bump” (1973)

Bay City Rollers – “The Bump” (1974)

Here’s a 51-plus-minute audio jigsaw tribute to the Bay City Rollers, whose records I listened to as a kid and who I also dressed up as for the Jackling Elementary Halloween Parade in Oct. ’78 (see above). I call it “Rollerdream.” Cirque du Soleil will please contact me in private about using this for a Las Vegas Beatles Love-style extravaganza.

Why are there snippets of songs by other artists? 1) The station I aired it on (KOOP) had rules about not playing the same artist more than 3 times in a row 2) They serve as context and commentary, from a personal view, about the Rollers’ influences and times.

“Rollerdream” by DJ Kim

The “Rollerdream” roadmap:

00:00 Tartan Horde – “Bay City Rollers We Love You”

00:30 Bay City Rollers – “Shang a Lang” + with fangirls singing and screaming.

02:00 Bay City Rollers – “Remember (Sha La La La)” (w/ “All of Me Loves All of You” guitar)

02:37 Bay City  Rollers – “All of Me Loves All of You”

02:52 (interlude) The Ronettes – “Baby I Love You”

03:00 Bay City Rollers – “Summer Love Sensation”

03:35 Bay City  Rollers – “All of Me Loves All of You” + “Saturday Night”

03:50 Bay City Rollers – “Saturday Night”

04:58 (interlude) Gary Glitter – “I Didn’t Know I Loved You Til I Saw You Rock and Roll” (+ “Saturday Night”)

05:28 Bay City Rollers – “Keep on Dancing”

05:52 Bay City Rollers – “Rock and Roll Honeymoon” (+ “Saturday Night”)

07:08 Bay City Rollers – “Let’s Go (A Huggin’ and A Kissin’ in the Moonlight)”

07:48 (interlude) Tim Moore – “Rock ‘N Roll Love Letter”

07:55 Bay City Rollers – “Rock ‘N Roll Love Letter”

09:11 Bay City Rollers – “Dedication”

11:10 Bay City Rollers – “Eagles Fly”

12:10 (interlude) Kiss – “Hard Luck Woman” (+ Bay City Rollers – Marlena”)

12:25 Bay City Rollers – “Shanghai’d in Love” (+ “Eagles Fly”)

12:53 Bay City Rollers – “Beautiful Dreamer” (+ “Dedication” + Slade – “Cum on Feel the Noize”)

14:01 Bay City Rollers – “Wouldn’t You Like It”

17:04 Bay City Rollers – “Yesterday’s Hero” (+ Cliff Richard + fangirls)

19:18 Bay City Rollers – “Too Young to Rock and Roll”

21:28 Bay City Rollers – “I Only Wanna Dance with You”

21:50 (interlude) Dusty Springfield – “I Only Want to Be with You”

21:57 Bay City Rollers – “I Only Wanna Be with You”

24:04 Bay City Rollers – “Rock and Roller”

25:44 Bay City Rollers – “Money Honey”

28:14 (interlude) Stevie Wonder – “Superstition”

28:24 Bay City Rollers – “The Disco Kid”

29:50 Bay City Rollers – “Love Fever” (+ “Are You Cuckoo”)

30:37 The Rollers – “Life on the Radio”

30:50 Bay City Rollers – “You Made Me Believe in Magic”

31:59 Bay City Rollers – “Inside a Broken Dream”

33:17 Bay City Rollers – “The Way I Feel Tonight”

35:59 Bay City Rollers – “It’s a Game” (+ BCR radio ad)

36:18 (interlude) David Bowie – “Rebel Rebel”

36:26 Bay City Rollers – “Rebel Rebel”

37:54 (interlude) Sid & Marty Krofft Bay City Rollers Show intro

38:00 Bay City Rollers – “When I Say I Love You (The Pie)” + “All of the World Is Falling in Love” + “Saturday Night”

39:02 Rollers – “Stoned Houses #2” + Roller TV voices

39:29 Rollers – “Stoned Houses #1” + Roller TV voices

40:14 Rollers – “Elevator”

41:38 Rollers – “Who’ll Be My Keeper”

42:39 Bay City Rollers – “You’re a Woman”

42:47 Rollers – “Instant Relay”

44:18 Rollers – “Turn on Your Radio” (+ Bay City Rollers – “The Bump”)

46:00 Rollers – “Roxy Lady” (+ TV documentary voice + fangirls)

47:07 Rollers – “God Save Rock and Roll” (+ “Saturday Night” + fangirls)

49:19 Rollers – “Life on the Radio”

49:52 Tartan Horde – “Rollers Show” (+ Rollers – “I Was Eleven”)

Rollerologists like me know that the group’s boingy cover of this Russ Ballard song appeared only on the US LP version of their Dedication album.