Come late 1972, Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco wasn’t just another rock club on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip—it was a Glittering Glam Rock Oasis in El Lay’s country rock desert. There the tuned-in could dance to the latest glam rock singles from across the pond, rub elbows with the likes of Bowie, Iggy, the New York Dolls, and the Sweet, and ogle the jaded jailbait groupies who were one of the club’s chief draws—girls with names like Sable Starr and Lori Lightning. Said David Bowie, “Rodney single-handedly cut a path through the treacle of the sixties, allowing all us ‘avants’ to parade our sounds of tomorrow dressed in our clothes of derision.”
Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco didn’t cater to live music—the place was too small, and besides, it would have distracted from the real show, which was seeing and being seen. If you were the very wasted Iggy Pop, for instance, you spent most of your time staring at the very wasted Iggy Pop in one of the disco’s mirrors. If you were the Sweet, you were busy happily inhaling what Kim Fowley approvingly called the club’s “teenage stench.” Said author Nick Kent of Rodney’s underage vixens, “Talk to the bass player of the Sweet and he would probably say those were the best months of his life. But to someone with a bit of taste, who wasn’t just hopelessly addicted to pussy, it was pretty sordid.”
But while the latest Chinn and Chapman glam pop stompers were the listen of choice, the English Disco did have an impromptu house band of sorts, the very droogie-friendly Zolar X. LA’s first glam rock band took Bowie’s alien fetish to its logical conclusion, and remain one of glitter rock’s best kept secrets because they never managed to attract a record label. Indeed, their music didn’t see the light of day until 1982—and in the form of demos, no less.
And the release hardly made a splash; Barney Hoskyns, in whose 1998 book Glam! Bolan, Bowie and the Glitter Rock Revolution I first caught wind of Zolar X, wrote of them “Were they any good? We may never know, although Rodney Bingenheimer has some of their demo tapes.” 1982’s Timeless compilation on tres obscure Pyramid Records had obviously never crossed his radar.
Zolar X (as you can guess from their name) played the whole Ziggy Stardust spaceman angle to the hilt—they dressed in space gear, gave themselves space names (Ygarr Ygarrist, Eon Flash, Zany Zatovian, Zory Zenith), and even invented their own space language (perhaps taking a cue from Magma’s Christian Vander). Musically they played a sort of intergalactic glam proto-punk, although they also ventured into spacy progressive rock territory.
One of the chief difficulties in discussing their music lies in the fact that they recorded sporadically between 1974 and 1980, and it’s hard to know which of the twenty tracks on Timeless were recorded when. Or by which members of a changing lineup—by 1980 Zolar X was recording as a trio.
Hoskyns cites early recordings such as “Mirrors,” “Jet Star” (Timeless lists it as “Jet Star 19″), and “Test Tube Babies.” In 1974 the band recorded a two-song demo of “Space Age Love” and “Energize.” After that much is lost to the fog of history, although it’s known the band recorded songs between 1975 and 1977 with producer and audio engineer Jim Dickenson at Memphis’ Ardent Studios, and in 1980 at Army St. Studios in San Francisco. Which songs were recorded at each of these sessions? It’s hard to know, but what is known is that Zolar X was definitely hip to punk—in 1978, during one of Zolar X’s fallow periods, Ygarr formed a punk band, The Spys, and recorded a single under that name.
The Timeless comp includes 20 tracks (or more if you buy the 2004 Alternative Tentacles expanded reissue) and there are more than enough killer tracks to make it worth pooling the pennies you have left after scrimping for $200 “tariff eggs.” The best include the space-balls-to-the-wall “Rocket Roll,” the retro-booster fast punker “Jet Star 19,” the lovely and very, very glam “Energize,” and the very Ziggy Popper “I Pulled My Helmet Off (I’m Going to Love Her),” which boasts luscious vocals and some killer Mick Ronson-school guitar.
“Blues on Blue” is power pop for alien people, and melds killer guitar riffs to some nice piano. “Mirrors” is ruff ’n’ tuff heavy metal guitar chug-a-lug. “Space Age Love” opens with synthesized space noise; the vocals are punk raw, the guitars baroque, and the song opens with the great line, “Well, we don’t give a Zam what your TVs say” and includes scads of other keepers, including “You’ll love the zip zap zam of our Zolar guns/And the star stellar thrills of Space Age fun.” And how are you going to beat lines like:
“I mean why act prehistoric. Don’t be so square!
Through teleport you’ll be with us and still be there!
Humans are fun!”
Followed by maniacal laughter, no less?
The others may pack less punch, but they’re cheeky fun too. The title track opens with intergalactic synth swoop before going punk on your ass, while “Test Tube Baby” is all bash and crash, chunky power chords and vocals that will give you a good sense of why Jello Biafra dug ‘em enough to reissue an expanded Timeless on Alternative Tentacles. (He may have even studied them when learning how to sing!) “FE1142″ is as much kickass fun as Blue Öyster Cult’s “ME 262” (if not David Bowie’s “TVC15″) and on the riff’n’ready “GT3″ Zolar X keep the numbers and letters coming!
Most of the others are okay—none are embarrassments, but they won’t have you kicking out the jams on Venus either. Most fascinating are Zolar X’s two forays into long-stemmed progressive rock, “Parallel Galaxy” and “Plutonian Elf Story,” both of which give me the icky suspicion that Zolar X were… Rush fans! Ygarr Ygarrist even sounds a lot like Geddy Lee, although on “Parallel Galaxy” he’s joined by some mad scary “Bewlay Brothers” vocals. As for the sixteen-and-one-half-minute “Plutonian Elf Story,” it’s recommended only to people who wonder what Geddy, Alex, and Neil would sound like if they were less musically proficient and hailed from a galaxy far, far away. You get lots of time changes, lots of baroque guitar go-nowhere, and this is the kind of song that could lead aspiring prog-rockers to ruin. But it’s a kick nonetheless if you have a working sense of humor.
Like I said above, Zolar X never caught a break. Even now, after having reformed in 2005 and recorded some new music and gotten some much needed attention and respect, most people have never heard of them, and most people never will. Which doesn’t change the fact that they occupy a unique place in rock history and created some very good music that merits a listen.
If you’re a glitter kid for life, Timeless is a real wham bam thank you glam delivery from the old Wayback Machine. If you happen to hail from another planet, they’re the most authentic band to come along since the Sputniks. And they date the whole way back to Earth Year 1961!
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
