My apologies for the long length. I originally wanted to post only part this piece and then update it on my personal blog Ditchwater as a serialized article. As it happened, it rained all day and I couldn’t stop researching and writing. So here it is in its entirety.

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Kippington Lodge was a mid 60s mod pop group not unlike many of that era. The Tunbridge Wells group were moderately successful – they put out a few singles on Parlaphone and even headlined a residency at The Marquee. But like practically all mod bands in 1969, the pull of the US West Coast sound was too strong to ignore. Lodgers Brinsley Scwarz and Nick Lowe left the band and formed a new band called, well, Brinsley Schwarz.

Brinsley Schwarz was described by Stephen Thomas Earliwine as “a folk rock band with psych pretensions.” Thinking big, their manager Dave Robinson of Famepushers agency somehow managed to hire a reluctant Mickie Most – a real hit maker at the time – to produce their first record. But after Most advised Brinsley Schwarz to cut out their fifteen minute guitar solo, they decided they didn’t need Most after all. Prog was the future, and they set about growing their beards and plotting their destiny.

Brinsleys signed on with United Records and managed to get an opening slot for Van Morrison at the Fillmore East in New York. Wanting to make a big splash, they came up with a plan. They would use their big label advance to get to New York a few days early, rehearse relentlessly, and conquer the audience. The band would also pay the way for a cadre of London illuminati rock reporters to attend the show.

As luck would have it, the band’s Visas were delayed and they arrived with only hours to spare before the show. Worse, the airplane carrying the rock critics developed mechanical problems. It was eventually fixed albeit many, many hours later. During their wait, the critics drank their boredom away and eventually the crabby cadre arrived in NY, drunk or hungover and ready to grumble.

The Brinsley Schwarz played an admittedly uninspired set, the critics went home and panned the band. Understandably the band went into exile in the outskirts of London. Their second record was to be aptly named “Despite It All” which came out in 1970.

Here is Brinsley Schwarz performing “Surrender To The Rhythm”

But if the Brinsley thought they had it bad, in retrospect they were lucky to have made it back home. A band that was unwittingly about to revolutionize English rock and ease the delivery of English punk was stranded and in the Brinsley’s midst.

American roots rock band Eggs Over Easy were hopeful. American backers Cannon Films promised to finance EOE to fly to London, cut a record with Slade producer Chas Chandler, which would fling them into fame. They did in fact make it to London but unfortunately for them, Cannon Films’ money never came through and their string of hit records, fame, and fortune was but a dream gone bust. It was May of 1971.

Eggs Over Easy members (who’s names I cannot find unfortunately) had a real problem. They were out of money and unable to return home. So it was back to basics for the group and they hussled their brand of laid back rock on the London live circuit. They convinced the owners of the pub Tally Ho in northwest London to let them play every Monday, which had been traditionally jazz night, and had traditionally been a very, very slow night.

Here was a solid American roots rock band, who were playing regular gigs to an audience of solid-American-roots-rock-wanna-bes. Soon, they had a dedicated following which included members of Brinsley Schwarz, Writing On The Wall, Bees Make Honey, and Zoot Money. Rock and roll was making a come back.

But Eggs Over Easy would again be forced to make due that same November when they lost their Visas and had to find a way back home. Though they never recorded the record they set out to make, in those few months they’d galvanized a small audience interested in countrified rock music – music that was free of what David Wells called “a musical world that seemed polarized between the earnest introversion and solipsism of the Singer/Songwriter crowd and the excess-all areas, tuneless, overblown Prog Rock meanderings…”

Logically, Brinsley’s manager Dave Robinson set about to convince area pub owners to allow bands to play on their slow nights. And thus the Pub Rock circuit was solidified: the circuit was made of many pubs and clubs during its run through the mid-seventies and would notably include The Kensington, the aforementioned Tally Ho, Dingwalls, and The Hope And Anchor, to name but a few.

Another oft cited Pub Rock band is Ducks Deluxe. Formed in early 1972, Ducks Deluxe had member connections to Man, Help Yourself, Brinsley Schwarz and even American band Flamin’ Groovies. The Ducks would attain legendary status in France(!) and their members would spawn other Pub Rock children like The Motors, Tyla Gang, and even Graham Parker’s Rumour.

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Other than being a roots rock band, a Enlish band might be lumped into the pub rock genre was if they were signed to London’s Chisswick Records (one of the first indie labels upon whose doorstop punk would soon fall) who released The Count Bishops, The Gorillas, Skrewdriver, or to Dutch label Dynamo who would release Tyla Gang and The Count Bishops.

But roots rock would not be the only sound of Pub Rock. Stalwart mod and northwest Londoner Jesse Hector calls 1969 “a horribly boring year – it was all long hair and beards.” He wasn’t having any of it and most certainly not its “look”. But what would set him and his band The Hammersmith Gorillas apart from his unkempt contemporaries? One day he came up with it: “I cut [my hair] in the shape of a crop on the top with sideburns out here. I had a skinhead at the back, mod on the top, rockabilly sideburns and a parting in the middle. No one would go near it. I looked the greatest thing in the world[sic]. I couldn’t go out. People went fuckin’ mad…” Is it any wonder that Hector would proclaim The Gorillas version of “You Really Got Me” to be “the first punk record.”

Roots rock or not, Northwest London wasn’t the only home for Pub Rock.

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Just south of London lay the grittier isolated areas of Southend-on-Sea and Canvey Island at the mouth of the Thames – an area that would later be called “The Thames Delta” because of its love for blues music. Lucky for us, Will Birch, drummer for the Kursaal Flyers was a dedicated blues fan AND he was a writer to whom we can credit much of the documentation of this era.

The Southend and Canvey Island’s love of blues was evident in the popularity of local boys The Paramounts (which included Robin Trower). In 1964, little boys who loved The Paramounts would go on to form Pub Rock notables such as the Kursaal Flyers, Mickey Jupp’s outifts, and later, punk progenitors Eddie and the Hot Rods. In 1966 one of Birch’s budding blues bands called the Flowerpots would at one point have a young talented guitarist named John Wilkinson. Wilkinson wouldn’t stay long as he’d soon leave for college, then India in 1967.

The Southend and Canvey Island in 1968 and 1969 had the same musical identity-crisis that gripped many bands of the time. Birch and friends would form a progresive group called Surly Bird (who would open for Yes at one point!). When John Wilkinson returned from India, he was asked to fill in on guitar. He had a style that Birch describes as “a combined rhythm and lead style; he sounded like two guitarists.” Wilkinson didn’t stick around long as he wanted to form his own r & b band with fellow Canvey Islanders. And he did just that. It was 1973.

Wilkinson’s new band Dr. Feelgood would tantalize audiences with their ultra high energy shows and their interpretation of r & b songs on Canvey Island. Who needed London anyways? But it was close – a mere thirty miles on the A13 – and London’s pull was too strong to resist. Birch managed to get the group their London debut in the summer of 1973. Recognizing that this was their big chance, the band came up with a new look for themselves: smart looking, slim lapel suits, skinny ties, and they even came up with something respectable rock bands didn’t have at the time: very short hair. And John Wilkinson would now henceforth be called Wilko Johnson.

In October of 1973 Dr. Feelgood would perform for BBC and wanting to debut with an original, Wilko Johnson quickly composed “She Does It Right.” See below and believe:

Pub Rock is full throttle now, the circuit was in full bloom and teenagers were looking for acts full of frenetic energy. Describing the rock and roll and blues being performed during that time, Wilko Johnson said that it’s “lack of elaboration made it more direct…more exciting.” Pub Rock is sometimes considered a cliche genre but Johnson says Pub Rock didn’t describe a kind of music, it described a kind of venue. “The blind leading the blind drunk” as Birch would later say.

And so “amphetamine sulfate music” was back for the first time in ages. The kids were on speed and ready to rock and roll which is possibly why Canvey Island’s Eddie and the Hot Rods immediate popularity in London is so easy to believe when they arrived in 1975. Look them up and you’ll find the Hot Rods referenced as both a Pub Rock band and a punk band. The segue from Pub Rock to punk rock would be absolutely seamless. Looking back, the natural progression of Joe Strummer’s Pub Rock band The 101ers to punk rock icons The Clash is so “Of course!” it’s almost laughable. The Radiator’s Phillip Chevron would leave his Pub Rock band to form The Pogues.

1975 would also be the year that Brinsley Schwarz would disband, its members remaining relevant to the scene. Brinsley’s manager Dave Robinson and Dr. Feelgood’s tour manager (who now owned The Hope and Anchor Club) Jake Riviera would go on to form Stiff Records with a loan from Lee Brilleaux. Stiff became home to former Pub Rock band Kilburn and the High Roads who now went by the name Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Brinsley singer Nick Lowe will go on to record ‘Jesus of Cool’ and lead a successful life as a performer and producer.

It’s now 1976 and up-and-comers The Sex Pistols are the opening act for Eddie and The Hot Rods. Recognizing the momentous occasion, the bands clashed and a near riot ensued. It played out in the media as the Sex Pistols emerging victorious over the incumbent Eddie and The Hot Rods who up until that point “had been widely regarded as leaders of a new youth uprising called punk” says Birch.

By 1977 ‘the new youth uprising’ is thoroughly exploiting the in-roads laid by Pub Rock. Wilko Johnson has left Dr. Feelgood. Punk and New Wave are all the rage and the phenomenon known as Pub Rock has come to a close.

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And here we find ourselves, gentle reader. It’s a sultry July evening in 2008. Perhaps if you are reading this from Houston, Texas you are finding that none of this has anything to do with the here and the now. But I want to point a few things of note:

Beards are commonplace on stage and off. Local act The Born Liars – who do a righteous cover of “She Does It Right” on their first record – inspire speed-like induced frenzies during their live shows and are piquing the interest of the press. In fact, they are up for Best Roots Rock band in this year’s Houston Press popularity contest thing. Southeast Houston has supplied a steady stream of bands of all sorts of rock and roll genres in recent years. And talk about gritty – Pasadena musicians take great pride in saying they come from “Stinkadena”. Not only do local music fans love to drink beer in pubs/bars while listening to live music, Houston has a devil-may-care attitude about its profile alongside other big American cities. And “who needs Austin?” has never rung truer, given that that once great musical city has fallen into the cliche “Live Music Capital of the World”, not the actual one. Could Memphis “Homeplace of the Blues” ™ be far behind?

Maybe all we need to recognize an imminent phenomenon in our own back yard is a competent British roots rock band to be stranded in East Houston for a few months and take up residency at Rudyard’s British pub on Monday nights. Maybe there’s a bored Mexican American teen living in the sleepy suburbs along 288 South who is about to discover rhythm and blues and subsequently decides to pick up a guitar.

Stranger things have happened.

-Rosa Guerrero

Some sources used in this post:
Excerpt of No Sleep Til Canvey Island” By Will Birch
Allmusic Guide by Stephen Thomas Earliwine
Nick Lowe’s Myspace
Light Up the Dynamite: The Story of Dynamo Records by Gerard Davelaar
Mecca! by Will Birch
Punk77.com’s Interview with Roger Armstrong and Ted Carroll of Chiswick Records
A Message to the World, An Interview with ’60s top mod Jessee Hector by Mojo Mills
Liner notes from “Goodbye Nashville Hello Camden Town A Pub Rock Anthology” on Sanctuary Records

Special thanks to S. Simels, C. Gray and J. Sanchez for pointing me in the right direction and to Englishman J. Powling for giving me the lay of the land, over beer, in a pub. Cheers!