Beautiful Delilah / Teenage Letter
A little before the Sex Pistols were ‘created’, the Count Bishops were the dirty rock ‘n’ rollers that mattered on the London gig circuit. Dr Feelgood were mainstream by this time, Kilburn and The High Roads had split up. Owners of the Rock On record shop (and a couple of market stalls) Ted Carroll and Roger Armstrong set up Chiswick records and put some fine material out into the public arena. This EP by Count Bishops was the first release, and set the ball rolling for further records by Motorhead, 101’ers, and Screwdriver. It also sent bags of inspiration for new independant record labels like Stiff, and even further down the lineage Rough Trade to set up and release product that they cared about. For a while I think, or I seem to remember someone telling me, that Bernie Rhodes was interested in making the Count Bishops into the first ‘punk’ band, before McClaren and the Pistols. The band stayed with Carrol and Armstrong so Rhodes eventually had to make do with a band called The Clash, who probably went nowhere!
Steve
February 22, 2008 at 1:01 amMcLaren wasn’t interested in the Count Bishops per se – what he *was* interested in was potentially having Mike Spenser fronting the fledgling Pistols (!)
Wildebeest
February 22, 2008 at 5:43 amanother person Maclaren was interested in for the Pistols spot was Midge Ure who was then fronting Bay City Roller wannabes Slik. Glen Matlock stayed in touch with Midge and ended up forming ‘the Rich Kids’ with him. Midge then went on to Thin Lizzy and then Visage and finally replacing John Foxx in Ultravox. Yep you read that right he was in Thin Lizzy!
Chris
February 22, 2008 at 1:35 pmhaha! Slik! “the mate’s sister’s favourite band of the 70s” đŸ™‚ They did a great song called , i think ‘forever and ever’ tho, whioch was the only decent song the shitey Rich Kids ever used to play.