Now here's a band that I've hardly ever seen mentioned on this forum. They were shocking, unique and highly original and fronted by one of the best frontmen that rock has ever seen in Fee Waybill.
Like Alice Cooper before them, they hailed from Phoenix but early on moved to San Francisco, where they fit in perfectly with the flotsam and Jetsam lifestyle there
Here was a band that based their career around highly arranged elaborate theatrical stage shows, with frontman Fee Waybill usually going through a costume change for most songs. When it comes to shock-rock they got it down to a fine art and they're probably the best I've ever seen from a theatrical rock perspective. If I had a time machine, I'd nip into it to see this band live back in the 70s and 80s when they were in their element, the shows were an experience.
So how did their music match up to the stage shows? Well that was a major problem for the band, as their early sound on their first three studio albums mostly consisted of multi-layered 1970s rock, infused with pop and touches of disco, a sprinkling of ballards and Zappa style satirical humour. Whilst there is a lot of good stuff on these albums especially the debut, the type of music and the stage shows didn't go hand in hand and the group faced being dropped by the label. Then the group in 1977 managed to break in the UK on the strength of their fourth album the classic live set
What Do You Want From Live. Largely due to the fact that punk references were often in their songs, despite the fact that their music was so far removed from anything punk!!! But the punk interest got them finally noticed and in stepped a certain Todd Rundgren, who ushered the group into a tighter new-wave direction and the band struck gold with the classic
Remote Control album in 1979, despite it being a classic album A&M dropped them, but Capitol took up the slack and the group finally found the commercial success that they richly deserved and released
The Completion Backward Principal their finest moment and easily in my all-time favourite albums list. It was around this time as a kid, that I first discovered this band on a now defunct UK music show called "The Tube" when on there they simply stoloe the show. After this they released one more classic album
Outside Inside.
The Line-Up
Fee Waybill -Vocals
Roger Steen -Guitar
Bill Spooner -Guitar
Rick Anderson -Bass
Vince Welnick -Keyboards
Michael Cotten -Synthesizers
Praire Prince -Drums
and Re Styles sometimes on guest vocals.