Velvet Tinmine: 20 Junk Shop Glam Ravers

UK glam rock in its early to mid 1970s heyday was so hugely popular and influential when it came to its flagship artists and acts, becoming a beloved touchstone for decades at home and beyond, that it took 2003’s Velvet Tinmine, rereleased with a slightly different tracklist in 2009, to demonstrate, Nuggets-style, that there were also a fair amount of interesting never-quite-wases as well. Compiled and annotated by a troika of musician/writer obsessives, Philip King, Bob Stanley and Mark Stafford, Velvet Tinmine brought the concept of ‘junkshop glam’ into the discourse, the album’s title a funnily appropriate riff on both the David Bowie song “Velvet Goldmine” and the Todd Haynes glam fantasia that followed some decades later. In either edition it kicks off with a real monster: the aggro-Sweet, finger-snapping and heavy-stomping “Rebels Rule” by the brilliantly named Iron Virgin. After that it’s a happy slumgullion of plenty of familiar elements that all do seem like they should have been hits, however secondhand: shriekalong lyrics, blaring synths alongside the drums and retro-50s moves, and big-sounding production even if on often smaller budgets. The excellent liner notes talk about a slew of names that would gain more attention later, like producer Martin Rushent and cult musicians like Martin Newell and Simon Fisher Turner, as well as honestly tragically-fated figures like the Bowie disciple Brett Smiley.