Yoo hoo! It's Jeffrey Morgan's Media Blackout #190!
SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK: Jobriath — Creatures of the Street (Collectors' Choice) :: "Jobriath believes he's a rock star, but that's an allegation adequately milked and turned over to the listening public for final jurisdiction." And with that final withering pronouncement in November 1974, CREEM Magazine firmly hammered the last nail into the coffin lid of the glam rock era, permanently sealing it shut and relegating the genre to the musty catacombs of history.
However, a funny thing happened on the way to obscurity: like all musical fads, glam rock was eventually revived. Movies like Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Velvet Goldmine played fast and loose with the genre, while bands like Suede archly milked every fey mannerism for all it was worth. More recently, it's the Everyothers who are the linear inheritors of glam rock at the apex of its most musically intelligent Ronsonesque phase.
But of all the comeback stories to emerge over the ensuing years, none is more intriguing and unlikely than the strange case of Jobriath, whose musical legacy, against all odds, has slowly been undergoing a serious critical reassessment of late.
In staking a claim that he's one of rock 'n' roll's foremost glam practitioners and a true groundbreaking pioneer of the deca-sexual elite, Jobraith's belated case for posterity has been made by such high profile, like-minded aficionados as Elton John and Morrissey. And when it comes to making his case, Jobriath sorely needs all the help he can get because he's been dead since 1983.
Now Collectors' Choice has added more mascara to the fire by reissuing Jomo's only two albums, both of which originally "came out" on Elektra. And although his penultimate recording Jobriath remains way too gay for even today, his final fling Creatures of the Street dresses like a queen and kicks like a mule thanks to some assistance from Preening Lord Helpus and his heavy friends: Humble Pie's Peter Frampton, Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones and Zeppelin-Hendrix-Kiss knob-twiddler extraordinaire Eddie Kramer. But not from Clarissa Cuntmuch.
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