I watched Oil City Confidential: The Dr Feelgood Story on telly the other night and have to say it's the best rock documentary I've ever seen. Dr Feelgood are ace. It even beats an old film about the Kursaal Flyers I saw years ago. Wilko Johnson's ace. Lee Brilleaux's ace. The Big Figure's ace. John B Sparkes is ace. In fact, Wilko Johnson could quite possibly have become my favourite person in the world. Ever. And I love the grubbiness of the other three; they look like the sort of blokes you'd find having it off (and in their case that's the right terminology) with the local bike over the bins behind a pub at chucking out time.
Anyway, if you didn't see it, then watch it here. Or lose out. The choice is yours. Who'd have thought there was romance in a rundown seaside town with a not-very-picturesque oil refinery? I'm just sorry I was born early enough to have seen them in there pomp. I'm sure Johnson would have hypnotised me for the duration of their set. And seeing them with The Blockheads in support would have been one hell of a night out.
Their best, I think:
Anyway, if you didn't see it, then watch it here. Or lose out. The choice is yours. Who'd have thought there was romance in a rundown seaside town with a not-very-picturesque oil refinery? I'm just sorry I was born early enough to have seen them in there pomp. I'm sure Johnson would have hypnotised me for the duration of their set. And seeing them with The Blockheads in support would have been one hell of a night out.
Their best, I think:
4 comments:
I saw them a bit too late, when I was a student, and though they'd lost some of their early searing power, they still mesmerised. And they were accompanied by a flotilla of big-bosomed, 'mature' (though still a damn sight younger than I am now) ladies in lurex halter-necks, who sat on the edge of the stage glaring out at the audience, and seeing off any possible competition there might have been for their Old Men. They were fierce women. FIERCE.
I've not seen it yet but I am a Feelgood fan, so I can't wait. I work with someone who played in the band. He said he's not sure why they called themselves Feelgood because being with them was the polar opposite.
I remember them always being around when I first started going to gigs in the late 80s, by which time I think Brilleaux was the only original member left. I would have thought of them as the one-hit-wonders behind Milk and Alcohol and probably dismissed them in the same way I dismissed Dumpy's Rusty Nuts. More fool me.
I see a lot of them in another of my favourites: Bon Scott-era AC/DC - mesmerising guitarist, the rest of them you'd avoid in a backstreet boozer and straight rock 'n' roll songs that only concern themselves with a) a woman who our hero's crazy about b) a woman who done our hero wrong c) the restorative power of music.
F-C - Having met him a couple of times when I went to see them in the late 1980s, I can well believe that Brilleaux was intense to work with. One of the best live bands I've ever seen, and, like ISBW, that was one of the Brilleaux + 3 later line-ups. Christ knows what they must have been like with Wilko, whom I saw separately around the same time, with Norman Watt-Roy on bass. Wilko was great in that documentary. He's one of those strange, wonderful old rockers who manage to be arty, other-worldly and hard as nails all at the same time. His constant punning ("I babble on about Babylon quite a lot") was very endearing.
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