Rainbow Children - Rock 'n' Roll (Who Needs Rock 'n' Roll)/ (We Love Rock n'n Roll)

Label: Antic
Year of Release: 1974

Hello everyone. Sorry for the relative lack of updates on "Left and to the Back" over the last couple of weeks, but unfortunately I've been struck down with an eye infection which makes sitting down and researching and writing blog entries on top of my nine-to-five job very difficult. There's only so much staring at screens my vision can cope with at the moment, unfortunately. (It's nothing serious, by the way, but it is a pain in the arse - or a pain in the eyes at the very least).

Anyway, here's a glam rock oddity which slipped out in 1974 to some airplay but no chart action. Issued on Antic, the short-lived pop subsidiary of Atlantic Records, the A-side is a kiddy-fronted attempt at glam which seems to be using Wizzard's "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" as its blueprint. Unlike that record, however, it lacks the warmth of a Spector soundscape and instead sounds quite raw and beaty - not the kind of noise children's vocals work very well in tandem with, unless they're used in a really sneering, sarcastic way. Here, they're just a little bit too cute for their own good.

As a result, the flip (essentially Part Two of the track) is much better, and is even graffitied as being such by the previous owner. It's an instrumental glam guitar freak-out, and is something to slip on between your Lieutenant Pigeon records if you're DJ'ing at the local glam bop.

It looks as if the two men behind this record were Christian Paul and Marc Hammond, who don't seem to have any credits for anything else that was ever commercially released. This record was also issued in some European markets under the name Rock n Roll Children, but I'm not sure if it met with any more success there.