Hogback 'n' Pig - What Can I Say/ If You Can't Be Good - Be Bad

Driving piece of proto-glam rock from this porcine outfit

Label: CBS

Year of Release: 1971

You may remember me talking about reader Daniel Williams sending me some mp3s for an obscure outfit called The Secrets last month. In the process, he also sent me two singles by this bizarrely named group, who sound more like the trading name of a stall you'd find at a farmer's market than a rock band.

A group they were, mind you, with the members Stuart Edwards and Dave Taylor who were also in the hired band who went under the name Edison Lighthouse. While "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" was all airy, breezy pop, Hogback 'n' Pig sees them completely letting their hair down. A simple glam backbeat acts as the foundations while subtle electronic squelches and wailing guitar licks sit beneath their growling trucker vocals. If this doesn't fill you with the desire to don denim and spray yourself in Blue Stratos, I don't know what will, and it's somewhat surprising it hasn't found a place on any glam rock compilations yet. It's a mean little number. 

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Label: CBS

Year of Release: 1972

Their only other single, "If You Can't Be Good - Be Bad", on the other hand, is a much more laidback affair with vague similarities to those early seventies heroes Mungo Jerry. Much poppier and without the thwack, throttle and growl of their debut, it's less interesting but still a likeable enough bit of pop which might sound better at the height of summer rather than the dead of winter. 

The flip "Good Old Rock 'n' Roll" is a complete and total fifties throwback as you might expect, though it sounds as if the group might have their tongues firmly in cheek.

After both singles flopped, Dave Taylor went on to the Vertigo signed band Catapilla, before joining rockers Liar in the late seventies, who had two LPs out before the decade was up. He also appeared to collaborate with his Hogback partner Stuart Edwards as a songwriter on some other records, none of which, unfortunately, were big hits. 

Thanks again to Daniel for these contributions.