Marc Bolan’s career was in decline by the time he appeared on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. His singles were failing to chart back in Britain, the original T.Rex line-up had split after the departure of Bill Legend, and Bolan was no longer working with his key producer Tony Visconti. There were also rumors of Bolan living an out-of-control, tax exile, lifestyle of cocaine and brandy, and his once svelte, androgynous frame, had ballooned into a debauched cherub.

The fans had changed too. A new generation had sworn allegiance to the tartan-trewed Bay City Rollers, rather than fantasies of Glam. This then was the background against which Bolan was first introduced to the American public on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, in 1974.

In a new line-up that included Bolan’s girlfriend Gloria Jones on keyboards and backing vocals, T.Rex kicked ass (even Bolan’s voice was occasionally flat) as they played “Jeepster”, “Zip Gun Boogie”, “Token of My Love” and “Get It On (Bang A Gong)” to an audience that seemed both literally stunned and amazed.
 

 
Nope, this isn’t an undiscovered song by the 20th Century Boy recently unearthed here in the 21st: “Childlike Men” is the first track from Tony Visconti and son Morgan Visconti’s “T.Rex Regeneration” project.

They’ve taken the multi-tracks from some vintage T.Rex recording sessions from 1970-72—which, of course, Visconti Sr. produced—to create an entirely “new” song. (Well entirely like a new—and highly enjoyable, don’t get me wrong—fusion of demos for “Jeepster,” “Diamond Meadows” and “Ride a White Swan” with a spoken word poem section, strings and an unrelated guitar solo or two, I guess is more like it).

A few years ago Visconti mixed a barnstorming version of Electric Warrior in 5.1 surround, and took great care that it still sounded sonically like what it is, an album from the early 1970s. I didn’t expect this to be as good as it is, but I really, really love it.

Marc Bolan’s would have turned 65 on the September 30, 2012.
 

 
Well-spotted, Niall Connolly!

Bolan with girlfriend Gloria Jones (who wrote sang “Tainted Love” in 1965), and son Rolan. Yup… Rolan Bolan. I suppose Rolan had play-dates with Zowie Bowie?
 
Though clips of Marc Bolan’s 1977 after school Granada TV series, Marc, have been floating around YouTube for a while, this is the first time I’ve seen all the episodes up in their entirety. It’s quite the visual parade. It’s got some really cool moments, though at times Bolan looks positively bleary, lip-synching to T. Rex tunes with what appear to be “The Marc Bolan Dancers” (one of the weirdest/awesomest parts of the show).

Many of the artists are were up-and-comers who came and went, but you can also catch some great performances by bands like Thin Lizzy, Hawkwind, The Jam and Generation X. David Bowie even makes an appearance on the final episode where Bolan trips over a microphone wire and falls off the stage. Not having time for a reshoot, they kept it that way as the paired giggled and Bowie allegedly asked “Could we have a wooden box for Marc [to stand on]?”

Nothing like basing a live television show around a guy with a serious drug and alcohol problem. Still though, it’s hard to imagine some honey-cooing glam rocker getting his own live musical variety show in this day and age, and the concept is golden. “If only…” you know what I mean?
 

 
Marc Bolan died 35 years ago today. He made an indelible mark on my life by reviving my passion for pop music when rock ‘n’ roll was starting to slide into irrelevance for me. With some of my heroes out of the picture, Morrison, Hendrix, Jones and Joplin,  Bolan’s arrival on the scene, along with Roxy Music and Bob Marley, woke my ass up to the fact that rock ‘n’ roll will always evolve in ways that beguile and excite me…and it usually happens right around the time I’m about to give up on the music. Marc Bolan and the rest softened me up for knockdown punch of punk rock.

Rescued from rusting film tins found in Ringo Starr’s garage, here’s T. Rex firing on all cylinders. The concert was filmed by Ringo in March of 1972 at Empire Pool in Wembley London and released as part of the film Born To Boogie, lovingly restored for DVD in 2005 and praised by R. Metzger for its overall “Wow factor.”

Marc Bolan and his bandmates, Mickey Finn, Bill Legend and Steve Currie, played two sets on March 18. Here’s the entire second set.
 

 
Bang a gong, get your T-Rextasy on with this little-known promo clip for 1974’s “Light of Love” single.

Light of Love was Marc Bolan’s sole US-only album and came out on Casablanca Records. It was a flop and ended his attempts to crack the American market. It was also his first album without Tony Visconti and it shows. The soul-influenced Light of Love used to be for sale in cut-out bins across America for 50 cents back in the day and you can still find used copies sealed at flea markets. The songs from Light of Love appeared as Bolan’s Zip Gun in the UK in 1975, his least successful release there.
 

 
How young and beautiful, Marc Bolan looks in this TV interview from 1970. Filmed during the writing of songs for the first album as the abbreviated T.Rex - after 4 as Tyrannosaurus Rex - Marc can be seen working on “Children of Rarn” and “Suneye”, as he discusses the process of writing. Like many artists (David Lynch comes to mind), Bolan claimed he just pulled the songs out, as if they were already there, fully formed. He also said he was used by “melody” as if it were a being. O, to be touched by the Muse.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Marc Bolan on Belgium TV, 1973

 
A short bit of documentary footage of T. Rex arriving in Brussels, some music, and a charmingly cocky Marc Bolan interviewed on Belgium’s Pop Shop TV program in 1973.

Thanks to Spike Priggen and the folks at Bedazzled.
 

 
A brief history of recent pop culture, as told through various photographs of Alice Cooper and Friends.
 

Marxism: Alice and Groucho.
 

The Super Group: Alice, Keith Moon, Harry Nilsson, Marc Bolan, 1973.
 

Surrealism: Alice and Salvador Dali.
 

Popism: Alice, Ray Manzarek, and Iggy.
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds
When Alice Cooper met Colonel Sanders
 
Culled from various but special thanks to This Is Not Porn
 
More photo-history with Alice plus bonus clip, after the jump…
 

 
Just watch and listen to this: An amazing live performance of “Elemental Child” by Marc Bolan and T.Rex, from 1971.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Born to Boogie: Marc Bolan, Elton John and Ringo Starr, what’s not to like?

Early Marc Bolan: Tyrannosaurus Rex perform ‘Seal of the Seasons’

 
With thanks to I Will Not Return Your Records
 

 
Not T-Rex, but the earlier incarnation of the band, when they were still called Tyrannosaurus Rex. Marc Bolan is seen here with percussionist Steve “Peregrin” Took, performing “The Seal of the Seasons” from their 1969 Unicorn album.

After an American tour where the decidedly much more “party hardy” Took, well, partied heartily, Bolan sacked Took, replaced him with Mickey Finn and promptly became an internationally recognized superstar. Took immediately went off to work with more underground and anarchic types like Twink (from The Pretty Things) and Mick Farren (who’d been ousted from his band, The Deviants), forming a proto-version of what became The Pink Fairies.
 

 
Tea With Duggie Fields is a beautiful and fascinating short film by Federico Fianchini, in which the Genius of Earls Court talks about his life, his art and his influences.

Fields has painted from the age of 11, when his earliest work, an abstract painting, was entered into a local exhibition amid incredulity that a child could paint so brilliantly. With an interest in structure and design, Fields briefly studied architecture, before he attended the Chelsea School of Art, between 1964 and 1968.

In the late sixties, as he established himself as an artist of note, Fields shared a flat with Pink Floyd’s crazy diamond, Syd Barrett. During the 1970s, he developed his brilliant day-glo style that inspired Marc Bolan, Stanley Kubrick, Derek Jarman and David Bowie, who was snapped with William Burroughs wearing Fields’ portrait of Malcolm McDowall.

Fields’ paintings have been variously described as Pop Art, Post Modernist and Minimalist, but in essence, Fields is very much his own art movement, one he termed MAXIMALism - “Minimalism with a plus plus plus.”

Iconic, unique and startlingly original, his work ranges from portraits of Michael Jackson, The Rolling Stones, Marilyn Monroe, Zandra Rhodes, the artist Andrew Logan, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, to potent images of sexual intercourse, landscapes and his own distinct interpretations of his favored artistic influences (Jackson Pollock, Piet Mondrian).

Today, the Genius of Earl’s Court continues with his brilliance as painter, digital artist, musician, writer and photographer.
 

 
Bonus clips including Duggie Fields on Syd Barrett plus ‘I Wonder Why’ after the jump…
 

 
Today is Marc Bolan’s birthday. The father of glam rock would have been 63 today if he was still among us.

Below, the complete footage of Bolan’s interview on the Russell Harty Plus television program. Might be the best interview I’ve ever seen with him. At the end he says “I don’t think I will live that long.”
 

 
Before Marc Bolan blew minds as T. Rex, even before he gently blew beards as Tyrannosaurus Rex, he was demolishing stages with John’s Children, a pop-art mod band hell bent on one upping The Who in the auto-destructive art department. 

Featuring Andy Ellison on vocals, Geoff McLelland on guitar, John Hewlett on bass, and wild man Chris Townson on drums, Bolan joined the band briefly in 1967 and wrote one of their most beloved songs, the very twisted and far out Desdemona, which can be heard in the above video that features photos of Bolan with the band.  Although he doesn’t sing lead, his patented guitar playing is front and center and his one of a kind vibrato voice provides backup. The suggestive lyric ‘Lift up your skirt and fly’ was enough for the BBC to ban the song, and after a brief four month stint, Bolan moved on to develop himself as a solo artist.

Sans Bolan, John’s Children would continue to plug away, wrecking stages in their midst and creating a reputation based on their antics rather than their musicianship. They even released an album that would find American distribution on White Whale Records called Orgasm, which was ruined by a record exec’s brilliant idea of inserting crowd noise between songs to make it seem “live.” 

Below is a little-known promotional video the band made for the album, which is apparently part of a film called Smashed Blocked that never saw the light of day. Band member Andy Ellison, whose Corn Flake Zoo must be heard to be believed, even commented on an older post of the video that “Smashed was a mod term for drunk, and blocked was a mod term for being pilled up (high on amphetamines).”  This newer version of the video has significantly better sound that others.  Dig it!