Don’t ask me why, but the wife and I were just having a conversation about the lame mid-1970s group Angel. Remember them?

Angel was a heavy metal progressive glam rock band from Washington, D.C., who were discovered by Gene Simmons. The group was formed in the mid-70s by pouty pretty-boy guitarist Punky Meadows and bassist Mickie Jones and their gimmick, basically, was that they dressed in all white and were extremely androgynous. Simmons got them signed to Casablanca Records and generally speaking, they were considered the “opposite” of Kiss.

Or something. I never followed them, and paid them no mind, but I did find them vaguely amusing. At times Angel sounded like a 1970s version of what would later become the 1980s hair metal sound, at other times like The Sweet would if their songs sucked, and sometimes they even sounded like Supertramp. There is no doubt that Angel influenced This Is Spinal Tap. None at all.

Punky Meadows was disrespectfully immortalized in Frank Zappa’s “Punky’s Whips” but was a good sport about it and even joined Zappa onstage in his white Angel stage garb.

Below, “The Tower,” a song well-known on 70s FM radio:
 

 
1978 TV commercial for Angel: