Kiss This, Misfit
Glam rock has been gone a long time. When David Bowie died in 2016, not only was a legend taken from us too soon, but suddenly nothing was shocking. That year took all our favorite celebrities, and with them our ability to believe in the absurd. Glam rock has always partied in the paradox, old music revamped with shocking new styles, but it’s been that way for over forty years now. Nothing is shocking anymore. Bowie could walk down 5th Avenue in his full Thin White Duke persona and he wouldn’t get a second glance if he wasn’t already famous (and dead). And if glam rock lost the original shock factor, what does that leave? The music, the style for the sake of style, the showmanship, and most importantly, the glam.
If you’re bored in quarantine, ready to snarl at the world, and look fabulous doing it, then I highly recommend the following two bands.
The first time I heard “Gene Kelly” by Felix Hagan and the Family, I was walking in the early evening to a pub to meet up with some friends. I had just gotten off the bus in a part of London I’d never been to, but I heard the opening chords, and then the first verse, and I broke into a run, frantic to tell somebody about the musical gold I had just struck. It was loud and unapologetic, desperate and glamorous—everything my spinning teenage mind could have dreamed of—and I needed everyone to know about it.
This seven-piece outfit from London, England, seems to have that effect on everyone. One would think that they would do a good enough job selling themselves, Felix himself as the frontman oozing so much charisma, sweat, and glitter that you’re still picking it out of your teeth two weeks after the gig, but they credit their loyal fans with much of their success. In 2017, their first full-length album, Attention Seeker, hit number six on the iTunes Rock Chart, and there are saucy rumors from the band’s recently reactivated Instagram page that a new EP could be in store this summer. Before Attention Seeker, the band toured as a supporting act for Frank Turner with their 2013 EP, String Up The Entertainer, followed by 2015’s Kiss The Misfits, both of which feature some spectacularly loud and extremely fabulous anthems such as “Go Back Home” and “Eddie Baby.”
Their music is so spectacularly loud and extremely fabulous, in fact, that I don’t know why performing arts students everywhere don’t have them on repeat because they have a theatrical streak as wide as their hair is tall. A bit of punk, a bit of musical theater, a bit of Zeppelin-like enthusiasm for the old and the mystical, and a lead singer who looks fantastic in a feather boa and lots of eyeliner, Felix Hagan and the Family not only redefine the genre of glitter rock, they’re almost single-handedly saving the glitter industry.
If you are unfortunate enough to have been in the room when I’m talking about The Struts, you can skip this portion of the article. I’m not telling you something you haven’t already been forced to admit: The Struts f***ing rock. Defying all the laws of the genre by forming in 2010 instead of 1979, the quartet waxes rhapsodic on beautiful women, endless nights, gin and tonic, and weekend fights. They’re crude, snarky, and all up in your space, and if you don’t like that well then “Kiss This” (their first EP).
The band in question is a four-piece rock outfit from the United Kingdom, and if you long for the old days of massive rock tours and famous roadies without the questionable ethics of the 1970s, you have come to the right place. Lead singer Luke Spiller can’t walk down the street without being hailed as a young Freddie Mercury: his flair impeccable and his range absurd.
Backing Spiller is guitarist Adam Slack, bassist Jed Elliott, and barefoot Welsh drummer Gethin Davies, and they’re all phenomenal musicians in their own right. Combined, however, the four of them put on a show reminiscent of the early days of the true rock giants. Packed into tiny clubs as recently as 2018, The Struts cover their all-ages (and I mean all ages, from eight to eighty) audiences in a thin sheen of sweat after just one song, and it only goes astronomical from there. They have smash hits in the form of ballads (“People”) and anthems (“In Love With A Camera”), Spiller singing like he’s having the time of his life every single night, and Slack playing like he’s taking everyone’s joy very personally. Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters and Nirvana fame called them “the best opening band the Foo Fighters have ever had,” and Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott credits them with the return of rock and roll. The references hold up: The Struts put on the kind of show that makes you wonder why anyone would want to spend their time anywhere else.
Most recently, The Struts closed out their second headlining tour with their sophomore album, Young and Dangerous, and put out a stripped-down video of their single “Somebody New.” You can practically hear their tires spinning to get back out on the road. No one knows quite when that will be, but I sure as hell know I want to be there when the starting gun fires.