This is the first installment in what I intend to be an ongoing, irregular look at bands and artists who, for one reason or another, never quite got the break they deserved. In some small way, I hope to raise the profiles of these also-rans, hidden gems and unsung heroes, starting with a band I've loved for years: The *Ga *Ga's.
I first saw this band on a Classic Rock Magazine DVD. I remember it like it was yesterday, because it was that DVD that introduced me to rock n' roll proper. Until then, I had been blindly fumbling my way around like most 12 year old kids do. But it was popping that disc into my Xbox and discovering bands like Alice Cooper, Therapy?, Black Label Society, and the videos of Marilyn Manson (although I was already a fan of the music) that really converted me.
The video for the Ga Ga's single "Sex" really stuck with me, for some reason. The most obvious impetus for my interest was primarily the music, which the magazine itself described as "rock meets goth, meets pop, meets indie". As the more astute of you may have noticed, the haphazard conjunction of so many genres as comparison indicates that this band might well have been a complete original. Their music and visual married perfectly the emotional honesty of the then only nascent emotional punk trend, without the mawkishness that would condemn the "emo" trend that would follow soon after, with the androgynous swagger of goth and the big, weighty musical heaviness of hard rock. For a teenager exploring the world on his own, as I was, they were the perfect band. The fact that there were a whole bunch of gorgeous women writhing and humping around the band didn't do any harm either.
It took me a hell of a long time to find their album, Tonight The Midway Shines, but by God I did find it. It was, and remains to this day, almost flawless. From the opener "Sex" the band ran the gamut of heavy-metal paeans to lost love ("Replica") to more melancholic, thoughtful fair ("Air") with a sense of truth and sincerity to their lyricism that never felt affected. The fact that they could have a sense of humour ("The Real World" has a fine line in sneering anger and righteous contempt at poseurs and self styled 'anarchists' and 'rebels', while the song itself still rocks like a bastard) was just the icing on the cake. Every time I hear the album again, and I listen to it in its entirety at least once every six months, it's confirmed for me: This band were, for their brief time on this earth, the greatest rock 'n'roll band in the world. They had complex, interesting songs you could relate to. They had a gorgeous shimmering liquid silver guitar sound, and some glorious vocal harmonies (a dying art in rock 'n' roll).
I never got a chance to see them live, and only knew one other person who even knew who they were. I remember feeling so betrayed when I heard they'd broken up, after their second guitarist went, according to the band's statement, to go and "nosh off Brian May". I don't know what that statement means, I mean apart from the obvious, and I don't particularly want to either. Bear in mind that I was still somewhat naive about bands splitting up (Why can't they just get along?) and the concept of such a band calling it a day was hard to deal with.
The rest survived, though. The remaining members not committed to gobbling the dong of the Most Overrated Band Of All Time (I hate Queen so much) regrouped, and snatched a new guitarist from similarly unknown band Ariel X, and formed Slaves To Gravity. STG have had a modicum of mainstream success, amping up the grunge level and putting out a couple of damn decent releases. But while Slaves To Gravity have songs like "Mr. Regulator" and "Big Red" to their name, nothing they've done quite matches up to the effortless glory of Tonight The Midway Shines. That album is on Amazon still, so if you grab a copy and have a listen, I promise you won't be disappointed. Some of the songs on the album are growers, I must admit, but that too is a dying art: Making an album that has some staying power, that you're not all too familiar with a month later, one that you can really take some time getting to love.
The *Ga *Ga's might never have been the superstars they certainly looked, acted and definitely sounded like, but I'm still grateful for this album. It's one of rock's true hidden gems - a genre-defying, honest, emotional, hard-rockin' son of a whore. So take a moment to consider what might have been, and revel in what we have.
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