A forgotten Grabber Player: John B. "Sparko" Sparks

[uwe]

Dr Feelgood probably won't mean much to most of you yanks here, they never cracked the US with their stripped down, energetic to the point of neurotic/frantic, urban Rhythm and Blues. Alas!, you preferred Foghat. Famously thrown off a Kiss US tour and uncermoniously sent home after devastating hotel rooms which had the Kiss organisation profusely apologizing (if you're Stanley Eisen or Chaim Witz you just don't break things unless you get paid for it -like guitars on stage!), these pub rock/punk godfathers had their famous fifteen minutes in 1977 when their live album Stupidity



peaked at no 1 of the limey charts. In a whimsical mood, I bought the CD of it this week and the inlay photos revealed that John B. "Sparko" Sparks, forever identified with P Basses, played a Grabber in the Stupidity era. By then the Feelgoods had become a credible live draw and were the Brit music press' darlings so Sparko's pay cheques probably allowed him a new bass. Not the tallest of men, I must say though that the large body Grabber did him no visual favors. Kind of a Grabber on legs!




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OQ9h16pTAs&feature=related

[Highlander]

Lee Brilleaux passed in '94 iirc

Wilko was a distinct stylist...

The band still exists but no original players

[Chris P.]

I love Dr. Feelgood. I was listening to a live CD some days ago. Great band. Weller nicked a lot of them for The Jam.

In the great BBC-documentary I'm In A Rock 'n Roll Band (Next saturday about bassists!)  they had some great interviews with Wilko. It was the Guitarists-episode of two weeks back.

Some months ago a great documentary of the band was released. Because of that, magazines like Q, Uncut and Mojo had features about them.

[nofi]

not everyone in the us preferred foghat. in fact the bands are two different animals. i 've liked dr. feelgood since their inception.

[eb2]

Dr Feelgood did get a lot of indie/college radio airplay in the US.  I remember hearing Milk And Alcohol a lot one year.  I think the Foghat comparison is a bit off for both boogie band and timing - they were commercially washed up by the time Dr Feelgood got a contract.  In the US Dr Feelgood had several lps released, but Stupidity sold a lot as an import.  In the late 70s when rock radio was spoonfeeding us sackless crap like Supertramp and disco, Stupidity was a big underground college record shop import along the lines of Cheap Trick's Budokan.  As someone who was paying attention back then can tell you, Cheap Trick was barely more of a selling band than Dr Feelgood and equally underground until Budokan started getting loads of college/indie airplay - CBS/Epic US had decided not to release it as the band's discs were commercial flops, like the first Dr Feelgood album the same label released.  They did not get popular here until Epic released the lp domestically, by which time several tunes had gotten airplay as a Japanese import.  Dr Feelgood wasn't as lucky.  A Case of The Shakes was maybe their biggest seller, part of the Epic Stiff collaboration that saw Rachel Sweet move a lot of records, and they pushed the Nick Lowe production angle to get college airplay.  A better disc than Stupidity in my opinion.  Another band that flopped around the same time was The Motors - same label.  Same results.  A couple of years later Bram Tchaikovsky got loads of pop airplay with Girl Of My Dreams.  He played an RD.  RD? Grabber?  Take the RD, leave the Grabber - if you want to sell records.

[uwe]

In 1977, Foghat were still selling out stadiums, something the Feelgoods never even got near. But I was mainly trying to be nasty with my comparison, I actually like both bands though neither wrote material that set the rock world on fire. And they both borrowed heavily from RnB, Foghat making it larger than life and the Feelgoods stripping it to the bare bones in a nerdy way, hence the college appeal. Kind of White Stripes approach to RnB classics.

Actually, side by side, Foghat was musically more adventurous than Dr Feelgood who never progressed beyond their first albums and lived and died by their legacy. You could even say that Dr Feelgood were a bit of a hype in 1977, a pub band "discovered" by music journos that was perceived as endearingly non-dinonsaur and non-platform boots, but in truth played their music like Brit bands had played their RnB before the advent of The Beatles in the early sixties, just a little faster and with that nervous edge courtesy of Wilko and Lee Brilleux.

Can I now go back listening to the full length studio album version of "Slowride"?!!!

Uwe

[eb2]

No - Dr Feelgood never got near that, but they could have.  Audience and sales were about the same as stadium-bound Cheap Trick around the time of In Color.  Hogfat deserved their stadium slots for Fool For The City and Live, but by 1979 they were just spongeing up whatever stadium gravy was left.  In the early 80s they were playing summer fests and hockey arenas.  And maybe two of the old Savoy Brown leftovers left.  Speaking of summer fests..

The long Slow Ride graced my turntable just last week.  By all means, dig in!

[Stjofön Big]

Always thought Faghot was a really good band, though lacking personality a bit. Dr Feelgod was GREAT! Their speed-drenched version of r'n'b suitet me just fine during those days. I saw Wilko Johnson a couple of times, maybe ten years ago. With that brutal beast Norman Watt-Roy on bass - fantastic musician! - looking and moving like a panther on stage, and the cool Monti (?) on drums, they pulled out great nights! Wilko moving frenetic to and fro on stage, like a rabbit on a prize shotting range in an amusement park, with starry eyes, and pushing the black Telecaster to the limit.
Has anyone here read Wilkos story of how he spent New years eve 1969 in India? Calcutta, I seem to remember. It was published in a book about musicians, and their backgrounds. Can't find that book right now, and can't remember the name of the book, but if I do I'll try to publish it somewhere on the net. It's a really funny story, where Wilko, and his local dealer, Mr Kardoon, sits down by the banks of Ganges to light up a piece of highly potential local herb, and what happens next in his head. Mr Johnson sure knows how to write a story, I assure you! He's sure got the pen in hand. If anyone here's interested, I'll look for it.

[Highlander]

The name is slang for heroin...

[EvilLordJuju]

My favourite Dr Feelgood song (by a long way) is Roxette



Yeah Wilko was very entertaining on the recent BBC doc on lead guitarists.

My band is on the same bill as Wilko in a couple weeks (at the Summer fayre festival)- Norman Watt-Roy is on bass for that - should be good. He's (NWR) also playing with the Blockheads the next day... again should be good.

And I understand Dr Feelgood is booked for the same event when it returns in September too. Certainly a lot of interest in these bands just now in the UK

[Stjofön Big]

Yeah, these guys looked like the kind of guys you could find out on the horse race tracks. No mods, no hippies, no way!

[uwe]

The name is slang for heroin...

Whose name? Sparko's? 

[Highlander]

Dr Feelgood - name originated from an old song of the same name, but Doctor Feelgood is/was old slang for "H"

[uwe]

Ok, that put's the Mötley Crüe song of the same title into a different, proper light.

I knew that the Strangler's Golden Brown is an ode to heroin, but not the Dr Feelgood affiliation.

[Highlander]

This guy...



Released a song called Doctor Feel Good under the name Doctor Feel Good and the Interns in '62