Joe Cool & The Killers
Lets face it Joe Cool & The Killers is a cheesy name for a band and god knows how this Brighton band they ended up on major label Ariola who were more famed for disco bands like Amanda Lear. In the punk gold rush of 1977 someone must have thought it a clever idea or an idea for a tax loss! I Just Don’t Care (Ariola 1977) is palatable Eddie & The Hot Rods style uptempo rock but that’s about it. Actually that’s harsh. Listen to the songs and there are some not bad tunes there that do grow on you and ok are actually quite good.
An album – Killer – was trumpeted in music papers in 1978 as an ‘…album that will destroy you m***** f*****’ by which time they were known as The Killers. However it, along with the band, sank without a trace and without a tear in anyone’s eye in the latter part of 1978 as their guitarist, Tony Mayberry (which one of the fake names was he then?), departed for the punkier Depressions. That unfortunately was his second sinking ship which turned into the the more mod /power pop Vandells which again sank.
Joe Cool aka John Clay released one more single as the John Clay Band in 1981 called Camera and that was it. Subway Sect never released an album. Joe Cool did. Life can be cruel.
“Local group Joe Cool & the Killers formed three months ago [May 1977]. But 25 year old singer Joe Cool says it’s only the music that interests him…
“I am not into safety pins because I think it is just a fad” he said “I am interested in high-energy, total aggression music, and the new wave has brought that back. It’s a return to the spirit of rock ‘n roll – the idea that you can get up without a lot of musical training and knock hell out of a guitar.”…
Mr David Courtney, who owns a production company in partnership with Tony Meehan, formerly of the Shadows pop group…Mr Courtney spotted Leo Sayer at a similar audition in Brighton four years ago and helped launch him to stardom. Now he has picked Joe Cool & the Killers. John says punk rock is beginning to get a big following in the Brighton area. Halls are packed out when the Stranglers come down.
John hopes that when the new wave really breaks, there will be no rivalry between the old and the new rock ‘n rollers, the Teds and the punks. “We ought to be on the same side” he said “The Teds have got a great music thing of their own.
Brighton & Hove Gazette August 12 1977
Kind of says it all!
See the excellent Punk in Brighton website
TalkPunk
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