Midge Ure – Guitar/Vocals, Glen Matlock – Bass Steve New – Guitar & Rusty Egan – Drums
In 1977 the year of dole queue rock it was one in the eye for the purists to name your band the – Rich Kids. Add to that the founder was one Glen Matlock ousted from the Sex Pistols for liking the Beatles. Add to that singer guitarist Midge Ure from pretty boy band Slik.
A glammy image of fun, a sound influenced by the Small Faces and songs that were full of twists and turns and hooks that were more than yer standard punk ramalama and you had a band that split audiences and critics alike. One album and 3 singles of varying quality was it before the band went their separate ways.
Like the mars bar quote about Marianne Faithful and a part of her anatomy, rock’n’roll legend is often more preferable to fact. What no one can deny is that Glen Matlock was bassist in the seminal and perhaps greatest rock n roll punk band the Sex Pistols and that he wrote and arranged some of their best tunes including Anarchy and Pretty Vacant.
Glen Matlock and The Sex Pistols
But by February 1977 Glen was no longer part of the band for some interesting reasons.
On 28 February, McLaren sent a telegram to the NME confirming the split and claiming Matlock had been “thrown out…because he went on too long about Paul McCartney.”
Whether you believe the above, or as Steve Jones claimed it was because Glen didn’t suit the image and washed his feet too much (!) or the below, doesn’t really matter too much.
Glen Matlock: I was sick of the band and they were sick of me…it was alright at first, we weren’t playing Heavy Metal, which is what it became. NME 21.1.78
So Glen set about looking to put a new band together and he already had a name as his reaction to McLaren’s telegram shows in the NME ” I just wanna make my music, get a band together. Maybe we’ll call it the Rich Kids.” At the start there were some surprising names in the frame including Paul Weller and Mick Jones.
Glen Matlock: I was pissed one night so I asked him to join. I’d always liked the Jam…but by the time I started getting the Rick Kids together The Jam were taking off…so I guess that he didn’t want to chuck all that away.
[Mick Jones] was pissed off with the way things were going….so he did some gigs with us and at one point I thought he was going to come with us and Rich Kids…but it didn’t work out. NME ,21.1.78
By May 1977 it was reported that Matlock had been joined in the band by Steve New on guitar and Rusty Egan on drums and they were practising and recording.
Rusty Egan allegedly has been in The Clash though more likely he was one of the countless drummer auditions that included Phil Rowland, Pablo Labritain, Philthy Animal Taylor and so on.
Steve New was known to Glen already from his Sex Pistol days .
Glen Matlock: What happened was Paul Cook was threatening to leave the Pistols unless we got s second guitarist to fill the gaps that Steve was leaving…and this flash 15 year old guitarist come along who wouldn’t get his hair cut. NME, 21.1.78
Steve New: One night I was walking home past the 100 Club and all of a sudden Matlock appears, goes ‘Alright Steve how ya doin?’. He’s wearing his fucking anarchy shirt on, he’s like ‘Why don’t you come down and see us we’re playing here tonight’. After that Glen gets kicked out of The Pistols and I bumped into Matlock again down King’s Road and he says ‘Yeah I’m putting a band together’. I think I said to him ‘Don’t worry, I’ll cut my hair’. And that was the start of the Rich Kids. http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/clean-on-the-dirty-an-interview-with-steve-new/
Matlock was now looking to complete the line up with a second guitarist. A Scottish guitarist Midge Ure had been invited down to look at the band. Ironically Ure had been approached by Rhodes and McLaren in 1975 to sing for a band (wonder who eh?)
Tony Parsons: Ure tells how we was walking out of a music shop in Glasgow circa mid-75 when he was approached by a short, devious looking character who asked if he wanted to be in band. Bernie Rhodes – for it was he – then told him to go round a corner to where a curly redhead was waiting for in parked car. Midge told Malcolm McLaren – for it was he – that he was already in band called Salvation. NME 21.1.78
Ure in fact went on to join the band Slik a kind of early version of the Bay City Rollers and who managed to record the inexcusable ‘The Kids A Punk’ their managers interpretation of Punk and no doubt cash in.
After Slik split Midge made a single with the band under the moniker PVC2 which was actually rather good. Put You In The Picture was done on a borrowed Revox in an empty pub. The recording costs were exactly £3 and sold around 12,000 copies. The record was released on local label Zoom and released in August 1977. PVC2 morphed into The Zones.
On Glen’s invitation, Midge attended Rich Kids gigs at the Hope and Anchor in June and thought
‘Jesus Christ, they were a shambles…they were young and enthusiastic about everything and they all played out of tune. It was terrible, but they had some great songs and loads of potential. Sounds 16.9.78
But by October Midge Ure was in the band and they were already setting themselves apart. It’s ironic that the band were as confrontational and challenging as the Punk rock zeitgeist they had come from. From the name Rich Kids, as opposed to the slew of negative sounding bands like Dole Queue, Menace or Raped, to the longer hair and glammier clothes to a band who looked like they were enjoying themselves. They were also proclaiming their own identity and making statements guaranteed to infuriate the audience who they would inevitably attract from their pedigree.
Rusty Egan: We don’t want to be part of the so called new wave, we want to be part of the “new” “new” wave. Punk is old now and what we are doing is completely separate from it. Zigzag, October 1977
Rusty Egan: I saw the bands from the beginning playing at the 100 Club but I didn’t want to be a nasty punk, so I didn’t join any of them. Record Mirror, 17.12.77
Steve New: I liked all the West Coast American bands “The Doors, Love, The Alpha Band and all that, all old stuff. I’ve always been a jazz fan and listened to mainly albums. Gigs were always pretty irrelevant. NME, 21.1.78
Glen Matlock: To me punk rock is dopey groups who wear plastic bags and have rusty safety pins through their heads. We aren’t anything to do with that. Zigzag, October 1977
Sheila Prophet (Journalist) The Rich Kids are – a splash of Technicolor after the grey, grey visuals of the punk movement. All neat and fresh faced and nattily dressed. The teeny mags will love e’m. Record Mirror 17.12.77
Also that month the band signs to, wait for it… yep EMI, the label that dumped the Sex Pistols and there was a growing sense of excitement around the band.
Look at these teen wet dreams as pin up in teenage magazine ‘Oh Boy!’
By early 1978 another change was on the cards musically as Punk began to mutate into more commercially accepted New Wave and even Power Pop as bands like the Jam began to make headway in the charts. Attempts to link bands like the Pleasers, Tonight, The Jam, Boomtown Rats and more raised a backlash with accusations of sell out or an artificial money making enterprise.
The Rich Kids set list did seem to be schizophrenic with rockier numbers, covers like No Lip and Here Comes The Nice, more challenging numbers like Marching Men and the Sex Pistols’Pretty Vacant thrown in to boot. With their looks, attitude and sound the band were not having an easy time from their audiences.
Midge Ure: “These dopey punks”, explains Midge Ure, “were spitting at us and chanting ‘Punk, punk, we want punk’, behaving just like they’d read they ought to be in the Sunday People. Record Mirror, 11.2.78
Steve New: We do a great version of Pretty Vacant, shudders New. Much longer than the Pistols version, we do much more with it. It’s better…NME, 21.1.78
In January the band release the eponymous Rich Kids single. A fast tempo chirpy number with the obligatory limited edition on red vinyl.
Early 1978 saw the Sex Pistols break up and John Lydon head for Jamaica with Don Letts. Previously a playful Lydon wore a t-shirt for one of the last UK Sex Pistols shows in December 1977 emblazoned ‘Never Mind the Rich Kids Here’s The Sex Pistols’. In Jamaica he is in more confrontational form.
People always claimed that Glen Matlock wrote and was responsible for the sound. That was absolute bullshit. Let’s look at the Rich Kids and think practically. Look at what they stand for.
Power pop? Is that what they call it? The Shit Kids. Sounds, 11.3.78
In June the anti war single Marching Men is released.
In August Steve and Glen perform as the Vicious White Kids at the Electric Ballroom in Camden Town. They are joined by Rat Scabies, Nancy Spungeon and Sid Vicious. It’s a benefit to raise cash for Sid and Nancy as they are moving to New York and proves also there’s no animosity between the two ex Pistols bass players.
The Vicious White Kids
Steve New however did more than raise money for Sid at the gig.
Steve New: So we were rehearsing this gig and after rehearsal, I ended up with Nancy — me and Nancy had sex. Next day in rehearsal I turn up thinking ‘Oh no, I’ve fucked up here’, Sid came walking up to me and goes ‘Oi, Steve! You fucked Nancy last night didn’t you?’, I remember thinking about what had happened to Nick Kent and Sid’s reputation, so in the end I went ‘Yeah, hands up, I did’, and Sid puts his arm round me and goes ‘She’s great isn’t she!’. After that he was matey with me; which was really sweet of him. 3A.M Magazine
In August that year both the Ghost Of princes in Towers single and album is released in the UK. Produced by famed Spiders from Mars guitarist Mick Ronson, it was recorded at John Kongo’s home studio. Original copies came with an inner sleeve detailing the lyrics and group photographs. Also on the album is featured Ian McGlagan (Small Faces) was brought in on synthesiser. The record joins the Heartbreakers LAMF with criticism over its supposedly muddy mix.
Rich Kids & David Essex? Or did they really want to play Friday night?
It wasn’t all bad with gigs at Wembley with the strange pairing of David Essex and ligging with heroes.There is also a sell out gig at The Lyceum with Japan as support.
Steve New: That was such a night, Ronson played with us on the stage with Ian McLagan (The Faces) on keyboards, Iggy was there, Steve Marriot turned up. I went off to the toilet, with Ronson and McLagan to do some coke, with Iggy and Steve Marriot. There’s me stood there in toilet cubicle, age 17, with Ronson, Mac, Iggy and Steve Marriot all doing lines of coke. Marriot started on Jim (Iggy), he was really aggressive, completely insane — Steve could be really nasty. He was a brilliant singer though. I remember just thinking ‘Fucking hell, you’re with the crème de la crème here’ I was so young then, I just wanted to get fucked up. 3AM Steve New Interview
By November the year had taken its toll on the band. Reviews are fairly good but sales aren’t encouraging. And still the band’s history weighs down heavily. A Mike Gardner interview in Record Mirror 4.12.78 sees a frustrated and down band.
Midge Ure: People are still asking us about the Pistols and Slik and that’s all they seem to be interested in. Are we going to go through our lives talking about things we did three years ago???
Glen Matlock: I heard the new Clash album and it sounded like the first one. It’s the same to me as Status Quo, just finding a formula and getting on with it…It was great to have that attitude two years ago, because it’s good to smash everything down in order to build yourself up both personally and as a movement. But surely after a while you look for new avenues and new ways to be but they don’t.
Steve New: I expected it to be a creative business for people who are creative. But it is a business business. If you don’t conform to rules, a lot of people are going to turn their backs on you. You’ve got to prostitute yourself. I’ll eat shit and say it tastes good if there’s any money in it for me. I’ve now brushed away all my illusions.
An interesting review from Harry Doherty below effectively summed up the band’s strengths and weakness and finished off with a very pertinent question.
Music Machine, London (Melody Maker – October 28, 1978) Review by Harry Doherty
Until the Rich Kids get a few things into perspective – the rather misbegotten and amusing attitude, for instance, that their music goes above the heads of their audience, I fear that they will miss the boat and become also-rans before even getting into their stride.
Their history has been well-documented: Glen Matlock leaves Sex Pistols, gets together with guitarist Steve New and drummer Rusty Egan, coaxes Midge Ure away from Slick and forms Rich Kids. With such a pedigree (Matlock did make some brash claims about responsibility for Pistols’ songs), it wasn’t surprising that the Rich Kids were launched in a flurry of hype and the grandness of that was matched by the teeny bop flashiness that the band itself exuded. They gave the impression of having spent many days and many pounds in the King’s Road. Along came the album, “Ghosts of Princes in Towers”, and the Rich Kids never lived up to the Press.
And so we found ourselves at the Music Machine last Thursday night, with Glen Matlock bitterly muttering something rude about the audience as the Rich Kids came on for their encore. Well, Glen, if you didn’t think we deserved an encore…
There is much that’s right about the Rich Kids. Each member is more than competent and conversant with his instrument, not least Steve New who stretches some incredibly biting solos out of his axe. The front line of Matlock, Ure and New (pretty boys, every one) throws shapes like they’re going out of fashion while Rusty Egan is certainly one of the better new wave drummers. Some of the material is classic, notably “Ghosts of Princes in Towers” and the fascinating curves of Ure’s “Marching Men” which fully exploits the bands ability to create atmospherics.
Conversely, there is much that’s wrong with the Rich Kids too. Over and a above the gloss image, they lack a solid identity, a voice that is unmistakably the Rich Kids (as Geldof is Boomtown Rats, as Partridge is XTC, as Rotten is Public Image). Their sound at the moment lacks soul and often pours out of the speakers as unattractive heavy metal. Too often they tend to be clever when a simple approach would be more advantageous.
Will the Rich Kids sort themselves out and live up to expectations? The potential is there. But is the spirit?
The answer to that question was no. The writing was on the wall for the band. Extensive touring followed and then in June 1979 that was it. Supposedly a follow up album of material exists but nothing was released following the split.
The careers of the band members after has certainly been interesting.
Matlock joined the Spectres and Iggy Pop and was last seen in a series of Sex Pistols get togethers beginning in 1996 and to this day has a solo career. Even plays in Blondie. Glen is pretty much yer typical rock journeyman.
Steve New joined Johnny Thunders and PIL as a bit part session guitarist. He also wrote all the guitars on Generation X’sDancing With Myself and would have joined the band but for his heroin addiction. He even went out with fellow addict and Thunders cohort Patti Palladin. In later years he became a transvestite called Stella, still doing music, before passing away.
How did you become addicted? I’m hoping you’re not going to say Johnny Thunders? Was heroin rife in the early punk scene? Low points of addiction? How did you get off the stuff?
Stella: I never considered myself a ‘punk’ (still have no idea what that is) or anything else apart from a musician. I was a fan of Iggy and the Dolls but they weren’t labelled punk…..yes the early scene was conducive to strange drug related pursuits and I come from a pretty dis-functional family so I was heading down that road regardless, oh yes there are lots of stories! and maybe they are all true…..
Well I got into it very young and because I liked it not because of anyone else, I knew that Charlie Parker had been into it, I read ‘Bird Lives” when I was fifteen and aspiring to become a jazz musician so maybe Bird was to blame! But he is responsible for more good things than bad! Was it rife? maybe…low points of addiction….isolation and everything becoming secondary though I must say that I never let the music get away…the lowest point of addiction was the realisation that I had to come off, and I did it, but then you have to learn to be ‘normal’ again and pay your bills, wash and go to the dentist like normal people do that’s the hardest part…not going back to it
You also went out with the delicious Patti Palladin who if I recall was on the needle as well and who Bowie appeared to want to sleep with? I understand you saw to the thin white Duke when he tried to crack onto Patti?
Stella: Yes Patti is delicious! we lived together for three years, I was working with her last week; Patti is one of my oldest friends and loves the album [Beastellabeast]. Yes I saw to Mr. boowie ,odd man (coke head, i can’t stand them)! Punk 77 Interview, June 2009
I think it’s fair to say Steve had the talent in his hands and never really used it.
No I don’t view myself as a’ hero’, not even for one day! But I think I’m very good at it. I love the guitar and practice everyday as opposed to ‘just for one day’! Maggie Ronson told me the other day I would have been a great stand up comedian! I can impersonate everyone I ever worked with; Lenny Bruce is a hero.
Midge Ure joined Thin Lizzy temporarily then Ultravox for real success before co writing Feed The World for Live Aid.
Rusty Egan collaborated with Steve Strange in Visage and became nightclub owner, DJ at Blitz and doyen of the New Romantic movement.
There’s just something about the Rich Kids output that suggests they were just not firing on all cylinders. Plenty of ideas, plenty of image and no shortage of musical talent, but combined it didn’t make the diamond it looked like it should have. So what do you have? 3 singles and an album containing those 3 singles. As the Matlock and Ure quotes suggest, you get a mixed bag musically. In short a bit hit and miss and I doubt a second album would have improved their chances.
Glen Matlock: ..The Rich Kids play rock ‘n’ roll with a songsmith’s eye for hook and chorus…that arrangement of single notes into musically expressive succession, melody. NME, 21.1.78
Midge Ure: Both our roots stem from the Small faces…In other ways, I like a lot of electronic music and I’m bringing a lot more of that into what we’re doing, and schizophrenic timings ands things… and Glen doesn’t, Glen likes straightforward rock ‘n’ roll, good time fun music. But that’s what makes a band. Sounds, 16.9.78
The band also did the obligatory John Peel sessions
7/11/77 – Young Girls/Rich Kids/Burnin’ Sounds/Bullet Proof Lover
3/4/78 – Ghosts Of Princes In Towers/ Lovers & Fools/ Empty Words/ Here Comes The Nice
Rich Kids / Empty Words (January 1978 EMI)
As a debut, it’s not at all bad, fast moving, bouncy even. The band has potential. Improves after a few plays. Record Mirror, 14.1.78
It actually sounds like an opening number for a TV show…Restrained production from Mick Ronson glossing neatly over the potential for any frenzied energised rock ‘n’ roll. Streamlined and tight fitting presumably for easy access as opposed to action. Sounds, 21.1.78
Punk77 says: Its an okayish song and a statement of intent along the lines of the Monkees theme song. It’s light and chirpy and what do you make of the sleeve – a nod to the nihilist black sleeve that Anarchy In The UK was housed in? Reached #24 and the boys appeared on TOTP.
Marching Men/Here Come the Nice (March 1978 EMI)
This 45 confirms my suspicion that the fab 4 are not going to be rich at all.. Marching Men is a puerile anti-military song with musical impetus half-assed as the lyrics. pretty boy Pap. Record Mirror 27.5.78
Punk77 says: Flying in the face of uptempo tunes and catchy lyrics, this was an unexpected choice of single that unsurprisingly failed to set the charts alight. EMI stumped up for a video and it’s bad; very bad.
Ghosts of Princes in Towers/ Only Arsenic (Aug 1978 EMI)
…This one is seriously playable in a way other pop bands could never be, despite its cluttered production. It’s taken at the same pace as the debut “Rich Kids” single but has infinitely more choon. Danny Baker NME 26.8.78
Punk77 says: Third and final single and it’s a beauty. I have no idea what they are talking about (ok so it’s the kids murdered by Richard 3 but the rest of it?) but do I need to? Great riff and tune! EMI didn’t issue the UK version in a picture sleeve which is normally the sign of them bailing out and it was.
Ghosts Of Princes In Towers(EMI August 1978)
The album took a long time to appear having been completed some three months earlier and this was due to a staff turnover at EMI and it remaining unscheduled. When it did appear and the first reviews came out, a reflective Midge commented in interviews.
Midge Ure: Now we can sit back and listen to it and it’s like two albums that have been cut down the middle and stuck together. All the reviews said it, and for once I think they made a few points. We spent too long on the album. The first album should have sounded like ‘Bullet Proof Lover.’ All the rock ‘n’ roll ones but it took too long ’cause we were touring. The mix is muddy but that’s a lot to do with the band. Steve and Rusty had never been in the studio recording anything really. Sounds 16.9.78
It is indeed a patchy affair.
Sounds 26.8.78 – Adrian Thrills
THE ILLUSION that the Rich Kids are no more than just a bunch of “Pink-rocking Powerploppers is once and for all shown the door with the release of this unwieldily-titled debut album.
A lot of recent music press debate has centred on the continuing feud between the Industrial Musak/Rock Is Dead brigade and those who just want to Shake Ass. Both extremes, of course, are as facile as they are incompatible. “What is important is having the right spirit, regardless of what style one adopts.” That is how Glen Matlock – still the soul and spiritual leader of the Rich Kids – sees the Let’s Hear It For The Quiet Guy title track of this elpee. (The quote is taken from Nick Kent’s recent NME interview with the man).
That said, Matlock’s forte is rock and roll. There’s nothing really new here. But the Rich Kids do deserve credit for at least trying to lift such music out of its basic Get Dahn function …
Thus, there’s a distinct progressiveness to the punch packed on tracks like the self-consciously “weird” Matlock/New opener “Strange One” – an immediate statement of intent – and others like Midge Ure’s
“Lovers And Fools”. In parts, the album is characterised by unorthodox polyrhythmic neo-jazzy twists: what Steve Jones would no doubt call “wanky sevenths and Beatle chords”.
The fact that the Rich Kids are dose in spirit to the Small Faces is brought home forcefully by the inclusion of Ian MacLagan on certain tracks; his trade-marked keyboards certainly add a dimension that was absent on Rich Kids’ singles to date. The musical credentials of the four regular members of the band, meanwhile, are impeccable. Ure and New are hot guitarists, Matlock a voluble bassist and Rusty Egan a good, forceful drummer. It’s a shame, then, that producer Mick Ronson has seen fit to bury their prowess in what is positively the murkiest, muddiest album mix I’ve heard since Speedy Keen’s “LAMF” debacle.
Ronno’s arrangements are often cumbersome and overstated, cluttering things when what was really needed was a fresher production; the latter would certainly have complemented the dynamic vitality so obvious in the playing. As it is, the overall wall of sound on “Ghosts” seems to make a mockery of Matlock’s assertion that one of the reasons he left the Pistols was because they were playing what “became heavy metal”.
The quality of the material is erratic. As with both of The Jam’s two albums, here you have both the brilliant and the downright mediocre. One of the Rich Kids’ trumps is their possession of two completely independent songwriting axis within the band – Matlock/New and Matlock/Ure. Both factions contribute a brace of excellent songs apiece. The cascades of the title track and the mighty “Burning Sounds” are exhilarating, atmospheric Matlock/New rockers with heads held high above the quagmire of the production.
Elsewhere there’s Matlock as the disillusioned ex-Pistol in the vitriolic “Hung On You”, allegedly about his old pal Johnny Rotten: “Who’s so gross, Who’s so green, To think that you’re unseen, l don’t care for your exhortations, I ain’t hung for your information on you.”
“Strange One”, the plodding bluesy opener, comes too close for comfort to its subject matter – empty listlessness. Most of the other tracks, “Cheap Emotions”, “Put You In The Picture”, “Young Girls”, “Bullet Proof Lover” (credited Matlock/McDowell), and the “Rich Kids” anthem (intact with its irritating “they’re all there” device) are pretty unspectacular three minute bursts.
But perhaps the biggest black mark against what seems a good though far from great album is – yet again, popkids – the inclusion of already released singles.
Record Mirror 26.8.1978 – Mike Gardner + + + +
+++++ Unbeatable ++++ Buy it +++ Give it a spin ++ Give it a miss + Unbearable
IN MANY ways I feel sorry for the Rich Kids. They’ve got so much to prove. Most bands can state their terms of acceptance, but the Kids carry the albatross of Matlock and his alleged strong influence on the songwriting of that supernova, the Sex Pistols.
Their formation during the birth of the power pop hype and the recruitment of ‘pop star’ Midge Ure also saddled the band with more weight. Well, first off, they’ve been brave and dumped the idea of producing product. Unlike Pistol’s producer Chris Thomas, who was content to create the sound and let them grind it into boredom, producer Mick Ronson has allowed them to experiment. For instance they take straightforward cute pop tunes like ‘Lovers And Fools’ and add percussion textures and washes of guitar to create something that’s a refreshing interlude to the raunch of ‘Bullet Proof Lover’ and ‘Put You In The Picture’.
‘Strange One’ is another puzzler with a psyc6tic organ riff over a dreamy vocal with guitars sawing their way across the canvas till the bass suddenly, pushes the deal through. But the Rich Kids are at their best on the title track where Matlocks’ liking of bass runs that go straight up and down the scale comes to the fore, while the vulnerable voice of Midge Ure chants an addictive chorus backed by a lovable punchy chord progression.
Of course it could be a mistake for them to make such an understandable statement of versatility rather than an identifiable style, but the talent is more than apparent and you get the unmistakable feeling that the seeds of success have been planted.
TalkPunk
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