'Jet - a flurry of rhinestones and blow-waved hair' - Goldmine December 1999

'In mid 1974 a large box ad appeared in the pages of (British music paper) Melody Maker: "Martin Gordon is alive and well and his bass playing is as stunning as ever, so any suitable offers please". Recently sacked from Sparks, the Anglo-American quintet he had helped power to UK chart glory, Gordon was still waiting for strangers to call when friends started calling instead - Chris Townson, recently unemployed after half his band Jook, replaced Gordon in Sparks; and Peter Oxendale, Sparks' live keyboard player, who was dismissed at the same time as Gordon. Townson brought along his old vocalist from John's Children Andy Ellison, and a chance listen to the radio introduced the band to Davey O'List, once guitarist with the Nice and now playing lead on Bryan Ferry's latest single. Jet were born, and one of the most unfortunate sagas in mid-70s British rock was about to unfold.

Everything about Jet screamed "success, and success, of course, breeds success. The individual musicians' pedigrees alone were enough to win them a deal with Gary Glitter's RAM management company. RAM attracted the CBS label; CBS brought in Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker. Gary Glitter's costume designers were employed to create an image for the band - among the costumes they provided was one, for O' List, which made him look suspiciously like an anteater.
But the bandwagon barrelled on. The band had recorded one demo, a three-track effort featuring Gordon's 'Start Here', O'List's 'My River' and the old John's Children staple 'Desdemona', and already it was time to begin working on an album.
The press immediately picked up on the band, with O'List the most visible member. Aside from the Nice, and prior to his Ferry single, O'List had spent four months in the infant Roxy and he wasn't about to disappoint his new-found media admirers. "You'll be able to heart the influence of all the bands that members of Jet have played in, and I think Roxy is the strongest. But we won't be going in the same direction as Roxy should have. [What on earth does that mean? Ed]. I believe we have picked up on things that were common to Roxy - but that weren't Bryan's thing - and also with Sparks. But that's about all that is anybody else's, otherwise the sound is very much our own. The vocals are totally down to to Andy, and it's that which is a very distinctive feature of Jet."

To Melody Maker he continued, "The music is very English. There are some obvious influences, but it's not deliberate. The music does have those tendencies that are a part of Roxy but if you go back they were part of the Velvet Underground as well." So, Roxy meets the Velvets meets Sparks meets the bits of T Rex that Ellison and Townson would have picked up when Marc Bolan was part of John's Children with them. If anyone had a time machine back then, they could even have added Frankie Goes To Hollywood to the brew - a decade later, Oxendale would be one of the sessionmen involved in the recording of 'Relax'. Truly, Jet's cup runneth over.
The odd thing is, a lot of what O'List said was true. [Don't you believe it, matey - Ed again]. Gordon's songs were very much in the mould of Sparks, drily facetious little sagas about life's misunderstandings - the boy who tells his girls he'll 'give her a ring sometime' and is now expected to marry her; the underdog who'd rather 'sit in my corner and think about things like football and TV' than throw himself into the social scene; the beast who tells his beauty, 'I'm not a man of granite, I've got manners like a gannet' - and all set to a jerky pop sound track that could indeed have fallen from a Roxy Music jam session. Add the entire band's fixation with Monty Python and The Goons, and Jet wrapped up, indeed, a 'very English' sound.

So it made sense for their great unveiling to take place in Scotland, a short tour designed to let them preview their act, and unveil the nice new equipment RAM had bought them. But Chris Townson broke his leg playing soccer just days before departing, and while he and his indiscreetly plastered limb were able to make it to the band's first photo session, where they were kitted out in 23rd century androgyny chic, clearly he was not going to be gigging.

Jim Toomey, a former Colin Blunstone sideman, was recruited in his stead, and Jet made their live debut at Queen's Hall, Dunoon, on Feb. 28, 1975. In less than a month, they would be launching a tour with Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson, appearing in front of some 20,000 people as the outing progressed - a far cry from the minuscule turnouts they attracted in Scotland and a world apart from their appearance at the St. Anne's annex of Glasgow University. Competing against the manifold attractions of a monster bar on the first floor and a massive disco on the second, Jet swept onto the third floor stage, a flurry of rhinestones and blow-waved hair, the curtains glided gracefully back. There were just two people on the floor waiting for them, and one of them was asleep.

Jet's debut album, the amusingly titled 'Jet', had been recorded over Christmas and was scheduled to release toward the end of the Hunter-Ronson tour. To whet the world's appetite, however, a single, O'List's 'My River' was rush-released and bombed absolutely. Quickly, a follow-up, Gordon's 'Nothing To Do With Us', was rushed into the stores, and this time it clicked. Gordon was caught in Melody Maker prophesying a massive hit, insisting that his baby had "one of the most sing-along choruses ever" (it did as well), while NME it their Hit Of The Week, warning "you'll find yourself humming it at every bus stop in town".
This much was true. Intermissions on the Hunter-Ronson tour were indeed flooded by strains of 'Nothing To Do With Us', grimly rooted in every brain that heard it. But maybe it was too catchy, too memorable, too easily recalled when you wanted to hear it, because nobody bought the single and nobody bought Jet's album either, when it finally hit the stores in mid-May. Nobody, that is, aside from Marvel comics' lawyers, who objected to sleeve designer Roslav Szaybo's unrepentant borrowing of a frame from Jack Kirby's Mr Miracle, and pursued their case with relish.

Reviews were poor. Sounds' reviewer thought the song 'Brian Damage' was actually called 'Brain Damage' and announced that Pink Floyd did the title better justice; Disc thought Ellison was a Russell Mael clone; and across the Atlantic, one American magazine described the whole thing as "third-rate Sparks." Given Sparks' standing in their homeland at that time, a harsher condemnation would be hard to find.

Oddly, the band agreed. "That album didn't sound anything like it should have, or could have," Townson complained. "Everything was so stifled - the band had been squeezed like a sponge. Every time we did a take, I was praying it was the last one. The only happy memories I have the whole time we were recording are the free sandwiches and squirting people with fire extinguishers. Everything else was horrible." Producer Baker, it transpired, almost walked out when CBS asked him to make the band sound as much like Sparks as possible; O'List was already so disillusioned that by halfway through the Hunter-Ronson tour, Gordon late mused, "his off-moments were by far outweighing his on ones." Finally, the tour at an end, the guitarist walked out of rehearsal and never returned.
It was getting to be a ridiculous situation. We had all this gear lying around, and all we were doing was going over the same numbers every day. If we had been working, it might have been different. I really think that Jet could have done well if we'd gone out and gigged solidly, but no one else seemed interested in that. So in the end, I just walked out. (See manager Jamie Turner's recollections of this walk). He was replaced by Ian MacLeod, a young guitarist introduced to the band when they advertised for a second guitarist earlier in the year, only to decide they didn't really need one. Townson returned around the same time and found his bandmates in total disarray. A German tour was cancelled when thieves made off with the band's equipment. A British tour with Fox (also produced by Baker) fell through; a Swedish outing was canned. Jet's only activity was a handful of dates with ex-Glitter Band singer John Rossall, as he promoted his debut solo single that would fare no better than Jet's own releases.

On Aug. 1 1975, the new-look Jet played their first - and, as it transpired, final - gig, at the London Marquee. The band then took six months off while Gordon wrote a new album (and auditioned, unsuccessfully, for the vacant bass position in Roxy Music), and in early 1976, CBS despatched Jet to a converted church in the wilds of England's West Country to begin work. The label hoped for a new single - what they got, once someone from London actually bothered to travel down and check on the band's progress - was what amounted to a concept album dealing with the evils of record companies.

Any band even remotely related to CBS was the subject of one new song or another, and from there, Jet started writing songs about themselves - "Tax Loss" was their particular favourite. In all, the band wrote and rehearsed sufficient material for a two-hour show, welded together so solidly that there weren't even any breaks between songs, each simp1y flowed effortlessly into the next via intricate jumps, protracted segues and extended bridges. A couple of covers - The Small Faces' 'Lazy Sunday' and The Beatles' 'Dear Prudence' - were inserted for familiarity's sake, but aside from that, the listener was on his own with Jet's discontent. CBS dropped the band without a second thought; RAM followed suit and Jet were ready to give it all up.

Before they did, though, there was one last session, produced by another Sparks renegade, guitarist Trevor White. Island were somehow persuaded to show some interest in the band, and the band readied four songs for the occasion, led off by 'Antler', which Gordon insisted was about luggage but was actually his best yet condemnation of record company mentality ("you have no idea what this song is about"). 'Don't Cry Joe' was the theme to an imaginary movie with a mild obsession with actress Charlotte Rampling (how does she rample?) inserted into the chorus; 'Sail Away' was about sailing away; and 'Dirty Pictures' was about dirty pictures - "I get my kicks up in the attic with my Kodak Instamatic."

Townson quit when it became apparent that Island had rejected the session out of hand: but other labels would be keener. Well, one would, anyway. A full year after it was recorded, 'Dirty Pictures' emerged as the first single by a new Ellison/Gordon/MacLeod collaboration, Radio Stars. And therein hangs another tale entirely.'

Dave Thompson

'Jet Child' - Melody Maker May 17 1975

Long before Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry, there once was an English glam-rock band, prone to dance and sing nude through the streets. At the height of Flower Power, John's Children were the arch-typal campologists. And their lead singer was one Andy Ellison, a good looking dude with a quaint way of pronouncing his lyrics. After long years in obscurity, he has returned with new band Jet, already creating a stir despite the greater acclaim accorded those who followed in his wake. Steve Lake talks to Andy about his weird career.

So who's this slightly built, blonde haired vocalist with the masochistic streak exchanging blows with the bassist before hurling himself twenty feet from the stage into the audience? And now he's stomping around the aisles, hurling feathers in all directions while hollering "Sieg Heil". Well, it sure as hell isn't Iggy Pop, even though it reads exactly like some script for a "Fun House" movie. All that's mIssing is the peanut butter. No, here we're flashing back to a long-gone era, back to a time when the Ig was tentatively miming to Doors albums in front of his bedroom mirror. The rock and roller in question is one Andy Ellison, now the front man for new signing Jet.
Back then he was one quarter of John's Children. It's all rather vague in Ellison's memory now, the whys and wherefores evaporated with the passing of time. In truth, it was probably pretty unclear precisely what role John's Children were supposed to be enacting back in the middle sixties, even to the band and their manager Simon Napier-Bell; but, irrespective, with a maximum of naivety and a minimum of recognisable playing chops, the group seem in retrospect to have been an encapsulated prediction of Things To Come. Their history is the very stuff of fanzines. Formed in Surrey out of the ashes of an R'n'B band called The Few, which changed its name to Silence and finally to John's Children, band manager Napier-Bell had a rather nice line going in ironic juxtapositions. When the band began making singles, first for EMI and then for Track, these surfaced. Probably taking his cue from the similarly controversial Move and (their manager) Tony Secunda, Napier-Bell had a flair for studied outrage. Thus the first single "The Love I Thought I'd Found" was retitled "Smashed Blocked" for the States and, according to Napier-Bell, was not about drink or drugs, but about "illicit sex". Similarly "Not The Kind Of Girl You'd Take To Bed" was an anti-drug song and so forth. For Stateside consumption only, an album "Orgasm" was thrown together, recorded live in such hallowed halls as Tiles (remember?). The second single "Just What You Want" made a minor impression on the chart, clocking into the lower twenties.

By this time the band had acquired a new lead guitarist, a nineteen-year-old from Wimbledon called Marc Bolan. He joined Ellison, drummer Chris Townson (now also with Jet), and bassist John Hewlett (now Sparks manager) at a particularly intriguing time - just as the whole psychedelic shebang was beginning to dominate the scene. The Children decided to take the freak-out invitation pretty damn seriously. "At the Alexandra Palace 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, our whole set comprised of Bolan with the guitar balanced on top of his head causing ear-splitting feedback. There was no music, just an hour of strange noises. At other, times Marc would lob chains around and kick in the speaker cabinets. They took a lot of destroying, those Jordan speakers".
A string of timely singles appeared. "Desdemona" became the most widely known, and was actually banned on account of its harmless chorus line "Lift up your skirt and fly". But there were two more, "Come And Play With Me In The Garden" - a Flower Power remake of the B-side of "Desdemona" (originally entitled "Remember Thomas A'Beckett") and "Go-Go Girl," which was a remodelling of Bolan's "Mustang Ford". Plus, of course there were the infamous nudie pics, the group posed coyly behind strategically placed flower bouquets. "We were actually quite a violent band, never very much into peace. If anything we were taking the piss out of Flower Power, though nobody ever saw it as that". John's Children's demise was an archetypal example of a young band being too green to handle it's own destiny. Somehow they got stranded in Germany, their equipment was ripped off, Townson fought with Hewlett, and that was that.

Ellison embarked on a half-hearted solo career, not gigging, but releasing a few singles for the CBS subsidiary SNB Records run by, you guessed it, Simon Napier-Bell. These were "Fall From Upper Eden," Lennon and McCartney's "You Can't Do That" (truly the definitive version, with girlie soul chorus and very Anglicised lead voice) and "lt's Been A Long Time" (later featured in the movie "Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush"). All of them flopped quite spectacularly. He'd done some film editing for "Mulberry Bush" and decided to push that line a while, getting into TV adverts before fulfilling an old ambition to do stunt work, that old masochistic tendency towards self abuse returning. Inevitably this palled too, and Ellison packed a rucksack and moved out, bumming around Greece and the Cote d'Azure and the sunny side of Spain. Mostly he was simply killing time, waiting for old contracts to expire. But he was watching too, and strange scenes were happening in Europe. Old colleague Marc Bolan was suddenly very much in the ascendant. "Well, I was more than a little envious at all those T. Rextasy stories, but I wasn't totally surprised, because Marc was always a very well organised, determined young man. His songs, at least his early songs, were all very good. I haven't seen Marc for about seven years now - it'd be very interesting to meet and talk with him again".

Back in grey old England, Ellison together with Townson - his closest friend throughout these troubled times - concentrated on the finer arts, and got into painting, finding some kind of stability there. Andy devoted three years to the canvas. Which brings us finally up to date. Jet was formed last year, out of the remnants of Jook and the first English incarnation of Sparks, and guitarist David O'List was brought in on the strength of his contribution to Bryan Ferry's "The In Crowd" single. Their first album "Jet" was released last month, as was the single "My River". A second single, "Nothing To Do With Us,' a remarkably catchy piece of pop trivia, is imminent and threatens to be a major hit. They return to the studio in September. To go out on a trivial note, just how old are you now, Andy Ellison? He blushes slightly. "Ah. According to my biography with Jet I'm 24, but in fact l'm 29. I dunno what you want to make out of that. I can't get too worried about it personally. Everybody in Jet's been giving away fictitious ages in the hope that our youthfulness will attract a young audience. Hehaheheh. Well, Martin and Peter (Oxendale) are young - Martin was only aaahhhh 21 last week" .

Steve Lake

'O'List - Jet Flyer' - Melody Maker March 1975

"ONE of the strangest, most fascinating and turbulent eras of British rock music history occurred during the mid-sixties when there was a great outpouring of talent and diversity of ideas. No money of course, but plenty of ideas which one might safely say are not exactly in superabundance at the present. But instead of every band and artist trying to sound alike. there were bizarre extravagant and idealistic concepts. Just think of some of the names from the period, and note the essential variety: the Nice, Tomorrow, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and John's Children. Flower Power? Well, that was just a convenient peg. Midst those groups alone you'd find an incredible diversity of style and elements - magic, camp humour, sado-masochism, devilry, and the first stirrings of that instrumental firepower now disparagingly referred to as techno-flash (sorry). In fact there were the first stirrings of a vast amount of music and style which was to influence rock for years, and which still reverberates around the scene today. Roxy Music, Sparks - somehow you feel the groundwork was laid long ago on the quaint singles of yesteryear, underground hits by the semi-starving heroes of Cromwell Road, Earls Court and Notting Hill Gate.

Some of the sixties pioneers went on to riches and fame - Marc Bolan, Keith Emerson and Steve Howe to name but three. Now, eight years on, the flower power petals have consolidated into a rich humus, or talent, and proudly proclaim their name - Jet! Stand by for severe knocking. Reviews predicted as following "Sounds a lot like Sparks, who do they think they are?" Yes, but you see sir, Sparks, in the shape of the brothers Ron and Russell, were consciously aiming for an English sound. And Andy Ellison, Jet's lead singer, was so English in his days as a solo singer that he actually sang "Carnt Buy Me Love", instead of the more usual, Americanised "Caint". Things won't be easy for Jet but they have been out in the cold for so long, that they deserve time to grow and a fair hearing.
They have at least got off to a good start, signing with CBS (their first album is out this week, and set for the tour with Hunter Ronson. And the energy and enthusiasm shown by the boys is heart-warming, despite a tough debut in Scotland, where they found themselves playing to the walls of an empty discotheque, an experience sufficient to break the morale of many a tougher bunch. The Jet-men are Davey O'List, a founder member of the legendary Nice, Peter Oxendale, a classically trained keyboard whiz, who had a spell with Sparks, bassist Martin Gordon, and two shadowy figures from the golden age of Middle Earth and all stops to Blaises, Messrs. Chris Townson a la batterie, and the aforementioned Andy Ellison, both of John's Children, the band that once boasted Marc Bolan among its number. But bad luck has already struck and Chris has broken a leg in two places, playing football. A replacement drummer has been called in to help out on the tour but Townson hopes to rejoin once the leg has healed. David O'List, now fully recovered from the breakdown that dogged his career in the years after quitting the Nice, has been delighting his old friends and fans with the power and spirit of his guitar work. He was flung into the deep end with the Nice before he had time to develop his technique and style and his early promise seemed in danger of being lost. Now for new excitement!

Said Davey, explaining the birth of Jet: "Martin and Peter were both with Sparks but left in June and started recording. Chris went to an audition with them, and they tried out a few guitarists They'd heard my guitar playing on Bryan Ferry's 'In Crowd' and I had a phone call from Martin and Peter. I went to Peter's place up the road and we liked each other and decided to form a band The enthusiasm was there and we started rehearsing. We knocked out a couple of my numbers and some of Martin's and then we played 'Desdemona (Lift Up Your Skirts And Fly)' which was the John's Children hit. We took the tapes around to people and managed to borrow some money."
Mike Leander flipped over the tapes and set up a deal for the band. "The music is very English and there are obvious influences from Sparks and Roxy. But it's not deliberate, and Sparks music grew from the same era. It's funny because Martin was at school when I made 'America' with the Nice and his whole class bought the single. The music does have those tendencies that are a part of Roxy and it's a part of us, and if you go back, were a part of Velvet Underground. I remember meeting Andy Warhol in New York during that period and it was really exciting. Everybody had so much energy and a lot of that has been lost. I'd like to think with Jet we'll create a new hip and fashionable audience. But it's early yet."

What of Davey's playing? "It's improving! I'm much more of a technician now than I used to be, and can do things I couldn't do before. I'm catching up and getting better. We have some very complicated chord sequences I have to follow on rhythm guitar and then play the lead solos. And it's all very new material. But it's all experience for us and we're still building. I've had disappointments before but I feel confident about the band and we're all working hard as a team. Each time we play we get into a different groove. Andy is a marvellous lead singer, and there's a lot of energy in the band."
Would they turn down Top Of The Pops? "No way! Yes please! You know Brian May of Queen is a great fan of the band? Yeah, we're all really excited." There's a single coming from the band soon, "My River," written by Davey. It may sink without trace, it may smash to number one…whatever happens, Jet are going to have fun trying".

Chris Welsh

'Jetset' - CBS Family News June 20 1975

'One jet that won't let you down and cancel its flight is JET - a group that'll take you on a first class ride to good sounds.
Jet briefly are Andy Ellison who studied under M. Marceau and M. Bolan (with John's Children), Martin Gordon (from Sparks), Chris Townson (another John's child), Davey 0'List (from The Nice) and finally another ex-Sparks cinder in Sir Peter Oxendale, a true aristocrat of rock and who has just had his hair dyed normal to replace the usual crop of green.

Jet are currently doing big business both here and in the States where an FM station in L.A., KWST, has picked up on the album and is playing it continuously; one import record shop consequently has been selling two lots of two crates per week. This is what The Rock Marketplace said about the record: "Here's my favourite of the month. The lyrics are funny but the music is quite entertaining. These guys have a great vocalist (Andy Ellison), and guitar player in Davey O'List, and use them to good advantage.....I'm still rather hooked on this one. If promoted right, these guys could be quite huge here in the States ----- they're gonna be the Dave Clark Five of the seventies! "

Back home strange things have been happening to Jet's drummers. Firstly Chris Townson broke his leg and then his replacement got stabbed in the hand. Now second replacement Mike Nichols is taking things carefully; meanwhile Chris hopes to be back soon. Now turn over for your ticket to join the Jet set!'

John Tobler

Good grief. Two lots of two crates - that's, er, four crates right? John Tobler reveals himself as a master of arithmetic. Or is that two masters? And what does this last sentence mean? I ask you - is this the kind of person you want in YOUR slit trench?

'No time for Jet lag?' - Disc March 1975

Will Jet blow Hunter/Ronson off the stage? "We'd like to, of course, we have thought very seriously about doing it". Davey O'List, Jet's lead guitarist, answered my opening question at our lunch time rendezvous with the caution one might expect on the eve of what is the debut tour for both Jet and Hunter/Ronson. Both bands promise distinct and solid styles - the kick-in-the-arse Bowle-tinged Hoople rockola of Hunter/Ronson and the futuristic Sparks/Roxy collision of Jet - that should provide some excitIng shows with the audience pulled from one band to the other. Davey, a highly respected guitarist from his days with the Nice and the embryonic Roxy Music, delights in the prospect of playing on the same bill as Mick Ronson: "It's a bit of a guitar battle, really. I've heard his playing with David Bowie and I loved it, and it's really nice to play with a guitarist of that calibre".

But where Ronson always underplays, up to now O'List has been far more elaborate. When I mooted the view that technically he would knock Ronno into a cocked hat, Davey replied with wit, "Yes, I shall knock Ronson into a cocktail". Ho ho, but how will Jet counter the heavy Mott tendencies of H/R? "I don't think we'll come out sounding like Mott, we'll come out sounding like Jet, and you'll probably hear influences of the groups that the members of the band have played with before". Like whom? "I would say Roxy is the strongest," said Dave, and if Jet's first single, an O'List composition called 'My River', is anything to go by, they have taken hold of the essence of Virginia Plain and added a dynamism sadly lacking in R Music's current output.

David had recently worked with Mr Tux, Bryan Ferry on the 'Another Time Another Place' album - how had this come about? "I read an interview with Brian Ferry in a music paper in which he talked about the early Roxy Music and said that he wondered how I was getting on and mentioned that he would like to work with me again, and so I phoned him. I used to play with Roxy in 1972. That was before they had any contracts, Bryan had been teaching, I think he was an art teacher, and Andy MacKay was teaching at Holland Park School" .

Are Jet going in the direction Roxy Music should have gone? "No, no way. I believe that we've picked up on a lot of things that were perhaps common to a lot of people that were involved with Roxy Music that weren't Bryan's thing, and also with Sparks, like the piano, the straight four-fours - dood dood dood dood". Dave demonstrated a very realistic Ron Mael staccato outburst on the edge of the table, inspiring my dessert trifle to assume the properties of a knickerbocker glory with a Latin - American dance fetish. "That's about all that's anybody else's; otherwise the vocal sound is very much Andy's (Jet vocalist Andy Ellison, the youthful veteran of 10 years in the biz) thing, and that's a very distinctive feature of Jet. Actually we've got a few surprises in store as far as the stage act's concerned. Andy's a born acrobat - he does flip/flops. On occasion, he dives off the edge of the stage into the audience".

Apparently when Jet previewed their act in Scotland Andy, dived somersaulting into the audience, an action that instigated an outbreak of fighting, where band and management alike thought they'd seen the last of said vocalist, but fortunately Andy couples lightfootedness with his unique vocal ability and avoided an untimely demise.

Jet have, simultaneous to the tour, released an album; tantalisingly titled "Jet' and produced by that rapidly emerging talent Roy Thomas Baker (the gent who produced Queen's three albums plus the latest from Be-Bop Deluxe and the next from Hustler), it promises to be, with the characteristic attentions of Mr Baker, an album you won't be able to ignore. Hopefully, on the H/Ronno tour, Jet will be the group you can't ignore - the promise of Roxy dreams fulfilled.

David Fudger

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