Purple Haze

Told you it was a Hendrix tribute band !

1975 begins with mixing being undertaken for 'Futuristic Dragon' while another bunch of weird material is attempted throughput the year. In March the current version of T Rex return to Strawberry Studios at the Chateau, Paris. Time for a new project. 'Billy Super Duper' and 'Depth Charge' are tried out. Some of this material was later butchered by one of the many Bolan fan-clubs. Initially they did well to put so much quality audio out on vinyl in the 90s, but then started to 'interfere' with the master-tapes and in some instances removed recorded material. On two retrospective releases 'Billy Super Duper' (red vinyl) & 'Dance In The Midnight' it's occasionally tricky to know which instrumentation is contemporaneous and which belongs to session-musicians employed to destroy what's left.

'Dynamo' was also done for this sci-fi project, but a little later at Estoril B. One of the strongest tracks from this period is 'Slave Police' (possibly the same as 'Brain Police') with its guitar / synth riff driving the thing forward. However, the downward progression returns [C - B - Bb -A] (Spaceball Ricochet, etc.) to detract from its potential. This progression is constantly levelled at Bolan as a major flaw by critics.

Rumour has it that material for the Canadian DJ, Dougie Pringle, was also done at the chateau. This is yet to be confirmed (if ever).

In Monaco an unusual track evolved. More Peter Gabriel than T Rex, this could have been a real surprise. It's kind of drone-like with a barrage of percussion and a chant utilising just two chords. It's very melodic and builds slowly. It's quite long. This could have been the 75 equivalent of 'Romany Soup' if it had been multi-tracked properly. There are a couple of versions kicking around. In April they moved to Munich for some really wild sessions, culminating in a life-time ban by the owner!

Tracks which would end up on 'Dandy In The Underworld' - two years later! - were done. Unreleased stuff was produced including 'You're Gonna Move,' 'Daze' and an instrumental version of 'Purple Haze.' Donovan was around at this time and they recut 'Lalena.' However, this has been lost.

In the summer Bolan returned to the UK permanently so that his son might be born there. For some reason he popped into Gooseberry Studios and rerecorded 'Jeepster,' '20th Century Boy' and 'Teenage Dream.'In June he produced some jingles for Capital and Piccadilly Radio, while he produced a track for Gloria Jones called 'You're So Handy.'

With 'New York City' putting him back in the public light, he ventured on some seaside concerts to test the reaction to him. He'd been gone a while. He did further work on Richard Jones' album, too, producing another three tracks.

In August sessions commenced for the T Rex Disco Party, an unremarkable collection, really. 'Dock Of The Bay' was shortened - he probably couldn't be arsed to work out the chords. However, 'Dreamy Lady' did come out of the sessions, along with two other unreleased pieces of interest. A blues jam (referred to as 'Tequila Blues') was undertaken. It's classy stuff and the musicians were clearly enjoying a bit of freedom. The singing appears improvised, and, although Bolan stops the session and promises to return to it later, there's nothing. It's got Steve Marriot written all over it. A shame. The other track was slated for release as Marc 12, but never actually saw the light of day. Apparently labels were also pressed in readiness but on the release date, 14th December, it was withdrawn. 'Christmas Bop' was thus condemned to the ever-growing waste basket of Bolan goodies. Personally, I'm pleased that his integrity was not diminished by releasing such drivel (Xmas records). There are several versions in existence. My favourite is the one where he screams "We're gonna wank till midnight!" in the chorus. Maybe it was a sarcastic retort to Barbara Charone's savage attack on 'Bolan's Zip Gun' earlier that year, when she complained about his masturbatory delivery.

In September Fats Domino's 'Ain't That a Shame' was produced at Trident. It's an interesting professional workout with some deft delayed guitar. In November, while he was working on the x-fade between 'Jupiter Liar' and the introduction to 'Futuristic Dragon' at Air studios, he added piano and guitars to 'Depth Charge.'

In December he began work on his London project and some excellent versions of 'Funky London Childhood' were produced. This song even made it on the tour in the following spring. It later became 'Visions of Domino' with a brand new set of lyrics. Very odd.

And they say Bowie was restless.