This article is sadly prompted by the untimely death of Andrew Matheson. It is a translation and reworking of my previous appreciation of Andrew Matheson & The Brats’ debut album Grown up Wrong, published in Swedish under the now defunct Rootsy header “Lost in the Blåst”.
The album in question was released in 1975 in Scandinavia only by the major label Mercury Records and sold less than 600 copies at the time. Since then, Grown Up Wrong has justly received belated critical acclaim and a wider audience, sparking at least four reissues – the first by Cherry Red in 1980 – with different titles. In some cases, extra songs in the form of outtakes, rarities and live tracks have been added.
We’re talking glam-rock and proto-punk. New York Dolls’ English twin souls. The album and its context provide clues that show what the counter-movement to the dreary music climate of the years before the punk explosion was all about. It was at a time when T Rex was one of the few beacons when the darkness of an abundance of boring dinosaurs (you know which ones) dominated. Glam rock musicians and fans spiced up the existence and wobbled around like androgynous glitter-strewn anorexics in platform boots, annoying the crap out of decent people. In a way, Grown Up Wrong is therefore the missing link between Marc Bolan and The Sex Pistols and at the same time it also shows where the English punk got a large part of its inspiration from. It’s not entirely wrong to say that the leading figures in The Hollywood Brats, Andrew Matheson and Casino Steel (Stein Groven), spearheaded both the mental preparation for and the actual introduction of London punk.
They started out in 1971 as Queen, but changed their name the following year to The Hollywood Brats because another London band had the same name (which, unlike the serious musicians this article is about, would eventually become quite famous). Andrew Matheson allegedly punched Freddy Mercury in the face (anarchy versus leotards) during a quarrel over the ownership of the band name Queen (even though our compadres had already adopted their new name, The Hollywood Brats). The Brats seem to have been completely uncontrollable and lived by the motto: maximum provocation and disruption. To such an extent that even Keith Moon called them the “Greatest band I’ve ever seen”.
Their path was strewn with hardships and problems: sometimes non-existent food intake, substandard housing, third-rate music equipment and difficulty finding members who could fit their decadent profile.
The Brats had a lot in place; a tough and uncompromising attitude with accompanying eye-catching stage outfit at a time when timid bands like Middle of The Road ruled the sales charts. The fact that it still didn’t work out for them can be blamed on their youthful carelessness, but above all on the fact that the people around them who were supposed to open the doors to the music industry were so corrupt that it was difficult for them to land a decent record deal for The Brats – even though the mixes of Grown Up Wrong were already finished in 1974. (A rough acetate of Another School Day was in fact made two years earlier.)
Andrew Matheson stole the master tapes when the disappointment of getting a record deal finally became apparent – after 20 record companies had rejected The Brats. His action was rushed by the imminent threat of them being erased. Casino Steel’s contacts in native Norway led to the eventual release of Grown Up Wrong in 1975, but the lack of support from Mercury meant that the album never received much attention at that time, making it virtually impossible for it to take off. To make things worse, The Hollywood Brats were in any case disbanded by then and could not promote the album with any tour.
All eleven songs on Grown Up Wrong are of surprisingly high standard, loud mouthy, and years ahead of their time. “Too much too soon”, you might say. A very un-English and straightforward production by Andrew Matheson himself, too. All tracks are self-composed, except for the intended B-side to Zürich 17 (which was never released as a single), the cover of The Crystals’ Then He Kissed Me. Not changing “He” to “She” and sung by a male singer was probably considered somewhat provocative at the time.
On the front cover, Andrew Matheson poses without a feather boa for once on his home turf in a back street in the now gentrified Soho in London. I had the opportunity to ask Casino Steel after a Boys gig if it by any chance is him lurking in the shadows to the left in the background. No, he said, The Brats had broken up long before that photo was taken. Just a pimp. One mystery less to solve, I guess…
But The Hollywood Brat’s career could have taken a different path than straight into nothingness because the band belonged to the same London crowd as their parallel American relatives, The New York Dolls. This meant, among other things, that Malcolm McLaren once suggested The Brats to front his new project. The answer was not entirely unexpected: “That’s the most ridiculous suggestion I’ve ever heard. Fuck off!”. McLaren’s idea would later, of course, develop into The Sex Pistols.
Although The Hollywood Brats were short-lived, their arrogant attitude influenced many other London bands, not only The Boys, who Casino Steel helped form after the split with The Brats, but also. for example, their biggest fan Clash-to-be Mick Jones, who arranged an audition for Steel and Matheson along with other upcoming celebrities (Matt Dangerfield, Geir Waade and Tony James), which did not result in Andrew Matheson joining London SS. He was by then so disgusted with the music scene that he no longer cared.
The transatlantic parallel lasted until the late seventies. The Boys have two Matheson/Steel-songs punked up on their debut album (Tumble With Me and Sick On You). They became somewhat of London’s equivalent to The Heartbreakers in New York, and Matheson’s first solo album Monterey Shoes (1979) is as polished and grown-up-right as David Johansen’s In Style from the same year.
More bratty details of The Hollywood Brats can be found in Andrew Matheson’s must-read memoir Sick On You – The Disastrous Story of Britain’s Great Lost Punk Band (2015), in which the years 1971–1975 are described in a hysterically funny and self-reflective way. The idea with The Hollywood Brats can best be summed up by the song with the same title as the book. And according to the song lyrics, Sick On You should be interpreted literally.
Be the first to comment