Gary Marx – Green Ginger Jive

Back in the 80s the dark side of post punk emerged in the unlikely location of Yorkshire, the godfathers of the scene were The Sisters Of Mercy, arguably the band’s classic line was that of Andrew Eldritch, Wayne Hussey, Gary Marx and Craig Adams. They recorded one album together, the classic First And Last And Always, before spectacularly imploding and splintering into various offshoots. Eldritch formed The Sisterhood before returning with various incarnations of The Sisters of Mercy, Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams headed off into The Mission and Gary Marx re-emerged in Ghost Dance with the former Skeletal Family vocalist Anne-Marie Hurst. The original line up of The Sisters Of Mercy never reunited, a rarity in the era of classic album tours and overpriced reunion tours, and all of their later projects retained that monochromatic quality, until now. Gary Marx has gone back to his glam roots and exploded in a technicolour celebration on Green Ginger Jive, he’s even got his fellow ex-Sister Wayne Hussey on board for the album. Green Ginger Jive also features a hefty supporting cast including Miles Hunt (The Wonderstuff), Daniel Mass (Salvation), John Robb (Goldblade / The Membranes) and even Evil Blizzard‘s Filthydirty who all don their platforms and flares and join the party.

Any thoughts that this might be some kind of hidden goth revival are swiftly dismissed by a joyous stomp that takes you back to the decade that fashion forgot with a T-Rex inspired boogie that’s sprinkled with stardust, the T-Rextasy is compounded by Stone Cold Solid Boogie and Here Comes Seventeen. Cordite Drive is the meaty filling in between the albums mellower moments, Sugarcane and the piano led 4G (All The Way From Munster), but those two tracks aside this is handclap heavy rock ’n roll from the era before punk, where trousers and collars were a hazard in high winds. The majority of the latter half of the album, De La Pole Avenue, Dressed Up, Messed Up Kid, Wicked Ways, Louder and Slingshot all take their cue from prime cuts of Marc Bolan and David Bowie before the album closes with Stardust #5, which hints at another prime 70s icon.

Did I say it closes? Well there are of course bonus tracks for the lucky few, including the down and dirty riff of Teenage Prayer and Chain Store Mascara that don’t depart from the throwback to five decades ago. A look at the charts from that era, and I did look, underscores just when this album draws from, with the likes of Mud, Suzi Quatro and Alvin Stardust all topping the charts, as well as a certain now infamous act who proved that behind the glitz and glam there was a horrendously dark side to the 70s. However, Gary Marx prefers to draw from the guitar heavy glam rock staples of the era and creates an album that is slightly, but not completely, temporally displaced. It would have been easier for Gary Marx to re-record a set of Glam Rock standards with an all star cast, but on Green Ginger Jive he has done this on his own terms rather than recycling rock ‘n roll.

The Mission previously celebrated Glam Rock as The Metal Gurus, The Sisters Of Mercy weren’t averse to a cover version or two and Ghost Dance gothed up a few Glam Rock classics, so maybe Gary Marx embracing his Glam Rock roots isn’t such a surprising turn of events. Despite it’s dark side, Glam Rock gave us some memorable moments and as many of punk’s mainstays from the 70’s have stated, and more than a few have covered glam rock classics (including The Damned, Vice Squad, The Undertones and The Methadones), it was an influence on punk and on the darkness that followed with Bauhaus, The Cure, Fields Of The Nephilim and of course The Sisters Of Mercy all tipping a nod to the kings, including the now dethroned ones, of Glam, but thankfully without the need for the fashion disasters of the early 70s. Green Ginger Jive is a celebration of what came before, and what, if we’re honest, has never really gone away. Glam Rock is now enjoying something of a renaissance and is finally being dragged out of the guilty pleasures section. Cum on feel the noize.

Green Ginger Jive is being released on October 5th on vinyl and CD via Wrecking Ball Sounds