T. Rex “The Slider” released on this date, July 21st, 1972. I’m capping off 70′s week with one of my favorite glam rock albums (I wrote about it 2 years ago but it’s so good it’s worth another run). The Slider is slinky, scuzzy and outrageously sexy, its style defining the glam rock genre. So many down-n-dirty lyrics, delivered by Marc Bolan oozing raunch sensuality: the title track “The Slider” (when he sings “And when I’m sad, I slide” the word “slide” is downright lecherous), “Ballrooms of Mars” (“You dance with your lizard boots on…You diamond browned hag, You’re a gutter-gaunt gangster”), “Chariot Choogle” (“Standing on your porch, You wear your pleasure like a torch, Hiding in the road, Like a Pasolini toad, Gonna give up all my load and go”) and the entirety of “Buick Mackane” (which ends with the lyrics “Slider slider, You’re just a sexual glider, Be my plane in the rain”). The Slider is also funny and clever: Bolan’s use of language, the vocabulary and the lyrical rhythms, creates a rich,  visible texture to the stories contained within each track. On “Telegram Sam” (which hit #1 in the UK) Bolan gives T. Rex’s manager the nickname Telegram Sam (supposedly he sent the band their tour earnings after each performance date via telegram so that the band didn’t blow the money pre-show). The other characters in the song receive tempo’d monikers: Golden Nose Slim, Purple Pie Pete, Jungle faced Jake. Bob Dylan is just Bobby and Bolan describes himself: “I ain’t no square with my corkscrew hair.”  (Dylan is name-checked again on “Ballrooms of Mars.”)

Telegram Sam Telegram Sam
You’re my main man

Golden Nose Slim Golden Nose Slim
I know’s where you ‘bin
Purple Pie Pete Purple Pie Pete
Your lips are like lightning
Girls melt in the heat

Telegram Sam
You’re my main man
Telegram Sam
You’re my main man

Bobby’s alright Bobby’s alright
He’s a natural born poet
He’s just outa sight
Jungle faced Jake
Jungle faced Jake
I say make no mistake
About Jungle faced Jake

Automatic shoes
Automatic shoes
Give me three D vision
And the California blues
Me I funk but I don’t care
I ain’t no square with my corkscrew hair

Telegram Sam Telegram Sam
I’m a howlin’ wolf

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The LP reached #4 on the UK charts and #17 in the US; the single “Telegram Sam” made it to #1 in the UK. (Bauhaus would later cover “Telegram Sam” in 1980, rendering the glam rocking tune into an upbeat goth anthem.) Overall the album is slinky sexy, glam rock with dirt under its fingernails. Steve Huey writes about “The Slider” on Allmusic “[Marc] Bolan’s love of a good groove takes precedence over fast tempos or high-volume crunch. Lyrically, Bolan’s flair for the sublimely ridiculous is fully intact, but he has way too much style for The Slider to sound truly stupid, especially given the playful, knowing wink in his delivery.” I’m especially fond of this stanza from “Ballrooms of Mars” –

You dance

With your lizard leather boots on

And pull the strings

That change the faces of men

You diamond browned hag

You’re a gutter-gaunt gangster

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“Dark Entries” has a faster rocking tempo than most Bauhaus songs (so much so that it took me a few seconds to realize that I failed to switch the record player setting from 33-1/3 rpm to 45 rpm – it was only when the vocals started that I realized that Peter Murphy can sing low, but not that low), and has a very similar flavor to Bauhaus’ most excellent “In the Flat Field.” “Telegram Sam” is a cover by glam rockers T. Rex., lending Bauhaus a decidedly upbeat groove and garagey sound with sneer and swagger rather than the goth fathers’ usual gloomy distant minimalism.

4AD released the EP just months after Bauhaus disbanded in July 1983.

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