VA - Surrender To The Rhythm: The London Pub Rock Scene Of The Seventies (2020)

Sequestered in Kentish Town to record an album with Hendrix/Slade producer Chas Chandler, in the spring of 1971 exiled American band Eggs Over Easy persuaded the landlord of local pub The Tally Ho to let them perform at the venue.

Though the band were back in America by the end of the year, they inadvertently became the catalysts that sparked the pub rock revolution, with the likes of Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe and Bees Make Honey playing a burgeoning circuit that included The Kensington in Russell Gardens, The Lord Nelson on Holloway Road and The Nashville in West Kensington.

Surrender To The Rhythm charts the origins and development of the London pub rock scene throughout the Seventies, featuring all of the aforementioned bands as well as such key names as Dr. Feelgood, Ace, Kilburn & The High Roads, Dave Edmunds, Graham Parker and Elvis Costello.

We follow the scene into the late Seventies and the Stiff/punk era with the arrival of new, younger blood that included Eddie & The Hot Rods, The 101’ers, The Jam and Squeeze.

Naturally, we also round up a whole host of bands who underpinned the scene but failed to cross over to mainstream success: National Flag played an extraordinary 24 times at the Marquee in the space of fifteen months, Bearded Lady were headlining the night that support band The Jam were spotted by Polydor, and Brewers Droop featured an earnest young guitarist by the name of Mark Knopfler.

With so many pub rock bands of the era having not recorded, we’ve plugged the gaps with a few acts (Status Quo, Mott, SAHB, Thin Lizzy) who had an agreeably down-to-earth, spit’n’sawdust mentality even though they were too big to play the circuit. After all, pub rock is a state of mind as much as a physical location…