Pub rock (United Kingdom)
| Pub rock | |
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| Stylistic origins | |
| Cultural origins | 1970s London and Essex |
| Typical instruments |
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| Derivative forms | |
| Other topics | |
| Pub rock (Australia) | |
Pub rock is a rock music genre that was developed in the early to mid-1970s in the United Kingdom. A back-to-basics movement, pub rock was a reaction against progressive and glam rock. Although short-lived, pub rock was notable for rejecting stadium venues and for returning live rock to the small pubs and clubs of its early years. It was the catalyst for the British punk rock scene.
Pub rock was deliberately nasty, dirty and post-glam. Dress style was based around denim and plaid shirts, tatty jeans and droopy hair. The figureheads of the movement, Dr. Feelgood, were noted for their frontman’s filthy white suit. Bands looked menacing and threatening, "like villains on The Sweeney". According to David Hepworth, Dr Feelgood looked as if they had "come together in some unsavoury section of the army".
Pub rock groups disdained any form of flash. Scene leaders like Dr. Feelgood, Kilburn and the High Roads and Ducks Deluxe played simple, "back to mono" rhythm and blues in the tradition of white British groups like The Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds, with fuzzy guitars and whiny vocals. Lesser acts played funky soul (Kokomo, Clancy, Cado Belle) or country rock (The Kursaal Flyers, Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers).
The scene was primarily a live phenomenon. During the peak years of 1972 to 1975, there was just one solitary Top 20 single (Ace’s "How Long?"), and all the bands combined sold less than an estimated 150,000 albums. Many acts suffered in the transition from pub to studio and were unable to recapture their sound. The genre’s primary characteristic is, as the name suggests, the pub. By championing smaller venues, the bands reinvigorated a local club scene that had dwindled since the 1960s as bands priced themselves into big theatres and stadia. New aspiring bands could now find venues to play without needing to have a record company behind them.
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