A rather obscure UK band from the mid-70’s that mixed a form of Glam Rock, Prog Rock, Art Rock with many seeds of Punk Rock, DOCTORS OF MADNESS certainly had an unusual line-up that included a blue-haired giant frontman Richard “Kid” Strange that sung, played wind instruments and sang. Just behind him are violinist-guitarist and “low-budget-orchestra” player Urban Blitz, bassist Colin “Stoner” Brown and drummer and vocalist Peter Di Lemma. Despite the impressive musicianship of the band, the band was the first shot for all four members but Kid Strange was previously an actor, writer and journalist. He would later found the legendary and art-mixing Cabaret Futura in the 80’s. Urban Blitz is reputed to have created the “skeleton violin” in the early 70’s. Apparently, on stage, their show was fairly theatrical as well.
Their first album Late Night at the movies, All night Brainstorm appeared in early 76, a troubled time were the Punk wave was about to become tsunami, and was a savant mélange of Glam rock (ala Bowie or Velvet Underground) with some very proggy elements, notably because of Blitz’s violin, which reminded Dave Arbus of East Of Eden or Grahame Smith (Sring Driven Thing and Van Der Graaf), Comus’ Colin Pearson or even John Cale (Velvet Underground and solo). Main songwriter Kid Strange’s composition ranged from the calm and introspective to the raging fury that reached punk levels, but the level of musicianship was never below some similar bands like The Cardiacs or The Stranglers, but had Blitz’s unusual talents to make an otherwise standard guitar-fronted line-up. Their second album Fogments Of Emancipation appeared later that year and was just as impressive, (but more compact as no tracks lasted more than 7 minutes) , despite a proggier artwork and title that would’ve announced the opposite, despite Kid also playing some keyboards.
Sadly the band’s failure to “catch” either the prog or the punk camp didn’t play them a favour and both their first albums went largely unnoticed and by next year’s inaptly-titled and disappointing (but punkier) Sons Of Survival, the band was on its last leg.
http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/doctors_of_madness
(RYM has the order of release of the first two mixed up, btw)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJJJf9UOR5M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66jH-9nT_aA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmEtYO1ek3I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yG2xiYP0xQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pT98QZ4z4s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJJJf9UOR5M
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