I Danced Myself into the Tomb

Tomorrow is the 32nd anniversary of Marc Bolan's death. While I was never fanatical about the Bolan Boogie, I think he was an interesting character and truly love some of his songs. 

A trier if ever there was one, after a brief stint as a male model, ace face half pint mod and an even briefer stint as lead guitarist with the fantastically shambolic "John's Children", the elfin Marc Feld reinvented himself as a star child hippie minstrel along with Steve Peregrin Took (was that really his name?!) in the Band Tyrannosaurus Rex (that's king of the lizard's according to my 5 year old son) singing songs with ridiculously long titles to stoned freaks at love in's, be in's, art lab's and free festivals. While he may have looked like Syd Barrett's wee brother and sang cosmic songs about trippy delicacies, he was a bit of novelty due to the fact that he only took acid once, hated it and lived a quiet suburban existence rather at odds with his image. Took, on the other hand embraced the whole drug ethos of the time, ran around Ladbroke Grove with the Deviants and eventually died after choking on a cherry stone, or so I've been told.. 

Championed by the late great John Peel, his acoustic noodling was going know where until he hooked up with incredibly handsome Mickey Finn and an electric combo, shortened the bands name to T-Rex and the rest is Glam history.

Bolan died after his girlfriend Gloria Jones (singer on the classic northern soul version of "Tainted Love") wrapped their mini, purple of course, round a tree in Barnes, London. He was not quite 30 years old. Bolan's career had flagged after the death of glam and the rise of punk, but he was making a stab at a comeback with his own T.V. show before his untimely demise. Check out the footage of a very drunk couple of old glam swingers, Bolan and Bowie on the show. David croons while Bolan, in a Tapesque moment, falls off the inches high stage riser mid song!!

The songs that come to mind when someone mentions Bolan's name are the mighty "Children of the Revolution", the sublime "Ride a White Swan" and the whistful "Cosmic Dancer". Every home should have a copy of "Electric Warrior" and for all you oldies out there here's his appearance on the Cilla Black show singing the wonderful "Life's a Gas" with said host...Keep on dancing Marc. Oh yeah, and he called his son Rolan, as in Bolan, a bit like Zowie as in Bowie...