Sunday 4 August 2013

STATUS QUO "DOWN DOWN" . . . . THE QUO, BANGIN IT OUT BIG TIME ON 'TOP OF THE POPS' CIRCA '74/'75 . . . . THIS INSPIRED PIECE OF DIRTY DENIM CLAD GUITAR DRIVEN BOOGIE HAS RECENTLY BEEN BASTARDIZED BY A SUPERMARKET CHAIN IN THE LAND OF OZ . . . . THIS IS REALLY ALL ABOUT PROVING THAT IT'S STILL A THUMPINGLY BRILLIANT TUNE NEARLY FORTY YEARS SINCE IT PILLAGED THE CHARTS . . . A SIMPLE, TWELVE-BAR KILLER, ALL CREDIT DUE.

You have to keep in mind that when Messrs Parfitt, Rossi, Lancaster and Coghlan released 'On the Level' in 1975 a huge chunk of the music on the mainstream 'charts', both in the U.K and the U.S.A, was looking a pretty fucking flaccid affair, if it wasn't soft and squishy then it was being created by the superstar jetset the likes of Led Zep and The Stones, there was sweet bugger that was honest, working class rock+roll, even Slade had started to wain into slightly spongy ultra glam . . . . the Quo themselves had sorta reinvented their own 'look' from the days of the late sixties and early seventies, or at least taken to wearing denim on denim as a visual counterpoint to their golden locks and come-fuck-me glances to the crowd/camera. When this quintessential electric boogie bag of tunes hit the shelves it went straight to the top courtesy of very cleverly releasing 'Down Down' in the last two months of the previous year . . . . every chick at my first boarding school went apeshit for the two guitarists and whatever it was they had in their brush denim Y-fronts and every bloke was bangin their little schoolboy head and laying into his own air-guitar, it was a full tilt sonic assault, not in how 'heavy' it was but rather by virtue of its driving, thobbing, one speed only rhythm section tempo and its fuzztoned, overdriven twin axe attack of Rossi and Parfitt . . . . turn this bastard up to ten, kick off the Van's and get down, deeper and down, Status Quo, on the fucking level, for sure. 

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