Dr Feelgood – Down By The Jetty (1975)
Such is the cyclical nature of the music business that the rehabilitation of pub rock was always just around the corner, and with the release of Julian Temple’s Oil City Confidential, it’s time has surely come. Dr Feelgood were always too good to be pigeonholed. The look was pure east end gangster, the music took R&B as practised by the likes of Muddy Waters and John lee Hooker, appropriated by The Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds, as a starting point, tightened it up and spat it out, decorated with lacerating shards of rhythm guitar and gale force blasts of mouth harp. I saw them play in front of about 100 people on New Year’s Eve 1974 at The Kensington, a long forgotten pub in west London. They were the finished article, even then. Lee Brilleaux, hunched over his microphone, oozing menace, sweating like a blacksmith. Wilko, like a robot on methedrine, darting manically back and forth across the tiny stage, his guitar spitting rhythm and lead simultaneously. To say they brought the house down is an understatement. They were a primal force and their influence on Punk Rock has always been understated. Check out this video for proof!
