Wizzard - “See My Baby Jive” (Top of the Pops; Xmas, 1973)
First, I couldn’t stop listening to this on repeat for a half hour.
And, now I’ve apparently watched this insane and very colorful 1973 TV performance three times in a row.
Why? Easy.
- Songs like this are why rock ‘n roll is better than almost anything;
- Few objects in the universe are more empirically fascinating than Roy Wood;
- With the notable exceptions of John Entwistle and Mr. Wood, bass-playing veterans of the British Invasion era rarely felt comfortable even being photographed with the notoriously-difficult-to-play French horn;
- It was only in the 1970s that Western Civilization briefly saw how to harness and channel the inscrutable mystique of a man wearing an inexpensive gorilla costume.
Roy Wood is a goddamned treasure.
Dude has a proto-Devendra Banhart look.