The ‘Acupuncture’ tour
Ian Trimmer (saxophone, vocals) / Billy Jenkins (guitar, vocals) / Steve Parr (keyboards) / Steve Hughes (bass, vocals) / Paul Warren (drums, percussion)
One website describes Burlesque as a “cult ‘art-rock’ band that skirted the London ‘pub-rock’ and ‘punk rock’ scenes (but were definitely neither)“, whilst a second website declares that “in their music and presentation, Burlesque infused contemporary rock sounds with elements of 1940s jump blues and slapstick comedy.” Elsewhere their style has been described as a cross between pub-rock and brass-laden rock’n’roll, so they certainly seem to have defied easy classification! Billy Jenkins himself says “We used to announce a different style every few months – ‘Armed Forces Rock’, ‘Afro-Latin-Tex-Mex-Rock’, ‘Art Rock’ were three labels. But never punk.” They apparently gigged very hard around the London circuit for five years after their 1972 birth. The track that they were best known for at the time was ‘Lana Turner‘ and the single that they would have been plugging when I saw them was the title track taken from their upcoming album, ‘Acupuncture’ (released February 1977) which was backed by a reggae version of the Man song ‘Bananas‘ (which I’ve always liked) so there’s every chance that we would have got both of these songs together with other material from that album. Interestingly, the album appears to have been recorded ‘live’ from their ’76 UK tours with the Kursaal Flyers and Bill Nelson’s Be Bop Deluxe which is a bit of a risk for a debut. Apparently they were selected as the ‘Band Most Likely To Succeed‘ in both the tabloid Sun and Melody Maker at the end of ’76 which was clearly the kiss of death because the band split soon after the release of their two albums in 1977. I really can’t remember the gig but I know that I saw them – I had a small picture of the ‘Acupuncture‘ album stuck into my old ‘Bands Book’ which 100% guarantees that I was there, but if they were anything like Supercharge or Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias – bands to which they have been compared – it’s highly unlikely that I would have enjoyed my evening. Too daft for words!
Possible setlist: Acupuncture; Bananas; Lana Turner; Elsie Petunia; Cold War Romance; Hymie Blows It; Where Did You Get It? Drabola; C.N.D. 63; Love It To Death
The publicity photo below is from 1975 and features (l-r) Jenkins, Hughes, Trimmer, Parr and Knight.
And here’s the track ‘Lana Turner’…
Gigs'n'Stuff 