Skweeze me ...
It is around this time of year that people begin to curse Noddy Holder. After all, the experience of Christmas shopping is never made any easier by Slade's ubiquitous Merry Christmas Everyone! In his autobiography, Who's Crazee Now?, Holder sadly makes no apology for his band's festive anthem. He does, however, provide a disarmingly unpretentious and vivid account of thirty years in the pop industry.
As lead singer of seventies glam-rockers Slade, Holder rose from his working-class Walsall roots to international super-stardom. Although best-known for his piercing voice and wacky outfits, Holder's band had a string of number one hits world-wide, and were a dominant force in British pop music for over a decade.
Who's Crazee Now? is, then, the story of a working-class boy made good. However, it is a clichéd tale told well. Holder has retained an enthusiasm for music and pop-stardom which is instantly appealing. Whether revelling in past glories or narrating the band's demise, he retains the perspective of the starry-eyed boy who dreamed of living in Sutton Coldfield.
As in any autobiography, there is an element of 'setting the record straight'. Despite the limited kudos created by Reeves and Mortimer's Slade sketches and the Oasis cover of Cum On Feel The Noize, Slade have never really been cool. With its emphasis on loud costumes and loud music, Glam Rock was an inherently brash and ridiculous genre. Bizarrely, then, while gleefully acknowledging their obsession with daft outfits and shock-tactics, Holder is keen to resurrect the band's credibility. He is at great pains to point out that Iggy Pop, Susie Quattro and 'The Quo' all supported Slade and that Cum On Feel The Noize kept Marc Bolan's Twentieth Century Boy off the British number one spot.
The book's most winning feature is the insight it provides into rock'n'roll living and changes in the music industry. Of an era when 'booze, drugs and girls' were all any self-respecting pop star kept backstage, Holder makes the likes of Oasis look like lightweights. It is hard [though erotic - Ed.] to imagine Boyzone left destitute by unscrupulous promoters and forced to defecate on to rich German perverts.
Highbrow literature this isn't, and those seeking serious brain-stimulation should look elsewhere. That said, the book is an entertaining read and the perfect antidote to academic overload. Written as a loosely structured monologue, Who's Crazee Now? is best read (for obvious comedy reasons) in a thick Black Country accent. Bostin.
hg
4th Nov 1999