Like a less famous British cousin of the New York Dolls, the Hollywood Brats also had a taste for feather boas, glitter, and tough rock roll played with rough-and-tumble abandon. Although they only recorded one full-length album that was not released until after they had broken up, the band is recognized as a pioneer of punk.

The first incarnation of the Hollywood Brats surfaced in London in 1971 when singer Andrew Matheson, Norwegian keyboard player Casino Steel, and drummer Lou Sparks began playing regular gigs as the Queen. When Freddie Mercury's band of the same name came on the scene, the original Queens wouldn't let him strong-arm them into a name change until his outfit scored a hit and they were forced to adopt a new handle, becoming the Hollywood Brats. In 1972, guitarist Eunan Brady came on board after meeting Matheson through his ~Melody Maker ad seeking a guitarist "drunk on scotch and Keith Richards"; with Wayne Manor on bass, the lineup for this raucous glam rock unit was in place. The band crashed and burned their way through regular live sets in the summer of 1973, when their flamboyant makeup and female attire, à la the New York Dolls and David Bowie, and attitude-laden bluesy rock began to attract a following. As Brady recalled in his liner notes for the 1999 Cherry Red Records re-release of the band's album, "The whole point of the Brats was to annoy and disturb" Championed by Keith Moon, the band landed a deal with NEMS Records and recorded an album of pure rock fun with fuzzy, garage-flavored guitar solos, cowbell accents, and snotty lyrics populated with gold diggers and tramps. No label wanted to touch the finished product, however, and the recording languished until Mercury Records released the material as Grown Up Wrong in 1975, and Cherry Red Records issued their single "Then He Kissed Me" in 1979 and re-released the full-length album in 1980. But the band had self-destructed years earlier, with Matheson going on to record with Tools and Wreckless Eric's Last Orders, and Steel joining London SS briefly before Mat Dangerfield grabbed him to form the Boys in 1976.

Casino Steel met Andrew Matheson at a riot in Trafalgar Square, London in 1971. Repairing to a nearby pub they discovered they were philosophical blood brothers with a mutual disgust for the insipid state of rock’n’roll; the bloated complacency, the whining conveyor-belt popsters, the paleolithic rockers indistinguishable from their roadies. The two joined forces then and there to kick the music world in the teeth. They formed what would become a formidable song-writing partnership and set out to recruit a potent cocktail of cohorts. Within three months they had painstakingly selected a cosmopolitan line-up that featured:

Andrew Matheson from Gillingham, Kent, vocals

Casino Steel from Norway, keyboards

Brady from Dublin, guitar

Lou Sparks from Canada, drums

Wayne Manor from New Jersey, bass

Nineteen to twenty years old, wired on nicked Old Grandad, togged in women’s dresses and ‘30s Berlin drag, slathered in switchblade lipstick make-up, they were brash, surly, arrogant; the utter antithesis of everything then in vogue in the music world. They roamed Oxford Street and Soho stopping traffic, treading the couture tightrope somewhere between Clockwork Orange, Cabaret and Jackie Onassis in a hurricane.

Their performances were met with a mixture of shock and outrage. Loathed and booed by everyone from the student-loon-pants-and-cider brigade to the disco denizens the Hollywood Brats developed a chain-mail exterior and an utter disdain for the audience and the world in general.

They played the Speakeasy Club a mere three times before they were banned for life (one Brat vomited on a table of drinks and Brady threw an ashtray at Bryan Ferry’s head) but two notable things did happen for the Brats at the Speak. The Wild Man of Rock, The Who’s Keith Moon, called them "The greatest band I’ve ever seen" and they signed an exclusive management deal with an off-shoot of the notorious Kray twins criminal empire.

They entered Olympic Studios in late 1973 to record their one and only album. Working in cavernous Studio A they unsurprisingly didn’t get along with the two other artists recording at Olympic that month; the Eagles in Studio B and the Bee Gees doing vocals in Studio C. A scuffle broke out in the toilets and Maurice Gibb ended up with a bloody nose.

The Hollywood Brats fired two producers in the first week and the engineer, Irish O’Duffy, who had worked on the Rolling Stones "Let It Bleed" album, quit in horror. His parting words were "I’m sorry I just don’t understand this." The resulting self-produced album, flaunting audio and musical rules, captured the Brats at their audacious peak and has come to be considered a classic. A shrieking harbinger of the Punk movement to follow, the lascerating raw energy of tracks like "Sick On You", "Tumble With Me" (both later covered by The Boys) "Chez Maximes", "Zurich 17" and "Nightmare" sliced away the shroud and pissed on the corpse of rock’n’roll in the early seventies.

But it was way too much, way too soon. The world wasn’t ready for what Matheson described as "…just a little razor amphetamine, blood red noise at rip-yer-blouse-off decibels." One by one they were turned down by every record label in existence. Stunned and disillusioned the Hollywood Brats disintegrated in 1974. It wasn’t until1980, six years after the demise of the band, that Cherry Red Records released the album. Vindication was at hand. The reviews were stunning:

"Sheer teenage brilliance…the greatest album I’ve ever had the pleasure to review." Peter Coyne, Record Mirror

"A massive influence on Punk." J. James, Sounds

"It simply kills. Cocky, camp and careering, my most easily assessed 5K album ever." Ray Zell, Kerrang!

By then Andrew Matheson had moved to Hollywood, California. A noted recluse he has released one critically acclaimed album per decade since.

Casino Steel formed the Boys and went on to solo success on record as well as in business. He and Andrew continue their writing partnership.

Brady worked with Stiff Records, touring and recording with Wreckless Eric. He then retired to Sussex and took up bee-keeping.

Lou Sparks returned to Canada and became a used car salesman.

Wayne Manor was stabbed to death in 1982 by a prostitute outside a bar in Patterson, New Jersey.

In 1972, guitarist Eunan Brady came on board after meeting Matheson through his ~Melody Maker ad seeking a guitarist "drunk on scotch and Keith Richards"

MONGER

I think Turkey Skin may have found his job through a Roll Call ad looking for a fundraiser drunk on scotch and Keith Richards.

Sounds interesting.