Feelgood factor hits big screen (From Echo)

Feelgood factor hits big screen

11:50am Wednesday 30th September 2009 in

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AS dozens of fancy Londoners gathered to watch the premiere of Oil City Confidential, they had their senses beaten out of them, just like when Dr Feelgood first hit the capital’s music scene 35 years ago.

This fantastic film is a reminder of how intense, electrifying and hugely popular Dr Feelgood were at their peak and how they did more to imprint Canvey on the national consciousness than any tourism film ever could.

Their springboard to the big time came from wowing the crowds on London’s pub rock scene – but the movie makes it earsplittingly loud and clear they didn’t do this by trying to mimic the city-folks’ sophisticated ways.

They revelled in looking like oikes who had driven-in from the Thames delta in a dodgy Transit van, to have a good time and make a racket playing smash and grab gigs.

The film begins with the Feelgoods’ madcap former guitarist and songwriter Wilko Johnson, bass player John B Sparkes, drummer John “Big Figure” Martin, and manager Chris Fenwick, recalling their childhoods on Canvey in the Fifties and Sixties.

There is also ample footage of their late, great frontman and harmonica player Lee Brilleaux, filmed before he died of cancer in 1994.

The commentary is interspersed with film of the tragic Canvey floods in 1953, which killed 59 people, as well as footage of holidaymakers from east London stopping at Thorney Bay Caravan Park and lounging on the island’s beaches.

There is even black and white news footage of a long haired Wilko, before his Feelgood days, speaking out against a second oil terminal being built on the island off Northwick Road, by a firm called Occidental in the Sixties.

The film goes on to illustrate the development of the explosive on-stage chemistry between the permanently wired Wilko and Brilleaux, who was a menacing, chain smoking, force of nature on-stage and a gentleman.

It explains why they cut their hair short, wore cheap suits, and looked and sounded nothing like the prog and glam rock bands which were dominating the UK music scene at the time.

Their back-to-basics, high octane, rhythm and blues blew away audiences bored with the increasingly pretentious rock stars who dominated the charts.

Fans, including a young Lady Diana Spencer, flocked to see them at venues, such as the Hope and Anchor, in Islington, and the band made the front cover of influential music magazine the NME before they even had a record deal.

They inspired countless young punks like the Sex Pistol’s Glen Matlock and the Clash’s Joe Strummer, who explains in the film how he cut his hair off and changed his band after watching the Feelgoods in Ladbroke Grove, in 1974.

The movie’s greatest strength is of course recordings of their live gigs, including the band’s 1975 show at the Kursaal, Southend, which is projected on to the Oikos oil tanks, on Canvey, while Wilko is interviewed in front.

The band hit their peak when live album Stupidity reached number one in the UK album charts in 1976.

But the Feelgoods’ time at the top was short lived, as Wilko left during the making of their follow-up album Sneakin’ Suspicion and their popularity waned.

Wilko talks on film candidly about how he became isolated from the rest of the band, largely because they enjoyed boozing together on tour while he increasingly stayed in his room, staring out of the window and taking drugs.

He admits he wasn’t easy to get along with and holds himself largely responsible for the breakdown in relations with Brilleaux in particular.

Thankfully he seems to get on well with John B Sparkes and the “Big Figure” now and it was moving to see them chatting together around a pub pool table all these years later.

The great sadness is of course that Brilleaux died 15 years before this epic tribute to his band hit the big screen.

However, his mum, Joan, spoke of her comfort from knowing that although he lived a short life, he achieved great things and packed more fun and excitement into his 42 years than most people do in two lifetimes.

The film was directed by filmmaker Julien Temple – best known for his landmark movies on punk figureheads the Sex Pistols, in the Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle and the Filth and The Fury, and Joe Strummer, in the Future is Unwritten.

It is shot in an anarchic style and intended as a prequel to the films about Strummer and the Sex Pistols, as the Feelgoods’ menacing, no nonsense, and utterly intense take on rock and roll blazed a trail for punk.

Oil City Confidential will be officially premiered at the London Film Festival, at the National Film Theatre, on Friday, October 16.

This fitting tribute to a truly great rock and roll band will be shown in selected cinemas acros the UK in early 2010.

It is hoped the film will also be shown on the BBC, and it will be released on DVD later next year.