Little Bob Story: Off the Rails + Live in ‘78
Aki Kaurismäki’s 2011 film Le Havre features a cameo from a hard-rocking band fronted by a grey-haired gentleman who crops up elsewhere in the action. He is Roberto Piazza, and trades under the name Little Bob. Although born in Italy, his family moved to France in 1958 when he was 13. Integral to and at one with France’s perennial love affair with classic rock ‘n’ roll, he formed the band Little Bob Story in Le Havre in 1974.
Kaurismäki recognised that the wilful Little Bob is the genuine article: a man forever marinated in the spirit of high-energy rock ‘n’ roll. Lemmy also knows this, and guested on the 1987 album Ringolevio. The French combo and Motörhead had played together in London in 1976. The welcome reissue of Off the Rails is a reminder of the unlikely but true scenario that France had a band which rocked as hard as the best of Britain's mid-Seventies back-to-basics pub rockers – the scene which laid the table for punk.
Off the Rails is the UK version of Little Bob Story’s second album, issued under the title Living in the Fast Lane in France in 1977. This new reissue is supplemented by five previously unheard live tracks, recorded at Camden’s Dingwalls on 15 March 1978. The album kicks off with “When the Night Comes” and it’s instantly obvious how the French band fitted in with the musical changes of 1975 to 1978: the song is fast, rough, rooted in R&B and unites the energy of High Time and Back in the USA MC5. Like the Detroit combo, this was a band looking to an era when rock ‘n’ roll was still primal. Head to track seven, “Mr Tap”, for the proof. It’s no wonder Little Bob Story played Europe’s first punk rock festival, held at Mont-de-Marsan in August 1976.
In short, Off the Rails is an infectious, oomph-packed slab of dynamism which drew from the same inspirational well as punk rock. In the liner notes, Little Bob recalls that amongst the band’s London audience were Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock and Damned guitarist Brian James. But Little Bob Story were not punk. (Pictured above left: Little Bob keeping the spirit in 2013)
Although the Fifties spirit and the musical attack of Detroit inspired Little Bob, he was also preoccupied with the sound of Britain’s mid-Sixties. The cover versions heard are the crunching “Baby”, originally recorded by Midlands beat band The Sorrows, and (on the live tracks) Small Faces’ “All or Nothing”.
Getting to grips with what Little Bob Story were is not so difficult. In the liner notes, Little Bob is quoted characterising his band as “rock ‘n’ roll” and saying “we were never a pub rock band”. Yet the band’s chosen style and its symbiotic relationship with Britain make them exactly that: a pub rock band. But France doesn’t have pubs as such, so he may have a point.
Nonetheless, the evidence. Little Bob Story supported Dr Feelgood in Le Havre in March 1975. They did the same at Paris’s L’Olympia on 21 June 1975. Off the Rails was released by Chiswick, the label which also had The Count Bishops and Joe Strummer’s pre-Clash pub rockers The 101ers on its books. The album was produced by Sean Tyla, ex of pub rock stalwarts Ducks Deluxe. The opening cut “When the Night Comes” is very close to Ducks Deluxe’s “Coast to Coast”. “Little Big Boss” resonates with the feel of Down by the Jetty Dr Feelgood. And there is also a quality akin to the pre-hit Eddie & the Hot Rods.
There is nothing wrong with being pub rock, and that is what revisiting the Little Bob Story of 1977 and 1978 suggests they were. But what matters most is that Off the Rails is a blistering – yes – rock ‘n’ roll album and, as such, is timeless. Vive le rock, and vive Little Bob.
Next week: Laraaji’s ambient new age music
