Run From The Wildfire

Possibly best-remembered as the band that spawned future Status Quo bassist John "Rhino" Edwards, Rococo never fulfilled the promise that their very first release, the "Ultrastar" single, seemed to offer, but they were a constant fixture on the London live circuit of the early to mid-'70s and, it now transpires, in the capitol's studios as well. Run from the Wildfire, absurdly, is Rococo's first-ever LP, largely recorded toward the end of the band's lifespan in 1978, but bolstered, too, by alternative versions of some earlier material: both sides of that debut single are here, in rough mix and demo form; their third and final single, the Beach Boys pastiche "Home Town Girls," and "Quicksilver Mail," is also revisited. Plus we finally get to hear "Hollywood Brats," the song that introduced Rococo's alter ego, the Brats, to the world in 1974, and which some observers have added to the DNA of punk rock. Hard hitting but melodic throughout, Run from the Wildfire stands as a reminder not only of Rococo, but of all the bands that pounded the same circuit at the same time, unable to raise their heads above whichever fashionable parapets the music press had erected that week, but as deserving as many of those that did.