Every Moment Has A Song

Having come of age in 1970’s America and not 1960’s England, perhaps it’s to be expected that Screaming Lord Sutch escaped my musical radar.

But it’s with some embarrassment that I find I’ve been repeating a common but innacurate tale about Alice Cooper “inventing shock rock”–not surprising since that’s the version you’ll read in any and all Alice-related interviews, bios, and liner notes.

While Alice Cooper has certainly influenced every so-called shock rocker who came after him, and in my opinion contributed more classic tunes to the rock songbook than anyone else in the genre, it turns out he was not without antecedent.

The UK’s Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow is more deserving of the title of the original Monster Rocker. (An argument could also be made for Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, although Cooper’s act seems to owe more to Sutch than to Hawkins.) Sutch had a horror-themed stage show, emerged from a coffin, dressed as Jack the Ripper…and for a time had Ritchie Blackmore in his band, by the way.

He also ran in parliamentary elections, sometimes as representative of his own Official Monster Raving Loony Party.

Two other dubious biographical details: The album Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends was named as worst album of all time in a BBC poll in 1998. Also, the Rolling Stones are referring to Lord Sutch (as “a guy who’s all dressed up just like a Union Jack”) in “Get Off My Cloud”, supposedly a reference to an incident when Sutch turned up uninvited in Jagger’s room.

Screaming Lord Sutch, who suffered from depression, committed suicide by hanging in 1999.