1974 - Sparks are the next big thing

For the average teenage record buyer in 1974, turning on the radio to hear Ron Mael's electric keyboard ushering in the falsetto tones of brother Russell singing "Zoo time is she and you time, the lions are your favourite kind and you want her tonight....."  - was a moment of pure delight.

With 'This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us', Sparks provided one of those wonderful eureka moments, when a record gets you off your feet and down to the record shop, because you have to own that record right now.

It was new and exciting in a pop world that had become devalued by so many second-rate groups jumping on the glam rock gravy train. "This Town...' harked back to the excitement we felt when we first saw and heard David Bowie and Roxy Music in 1972. It was exotic and dramatic and not only that, it rocked.

They may have been new on the UK scene but Sparks had already made two albums in the US for Bearsville Records, produced by Todd Rundgren. But it was a move to London for their third album 'Kimono My House' and a new band where the whole thing came together, built around Ron's intriguing lyrics and Russell's camp falsetto.

Moving from their native LA, they came to the UK and signed to Island Records. Their quirkiness was probably better suited to the UK pop charts anyway. The first single from Kimono My House made an immediate impact and the following week they were on Top of the Pops.

Their first appearance on TV showed they had a visual quirkiness to match the oddball lyrics and quasi-operatic delivery. Ron Mael with his Hitler moustache and mild smirk; curly-haired flamboyant Russell taunting his brother for a reaction. These guys knew how to put on a show.

As Sparks proved over their entire career, they have a knack for unusual song themes, or at least songs it would be hard to imagine other bands coming up with. On Kimono My House, their dark humour was evident on tracks such as 'Here in Heaven', about a suicide pact where only one person did the deed. And 'Amateur Hour' which delves into the subject of how to please a woman sexually - "when you turn pro you'll know, she tell you so". 

One of the showpiece songs on the album is 'Thank God It's Not Christmas' - performed here by the original band on French TV in 1974.

The NME's Ian MacDonald was full of praise for this new pop phenomenon in his review of Kimono My House in May 1974. "Ron Mael has set the whole lop-sided wobbly man of technique and 'tradition' spinning again. Melody lines spiral up and down (care of the extraordinary voice of brother Russell) through intervals and over chords that seem to echo from somewhere in the classics....there's more energy on Kimono My House than anything I've heard since...you know when."