"Imperial Drag: The Sound of a '70s-Music Shopping Spree"
Pulse! July 1996
by Tom Lanham
The Olympic torch was only a few blocks away down Sunset, but Roger Manning -- hanging out in the lot at Tower Records' historic Hollywood location -- suddenly heard nature calling. Hence, he was indisposed when the flame passed by, carried aloft by a shuffling elderly woman to the cheers of American-flag-waving crowds on the boulevard. When Manning finally emerged, the cross-country cavalcade had moved on, save a few stragglers who stuck around to ogle the store's scheduled free concert. But this proved an interesting point: Torch, smorch -- neither the ex-Jellyfish keyboardist nor his cunning new glam-pop combo, Imperial Drag, are that fond of anything that smacks of modern.
The guy certainly looks like Rick Wakeman-retro as he leaps onstage to man his mountain of Moogs, Rolands and Hammonds -- he's sporting bell-bottom cords, a tight knit shirt from the '70s, and some shocking purple dye in his nearly waist-length tresses, while singer/guitarist (and Jellyfish tour veteran) Eric Dover opts for showier tartan-plaid elephant bells to complement his tank top and Beatle boots. But a new audience starts to gather as Imperial Drag bounces through material from its self-titled Work/Columbia debut, a record that borrows from so many vintage sources it could sound juts as invigorating on 8-track.
Some obvious plunderings: the Gary Glitter bass swagger and Sweet/"Little Willy" guitar buzz on "Boy Or Girl"; Dover's Lennonesque vocal take over the ELO-glitzy organ wash on "The Man in the Moon'; and "Salvation Army Band'"s madcap homage to Roy Thomas Baker-majestic Queen, circa "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon." Catch the boys at it, and they immediately fess up.
"But that's the thing," smiles Manning, "all that's in there, but that's not the whole song."
Dover, who last appeared on Slash's Snakepit and co-wrote every track with manning, hears more than glitter rock in the androgynous-ode "Boy Or Girl."
"There's some swamp in there too, and I think maybe a little Dave Edmunds."
Manning suddenly cuts in: "Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you come up with the basic idea after listing to Blur's Parklife album?"
"Yeah, more or less," says Dover sheepishly. "But the song wound up in a different place."
"Like Jellyfish," says Manning, "this band likes exploring different styles. Take a song like 'Salvation Army' -- who the hell out there right now does a super-strut like that? Nobody! So you have to go back 15 years to find something like that. And then the big hammer comes down -- Retro! Just because Soundgarden and Green Day hasn't done something like that."
The Imperial Drag philosophy?
"We bore and tire of things really quickly, so we're constantly thinking 'What different fields can we have fun with?"
Shortly after Manning dismissed the Olympic torch, a brazen lad in a Jellyfish T-shirt approached him and inquired, "Dude, are you gonna play any of your old songs?"
The response was short and delivered with just the right touch of '70s vernacular -- "You're in for a surprise! You're not gonna get it, because this is a whole different bag, man!"
