Usually tossed into the mod bag,
the Jolt defied such easy categorizations, and split up just as that movement emerged into the national spotlight. Fired by the fury of punk, the band formed in the summer of 1976 in the suburbs of Glasgow, Scotland. The initial quartet quickly slimmed to the trio of singer/guitarist Robbie Collins and bassist
Jim Doak, both university dropouts, and drumming journalist
Iain Shedden. Gigging around Glasgow didn't offer much opportunity for advancement, and so by the following summer
the Jolt had made London home. They now plied the same circuit as the punks, striking up a friendship with
the Jam, for whom they often opened. Polydor quickly snapped
the Jolt up, and in September 1977 the group's debut single, "All I Can Do," arrived. As with all the second-generation bands,
the Jolt were bringing new influences into the already fading punk scene, in their case a healthy dose of '60s R&B.
For anyone having trouble identifying just where their inspiration lay, the trio answered the question with its follow-up, a raucous cover of
the Small Faces' "Whatcha Gonna Do About It." But while
Eddie & the Hot Rods were having success with an R&B-punk crossover sound,
the Jolt decidedly weren't. Third time lucky? "I Can't Wait," released in June 1978, completed the hat trick of flops, although the song is a classic combo of spitting punk fury and
Who-esque power chords. It boded badly for
the Jolt's eponymous self-titled album, which arrived the following month. More diverse in sound than their singles had suggested was possible, the album still didn't jolt the public out of its lethargy or the press away from the
Jam comparisons, even if
the Buzzcocks and
the Undertones were much more apt. The group made one last valiant attempt to shake up its fortunes, enlarging to a quartet with the arrival of guitarist Kevin Key a few months later.
The Jolt continued gigging, and in the new year, the rising tide of mod seemed likely to carry
the Jolt chartward with it.
At which point the group handed the British press the bullet that would finish the band off -- "See Saw," a then unreleased
Jam number gifted to them by
Paul Weller for inclusion on
the Jolt's forthcoming Maybe Tonight EP. The press obliged with a predictable pasting. The A-side deserved it; both songs were weak. But the flip -- "See Saw" and "Stop Look" -- were everything a mod could desire. The EP arrived in the shops in June 1979, and stayed there. And as mod burst into full flower,
the Jolt's members called it a day, thus harvesting none of the rewards from the new genre they had helped engender.
The Jolt might have been no more than a footnote in most people's musical archives, but the U.K. label Captain Mod reissued their album and all their singles on CD in 2002, providing a vivid reminder of the group's groundbreaking and underappreciated glory.
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Jo-Ann Greene, Rovi