Marc Bolan: "Hippy Gumbo" 7" – $2,200.00

Lo, the sham. Obviously snatched up by a wealthy T. Rex collector, this marks the second time in a year someone has paid more than $2,000 for a copy of this single. Part of the early Bolan fiasco, "Hippy Gumbo" dates from the florid sorcerer's apprentice phase of Mark/Marc Feld/Bowland/Bolan a.k.a. Toby Taylor a.k.a. the guitarist from John's Children a.k.a Zinc Alloy. Marc's fake last name wasn't the only thing that sounded just like Dylan. I rarely see this mentioned by critics anymore, but it's in the Wikipedia entry, so hopefully going forward the etymology of Bolan will be as synonymous with T. Rex as "Get it On": Bo (b Dy) lan.

Mark Feld was a deluded, easily-led famewhore (what, he gets a free pass because he's dead?). People like this are a dime a dozen; you'll run into ten or twenty in a given night on the city, all convinced of their uniqueness, willing to change their look, name, schtick and sound at the drop of a hat if it means playing to a bigger audience. And it's ok, because they're geniuses—anything they do is genius. Most of these people go back to the suburbs they came from, strung out, cursing at the radio from their parents' basements by age thirty. But every once in a while they meet an older, sadder shadow of themselves, whose only remaining weapon—the only blade time can't dull—is the money they'll gladly spend to live vicariously through and/or profit by their puppet. Malcolm thought he was doing this with the Pistols, and was understandably crushed when they out-maneuvered and out-willed him. Bolan, for his entire career, drifted whichever way these mirror winds blew, from backer to backer, manager to manager, agent to publicist to disc jockey to girlfriend, ad infinitum. Well, not infinitum.

I guess when you believe your own bullshit to the extent that you sketch out a renaissance faire rock opera called "The Children of Rarn" ten years deep into a crippling fairy fetish, there's ample room for a revolution of the self. And we have all benfited from Bolan's breakdown, when he sailed half-step strut boogie off the planet with the deliriously unserious Electric Warrior and The Slider. Not least of all for their influence on Bowie ("Uncle Arthur" is timeless), these records were celebrated for killing the '60s in the UK, and left their mark on everyone raised in their wake. Love and Rockets' entire career is one long-winded tribute to the Rex. Smiths ("Panic"/"Metal Guru"), Pixies ("Dress"/"The Groover"), Oasis (half of their discography, but "Cigarettes and Alcohol" is ridiculous)...you could even make the argument Duran Duran lifted "Get it On" for "Hungry Like the Wolf." Every rock band's got at least one T. Rex ripoff in their catalog. But Bolan's underlying desperation—the fathomless insecurity inverse to his stratospheric ego—was his undoing, and he glommed on to Ringo, Bowie, Alice, Elton, Cilla et al to reassure himself it was real.

Bolan had no idea where to go, his success derived from a persona and music he most likely didn't take care about. He wanted to cast real spells, not figurative ones, and though he got off on the fame as some kind of mystic transubstantiation, and forced in the occasional sorcerer/dragon couplet, the press broke his back over T. Rextasy, knowing the upstart had been playing a chameleonic game for some time. At which point Bolan doubled-back on Bowie, positing the Zinc Alloy false-front—grotesquely similar to his bubblegum doppelganger Gary Glitter. He finally jumped onboard Bowie's soul train, before an untimely death in '77, when he was excitedly lobbying for the Sex Pistols while ruing them on record ("Teen Riot Structure" offers some juicy psychotherapy on Rotten: "I fed him with my nightmares, he ate my dreams as well"). It would have ended in tears anyway.