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The Renegades - Cadillac - Studio Live Video 1964 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1RtV20zLK8
The Renegades was formed in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. In the beginning the group's primary influence was The Shadows, but they were soon to change their style into straightforward rock'n'roll and rhythm'n'blues. Around 1963, besides hardening their music, they also embraced themselves a harder look, when they started wearing cavalry uniforms of the time of American Civil War as their stage outfit.
In February 1964, The Renegades' version of Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody" appeared on a compilation titled "Brum Beat", which introduced Birmingham's rock groups. Excepting that and an acetate single for Morden-based Oak Records and a budget priced album for Fidelio/Summit Records (produced by Delta Record Company of London), The Renegades did most of their 1964-66 recordings for the Finnish Scandia Records and after that for the Italian Ariston and Columbia Records (which leased the material forward to English, American and Middle-European labels).
Kim Brown (born June 2, 1945), Denys Gibson (born February 17, 1945), Ian Mallet (born July 28, 1945) and Graham Johnson (born August 30, 1946) conquered Finland in October 1964, when they did a one-off gig at a model show in Helsinki, and then started a constant seven weeks' tour, playing at multifarious dance floors around the Finnish country side (the originally planned three-week stint was extended because of a massive success and demand). The first visit also included two tv-appearances ("Nuorten Tanssihetki" & "Uudet Tuulet" shows), and signing the record deal with Scandia Records. Since 1967, The Renegades had visited in Finland altogether seven times. Besides them, they also appeared in late 1965 in Germany, Holland, Switzerland and Italy, where they returned in 1966 to took part in song contest with "Un Giorno Tu Mi Cercherai" at San Remo music festival. The last time they were seen in Finland together was in 1971.
Although they were treated here as the '2nd Beatles', The Renegades wasn't actually a beat group in the literal sense of the word. Of course they sounded rougher than fifties or early sixties groups, but a notable part of their repertoire was still straight rock'n'roll, and they were obviously affected by black blues music as well. These influences were heard also in their own compositions, but ironically, their biggest Scandinavian hit "Cadillac", which was credited to be written by themselves, was actually a simplified remake of rock'n'roll classic "Brand New Cadillac", penned and recorded by Vince Taylor. In Sweden, The Renegades' version was covered by The Hep Stars, while in Finland, Eero ja Jussi & The Boys remade it as a humorous Finnish transalation "Mosse" (which is a synonym for the popular Russian automobile brand, although the lyrics are talking about a horse of the same name).
The group was definitely the most celebrated rock act in the country, but somehow they didn't have any no.1 hit on the Finnish Singles chart. However, "Cadillac" went to Top 20 in December 1964 - peaking to #2 at its best and spending altogether 5 months on the chart. The song got also a very good reception at the radio, where it climbed to the top position of national radio's popular "Kahdeksan Kärjesssä" (Top 8) poll show. Also "Seven Daffodils" and "Matelot" appeared on the Finnish Singles chart, but quite surprisingly none of their four albums charted.
In addition, The Renegades appeared in the Finnish musical motion picture "Topralli", which premiered on March 22, 1966 and was directed by Yrjö Tähtelä, and they also accompanied the Finnish pop artists Danny and Ann-Christine on a couple of their recordings. In summer of 1966, after recording their fourth and the last Finnish LP, the guitarist Denys Gibson left the group, and he was replaced by Joe Dunnett. In 1967, The Renegades relocated to Italy in 1967, where they had their second hit tube. Later on, also Dunnett left the group to form his own group Rubber Duck, while the rest of The Renegades (with the new guitarist Mick Wembley) stuck together for some years until the final split-up (Dunnett however, used the group's name in 1976 on a German single which was credited to Joe Dunnett & The New Renegades). The drummer Graham Johnson settled in Italy and probably lives there today while the other members returned to England. Kim Brown came back to Finland in the 1990's, and eventually decided to stay here permanently.
- Ian Mallet died on October 26, 2007 in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, England after a massive heart attack.
- Kim Brown, the vocalist of The Renegades, died in Helsinki on the 11th of October, 2011, after a long struggle with throat cancer
Enter
researcher Miles Mathis, to take the whole field of “conspiracy”
research to a new level, exposing even most alternative theories as
misdirection, and outing seemingly every mainstream cultural icon as an
agent, accomplice or dupe of the Intelligence services, at the behest of
the ruling elite. Mathis’ most radical vision is that even most
alternative “conspiracy” theories (including those of McGowan) play into
the larger deception or are a form of controlled opposition, hiding the
bigger picture of events from public scrutiny, and reinforcing the
illusion that controversial personalities, assassinations, and terror
events were real at all.
I
emerge from my binge reading of Mathis—artist, physics bad boy,
cultural critic, and constant exposer of spooks—with every surety of my
youth dispelled by his X-ray vision. Using extensive genealogy from
mainstream sources, expert deconstruction of faked news photos, and
persuasive logic bolstered by straight-up honesty of method and intent,
with a charming way of presenting strong opinions as nothing other than
personal speculation, Mathis has caused the 
We already know from official testimony that the CIA has controlled major media such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. From Mathis we see that also such supposedly independent outlets such as Salon, the Paris Review, and the Atlantic are similarly compromised.
I
confess to a certain generational bias here, for like Mathis (in his
fifties), I am most disturbed by having the idols of my youth, and the
truths I took to be self-evident facts of a delivered history in the
making, turned into so much puppet theatre. Meanwhile, our personal
angst of disillusionment aside, that manufactured history has marched
on. The traditional battle lines between rich and poor, left and right,
have been redrawn as neoliberals and neoconservatives have joined forces
in launching the New World Order, leaving us peons outside the golden
gates of the industrial/financial elite.
In
this context the hidden agenda of the sixties documented by Mathis (and
admitted by the CIA, in the form of their program MK-ULTRA, among
others) makes sense: the promotion of a hedonistic culture of sex, drugs
and rock ‘n roll. At the time, we who lived through that
“revolutionary” era felt it as a genuine alternative to the previously
promoted culture of the fifties, which celebrated the pursuit of
happiness with makeup, a new car, and better living through chemistry,
along with those same perennial addictions—sex appeal; booze, pills and
cigarettes; the birth of rock ‘n roll.
In
the music culture since the early days of the century the jazz edge of
music was allied with pot smoking. With CIA plants like Huxley and Leary
pushing the psychedelics, that cultural wave was amped up and turned in
the opposite direction of the concurrent wave of political protest. The
progressive movement of the thirties had already got railroaded out of
the picture by World War Two, but it became more threatening in the
Civil Rights and Disarmament/Antiwar movements of the sixties and
beyond. So, following Mathis’s logic, even those movements were coopted
or turned or touted to fail, or deemed useful in demonizing those very
advocates—militant Blacks, airy peaceniks, dirty hippies—thus creating
false enemies within the society: the Left vs. the Right, liberals vs.
conservatives, straight vs. stoned. Both the putative state—the visible,
pre-elected government—and its decadent dissidents (or in popular
terms, the “Silent Majority” and the “Radical Fringe”) were set to
arguing on the playground, while the real business of Global
Corporatocracy proceeded apace.
What
has happened in politics has happened in art, and by design, says
Mathis. I admit this grudgingly because like everyone else I was
brainwashed to hold in high esteem every icon of the mass education and
entertainment industry, even those painted or pumped as rebels (my
personal demigod Jimi Hendrix included, according to other researchers).
Mathis gives a pass to Thoreau, and few other iconoclasts, but most of
the rest of our cultural heroes prove, by instructive genealogy and
demonstrably faked bios, darlings if not blood relatives of the
Intelligence and Military wings of the Deep State 
When
I digest such truths, it’s hard for me to believe anymore in my former
indulgence with stream of consciousness writing or formless music. Now
that I’m hooked back into content by Mathis and his ilk, I see
the virtue of realism and formalism in art with new respect. The
critique carries even into New Age spirituality, played so often to the
classic Timothy Leary mantra, “Turn on, tune in, drop out”—negating
engagement with the nasty real world of the ongoing despoliation of our
fragile planet.
