This album has had some mixed reviews, even from band members, but Barbara liked it immediately. Read her reasoning behind her love for this album here.
The Pound recovers
Genesis: – “Selling England By the Pound” (Charisma)
Album review by Barbara Charone
GENESIS FANS unite, stand proud and be counted; get ready to say I told you so to all those people who have been doubting your praise of the band. “Selling England By the Pound” is the band’s best, most adventurous album to date. There comes a time in every band’s career when everything comes together, all the ideas, the playing, everything the group has been trying to put across. And that’s the case with this album. There’s not a half finished idea here, every track is worked out down to the last drum roll. There’s so much subtlety that numerous listenings continue to reveal new found secrets. “Dance With the Moonlight Night” begins the album as Peter Gabriel sings a folky lament acapella. A bit medieval, the piece features layed back guitar wandering and majestic melody lines. Even on the first track, a difference is apparent. For starters, Tony Banks is playing more piano than organ; this is coupled with Gabriel’s emotive singing. Steve Hackett’s whining guitar and the all powerful rhythm section of Michael Rutherford and Phil Collins. Yes, Genesis sound mightier than ever. This band doesn’t have to talk about dynamics, they’re content to feature them constantly in the playing. They play harsh and rocky one minute and soft and gentle the next. “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)” conjures up amazing visual possibilities with it’s childlike quality of far away images. A flute comes in at the end, reminding one ever so slightly of early Traffic. Classical themes are carefully mixed with rock, highlighted by Banks’ grand master piano playing and Collins’ orchestral percussion on tracks like “The Firth of Fifth” and “After the Ordeal”. “The Battle of Epping Forest” is the one that will no doubt be a grand stage production. One can easily envisage Gabriel playing the actor as his voice changes ranges and accents — while the piece builds to a fitting crescendo. Never boring, never redundant, each piece is a minor tour de force, each played with the sensitivity and care all too often missing from popular music. The lead guitar lines change with each song, always blending in with the creative use of moogs, mellotrons and synthesizers. Banks makes those instruments come alive. He never reverts to easy mechanical gimmickry like so many of his contemporaries. So forget all those supergroups, all the super hype and all those mundane ‘concept’ albums. Disregard those mellotron based wonders that are almost always boring. Forget all those bands that sound the same. Genesis stand head and shoulders above all those so-called progressive groups. Even the people upstairs like this one!
The original music paper this article came from (pictured at the top) is for sale! Send me an e-mail if you are interested. Send it to: geirmykl@gmail.com The offer should be 20 $ (US Dollars) to be considered. (This includes postage). If you order several papers – contact me for a “special” offer. We conduct the transaction through my verified Paypal account for the safety of both parties. If you have a large collection of the following magazines, don`t throw them out, but contact me as I would be very interested in these: Creem, Circus, Hit Parader and Metal Edge.
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One thing is for sure – you rarely see such frank and open interviews in the music press these days. But they should learn from this one as it is very refreshing to see something as apolitical in the printed press. A certain songwriter and another star from way back get to know how they are looked upon. Read on!
Queens of the Hop
The Sweet`s ballroom blitzkrieg goes on. But behind the on-stage mincing and make-up, there`s something else in the air. In fact, the rock pariahs now want musical respect: James Johnson reports.
JUST ABOUT make it these days, loosely categorised as a Punk Rock Band. Otherwise they’re something of an embarrassment to anybody who takes rock seriously. Their records are, at best, dismissed as instant `youth club’ throwaways — the opium of young teens. It would be a distressing task indeed for Sweet to glance through their press cuttings — except they’ve never been over-concerned with being taken seriously anyway. They specialise in ‘fun-rock’ they explain, and, of course, it’s not only fun but highly lucrative too. Apart from their dazzling run of hit singles in Britain, Sweet have also scored hits in the States where the likes of T. Rex and Slade have more or less failed. And Sweet have yet to play there. So naturally the odd adverse spot of criticism over here doesn’t really worry the band — yet they remember the reaction to their recent Rainbow concert with a certain chagrin. That concert was supposed to be a kind of showcase, a Big Occasion, when Sweet in front of a packed theatre would finally gain some respect. That’s how it was planned but unfortunately the band still managed to bomb out on a scale almost unparalleled since the Titanic’s maiden voyage. It was a bad night, but it wasn’t their fault, say Sweet. “I must admit I was in tears though,” says guitarist Andy Scott. “We couldn’t get a sound check before the show and by the third number the P.A. blew.” “We went off the stand after that,” says Mick Tucker. “Eventually they got the P.A. going again and we were pushed back on. I was intending to go home by then — I’d already changed — but we were pushed back on and went — simply because there were two and a half thousand kids out there and it didn’t matter a light to them how we sounded. Then when we got on stage the PA blew again. In the end we just played a medley of our hits and that was it. I was just embarrassed.” Over the last few weeks the band have been on holiday, “sitting on our arses,” sorting themselves out and planning a new stage act. Now they’ve turned up again with a new hit single “Ballroom Blitz”, which naturally has meant a standard appearance on Top Of The Pops. “We made a film to show with the single,” says Tucker, “but it`ll only be shown in America and on the Continent. We wanted to show it on Top Of The Pops but the BBC prefer you to appear live if you can and we’ve got this guy Nicky Chinn who doesn’t like to lie. “We said to him ‘Lie to the BBC and tell them we’re out of the country or something’ but he wouldn’t do it. A pity really, ‘cos it’s a good film. So I’ve heard.”
Mick Tucker is the Sweet’s drummer, a strong sort of personality with lined, shadowy features and an ability at not mincing words. Last week he was sitting in a small box of an office along with Andy Scott at the publicist’s headquarters. It’s Tucker and Scott, according to their press lady, who like to talk most — despite the fact its usually Brian Connolly who seems to take on the role of spokesman as well as lead vocalist. Quickly it becomes obvious that both Tucker and Scott have developed an odd self-effacing style of humour and a tendency to be outspoken when they feel the situation demands it. Maybe they feel the best form of defence is attack. Take Lou Reed for example. “There’s no way round it – that guy is no great singer,” says Tucker, bristling visibly. “I mean, look at all the bullshit that’s gone on about ‘Transformer’. That’s a record we put on for a giggle when we’re feeling down. “I’d say ‘ten out of ten for conning’ there – for pulling the wool over people’s eyes. I mean there’s people who almost worship Lou Reed but I remember seeing him with the Velvet Underground and I didn’t think much of him then. All this Walk On The Wild Side crap — what’s all that about? Philosophy I suppose — no melody but deep philosophical lyrics. So why doesn’t he write poetry instead of picking up a guitar? He can’t play it anyway.” As for themselves, Sweet have always claimed they’re better musicians than they’re given credit for. Both Scott and Tucker have served hard apprenticeships in bands before reaching their present situation; Tucker remembers playing a few open-air festivals with one band, a memory he doesn’t relish. Now they maintain everybody is afraid to like the Sweet. “I think we’re better than a lot of our counterparts,” thinks Scott. “I mean I know who I can blow off a stand, but then I’m quite prepared to admit there’s better than me as well. But we always get stuck in the same bag with Gary Glitter, Slade, T.Rex… you know, you can reel off the names in the same breath. “In the early days we even used to be put in the same bag as Middle Of The Road. We were a bunch of wankers who didn’t play on their backing tracks. I think we’ve lived that one down now.” Scott continues: “All our early singles were simply an image-build. We went along with them because it tied in with the sort of image we were protraying early in our career. “Since ‘Little Willy’ I think they’ve got a good deal better. I mean there’s something in them now — even for a musician.” “Not a lot,” comments Tucker. “No, not a lot, but something,” returns Scott.
“The thing is nobody can tell how good we are as musicians from listening to our records. They’re just straightforward sounds, the arrangements worked out between seven people: the group, the writers and the producer. “We hired an arranger once and he mixed the song ten times, spent hundreds of pounds and the record only made number thirty-two. So what was the good of that?” Scott pauses triumphantly… “Basically our records are just excitement half the time but that’s what we want. What we like is guitar riffs, funky things, old Purple stuff – things like that.” According to Tucker, musicians are always coming up to them and complimenting them on some part of their playing. Then they tend to follow it up by asking why each of them sticks to the Sweet routing. “Most musicians are complimentary,” says Tucker. “I met Francis Rossi of Status Quo once and he was as nice as pie to my face. Then the next interview he did he had a little dig at Sweet, you know. But that sort of thing doesn’t mean too much.” The new stage act Sweet are planning is part of an attempt to ensure they don’t have to simply rely on hit singles for a following. It’s an attempt to side step the obvious insecurity of their current position. They talk about how they would like to attract older audiences. It’s a show that doesn’t simply rely on their singles. “There’s a lot of tongue in cheek things,” says Tucker. “Like, a Shadows sequence with the foot movements, you know? It’s not a piss-take all the way through but parts of it are — which I ‘spect a lot of our fans are going to take on its face value. “Primarily it’s designed for our States visit but it’s part of an attempt to get people in future interested in our albums as well as our singles.” It’s also why Sweet have started to write more of their own material. “We were going to make our next album a sort of `History of Rock’ but a couple of other people beat us to it so the idea’s been shelved. Rigor mortis have done it now, and Bowie has, so we thought if we went ahead the headlines would read ‘Sweet rip off everybody’. Now the album is just going to be our own songs.” UP TO NOW Scott and Tucker admit they’ve felt insecure about their standing; Scott says he was talking to Marc Bolan about it only the other day. So how did he find the Bolanchies? “Flash runt really,” says Scott and grins. “I mean I’ve got to say it — although I suppose we all are. “I mean, I’d had a few drinks and I said to him, ‘Listen man, you can’t really play — but he says he can, you know. Like he said — Scott adopts a Bolanoide accent, — Well, fuck off man. I’ve played with Ringo Starr and I know the Beatles and I’m doing a film. Flash runt. I mean I never saw Bolan live but on his records his guitar was always cleverly disguised. You could never get any idea of his ability.”
At a mention of Bolan one remembers about eight months back when Sweet were presented with a new image encompassing glitter, make-up and tinsel. At the time it was made out to be a big deal but, as with almost everything else, Sweet find difficulty in taking it too seriously. They explain it was never an enormous change for them. “We’ve always worn stage make-up and everybody thought we were queens,” says Tucker. Basically he just puts it down to record company hype. “They were behind it all really just below along with it. You know, you have to. “It is Steves (Priest’s) trip. He enjoyed wearing it and the rest of us thought it was a giggle. “Basically Marc Bolan got all the publicity for it but he really ripped off Jagger ‘cos he was really the first to use glitter. Then somehow we got a name for copying it off Bowie.” Tucker looks perplexed and confused. “Then Bolan came out with a headline saying it’s dead and supposedly it’s not hip to wear make-up but if you look down the street it’s still an influence. “We’ve just done this tour of Denmark and Sweden and they’re really heavy about it over there. Like we were getting into a car after one gig and there were blokes coming up to Steve and saying ‘I’ve got a great arse, Steve, you gotta come with me.’ “You’ve just got to laugh about that kind of thing. I don’t know what Bowie’s tendencies are — but for us, it’s just funny.” So how about the current vogue for bad taste? Any thoughts on that? Tucker casually explains: “We’ve always had ideas for people spewing up and things like that but we’ve always had managers in the past and people behind us saying you can’t do things like that. Just lately we’ve got a new set up which leaves us free – so now we’ll do it if we want to. To me, if it was in context for somebody to piss on stage then we’d do it.” Both Scott and Tucker maintain that for them the greatest band is the Who. That’s how they would like to end up one day, so they say. “We’re all ego-trippers musically, you see,” says Tucker. Nevertheless, despite their offhand humour, one still feels they’d now appreciate just a grain of respect. They feel there’s something to be proud of now. “That’s why all the nasty jibes don’t hurt anymore,” says Scott. “Because I know we’ve got one of the best stage acts in the country. “In our early days I think the criticism used to hurt because a lot of it was true. At one time we used to be fucking terrible. When we used to play piddlin’ Locarnos we’d be all right individually but we could never play together. You know, we’d try our balls off and it wouldn’t come. Jesus… we used to argue about it — on the stand, in the studio, all over the place.” But wasn’t it the final act of treachery when Nicky Chinn, one half of their Chapman/Chinn songwriting team, admitted he didn’t like the Sweet either? Surely that must have rankled somewhat? Apparently not. Scott again: “The thing is about Nicky is that he’s embarrassed by us – by the things we do. You know, he’s a millionaire’s son, a public schoolboy — a perfect gent you might say. He’s also a great guy but his background makes him embarrassed by us on stage. Chapman, though – he’s been in bands himself. He’s rude like us.” “Yeah, I offered to show Nicky my piles once,” remarks Tucker, matter-of-factly. “And he walked out of the room nearly ill. You know, he’s that sort of guy… inhibitions… no sense of humour.”
The original music paper this article came from (pictured at the top) is for sale! Send me an e-mail if you are interested. Send it to: geirmykl@gmail.com The offer should be 20 $ (US Dollars) to be considered. (This includes postage). If you order several papers – contact me for a “special” offer. We conduct the transaction through my verified Paypal account for the safety of both parties. If you have a large collection of the following magazines, don`t throw them out, but contact me as I would be very interested in these: Creem, Circus, Hit Parader and Metal Edge.
If you have a music-related web-page where this fits – please make a link to the article. With credits to the original writer of the article from all of us music fans!
This was a strange article in a lot of ways, among them the very intellectual wording and the fact that Mr. Murray actually compares BB & A to Led Zeppelin in a not so favourable way. I have had a lot of readers on my former BB & A articles and at this time of writing Mr. Beck just recently died. Another one of the great ones gone! Very sad. Read on.
The Axeman cometh
What has six legs, ten strings, a nasty leer, and sounds like an earthquake? Answer: Beck, Bogert and Appice – and they`re in the studios again. Charles Shaar Murray reports…
IT JUST GOES to show that things ain’t always what they seem. Bopping down Savile Row in the general direction of Apple Studios (ah, Apple! Totem of our misspent youth!) one espies a well-groomed red sports car with a Fender Mustang bass in the back. Since one already knows that Beck, Bogert and Appice are recording in the aforementioned Apple studios, and also that Jeff Beck is a collector of ludicrously rapid four-wheeled motorised conveyances, it seems only logical that said car was part of the organisation. However, one slight problem. A wad of official-looking papers is stuck under one of the buggy’s windshield wipers and a traffic warden of singularly malevolent aspect is standing around glowering and emitting bad vibes at a fearsome rate of knots. Therefore it seems the least one can do is to locate the missing Lonesome Picker and inform him that he is about to be minus one sleek red etcetra. Apple Studios looks something of a shambles from the outside, all brick-dust and scaffolding and tarpauline — but once inside the control room it’s a different kettle of watts. Discreet neon lighting, a very businesslike control board, stacks of Dolbies, swivel armchairs – all good stuff, no schmutter. Sure enough, Beck is inside, fetchingly attired in a black seersucker shirt tied above the navel, jeans and an impressive assortment of baubles, bangles and like objects. His nasty leer, patented several years ago and still going strong, is nailed firmly in place as he listens to Carmine Appice wreaking mayhem on a drum kit in the main studio area. “I want a big fat sound three miles wide,” he instructs engineer John Mills over the sound of Appice beating his snare to a pulp. Upstairs, the offending car is being towed away, but Beck denies any knowledge, ownership or association with the vehicle in question: “I’m parked miles away, Anyway, I’d really like to see somebody try and take my car – no way. It’s got so many security devices built into it that they just couldn’t do it without the keys.” “Maybe they’d use a crane,” suggests someone. Beck allows a vulpine grin to occupy strategic areas of his face. “That would be great. Of course, I’d wait till they were just about to lift it and then turn up and claim it.” He diverted his attention to Appice, still thundering away on the other side of the glass partition. “That sound’s only two miles wide,” he comments, and a minion scuttles into the studio to replace one of the microphones.
Once again, BB & A are handling their own production for this new album. The name of Mick Ronson had entered discussions, but both Jeff and Ronno are so busy that they haven’t had any chance to get together. Rick Derringer, aide-de-camp to Winters of all description, had also apparently been mooted — but he shot his mouth off about it and also made a few ill-considered remarks about Carmine Appice into the bargain. Word of these mouthings had gotten back to Jeff… let it suffice that Rick Derringer was not in the studio and was not expected to appear. Meanwhile, a segment of Carmine’s drumming is being recorded as a sound test. At one particularly audacious helping of percussive virtuosity, Beck collapses with stunned laughter and loud chortles of “Whaaaaat?” Carmine Appice looks like Cat Stevens with muscles. He’s wearing a T-shirt inscribed with the words “New York”, and a doll’s head. An innocent enquiry as to whether it’s a New York Dolls T-shirt provokes him to a near-homicidal frenzy. He doesn’t dig the Dolls, and the T-shirt was a gift from promoter Howard Stein. Tim Bogert, now beardless, lopes into the studio to get a suitable bass sound. Beck produces a bottle of tequila and sends out for lemon and salt. Carmine begins to relate a horrific anecdote from his Vanilla Fudge days. “Before a show one time I was telling the other guys about this great routine I’d worked out where I’d bounce the sticks off the drums and catch ’em during a solo. So there I was doin’ it, and one of the sticks bounced the wrong way and cut my face just above the eye. I feel all this wet stuff on my face, and I think it’s just sweat. Then I wipe it off and I see that it’s red and I’m screaming. ‘Blood! Blood!” And the others are probably thinking. ‘Flash bastard!” interposes Beck. Bogert finally sorts out his bass, and now its Beck’s turn to go in. The guitar sound is right first time: all he has to do is set the amp controls and tune up. WHAT’S GOING down is the recording of the basic backing tracks, i.e. drums, bass, and rhythm guitar. A Staples Singers tune called “Missing Word” is first up: after three tries they get it right. It’s a comparatively gentle piece with a very open arrangement, and some (gulp!) tasteful guitar fills, but the real showpiece of the proceedings is the basis of an instrumental called “Jizzwhizz”. Some of vou may know this as the long coda to BB & A’s live version of ‘Morning Dew”, but they found that the closing jam was more fun than the song itself, with the result that it simply growed and growed, eventually emerging as the scaly, monstrous, fire-breathing behemoth that you will shortly hear growling from your speakers.
The piece falls apart almost before it`s begun, but Appice, unperturbed, simply curses and counts it in again. This time it works. Devastation! Terror! Plunder! The women and children of Cimmeria put summarily to the sword by mightily-thewed horsemen! The wreckage of all known contemporary values… pretty good stuff you got there, brother, and it’s only the backing track. From “Jizzwhizz”, completed or not, you can get a thoroughly adequate idea of what sets BB & A apart from all the other guitar-bass-and drum bands, and… but hist! Let Beck himself clue you in. “Basically, we’re known for playing rather than specific songs, so we felt that doing an instrumental would allow us to let people hear what they want to hear — us playing.” What really makes it is the quality of the ensemble playing. Despite frequent and singularly short-sighted comparisons, BB & A and Led Zeppelin are into totally different areas – as much from necessity as from inclination. Robert Plant is a far more impressive vocalist than Carmine, and the material concocted by Plant and Jimmy Page is also far more solid than BB & A’s compositions. Thus Zeppelin can give their songs room to breathe, and support them with admittedly splendid instrumental work. On the other hand, BB & A’s songs are merely scaffolding around which they build their arrangements. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and does not imply any inferiority on BB & As part: on the contrary, it inspires them to even greater heights of performance. The tightness, ballsiness and sheer quality is totally overwhelming, and the day they get their hands on some material worthy of their skills, they’ll probably rule the world. Back at the studio, BB & are putting down a third backing track, their third in three hours. Beck and Appice want to put the voice and lead guitar on straight away: Tim Bogert wants to get another backing track down on the grounds that “if you’re gonna put on your tracks, what the hell do you need me around for? I might as well go home.” When I split they were still making up their minds. Predicting an album’s merit on the strength of a couple of backing tracks is a risky business. So let’s just say that Beck, Bogert and Appice are one of the few bands left really worth watching, and that their second album sounds like a potential earthquake. Anyway, any band who can work that fast must know what they’re doing. Or so one hopes.
The original music paper this article came from (pictured at the top) is for sale! Send me an e-mail if you are interested. Send it to: geirmykl@gmail.com The offer should be 20 $ (US Dollars) to be considered. (This includes postage). If you order several papers – contact me for a “special” offer. We conduct the transaction through my verified Paypal account for the safety of both parties. If you have a large collection of the following magazines, don`t throw them out, but contact me as I would be very interested in these: Creem, Circus, Hit Parader and Metal Edge.
If you have a music-related web-page where this fits – please make a link to the article. With credits to the original writer of the article from all of us music fans!
Two articles for one in this one. Hope you all like it. Read on.
Of boots and roots and dynamite rockanroll
Charles Shaar Murray on the Slade greatest hits LP
THE FIRST TIME I saw Slade I thought they were dreadful. It was that memorable night at the Lanchester Arts Festival when Chuck Berry cut the live side of his “London Sessions” album, and they were opening the show on an evening which was to include the likes of Berry, Billy Preston and the Floyd. They’d just made number one with “Coz I Luv You”, and the vast majority of the assembled company were only dimly aware of them. Weren’t they that bunch of losers who used to pretend to be (choke) skin-heads? Anyway, they came as close to dying the death as they’ve probably ever come. Noddy Holder compounded the felony by trying to bully the audience into responding. They did their set and split. To say that they left without trailing clouds of glory is something of an understatement. Well, that was then, early 1972. It’s well over a year and a half since then, and that same Slade are one of the best and biggest bands this sceptered isle has spewed forth in a donkey’s age. This week sees release of a greatest hits album, appropriately entitled “Sladest” (Polydor). It features all their singles including the ones on Fontana and a track from “Play It Loud”, their first Polydor LP, the Great Forgotten Slade Album. “Sladest” is nicely packaged with lotsa colour pictures and a perceptive and informative sleeve note by Bob Houston. It’s a fast gulp of the sum total of Slade so far. Though good ol` Dancing Dave may be the face and Noddy Holder the voice, the musical centre of Slade is Jim Lea, who writes most of the melodies. Some of the earlier tracks, like “Know Who You Are” and “Shapes Of Things To Come” are very niftily arranged. “Know Who You Are”, in particular, has a serpentine melody line that unwinds quite craftily. Another early track, “Pouk Hill” is startlingly like “White Album”-period Beatles, with Lennon-ish vocal, a “Dear Prudence” chord sequence and some highly Harrisonian guitar. The kind of material, in fact, that a large number of dreary neo-Beatles American groups are trying hard to produce. Yet despite the greater complexity and arguably superior musical value of those early tunes, it was the boot-stomping vandal-rock of their later stuff that gained them their present supremacy. Well, no sweat over that, because “Get Down And Get With It”, a fine piece of rabble-rousing and their first successful single, was certainly more immediate than any of the more subtle pieces discussed above. This was a simple and pragmatic move, as Slade had discovered during their endless round of gigs that the all-out assaults went down better than the more laid-back pieces.
What made “Coz I Luv You” a hit was not simply the fact that you could dance to it. The added extra secret ingredient was that you could stomp to it as well. Not just at one or two key points, but all the way through. What dance-hall yobbo could resist it? It was total perfection. It also had a deliciously logical tune, Lea’s fiddle solo, and a restrained version of Holder’s beserk howl. It still remains one of Slade’s most likeable pieces. It’s very good-natured, and the violence was only there if you were actually looking for it. “Look Wot You Dun”, its immediate successor, also seems unnaturally restrained in retrospect. The production is pretty careful, with those explosive echoed handclaps almost drowning out Don Powell’s drums. Again the tune is almost pretty, which is a shame. It’s a nice record, but it was then not yet apparent how much Slade had to gain by not being nice. AS THEY have gotten more and more successful, Slade have also stepped up the visuals considerably. Again, this was simple pragmatism. In their skinhead days, they’d watched themselves on television and come to the conclusion that they didn’t look exciting enough. Pretty soon, they’d arrived at a visual identity as arresting as their musical identity. Noddy Holder surrounded his face with orange sideboards and topped it with flat `ats that made him look like some kind of electric Andy Capp. Don Powell simply looked like an ‘ard nut. Jim Lea looked like a sensitive ‘ard nut. And Dave Hill… Christ, Dave Hill was simply bizarrisimo. He resembled an aggressive rabbit in a Cleopatra wig and he dressed like absolutely nothing on earth. While the likes of Bowie and Eno looked weird for specific reasons, Dancing Dave looked weird just for the hell of it. He had none of the elegance of a Ferry or a Des Barres, and he wouldn’t have looked elegant if he could. He just looked absurd, the most outrageous berk in town, dressing up for a laugh. And it was just right. If they’d had even the slightest trace of intellectualism or art-school middle-class pretension, they would have blown it. Just as they would have blown it if they’d sat around telling interviewers about their cosmic message or delivered earnest Graham Nash speeches about the brotherhood of man between numbers. On my one attempt to interview Slade, Dave Hill had filled in any gaps between questions and answers by shouting his name into the microphone. Even in the middle of his own raps he’d suddenly raise his voice and bawl “Dave ‘Ill.” The guy was so gauche I was convinced he was doing it on purpose.
FOR ME, SLADE’S killer singles were “Cum On Feel The Noize” and “Mama Weer All Crazee Now”. Good ol’ rockanroll apocalypse fodder. Both of the songs originated from Slade’s observations at their concerts, according to Houston’s sleeve notes, and you can’t beat that for epic rock subject matter. “Mama” in particular beats the crap out of “School’s Out” as an instant ready-mixed-just-add-electricity teen anthem simply because Alice was striving so hard for tongue-in-cheek significance that he ended up falling over his back numbers of “Children’s Rights”, whereas Slade just went out and did it, complete with deranged choir of demented children. It’s also the ultimate “Clockwork Orange” violence-and-insanity-for-the-hell-of-it rock song because it’s so totally un-selfconscious. The difference between Slade and all the other ’70’s bands is that they’re so obviously good old ex-yobbos that they hit the spot without even knowing that they were aiming for it. They were it, whereas the others had just read about it. They also caught the attention of their audiences because they were that audience. They weren’t leaders; they were just four cats who had everything in common with the people they were playing to. They weren’t aiming at them, or even playing to them; they were just naturally part of them. While so many people referred to them as “working class heroes” mainly because they had accents that sounded funny in London, there was a lot more going on than was instantly apparent. Sure Slade were working class, and they sure didn’t try to conceal the fact, but the fact that a band who traded so heavily on their social origins could make it was a fantastically important fact in its own right. While Lennon, Townshend and Bowie had had working-class origins, they were intellectual. They were cultured. They read a lot. Even though Noddy’s favourite book was “Catch 22” and Lea’s was “Animal Farm”, they came on as being utterly do-it-yourself. They were (gulp!) naturals. They also played dynamite rockanroll. There’s more to be learned about the nature of class warfare from a Slade gig than from just about any other current culturing event. Not because they set out to do it, or because Chas Chandler told them to, or for any other possible reason except that it was a natural consequence of who they were and what they did as a result of that. Mind you, they have their limitations. “Skweeze Me Pleeze Me” was one of the weakest pieces of material they’ve recorded, a completely lame song whose only virtue is that it leaves room for a few minutes of regulation Slade noises.
“SLADEST” IS an excellent album. It gets a bit wearing after too many consecutive plays, mainly due to its non-stop fever pitch, but its sheer ballsiness and power provide enough momentum to tide the listener (that’s you, bubeleh) over the dull passages. It’ll keep Sladists happy until their next all-new album fights its way loose from Polydor’s master vault, and it’ll tie it all together for lots of folks who’ve never actually owned any Slade records before. One minor irritation is that the cover lists the tracks in chronological order (as per Bob Houston`s sleeve-note rundown) as opposed to actual playing order, but that don’t really matter because after you’ve played the damn thing twice you’ll know it by heart anyway. I still don’t reckon Slade were much cop that night in Lanchester, but they’ve certainly come one hell of a long way since then. There’s one thing troubling me right now, though. According to the ads, Slade’s next single is called “My Friend Stan”. That’s right, not “F-r-e-n-d” but “F-r-i-e-n-d.” What’s conventional spelling doing on a Slade record? They’re not softening up, are they? You can’t trust anybody these days. STOP PRESS — We have just been informed that all N’s in the title of the single are reversed. Hence, Slade have learned to spell, but forgotten how to write. Hence, all things remain equal.
DON POWELL: `If-I-don`t-laugh-I`ll-cry`
By Keith Altham
DON POWELL is only now slowly emerging from the nightmare of that tragic car crash of a few months ago in which his girlfriend was killed and the Slade drummer himself only narrowly escaped death. Not surprisingly, he still looks a little haggard. He also still needs the assistance of a stick. But… and his progress veers towards the miraculous when you recall all those harrowing early press reports of the man lying in a coma… he is quite definitely back in action, working with Slade at the Olympic studios in Barnes as the best kind of therapy he could possibly have. “One of my biggest problems has been the effect on my short term memory. I just cannot remember a thing about the time of the crash,” he says. “When I woke up in hospital I thought I must have been in a crash with the rest of the group. “The next time I came round, they were all sitting around my bed. But, of course, no one would tell me what had happened. Apparently I was doing the craziest things, like pulling the drip-feeds out of my arms and following the nurse out of my room and sitting stark naked outside the staff room. “I lost my sense of taste and smell, which has still not completely returned, but the thing that was really worrying me was whether I would ever be able to play again. “I can’t tell you how scared I was when I did my first rehearsal a couple of weeks ago with the band. “We went to a local school hall where we work out in Wolverhampton and I found I could co-ordinate OK but I’d forgotten every number we played. I couldn’t remember a bloody thing. Not one song. “The boys just took me through each number very slowly and bit by bit it came back. But I’ve still got to play my first gig in America. I think the band are as scared as I am. “Recording at Olympic has helped of course but it’s not like a stage show, and I’m just hoping that I’m up to it. It’s not just memory, of course, because there is a stamina thing involved. “We’re about to do 18 gigs in three weeks and I am going to have to be very careful if I’m going to get through it and not let anyone down. I’ve not had a drink in nearly three months now and I feel like a hippo out of water. “I had one scotch the other night and I was feeling sick and dizzy. Chas (Chandler) told me to leave it alone and he was right. You think you feel all right, and then something like that happens and you know you’re not. Chas reckoned it was drinking when he was ill that did Jet Harris’ head in, and I don’t want that to happen to me. “All this is beginning to sound like I’m feeling very sorry for myself. I really don’t want pity or too much sympathy. It’s nice at first when people tell you how sorry they are but…. I really need to be made to feel normal again.
“The boys have really done the best thing. They’re for ever pinching me stick and nudging me in the back of the leg. It’s a `If-I-don’t-laugh-Ill-cry’ situation.” PRIOR TO release of their next album “Stop” previewed last week comes the Greatest Hits album with all Slade’s single successes reviewed above. The “Stop” album, naturally, comes uppermost in the group’s mind at the moment however, the new set being a significant departure from their previous releases in as much as the material is more varied and with an emphasis on strong songs. “Every time we play back a track on this album we just go through the roof. The songs were so good, we put a hundred per cent into each number. It should demonstrate to a few people that we can do more than rock and stomp but it won’t change our approach on stage. “The more melodic tracks on the album won’t be used on stage because we still basically believe that each number must be an ‘up’ and there is no room for ballads. Our whole act is geared to energy and vitality. That’s what we do and that’s what we are going to go on doing. THE BEST NEWS of the afternoon arrives via Slade manager Chas Chandler who reports that the police had now established that Powell had not been driving his car on the day of the crash. Witness had come forward to testify that his girlfriend had been driving. “That’s the best news by far,” says Powell. “I still cannot remember who was in the driving seat that night. We generally had an arrangement whereby I drank and she drove, but I still have no recollection of that night.”
The original music paper this article came from (pictured at the top) is for sale! Send me an e-mail if you are interested. Send it to: geirmykl@gmail.com The offer should be 20 $ (US Dollars) to be considered. (This includes postage). If you order several papers – contact me for a “special” offer. We conduct the transaction through my verified Paypal account for the safety of both parties. If you have a large collection of the following magazines, don`t throw them out, but contact me as I would be very interested in these: Creem, Circus, Hit Parader and Metal Edge.
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Reading this article I can see why Mr. Squire is so revered by other musician. His musical thinking is what I think everyone should strive for: melody, not notes for the sake of notes and hard work to achieve a level of musicianship to be able to evolve. Read on.
Squires: close to the bass
By John Bagnall
YES’ “CLOSE To The Edge” was, without question, one of the album highlight of 1972. To use a rather shady turn of phrase, it was the band’s first true “concept” album: a set that built triumphantly on the roots of “Fragile” and the albums that came before. Now they’re in the studio again, working on a new album that stems from ideas that were forming as soon as “Close To The Edge” was completed. It will be, according to Chris Squire, “more of a concept album” than anything Yes have laid down to date. They’ve been working on it most of this year, and now it stands close to the edge of completion. How closely, stylistically and in content, will it follow on Yes’ music in the past? Squire finds it impossible to say: “We can only really evaluate the growth of something when it’s finished. I don’t see any direct relationship between this one and “Close To The Edge” — but then, on the other hand, I don’t see any total departure. “To me, Yes is just five guys learning about music. As we learn more, so a period is going to come along when we find ourselves making a record.” Despite Squires’ modesty, Yes nevertheless stand as one of the most consistently inventive bands around in rock today. They have their critics — doesn’t any innovative group of musicians? — but even the critics would admit to the fact that Yes, in their own particular way, are pushing the criteria of rock into new fields of experiment, discovery and lasting value. “Close To The Edge” described, in both the music and the title, the boundaries at which Yes work. “As one gets older, one tends to know more,” says Squire of the problems in working where no criteria have been set before. “You tend to see very clearly the follies of one’s youth. I think it’s the same for anyone working constantly in music — it’s just the natural progression that happens. “But it isn’t easy to see where to go next — though that isn’t something that really worries me. I think it’s a mistake to criticise one’s work too early. Somehow, one knows if it’s right… you can definitely tell when something’s good, even if there aren’t any physical standards to judge it by. You can’t always feel the same, of course, about something that’s borderline… but I tend to get a very definite inspiration and feeling about something that’s obviously good.” It’s very important, he feels, that one’s own musical progression and development should consider the interests of the group: “If something is obviously a bit shaky, then I find I can live with it for a bit,” he explains. “Then it often happens that you can get to like it for its total value in terms of the group’s music, at the expense of any kind of personal disappointment you might have felt in terms of how you felt it should have been played. It’s just possible that one could replace it or play it again if one really felt strongly about it… but it’s important that a little thing shouldn’t damage the rest for the group, just on a point of one’s own musical satisfaction.
“As a matter of fact, I did change one part on this album, but we all felt that it improved on the whole.” Squire started late as a rock musician. But, then, he’d already decided exactly on the path he intended to take. “I had an interest in music from a very early age,” he explains. “You know the kind of thing – friends in musical families and things like that. I never seriously learned anything until I was about sixteen. Then I started on the bass, and carried on from there. I just felt that it was the instrument I wanted to play; I appreciated, right from the start, the importance of the bass. “I think I would have developed in the same way, even if it hadn’t come about with Yes. I don’t think it would have been very different: I’ve always worked very hard. The key to it all is how far one wants to go with an instrument, and how hard one is prepared to work.” What, in particular, has Yes taught him? “I don’t really know for sure,” he replies. “I’m very fond of melodic lines combined with rhythm and feel. It’s just what a band learns from playing together for a long time. I’ve found that playing, even though it doesn’t really need a lot of time now, takes up even more of my time than it ever did before… it’s just one of those things. “The hardest thing I find now is to know when not to play. It’s as important — perhaps even more important — than knowing what to play when you play. Doing something simple, say, is often more difficult than doing something complex.” Although Squires is a perfectionist, he rarely finds these days that he tends to spend a lot of time polishing his technique and approach. That’s already there, and now playing has become more a question of musical refinement: “I play much more nowadays by inspiration. A certain song will inspire a certain bass part. The first way I play it isn’t always the best way, of course, but that’s something that stands out very quickly. I tend to hear what’s necessary straightaway, now. It comes clear very quickly – I don’t have much problem in deciding.” Although Squire still features the Rickenbacker bass he’s used for the last seven years, he’s been experimenting on the new album with several — and he’ll probably be taking three on the road with him later this year. He’s now very fond of a Guild that he’s used for the past eighteen months. They’ll be experimenting at the next rehearsal with a direct injection system for the instruments – something Yes haven’t had the time to try out before — but in the meantime, Squire bass is amplified through an American Sunn amplifier and cabinet system.
The original music paper this article came from (pictured at the top) is for sale! Send me an e-mail if you are interested. Send it to: geirmykl@gmail.com The offer should be 20 $ (US Dollars) to be considered. (This includes postage). If you order several papers – contact me for a “special” offer. We conduct the transaction through my verified Paypal account for the safety of both parties. If you have a large collection of the following magazines, don`t throw them out, but contact me as I would be very interested in these: Creem, Circus, Hit Parader and Metal Edge.
If you have a music-related web-page where this fits – please make a link to the article. With credits to the original writer of the article from all of us music fans!
My Things - Music history for those who are able to read. 