I've listened to my favourite Beatles era a lot lately in my travels, Help,Rubber Soul and Revolver . This era hits the spot for me Abbey Road was spoilt by letting Ringo think he could write, Octopuses Garden Nuff said
For my mum, it was always Eric Burdon. Nobody else got within a million miles. She'd listen to anything...and try to dance to it...but you knew she was thinking..."Play we 'We Gotta Get Out Of This Place."
Funnily enough much as I love Burdons voice, I am more inclined when thinking of the animals to end up with Alan Price which inevitably leads me to these
These 2 songs are particularly resonant. Like many, my parents owned a number of those K-Tel collections and we had both of these songs amongst some other very good stuff. Years later, I used to put 'Simon Smith...' on a lot of mix tapes. It became a bit of a signature [/QUOTE] This was a great song for a 5 year old to cut his musical teeth on and I love it still. Growing up in the 60's was a blast!
This was a great song for a 5 year old to cut his musical teeth on and I love it still. Growing up in the 60's was a blast! [/QUOTE] We must be about the same age, and these are songs that I remember liking from the radio, probably radio 2 as my Mum always had the radio on. I properly discovered Georgie Fame in the early 80s in my 'Mod' heyday, when I was fascinated by the 'scene' that Colin MacInness wrote about in Absolute Beginners and the Blue Flames fit perfectly into my idea of what the original Mods were really listening to. And Georgie Fame led me onto listening to more of Alan Price too. I think that are both very underrated.
This is my favourite Beatles period too - Rubber Soul and Revolver are timeless in my opinion and the singles in that period were immaculate too.
Alan Price must have been such an influence on Dave Greenfield. Some of his stuff with The Animals could be dropped into a Stranglers number and you'd not know the difference. We grew up with bands like The Animals. It's too easy to become blase about the sense of wonder that their music should produce. However, the 'reaction to first hearing' genre on Youtube is pretty much chocka with young Americans having their minds blown by Burdon, Price et al... ...most of them look like it'll take some time to get over it.
I booked the tickets for last night's Steve Hackett show over a year ago and the wait was worth it just for his guitar solo midway through this song , I was 1973 all over again
I have seen Alan Price a couple of times and put him in the same category as Nina Simone, Van Morrison and John Martyn in that you did not know what was going to happen that night, was it going to be a good gig or were they going to play with their back to the audience with a **** you attitude, glad to say I got one of each from Price but Nina Simone was a big **** you , came on 1hr late carrying a supermarket plastic bag wearing an old overcoat ( looked like she wasn't stopping long , and she didn't) swore at a couple in the crowd for not clapping her 1st song , threw water at the drummer, did a couple more numbers and left the stage never to return
...Divas! Prince wins for me. I saw him 3 times and on the last occasion, he was in a foul mood. He came out an hour late and it was obvious that he'd rather have been anywhere else. Apparently the hour before he came on, his entourage spent trying to persuade him not to **** off back to his hotel. I'm not sure that they should have bothered. Reversing things, I see a fair bit of the audience ****ing off the band..mostly by throwing stuff. If I was ever to be tempted to do it, this guy'd be the last person I'd choose ...
I recall seeing The Stranglers in the 80s when Hugh was still in the band it was quite a small venue maybe Folkestone and JJ reached down into the audience and pulled a bloke out of the crowd by the shoulders (not an easy thing to do), I assumed that it was set up as they pulled blokes trousers down and threatened to sick a banana where the sun doesn't shine, it was all quite light hearted but also quite sinister. The bloke was accused of spitting at them something that they disliked intently as Hugh points out at the end of this! Any excuse to post a song of this quality!!
Spitting........ group of us went to see a punk gig iirc slaughter and the dogs , 999 and another group that consisted of Steve Cook and a selection of reggea artists , some arsehole insisted on spitting on the stage while Steve Cooks band were playing ,they stopped and told the spitter to stop in no uncertain terms , needless to say he carried on and suddenly the road crew jumped him and threw him to the back of the stage only for him to reappear 5mins later covered in the contents of an unflushed toilet, he didn't stay for the rest of the set Many things I loved about punk at the time but the spitting was s massive spoiler for me
I remember seeing The Clash at Canterbury Odeon, and it truly was a sea of green, Mickey Gallagher was playing keyboards for them (I think it was the London Calling Tour) and during a song that he wasn't required for he moved his equipment out of range.
Joe Strummer attributed his catching of hepatitus to swallowing spit (probably correctly) - 'Hep is not hip'. From thereon, understandably, he wasn't having it and I recall him stopping the band on the odd occasion, for that and fighting. I should imagine that it was pretty ****ing unpleasant for the bands. In this footage from '82, Dave gets a hail of it at 2.26... The fact that he just ignores it, tells you all you need about how bad it got. It's said that Rat started it, when he spat at someone who threw something at him. I'm not sure about that, but he could be a spiky ****er.
First time I saw it was jonny thunder at St Albans and he drew a knife on the spitter, didn't happen again that night
Those CBGB guys lived in a way that 'our boys and girls' couldn't imagine. Of course it killed a lot of them...
RIP Leslie Bricuss, a giant of British song writing for stage and screen. The bloke wrote over 1,000 songs including Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice, Feeling Good, plus songs from Willy Wonka, Doctor Doolittle and a whole lot more, which brought him 2 Oscars. That's some career.