peteb

In defence of Def Leppard, without them or Iron Maiden there wouldn’t have been a NWOBHM scene in the first place. Leppard were the first to embrace the DIY punk ethic and apply it to heavy rock, but their ambitions always went far beyond being the darlings of an underground scene. The second, third and fourth Leppard albums are all great, although I have never even considered buying a DL album after Hysteria. As someone mentioned, they are one of the biggest selling rock bands of all time and they did have a huge crossover appeal, which I understand puts some people off for some reason. To be honest, I never play those albums these days and DL aren’t one of my absolute favourite bands by any means. However, whenever I do hear / come across YouTube clips of tracks like Foolin’ or Hysteria (or whatever), I always note just how good they are and how well they have stood the test of time. This is in addition to them taking me back to a time and place, which is a mark of a great record...

NWOBHM was a creation of Sounds and pre-dated Kerrang by a couple of years. I would suggest that the original Kerrang was a result of NWOBHM and the new interest in American metal bands (and AC/DC of course) promoted by Sounds and Geoff Barton in particular.

Jilly's in Manchester?? That's the rock club in Manchester that we used to go across to every now and then in the mid 80s.

I think that where you come from has a lot to do with it. I spent my teenage years in a northern industrial city and there were always some girls who were into heavy rock (mainly bands like Whitesnake & Lizzy). By 81 or 82 there were a number of rock pubs around that plenty of girls would go to, with less and less guys around proudly wearing their patched denim jackets! I have to say that discovering Van Halen didn't diminish in the slightest my love of Led Zep, Whitesnake, Lizzy et al, but it did mark a bit of a change in the scene. It certainly meant that I had no further interest in buying the latest single from Diamond Head or whoever...

There is the thing - I am exactly the opposite! I have no real interest in heavy metal that doesn't have a healthy rock and roll element...

But was that necessarily the case? Certainly a few years later, rock clubs were full of girls attracted by music you could actually dance to and boys with long hair who had finally got rid of the embroidered denim jackets. The music that they were dancing to wasn't Angel Witch or Rock Goddess but Van Halen, Aerosmith, Whitesnake, Def Leppard and then GNR. It wasn't until Metallica came along that out and out metal became mainstream. I would agree that NWOBHM was heavy rock / metal’s equivalent of the second wave of punk. Not the original version of punk, which was more of a fashion driven thing, but the following DIY / underground scene. However, for people like me, NWOBHM was over the minute I heard the first Van Halen album...!

Yet ironically, they were the band that was getting all the girls to their shows and so on...

It’s easy to go down a bit of rabbit hole with NWOBHM, but you have to take off the rose-tinted glasses. I was there and bought all the singles and saw all of these the bands as they come out (at the Princeville Club in Bradford), but how many were really that good? White Spirit were impressive live but had no songs, Diamond Head had some great riffs but were crap live and Def Leppard obviously had potential. Iron Maiden were an impressive revamp of Judas Priest, but to me that was it became a scene for teenage boys who couldn’t get laid, something I was desperately attempting to leave behind as I got a bit older. It’s weird that some people thought of UFO (working class guys from North London who had been around for ten years before NWOBHM) and Def Leppard (working class kids from Sheffield) were ‘a bit flash and rock star-ish'. Actually, when I think back, Girl were probably the pick of the bunch and they were the most rock and roll of the lot, as well as being genuinely entertaining. There was obviously an influence on Metallica and the following, so in that way it left its mark, but you do have to keep a bit of prospective. Some people have talked nostalgically about how good Rock Goddess were (they weren’t), but at the same time a youthful Van Halen were playing house parties and then the clubs in Los Angeles. They had great songs and were incredible live even then, light years ahead of any of the corresponding NWOBHM bands.

Why do you think that Thin Lizzy never broke America

Not the only one, I had it as well. One of the definitive NWOBHM singles...

But what you have to accept is that every time you went to a rock club for a night out for the next 30 years or more, you would hear at least four songs every night from that album. Like it or not and regardless of what you think of the production, that makes it a great album - just like Back In Black or Appetite For Destruction!

Paul Rodgers can still cut it live, Eric Martin too on a good night I always thought that Coverdale had one of the great rock voices in early Whitesnake, late DP and first couple of solo albums. Up there with Rodgers, Marriot and co. I think that the move to the higher register was an 80s commercial thing. It never did his voice any favours and he has really lost it these days.

So what you are saying is that it is a protectionist policy attempting to restrict free trade. Other states have FTAs (Free Trade Agreements) to get around this restriction and promote economic growth. Ironically, the UK (until recently) has historically always championed agreements to encourage free trade amongst neighbouring nations.

The missus has been channel surfing and we have just been watching a programme with Dolly being interviewed by Brian Johnson (of AC/DC fame). Both come across as quite charming, but the interesting thing is that it appears that Dolly wrote Jolene early on in her career on the same night as she come up with I Will Always Love You. That's a not a bad night's work...!

I think that you are quite right there. Personally, I don't think that the current agreement is going to be at all viable for the UK going forward. It is one thing to appeal to certain sections of the electorate with a hardline stance at the moment, but that’s not going to win elections once the economy starts failing and people are losing jobs. Especially when there is no longer a pandemic to blame.

No, I wouldn’t want to bet on when pub gigs will get back to normal, because frankly I haven’t got a clue when that will be. We are currently running at around 1,500 Covid deaths per day and Britain has the highest number of deaths per capita in Europe. This is expected to last well into February. The UK’s vaccination programme is running into serious logistical problems (like others in Europe), but British exceptionalism demands that we create a few headline figures so the UK is pressing ahead with maximising the number of people who get the first vaccine without the follow up dose. Of course, this will do little to stop the spread of the pandemic. The only gig I’ve got in the diary for this year is a club in May. Until a couple of months ago, I was relatively optimistic that this would go ahead. However, this has been overtaken by events and we will not be doing that gig (and I doubt that the club would consider going ahead with it). As it happens, this was double booked with a mate’s wedding (already postponed from a year ago). They will go ahead with a small ceremony, but the big wedding and reception was cancelled before Christmas. I suppose that it is possible that there might be some sort of outside gigs with a socially distanced audience in the summer, but I’m not expecting to play a proper gig until winter next year at the earliest, quite possibly early 2022. I hope that there the Govt learn their lesson and don’t cave in and allow live music / pubs to open without restrictions too soon, otherwise we will be in the same position this time next year, wondering if there will be in any gigs before January 2023…!

I've just seen a clip of he Last Leg, featuring mathematician Dr Hannah Fry talking about what to expect from 2021 and onwards. She says that she is 'optimistic' that live music will return in January 2022.

There's a thin line between blind optimism and stupidity

It's going to take time. We all need to get vaccinated (properly, not in a way to boost govt headline statistics) and then covid will mutate until it becomes just another flu like illness. It will be a long time before it disappears completely (if it ever does) and it will take a diligent vaccine programme before it stops killing people en masse. Welcome to the new normal...

Well let's be honest, the way that this governments is handling this crisis, then we very well may be...

Like I said, not something that I have ever personally come across. I would need about 30 seconds to work out that there were 4 sharps in the key of E...! Edit - also, out of interest, how do you distinguish between E major and C# minor??

Everyone that I’ve played with tends to use the same hand signals: · Raised index finger – turn up · Lowered index finger – turn down · Raised middle finger – I think that you may have made a mistake there · Open hand, palm upwards lifting gesture – speed up · Open hand, palm downwards patting gesture – slow down · Rotating index finger (vertically, like a wheel) – keep going / repeat section · Rotating index finger (horizontally, like a helicopter) – technical problem, carry on without me / roadcrew, please help · Lifting hand showing a number of fingers – signifying next chord change (a bit difficult if you want to change to the VI chord, as you need both hands) · Band leader / MD lifting hand (or guitar headstock) – end of the song coming up I have also heard of band leaders holding up a number of fingers before a song to show the number of sharps or flats and therefore the key (one hand for sharps, the other for flats), but that’s a bit above my pay scale. I always thought that these were universal, but who knows…

There's a campsite next door if you want to keep the cost down...

It always seems heavy handed when a major act treats a tribute in this way, but in this case you can see their point! I doubt that anyone is going to confuse this tribute with PJ, but just adding an extra ‘d’ to the name and using copyrighted images for their merch and just using the amending band name is pushing their luck. I play in a Magnum tribute and they have been very supportive (to a point), even getting one of their crew to come to an early rehearsal to check us out and offer advice. But there were concerns with anything that could be interpreted as a copyright issue, even down to negotiating what font we could use on posters, websites, merch, etc. And yes, you can sell merch – just not as much as you would like! As I said, Magnum have been quite helpful. I think that they take the view that we help to promote the band when they’re not on the road. Of course, with a band like Magnum that have a relatively small but fanatical fanbase, it’s not like we are making much money out of it. There are some bands (Iron Maiden especially comes to mind) that really go out of their way to help their tribute acts.

I haven't been on the bass building course, but I did do the one day maintenance course and have gone to Jon for work on basses many times. Jon is a lovely guy and the crew working with him (& dog) are great. He is situated in a very picturesque part of the country, so I would think that it would make an ideal break. I am sure that you will learn a lot and take home a unique P bass. If you are into cycling (especially mountain biking), it might be worth extending your stay by an extra day and taking a bike - lots of great trails around there...!