Old Man Riva

Way back when, Mr Blue Sky was used at Coventry City home games (Highfield Road era) to get the crowd going as the players came onto the pitch. At about 2.55 the pumping cello drone would begin and the song would blast off, ending with the afterthought choral piece at the end, and into kick off. Before all this I used to quite like the song, nowadays whenever I hear it I’m filled with a sense of foreboding, anxiety, and the feeling of impending crushing defeat. I’m sure it’s not what Jeff Lynne had in mind when he was ripping off Sparky’s Magic Piano all those years ago!

Nothing wrong with Tin Machine! The Sales brothers have some real rock ‘n’ roll pedigree, which I think Bowie was really drawn to. Add Reeves Gabrels into the mix and it was actually a pretty bold move, in retrospect. Though it may just have been a fun palate cleanser after Never Let Me Down..!

I hadn’t realised it was ever played live. Such a great track! The Outside album was a good moment. It felt like a ‘band’ statement after Buddha of Suburbia (which, IMO, is an overlooked and excellent soundtrack album), that benefited from that similar soundtrack approach. He played a couple of tracks on Channel 4’s The White Room, and the band came across brilliantly - I’ve found that sometimes the TV sound can really let a Bowie performance down, but the White Room sound was really, erm, ‘meaty’, for want of a better word. For me, the 90s started well with Black Tie White Noise, but ended on a bit of a low note with Hours. Some excellent moments in between, mind!

I was lucky enough to see a fan club Phoenix Festival warm up gig at the Hanover Grand (the venue is long gone and wasn’t particularly good for live music, IMO). He/they began with Quicksand. He casually strolled on with a 12 string acoustic and began playing... it was one of the most emotional moments I’ve had at a gig. He was yards away, with his amazing voice just filling the place. It was actually all a bit overwhelming, to be honest. It was a mixture of really enjoying a gig and then feeling it was all a bit surreal so my mind would start to wander and try and process what was happening. I couldn’t really take it all in. To this day it still feels like such an odd choice for a gig!

Glad you got that sorted! I wasn’t aware of the series until this thread. I’ve since been getting lost in some of the shows via Spotify. The 1995 gig includes a version of Teenage Wildlife, which was a song I didn’t know he’d done live previously. Ruddy marvellous, Mr Jones! He’s bloody missed...

The track (Love in a Simple Rhyme) that closes Van Halen’s Women and Children First album has a bit tagged on the end that, whilst sounding great in itself, sounds completely out of place. When it happened I assumed it would be the opening riff to their next album, which would’ve been a nice idea, even though I say so myself! There’s a track on AC/DC’s Powerage (their best album?) called Down Payment Blues that has a blues-y outdo tagged on, though on the original UK release it wasn’t on the album, it appeared on the Australian release. Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’ by the Stones has an outro/jam that always seemed a bit tagged on. Sounds great, mind...

You’ve lost that loving feline?

That’ll be Tommy Godwin, Gal’s “erstwhile poncey mate who dishes the proverbial on the likes of Hoxton Tom faster than my pal Jonesy and other assorted wastrel geezers that knew the Krays do when they’re avoiding buying a round at the Lig & Firkin”. Or summat..!

I didn’t mind “Gal” referencing his roots, it was his choice of words and order he put them in that I couldn’t stand!

I was an avid Sounds reader from the mid/late 70s as it tended to feature a better balance of the music/bands I liked more than other music papers did - i.e. guitar/rock bands, along with punk and New Wave. Coming from the wonderful industrial city of Coventry (we were always told we came from the furthest point from the sea of anywhere in the UK - there’s a boast to be proud of?!) the paper opened me up to so much music and bands from afar that I’d never encountered, especially some of the US bands. I used to always look forward to articles by a writer called Sylvie Simmons who covered US bands and/or tours. My introduction to a lot of US bands was through her articles. Another writer I liked was a guy named Pete Makowski (sp?), who tended to cover rock and New Wave acts. I think it was Geoff Barton who wrote the first Def Leppard article in the paper, which was the one that introduced them to the readers for the first time, and detailed their background - working class, industrial city - which really resonated with me. Apart from that, his obsession with Kiss always got on my nerves (I’ve genuinely no idea why, but at that tender age it probably didn’t take much!), but I’d rather read his articles than anything by Garry Bushell, who, I feel, chanced his way into/onto the rock articles in Sounds at that time, and whose writing just didn’t do anything for me at all. And Sounds also often had supporting photos by Ross Halfin, which could raise the quality of an article somewhat...

In terms of heavier music being embraced by the mainstream I don’t think the role of the first Beastie Boys album can be overlooked or understated, ditto the Aerosmith/Run DMC collaboration. But that’s probably one for another day/thread!!

Girl had that rock ‘n’ roll swagger that I associated with the bands that left me spellbound as a kid - Bowie, Rod, Bolan, Sweet etc. I only saw them supporting UFO (in early 1980?) but they were terrific - and, as I recall, the bass player played a Music Man, which was something you didn’t see much of at the time. My Number was such a good single. I think I said on a separate thread (EVH?) that I went to see Black Sabbath at Cov Theatre in ‘78 with Van Halen supporting. Wasn’t a fan of Sabbath but I’d try and see any band I could scrape the money together to see (and my dear departed dad always looked to help me out!) and the Sabbath gig was a big draw. If you’re talking about rock ‘n’ roll swagger then Van Halen bursting onto that Cov stage, all bright, shiny and brilliantly ridiculous, with their incredible musicianship and superbly catchy songs felt like music from another dimension. Theirs (and UFO) was definitely more my kind of thing but in terms of inspiration, being a working class kid from the Midlands and seeing others from a similar background like Def Leppard and Iron Maiden taking the route they did definitely had a huge impact, even if I didn’t particularly like the music. The music wasn’t really for me, but the attitude/ethos of the formative period of NWOBHM was one I found massively inspiring...

They had an indie single out (I Survive) in the early 80s - B-side (Gimme the Money) was superb. I think they then signed to a major and it all went a bit stale from there. Early on though, I thought they sounded great. Especially the singer...

Came along later, but I saw their (the singer and guitarist) earlier band, Terraplane, in the early 80s at the Lanchester Polytechnic in Cov, and they were superb. They did the most amazing version of River Deep, Mountain High...

That would be my choice too...

A big draw with UFO for me was how cool (I thought) Pete Way was. A definite posturing fop-dandy!! You’re right, being labelled a ‘poser’ was a bit of a thing back then, a proper put down - don’t ask me how I know! Anyway... Billy Apple one, Julian Trought (“it’s pronounced ‘True-ert’”) nil!!

I’m with you on UFO, but from experience knew hard rock fans who were suspicious of them - “poseurs” etc. Again, purely to my ears at least, the early Iron Maiden stuff I heard was bordering on punk in its sound. Running Free had brilliant energy, and hearing it on Radio 1 at the time it really came across brilliantly. I remember reading about their approach in Sounds and it really did feel like the punk ethos, insomuch as their approach felt truly independent and driven by the same approach as a lot of the punk bands - a bunch of mates getting together and having a go at forming a band. The same with Def Leppard and their Bludgeon Riffola EP. As a movement I wasn’t a fan of (much of) the music but loved the fact it was happening...

Being a Coventry City fan I definitely had to suffer the ‘punk’ rather than ‘glam’ football route - it was probably actually akin ‘bad pub rock’! Even though I didn’t dig the music I really liked the ‘indie’ approach of a lot of the NWOBHM bands. I had mates who were into punk music and were inspired to pick up an instrument because of it, and feel that must have been the same with young kids being inspired by the NWOBHM bands’ approach. It was also rare to see heavy bands on TOTP until Iron Maiden, Saxon etc. came along...

Even though I’m not really a Sabbath fan I have to say I love that album!!

With UFO I think better management would definitely have helped. The late 70s/early 80s constant treadmill of album/tour/album/tour/etc. was never addressed. You're right about the personalities in the band but they rarely spent time away from each other, so never had a proper opportunity to take stock and recharge the batteries. A good manager, working with the record company, could definitely have done things differently. Had they looked at the medium/longer term rather than merely milking the album/tour model in the shorter term, who knows, maybe Schenker would/could have stayed and things could have been different. Add to this the copious amounts of drugs being used (and not just the band) it's little wonder it all eventually came crashing down, with no money to show for the years of sold out US arenas etc. Even if the above had been different I'm still not sure they would have had the success in the UK they deserved. Around the time of NWOBHM Def Leppard found success in the US before the UK audiences would properly take to them, and I think UFO would have found themselves in the same boat with that particular audience. I think a lot of the NWOBHM audience found the likes of UFO a bit 'flash', and 'rock star-ish' (which they were!), whereas the bands that formed much of the NWOBHM scene were the opposite of that. I often think it was the heavy rock version of the punk model/ethos - DIY, unfussy, not flash, lacking pretention, where bands took control and issued the records themselves. Despite being a fan of rock 'n' roll and guitar bands in general the NWOBHM scene passed me by as the bands (with the exception of Girl) were, to my ears at least, closer in sound/style to Sabbath, Purple et al, who really weren't my cup of tea. As a kid I really liked the bands who looked like rock stars - Bowie, Bolan, Mott, Roxy Music, Rod and the Faces etc. - and UFO definitely fell into that category!! Interestingly enough, in 1978 I was lucky enough to see AC/DC with Bon, and UFO with Schenker. Those two gigs are probably the best hard rock gigs I've seen. I still get goosebumps today just thinking of the gigs. One band went on to achieve huge global success with the help of heavyweight management, and the other one...

Based on the serial number alone the Guitar Dater Project website dates it as a 2007-2008 instrument made at the Corona plant. So, based on the pics alone, it could be an American Standard with a changed pickguard and added bridge cover? That’d be my tuppence worth, and there are some great heads on here that I’m sure will add further thoughts.

Saw that too! I was a fan of the first Montrose album so that was reason enough to go. I remember Def Leppard being okay, but Sammy Hagar and his band put on a brilliant rock ‘n’ roll show. His voice was amazing. He also had a bassist who did a solo on a Precision Bass - being very impressionable I was very impressed! I think Quartz were another Brummie band. They did a cover of Nantucket Sleighride, which I remember buying from a place in Brum called Reddington’s Rare Records - spent many a happy Saturday in there going through all the records! It was signed, due, I think, to them having a connection to the shop... Good times...

Didn’t Def Leppard support Sammy Hagar there?

I once auditioned for Diamond Head in Birmingham (in the early 80s) - they were after a bass player and drummer at the time and my mate (a drummer) wouldn’t go by himself so I said I’d go with him. I didn’t know anything about them beforehand and on hearing their stuff it really wasn’t my kind of thing at all, but my mate was desperate for the gig so I said I’d go. Needless to say it wasn’t a crushing blow when they ventured I/we were “too funky”, and, most importantly, I do recall them being both really nice guys, despite everything being delivered in that wonderful monotone Brummie way! His previous band, Girl, are worth a listen. They were lumped in with the NWOBHM bands of the time but were so far away from them in terms of sounds and style they may as well have been from a different planet. They did a good cover of Do You Love Me, by Kiss, that Geoff Barton championed at the time. They supported UFO on their No Place to Run, and were excellent...

In the quest to find flatwound happiness I’ve spent (wasted!) so much money over the (recent) years on strings - back when I were a lad it was Rotosound Swing Bass or nothing (well not exactly nothing, as the other alternative was their flatwounds, which I just couldn’t fathom at all)! The La Bella Low Tension Flats are one of the few I’ve really liked - and you describe them far better than I could! Enjoy!