Old Man Riva

1 hour ago, peteb said:

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. 

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...

3 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

 

Ah cool. I thought they were a bit more modern. I  really like the voice and harmonies. Saw them a few years ago supporting Whitesnake. I thought they blew WS off the stage. 

Terraplane rings a bell though,. 

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... 

3 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Are Thunder part of all this? I’m not sure when they first started, i didnt get in to them until quite late. 

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... 

14 minutes ago, Graham56 said:

Charlie Watts

That would be my choice too... 

3 minutes ago, Billy Apple said:

The make or break for bands for me could come down to something as as trivial as a haircut and I rest my case with in the Di'Anno/DIckinson wars. I suppose if you have something as unreconstructed as Uriah Heep and (pre Ace of Spades) Motorhead, anything else could come across as posturing fop-dandies

I do remember being fiercely possessive of the bands I liked and pretty ruthless about the ones I didn't. So I can see how your cohort may see UFO as poseurs... which is a word I used to hear a lot then, but not much now. I recall it being a massive insult to a fan of whoever the poseurs were.. and the fans themselves. I remember committing the cardinal sin of having both a UFO and Stranglers pin badge on my school blazer and being called a poser by an older punk called Gums who was the bassist in our local punk band The Gimmicks... his real name was Julian Trought and I just said to him 'is your name Trout?' *Swish!* But, such were the battles in the Punk & Rock Wars.

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!! 

13 minutes ago, Billy Apple said:

Well, I think of myself as the target audience in 1980 and I didn't find UFO 'flash'. I thought they were down and dirty. Flash and rock-star-ish (for me) were the likes of Def Leppard who could burn as far as I was concerned. I always thought UFO an honest blues-hard-rock act with a wizard young guitarist and a bass player who was a bit of a character

Absolutely how I felt about Iron Maiden until Di'Anno got the boot and the bell-end Dickinson got the gig. At that point it went from street reality to dungeons and dragons poppycock. Maybe it's something not discussed yet, but NWOBHM says Heavy Metal, but the bands I liked were what I remember being called Heavy Rock... Jeans not spandex. When the likes of Metallica came along I couldn't stand them because there was no groove, no blues... just earnest grimacing.

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... 

4 minutes ago, 4000 said:

That’s an interesting take, and there is probably more than a bit of truth in it. I was the opposite to you I guess; in the same way as I supported City as a kid when they were blue collar and hated United because they were a “bunch of flash poseurs”, I loved bands like Purple and Sabbath and didn’t really ‘get’ Bowie, Roxy etc. NWOBHM definitely was metal with a more punk, ‘street’ mindset. 

I remember first seeing UFO on TOTPs doing Doctor Doctor and thinking it was great, but apart from that & Lights Out, nothing really grabbed me too much and I never got into them. I got the chance to see DC with Bon on the last tour they did and turned it down (I think I was skint), saying I’d catch them next time. Of course there wasn’t one. ☹️

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...

3 minutes ago, Killed_by_Death said:

 

Didn't Black Sabbath write a couple of song about how Arden screwed them?, on Sabotage:

Tony Iommi's book didn't go into the screwing so much as he did the drug supply. Apparently Arden kept the drugs flowing & the band was in a mist.

 

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

49 minutes ago, Billy Apple said:

Maybe, if their bass player was a businessman and not an alcoholic, and a singer who was a businessman and not a brawler.. or maybe the biggest talent not being an unreliable alcoholic.

And I say this as a big fan of UFO and not keen on post Di'Anno Maiden

Maiden were (because of Smallwood and Harris) completely focused on the business and the big picture.. Maiden and UFO is like the Viz's Brown Bottle coming up against Superman. Kap-pow!.... F'f'f'flipin' hell!?

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.

18 minutes ago, rushbo said:

Yup. First time I saw them.

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!

4 minutes ago, RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE said:

My very first gig : Nov 1979 Quartz , girl , praying mantis at music machine .

Mantis were really good . Girl didn't seem to be onstage for long but were very loud for me and in truth I didn't like them . Quartz were entertaining but the material wasn't there tbh . 

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...

1 minute ago, rushbo said:

I was a huge fan of the NWOBHM back in the day, and I saw most of the heavy hitters at the Odeon in Brum (generally supporting a more well established band) or at a few dinky club venues that I was just about old enough to frequent. It was a really great time to be a metalhead.

A couple of years back, I got to review a pretty decent, three CD NWOBHM retrospective called "Winds of Time" for PopMatters. I liked it: https://www.popmatters.com/new-wave-british-heavy-metal-2580612788.html

Didn’t Def Leppard support Sammy Hagar there?

45 minutes ago, RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE said:

True skank 

From what I remember , Angelwitch and diamond head also . 
 

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!

36 minutes ago, Paul S said:

Speaking of Def Leppard, last night I stumbled upon a fairly recent live performance of theirs.  Embedded below.

And the guitarist with no shirt.  I looked him up - he is the same age as me - 63.  If I had a torso like that I'd never wear a shirt either.

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...

On 07/02/2021 at 15:24, Reggaebass said:

Many thanks old man riva ☝️, after my flatwound string quest, I’ve settled on the LTFs , and I’ve slowly fitted them to all my jazzes , except a few which have had labella deep talking fitted for years,  I find the tension is just right and they add a nice mid sound , and the lows are really clear🙂

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!

I’ve used Bass Direct to sell basses on a commission basis ranging from expensive vintage instruments to sub £1000 ones and they’ve done an excellent job every time - on a few occasions managing to get me more money than I’d requested/they’d advised they could.

Based on my experience I can’t recommend Bass Direct highly enough... 

Mani should’ve been more careful, too...

Looks lovely, sir!

May it bring you many years of fun and fulfilment..! 

How do you find the Low Tension Flats? 

Really enjoyed it (seeing Wreckless Eric on TV is always a bonus!), though, as Frank referenced, Noddy was a bit on the (over) enthusiastic side.

I seem to recall there was a programme on BBC Four a while back along similar lines, though not sure if it’s still available. 

Freeview does the job for me - any service that gives me access to The Sweeney, The Professionals, Columbo, Kojak, a bit of 70s footy and the Friday evening music stuff on BBC Four can’t be bad!

The recent addition of Sky Arts is a real plus - it’s the one Sky channel I wished I had previously but now it’s part of Freeview all’s good...  

57 minutes ago, silverfoxnik said:

Thanks Jack - will check those out! 

There are so many excellent Bowie videos on YouTube these days that, for fans like me, it's been so interesting to get an insight into how some of his albums were made. 

But more generally, it's so cool to hear from those Producers who were there when some of those great, classic albums were made. As well as enabling the artists they produced to be the best they could be, people like Martin and Visconti were very talented musicians in their own right! 

From a bass perspective there are some really good Tim Lefebvre interviews on YouTube where he discusses his work on Black Star... well worth a watch.

1 hour ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I had heard about it, but haven’t listened to it yet. I’ll check it out.

These popped up in my feed the other day. Made me laugh....

 

Adam Buxton is a big Bowie fan - his podcasts/radio shows are well worth a listen re. Bowie.

It might be unfair but I always tend to think of Visconti being like he’s portrayed in the Adam Buxton/Warszawa clip! 

3 hours ago, BassAgent said:

So Pino Palladino's releasing a solo album in March, and he has released the first single last week, it's called "Just Wrong", here's the studio version:

But today, a live version of that composition surfaced on the YouTubes. Pino on his fretless Stingray with Blake Mills and Sem Gendel. And I can't express how much I love Pino's playing in this video. Look at those HUGE hands. Listen to how he handles harmonics. Check out the brilliant arrangement, both in composition and sounds between the musicians. What an amazing piece of art.

 

Love that! (live performance). Thank you so much for posting/sharing...

A mate sent a link to this, which I’d not heard before (the band or the track). In a parallel universe Hawkwind, Neu, Bowie, Buzzcocks and their associated mates all met in a field, plugged in and got on with things... 

I really like that!

It sounds like the end credits to some obscure 1970s US (West Coast) cop show...

Thanks for sharing... 

5 hours ago, MacDaddy said:

I concede..!

3 hours ago, Rich said:

Oh my god, if I tried to play like that I'd destroy my wrist in seconds. Looks hideously uncomfortable.

I agree. It’s not for everyone, it has to be said!

I think Pete decided very early on in his career to focus on throwing shapes and the rest would follow... which it did!

19 hours ago, DaytonaRik said:

You've gotta get it looooow!!!

None as low as Mr Pete’s..!