50 Years of Music (Part 20)

Ian Gillan Band – Fulcrum, Slough – 14th May 1977, admission £1.00

I didn’t know I was such a fan!!

I remember being very excited about going to see the Ian Gillan band at the Fulcrum in Slough in 1977. I was a big fan of Deep Purple and saw them the year before when David Coverdale was the singer but was too young to see the line featuring Ian Gillan although loved the Machine Head and In Rock albums and would spend a lot of time singing along to Child in Time in my bedroom.

What I wasn’t expecting was the change in musical direction from the Heavy Rock sound of Deep Purple to a Jazz Rock almost Prog sound and featured the impressive Colin Towns on keyboards, Ray Fenwick guitar and Mark Nauseef on drums as well as Ian Gillan on vocals . The album they were promoting at the time was Clear Air Turbulence which on a recent listen really stands the test of time and is really underrated, although the follow up Scarabus comes across as a bit messy for me with a loss of direction.

Live the Ian Gillan Band still rocked and included a great version of Smoke on the Water at the Fulcrum show my friend Mike was handed Ian Gillans tambourine which made me jealous. The support for that show was Strapps who I saw the year before supporting Deep Purple. The Ian Gillan Band folded later that year, to be replaced by Gillan the following year which had much more of a Hard Rock sound which tapped in to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal craze which was just starting at that time,

I did see their debut live performance at Reading Festival in 1978 followed by Slough College on 17th February with support from Marseilles (who featured Neil Buchanan who was best name for his work on Children’s Television), at Reading Festival in 1979 and 1980 where they were much higher up on the bill. I also saw them at Bracknell Sports Centre on 18th October 1980 with support from Quartz  and White Spirit (who featured Janick Gers who went to perform with Gillan and iron Maiden), again at Reading Festival in 1981 when they headlined the Saturday night, again at  the Top Rank Reading on 16th December & at Hammersmith Odeon on 21st December 1981 with support from Budgie.

The reason why I know I saw Ian Gillan as much as I did, nine times in four years, is because I kept a gig diary. If you asked me wrote this blog if I was a fan I would have I liked them, but there are not many bands I have seen twice in a week on the same tour !!

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50 Years of Music (Part 19)

Slough College (1977)

Growing up in Windsor during the mid to late 70’s and being too young to go into Pubs initially the two venues for music events that were most local to me were Bracknell Sports Centre, which relied in getting a list as it was outside the town centre and Slough College which was much easier to attend as it was close to the train and bus stations and even if we missed the last one it was just a couple of miles to walk which we ended up doing a few times.

I have already mentioned in previous blogs some of the gigs that I attended their including Nutz, Judas Priest, Liverpool Express and National Health. Looking through my Gig Diary a number of the bands I saw at Slough College are fairly obscure and didn’t amount to much, so I thought I would cover the bands I saw there in 1977.

Charlie plus support NW10 & A1 - 5th March 1977, admission £1.00

Charlie were a rock band with an AOR feel who released nine albums and supported bands like  The Who, Doobie Brothers and The Kinks and had some minor hits in the States, and appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test. I brought their Fantasy Girls album which In played to death and still sounds fresh today. Support was NW10 who released one EP and A1 who were a local band I saw a couple of times.

Cado Belle plus support A1- 13th May 1977, admission £1.00 & 13th May 1978, £1.50 plus support Scratch

Cado Bell were a Funky Soul band from Scotland and although definitely not the type of music I listened to at the time I must of really enjoyed them as I went back to see them the following year. They featured singer Maggie Reilly who co wrote and sang of various hits with Mike Oldfield including Moon Shadow and keyboardist Colin Tully who wrote the soundtrack to the Film Gregory’s Girl. Support band fwas Scratch who went on to be John Otway’s backing band.

The Rage plus support Open Sore – 5th November 1977, admission 70p

This was the first Punk gig I went to and was suppose to be The Adverts who cancelled instead we saw The Rage. They only lasted a few months, with members going on to join The Adverts, Killing Joke, The White Cats and many more. Support was Open Sore from Slough who performed a number of times on the London Punk circuit. I remember somebody crowd surfed whilst the audience spat on them and they seemed to love it.

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50 Years of Music (Part 18)

National Health – 27th February 1977 – Slough College, Tickets  £1.00

I went along to Slough College in February 1977 to see Prog/Jazz band National Health as they featured drummer Bill Bruford who I saw in Genesis the year before only to find out that he left the band the month before to replaced Pip Pyle. The stand out memory of this gig was that it was the first one I went to where the entire audience sat on the floor and also they were very good. Support on the night was Flash Gordon and the Flashettes.

Years later when I was working at Jagz we did put on An Evening with Bill Bruford which was a fascinating insight to one of the most prolific drummers of the time having performed with Yes, Genesis and King Crimson as well as many others. He is also a great storyteller, as he was one the of the first to use a electronic drum kit he told us of the time he was about to do a drum solo when Yes were performing at Madison Square Gardens and the power went on the kit which left him having to do a solo with a Hi Hat and a Cowbell !!

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50 Years of Music (Part 17)

Be-Bop Deluxe – 29th January 1977 – Bracknell Sports Centre. Tickets  £1.60

Going into 1977 I was feeling optimistic as I was about to finish school and due to start an apprenticeship as a Sheet Metal Worker, I looked old enough to go into Pubs and I was looking forward to seeing all the bands I discovered through my brothers record collection. Little did I know in just a few months my musical world was about to be threatened with the Punk revolution of the Summer 1977 which promised to literally replace the Status Quo (pun) and other bands I wanted to see.

History tells us that this didn’t quiet happen and in fact some of the biggest rock albums of all time were released between 76 and 78 including Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, Bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf and Hotel California by the Eagles as well as some of the biggest Festivals with 200,00 people attending Bob Dylan at Blackbushe Airport and 80,000 to see Genesis at Knebworth Park. The biggest effect that Punk Music had on the live music scene in the UK was the Pub Rock scene with many of those venues promoting Punk instead.

Be-Bop Deluxe who I saw at Bracknell Sports Centre on 29th January that year are a perfect example of how music was changing, I went along after seeing their Rock based performances on the Old Grey Whistle test with Bill Nelson’s rip roaring guitar solo’s and their hit single Ships in the Night from the classic album Sunburst Finish but by the time they released their final album Drastic Plastic they which was recorded in the Summer of 77 they had redefined their genre as Art Rock/ New Wave.

Support on the night came from the Steve Gibbons Band who had a hit that year with Tulane a cover of a Chuck Berry song and I remember really enjoying their set and rather than thinking I was witnessing the end of Classic Rock seeing these two bands perform on the same bill, it all felt fresh and exciting to me.

Many years later I had the honour of booking Bill Nelson for a solo performance at Windsor Arts Centre, it was a great night but also has the dubious honour out of all the thousands of music events I have organised to be the only one, although sold out had a 100% male attendance.

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50 Years of Music (Part 16)

Man– 16th December 1976 – Fulcrum, Slough. Tickets  £2.00

Advertised as the final ever performance by Welsh rock band Man little did we know at the time that they would reform seven years later and still performing now although with only one original member. Man's style combined elements of psychedelia, space rock and progressive music and they were part of a number of bands that emerged from Wales at that time including Budgie, Badfinger, Sassafras, Racing Cars and support on the night was Welsh funk rock band Alkatraz.

As well as being great musicians Man had a great sense of humour with album titles such as ‘2 Ozs of Plastic with a Hole in the Middle’ ‘Rhinos, Winos and Lunatics’ and lyrics such as “I like to eat bananas, 'Cos they got no bones, I like marijuana, 'Cos it gets me stoned. After the band initially split up it was drummer Terry Williams who had the most success joining Rockpile with Dave Edmonds and Nick Lowe before joining Dire Straits.

This was the first time we attended the Fulcrum as a venue and returned many times to see some great bands, situated in the town centre and just a few minutes walk to the train and bus stations it was easy to get to.

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50 Years of Music (Part 15)

Liverpool Express– 13th October 1976 – Slough College. Tickets  £1.20

Liverpool Express were a 1970’s Pop band who had several hits and although this wasn’t the type of music I was into at that time I must have enjoyed them as went to see them again the following year. To be fair there were a number of Pop bands at that time who had commercial hits and live were a lot heavier and decent Rock bands, Sweet and Smokie were two and I am sure there were many more and my memory was this was the case with Liverpool Express.

Around that time I would listen to the radio a lot including Radio Luxembourg. John Peel, BBC Radio 1 and Radio Caroline which was a Pirate Radio Station. It is difficult to comprehend how much of a threat Pirate Stations were perceived at the time, especially when you see the number of online and independent Radio shows you see today. In all the time I listen to Pirate Radio I wasn’t aware of anything outrageous and controversial being said, the reason I listened was because of the music which was much more Rock orientated.

On one occasion I entered a postal competition which I heard on Radio Caroline to win tickets to see Liverpool Express, I was just a teenager at the time and never really been in any trouble to speak off, a few week’s later I had the letter I sent returned to me which had been opened and covered in official Government stamps stamp’s and I was terrified I was going to get in lots of trouble, looking back it seems ridiculous that I could have thought I would get in trouble for trying to win tickets to see Liverpool Express.

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50 Years of Music (Part 14)

Genesis– 10th June1976 – Hammersmith Odeon, London – Admission £2.50

Going to see Genesis at Hammersmith Odeon which was the second of five shows they performed at the venue, was the first time I attended a London show without a older brother or sister. I was 16 years old at the time and I went with a school friend on the Bus from Windsor and I remember it was a beautiful Summers evening when we left.

They were the first shows that Genesis performed without Peter Gabriel with drummer Phil Collins taking the lead singer role and Bill Bruford coming to assist on drums alongside Collins when he wasn’t singing. The album they were promoting was A Trick of the Tail, which is my favourite Genesis album with ripples being in my top 10 songs of all time.

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50 Years of Music (Part 13)

Judas Priest– 14th May 1976 – Slough College

How did you discover new music growing up? For me in the mid 1970’s long before the internet and streaming sites it started by me going through my brother Ken’s record collection and then going to my friends house and listening to their albums. At school my Chemistry Teacher was a music fan and a small group of us used  to go to his Class Room at lunch break every Thursday and read through his latest music magazines and I went on to get Melody Maker every week followed by New Music Express and Sounds . At night when I was supposed to be asleep I had a transistor radio and earphones and listened to Radio Luxembourg, Radio Caroline and the John Peel Show.

On television I wasn’t really a fan of Top of the Pops although occasionally there would be a band I liked but it was The Old Grey Whistle Test with Bob Harris which was a must watch for me. I came from a large family, there were nine of us altogether and we had one television which meant if you wanted to watch a programme like TOGWT you had to do it when other people were in the room. I remember squirming in my seat  when Meatloaf performed a very raunchy Paradise by the Dashboard Light whilst my Mum was in the living room, I laughed out loud when John Otway fell off his amplifier,  cried when Paul Kossoff who was off his head on drugs whilst being interviewed by Bob Harris and I was blown away watching Lynard Skynyrd perform Freebird for the first time.

One of the many bands I discovered through TOGWT was Judas Priest who me and my mate Phil went to see at Slough College, tickets were £1.00 and the support band were Spitfire. This was the first of many gig’s we went to in the new Students Union Hall at Slough College and before judas Priest hit the stage the room was filled with dry ice, so much so that you could not see your own hand if you put it front of your face and the volume for the intro was deafening  it was such an assault on the senses I did have a mild panic. As the smoke dissipated the band entered the stage in Monk’s Habits to bells tolling and then rocked the night away. The album the band were promoting was Sad Wings of Destiny which was the album that started to break the band as a force on the UK Heavy Metal scene. I did go and see Judas Priest again two years later when they were in their prime on 10th February 1978 at Hammersmith Odeon with support from English Assassin, tickets were £2.50  

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50 Years of Music (Part 12)

Deep Purple– 13th March 1976 – Empire Pool, Wembley, London

A few years ago I was talking with a group of hard core Deep Purple fans and they were discussing what their favourite line up was, for some it was Deep Purple Mark 2 which featured Ian Gillan for others it was Mark 3 with David Coverdale, when they asked me and I said Mark 4 you could see that they looked at me suspiciously and very quickly the conversation finished.

Deep Purple Mark 4 featured David Coverdale, Ian Paice, Jon Lord, Glen Hughes and Tommy Bolin who replaced Ritchie Blackmore on guitar and I went to see them with my sister at the Empire Pool, Wembley on 13th March 1976, tickets were £2.00, support band on the tour was Strapps who were a British hard rock band who made four albums but didn’t gain much success.

One of things I have noticed whilst writing these blogs is that it is the first album I brought by an artist that becomes my favourite and not necessary the classics, with David Bowie it was Diamond Dogs as that was my very first album , with Thin Lizzy it was Johnny the Fox (which hardly anyone ever mentions now) and for Deep Purple it is Come and Taste the Band although I loved their earlier albums. I think I wore out my copy of Deep Purple in Rock and would spend hours in my bedroom screaming along to Child in Time, God knows what my parents were thinking!! I also wore out my version of Burn which featured David Coverdale although I had that on cassette tape so it was not hard to do. There was a different energy to Come and Taste the Band to previous Deep Purple albums as well as some serious funky moments as featured in Getting Tighter and throughout the album there is Tommy Bolin’s distinctive guitar style which I loved.

I was as much a fan on Tommy Bolin as I was Deep Purple possibly even a bit more and had all the albums he featured on. I first came across him when a friend played me Billy Cobham’s Spectrum album which Tommy plays guitar on and blew me away with the speed of his guitar solos, he was in a band called Zephyr which had a Big Brother and the Holding company feel to them although the singer wasn’t a patch on Janis Joplin, but then again who is. Tommy then went on to replace Joe Walsh in the James Gang before replacing Ritchie Blackmore in Deep Purple. He also made two excellent solo albums the first one features Phil Collins on drums.

My biggest memory from seeing Deep Purple perform live at the Empire Pool, Wembley was a section of the audience who were staunch Ritchie Blackmore fans who booed every time Tommy Bolin played a guitar solo in the same way a football supporter would boo a player who used to play for Manchester united and went on to play for Manchester City, it felt very strange to me at the time and I was unaware what was going on behind the scenes in the band, two days after this performance David Coverdale announced to some band members that he was leaving the band.

Tommy Bolin passed away in December that year with a drugs overdose and for me he is one the most under rated guitar players of all time and died far too young.

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50 Years of Music (Part 11)

The Trammps– 5th February 1976 – Hammersmith Odeon, London – Disco Inferno

If you have been with us from the start, then you will know that this Blog is based on my Gig Diary that I started in 1975 and each post looks at the next gig I went to, you will also have learnt by now that the music I was into was very much Rock based, so you may be surprised to see that I was attending a performance by Dico Kings The Trammps, but you won’t be more surprised than I was when we turned up at  Hammersmith Odeon on 5th February 1976.

It was my brother Ken who first got me into music and when he moved out my sister would accompany me to concerts as I was in my mid-teens at the time. Pauline was into the Pop music of the time and really didn’t know the bands I was into but did know I was into Supertramp and in pre Google/ internet times that is who she thought she had brought tickets for. I am ashamed to say that when we arrived I was a grumpy sixteen year old not appreciative of the kindness she was showing.

These days people are much more open to listening to different musical styles and a number of artists mix genres including Folktronica and Country Rap, back in the 60’s and 70’s there was a lot more tribalism when it came to listening to music , starting with Mods and Rockers fighting on Brighton Beach and armed Hells Angels taking over Rock Festivals, being into a type of music was almost like supporting a Football team with the same amount of loyalty.

So for a sixteen year old to be attending a disco band was not only against the grain but also slightly embarrassing but I have to say that I enjoyed the performance. The support band was the Diversions which featured Lene Lovich who had a hit a few years later with Lucky Number. The Trammps were promoting their new single Disco Inferno at the time which went on to be a Dance Floor classic and was featured in the film Saturday Night Fever, my strongest memory of the night was the dancing which I thought was incredible and I first time I witnessed someone dance the Robot.

Nearly Fifty years later and a lot more open to different styles of music I am proud and thankful to my sister that I experienced one of the top bands at the height of the Disco explosion when they were in their prime although I didn’t feel it at the time, although my sister was about to make it up to me big time…

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50 Years of Music (Part 10)

Ace & Graham Parker and the Rumour – 25th January 1976 – Victoria Palace Theatre, London + Pub Rock Circuit of the 1970’s

In the mid 70’s if you wanted to catch some live music there was the University and College circuit which catered for Rock and Prog Bands or the Pub Rock scene as I was in my teens at the time I was too young to go legally go in Pubs at the time. Some of the bands that came out of the Pub Rock circuit included Dr Feelgood, Ducks Delux, Rockpile and Any Trouble.

One of the bands that broke out of the Pub Rock scene were Ace who had a hit single with ‘How Long’ the band released three albums before they disbanded. The band featured Paul Carrick who later went on to join Mike and the Mechanics as well as performing with many others as well as having a successful solo career and a Top 40 entry with his own version of ‘How Long’.

I went to see them at Victoria Palace Theatre, London on 25th January 1976 tickets were £1.80, up until this point I regularly went to see bands with my older brother Ken, when he moved out of our family home it was my sister Pauline who is sadly no longer with us who accompanied me to concerts. Her taste in music was completely opposite to mine at the time as she was a fan of the Osmonds, Bay city Rollers and David Cassidy and so it was really lovely that she made the time to go along to Rock concerts with her younger brother.

The support band on the night was Graham Parker and the Rumour and I remember some  of Grahm Parker’s family were sat behind us on the night and were shouting and screaming throughout his set and DJ Alan Freeman was sat in front of us. Graham Parker and the Rumour were prevalent on the live music and festival scene and I did see them again at Reading Festival and supporting Bob Dylan at Blackbushe Airport in 1978.

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50 Years of Music (Part 9)

Thin Lizzy – 20th December 1975 – Sports Centre, Bracknell

I first saw Thin Lizzy perform at Bracknell Sports Centre with my brother Ken on 20th December 1975 with support from Hit’n’Run, tickets were £1.00. For me this was the classic Thin Lizzy line up with Scott Gorham, Brian Robertson, Brian Downey, and Phil Lynott and the album they released that year which was Fighting, although I did enjoy their albums it when they performed live that they were at their best. There was something about Thin Lizzy that was different to other bands I had seen up to that point as they didn’t come across as Rock Stars but more like some mates which was reflected in not only the way they dressed, which was exactly the same as the audience but also the way communicated, I remember Phil Lynott being very happy as he told the audience that Manchester United won that day.

A year later we went back to the same venue to see them again on 23rd October 1976 with support from Country Rock Band Clover featuring Huey Louis who later went on to form his own band Huey Lewis and the News, tickets for this were £1.60. This Lizzy released their breakthrough album Jailbreak earlier that year and this Tour was in support of the follow up Johnny the Fox, although not as successful it is still one of my favourites as it was the first album of theirs that I brought. I do remember me and some friends did go to see them at Skindles in Maidenhead, but we weren’t allowed in as we were underage.

The following year me and a mate went to see them when they were headlining Reading Festival, this was my first Festival experience and we went just for the one day, tickets were £4.00. Other bands on the line up were Aerosmith, Graham Parker & the Rumour, John Miles who had a hit at the time with Music, Little River Band, Ultravox who were quiet low on the bill, No Dice, Krazy Kats and George Hatcher Band. I remember we had a 7 pint can of Watneys Party Seven between us we travelled there and back on the train and arrived home very wet and muddy, which was not unusual for Reading Festival.

I saw them again at Reading Festival om 28th August 1983, tickets were £8.00 for the day and the line up included Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, Ten Years After, Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, Climax Blues Band, The Enid, Sad Café, On the Juggler and Twelfth Night who were a Reading based Prog band.

I am sure I saw Thin Lizzy again at Hammersmith Odeon but can’t see any record of this in my gig diary although I do have a programme for their tour in 1979.

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50 Years of Music Blog (Part 8)

Alice Cooper + Heavy Metal Kids  – 11th September 1975 – Empire Pool, Wembley

Growing up as a family we did attend a few Pantomimes at the Theatre Royal and we did go to see the Hans Christian Anderson Music at London Palladium starring Tommy Steele as my Mum was a big fan and up to this point I had attended a few gigs as described in previous blogs and going to see Alice Cooper on his Welcome to my Nightmare Tour at Empire Pool, Wembley in 1975 with my brothers ken & Nigel felt like a mixture of Panto, Musical and Gig.  Tickets for this cost £3.00.

This was a huge stage show that included encountered giant spiders, dancing skeletons, faceless silver demons and a 9-foot 'cyclops, a snake, dancers, a Vincent Price voiceover to Black Widow and a fantastic live the band. The show started with a projection onto a large screen showing Alice Cooper walking through a Cemetery until he comes across his own Gravestone which is illuminated with lights, at which point he starts running towards the audience on screen which he then jumps through in real life.

Support band for the Tour was the Heavy Metal Kids who never quiet achieved the success they deserved and featured Gary Holton who was in the hit TV Series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and passed away 1985. The band also featured Keith Boyce on drums and has performed at some of our GSMC events recently with the Cream of Hendrix.

I did get to see Alice Cooper again in 1982 at Hammersmith Odeon with support from Sapphire, tickets were £6.00. Although it was a much smaller stage compared to Empire Pool Wembley the show was equally impressive such is the showmanship.

I don’t think the impact that Alice Cooper has had on Rock Music over the decades has been truly recognised, probably due to the fact (at the time of writing) he is still performing and recording and it is normally after people pass away that performers true impact is acknowledged.

 

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50 Years of Music Blog (Part 7)

Nutz + Fabulous Poodles – 7th June 1975 – Slough Technical College

Keeping a Gig Diary of all the events I went to not only means that I can rediscover the bands I went to see but also that I have a record of all the venues I went to and it’s interesting to note that the vast majority of venues I attended from the mid 70’s until the mid 80’s were at Universities and Colleges. This circuit across the UK at that time was the best way to see new and emerging bands and put millions of pounds into the music industry through live shows and record sales.

This created a vibrant and exciting music scene especially for teenagers like myself and my friends as we were too young to go into Pubs and Clubs at that time and even though there are some Universities that host live music today it is a small percentage compared to back then, a part of the reason for this was a change in the Education Bill in 1994 preventing Students Unions from funding non essential activities which included subsidies on tickets making it affordable to attend events.

The first gig I went to where I wasn’t accompanied by my brother and his friends was at Slough technical College on 7th June 1975 where me and Phil a friend from school went to see Nutz with support from the Fabulous Poodles, admission was 70p and took place in the main building, before the Students Union Hall was built where we saw many bands in years to come.

Nutz were an excellent four piece (although added a keyboard player later that year) Rock Band from Liverpool, their first two albums featured scantily clad ladies on their album covers, which added to the interest from teenage boys at the time. Their third album Hard Nutz for me was the best and features an excellent Heavy Rock version of One More Cup of Coffee by Bob Dylan which still sounds great today. I got to see them again when they supported Budgie at Hammersmith Odeon in 1978 and at the Reading Festival later that year. In 1980 they changed their name to Rage.

The Fabulous Poodles were a pre New Wave band formed that year and known for quirky stage antics as well as songs with funny lyrics. My friend Phil reminded me when they came on stage they started with the end of a song and said good night. The band featured Bobby Valentino who went on to co-write Young at Heart with The Bluebells and has recorded with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Mike Oldfield, Mark Knopfler and Sinéad O'Connor to name a few.

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50 Years of Music Blog (Part 6)

Led Zeppelin – Earls Court, London - 24th May 1975

On 24th May 1975 I first saw Led Zeppelin at Earls Court, London with my brother and his friends. The band were originally booked for three consecutive nights but due to the high demand they extended the run to five shows with 80,000 tickets sold making it the biggest concert run at the time, we went on the fourth night and our tickets were £1.50 each.

The seats we got were up in the Gods and were really steep, due to an incident I had when I was very young at the top of a Tower I suffer from really bad vertigo and I wasn’t the only one in our group that felt the same, so after some discussions with the stewards we were moved to the balcony over looking the stage. Each of the five shows had a different DJ and it was Nicky Horne who introduced the night we went to.

What stands Led Zeppelin out as one of the greatest bands in music history is that each member of the band was an integral part of their sound, from the solid drumming of John Bonham, bass, keyboards and mandolin from John Paul Jones, the guitar histrionics of Jimmy Page and the distinctive vocals of Robert Plant. Everything they did as a band was big including the set list which was over three hours long, so no need of a support band. They could play for this long as they all had a role to play, the John Bonham marathon drum solo during Moby Dick meant the other band members could have a break and the acoustic set which Robert Plant described as the Leonard Cohen part of the show and when Jimmy Page played the guitar with a violin bow during Dazed and Confused with bright green laser beam going across the length of the venue was an iconic moment that still sits with me.

The album they were promoting at the time was Physical Graffiti and their set featured a number of tracks from that album including hearing Kashmir for the first time which still sounds as fresh today as it did then, they started and ended the evening with Rock’Roll and Stairway to Heaven from the fourth album. It is no under estimation that seeing Led Zeppelin perform live when they were all at the top of their game changed my life and had a profound affect.

I had to wait four years to see Led Zeppelin perform live again which was at Knebworth, Hertfordshire on 4th August alongside 200,000 people with Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, Southside Johnny, Marshall Tucker, Commander Cody, Chas & Dave and Fairport Convention, the shows overran and received complaints about the noise from over seven miles away, tickets were £7.50 each. In 1984 I got to see The Firm featuring Jimmy Page and Paul Rogers at Hammersmith Odeon, tickets were £5.50.

It was around that time that I got to meet Jimmy Page was in a Pub in Windsor when I was working at Windsor Arts Centre where he told me he had just recorded an album with Roy Harper called Whatever Happened to Jugula?. Based on this knowledge I contacted Roy’s agent and booked him to perform around the time of the album release, a lot of people put two and two together knowing that Jimmy Page lived in Windsor at the time and presumed he would be there also (which he wasn’t). The album charted in the top 50 and we sold out weeks in advance and had hundreds of people turn up on the night trying to get in.

I got to meet Jimmy Page several times after that as he was a regular visitor to Windsor Arts Centre, attending events, record fairs and bringing his children to shows and classes, he was always a joy to talk to and very humble.

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50 Years of Music Blog (Part 5)

Gong – Bracknell Sports Centre - 12th April 1975

If you were to be driving along the Bagshot Road into Bracknell Town Centre in the early evening on the 12th April 1975 there would have been a good chance that you would have driven past groups of long haired hippies wearing conical hats with plastic windmills on top making their way to the Sports Centre, this is a clear memory for me nearly 50 years later, such was the impact this had on the 15 year old me. The reason for this was that they were all converging to see their heroes Gong perform with support from Global Village Trucking Company, tickets for this cost £1.00.

The world of Gong is a world of Flying Teapots, Pothead Pixies and Space Whispers who are still going to this day and have a strong cult following. The group was formed in Paris in 1967 by Australian musician Daevid Allen and English vocalist Gilli Smyth and were best known at the time for their Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy of albums Flying Teapot, Angel’s Egg & You. I hadn’t heard much by them at the time and was really looking forward to seeing Gong perform live… turns out though that I didn’t.

I went along with my brother Ken and his friends, when we arrived at the venue on a warm Spring evening there was a long queue of people waiting outside to get in. I remember there were two people close by who started laying slices of processed meat in a large circle on the ground which drew a crowd of people to see what they were doing, it turns out that this was a ruse to draw people out so that their friends could queue jump.

Once we were inside the support band Global Village Trucking Village Company took to the stage, known as The Globs to their fans they were a collective who lived in a commune in Suffolk and were prevalent at Festivals and Gatherings in the 1970’s and featured in a BBC Documentary at the time. Co-founder of the band James Lascelles is second cousin to King Charles III.

When Gong finally took to the stage they gathered in a huddle as if they were deciding what to do and although at the time we didn’t know what they were doing, history tells us that founder of the band Daevid Allen quit the band the day before, what we got instead of a Gong performance was guitarist Steve Hillage performing his first solo album Fish Rising in its entirety which was released the day before  and featured fellow Gong Band members and ended up being more successful than previous Gong Albums entering the UK Chart at number 33. Although I did buy a copy of Gong’s second album Camembert Electrique at the concert for 50p which even in those days was a bargain, so at least I heard Gong afterwards.  

Over the years when I have discussed music with friends I have been asked if I had ever seen Gong perform live and I have always said yes “at Bracknell Sports Centre in 1975”, it turns out I was wrong, what we did see was the launch of what a lot people describe as a classic album from the mid1970’s.

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50 Years of Music Blog (Part 4)

50 Years of Music Blog (Part 4)

Black Oak Arkansas – 15th February 1975 – Bracknell Sports Centre

When people talk about rock bands from the 1970’s the same 10-15 artists are mentioned repeatedly so when I started writing this blog I was tempted to just mention the big names and the festivals, but there were hundreds of excellent bands performing at that time and as I have all the gigs I went to written down this it is a perfect opportunity to rediscover some of the bands that had been forgotten.

The great thing about keeping a Gig Diary from 50 years ago is when it comes to writing this blog it gives the memory a starting point and like grabbing the end of a thread it all starts coming back to you. What occurred to me is that back in the 70’s is that the whole process of going to see s band was very different to how it is now, in a time before the internet and online bookings, getting tickets for an event would normally start a week or so before hand.  

I am sure for everyone it was different, living in Windsor at the time for us the place to go to buy tickets would be our local record shop, Revolution Records which was about a 20 minute walk from where we lived. This would make the whole process a lot more enjoyable and social, Richard who owned the shop was the font of all local musical knowledge and would soon get to know what music you liked so we would inevitably leave the shop with tickets and some vinyl as well as suggestions of bands to check out, he was the human version of AI. A few weeks after seeing Hawkwind my brother Ken, his girlfriend and myself went back to Bracknell Sports Centre on the 15th February 1975 to see Black Oak Arkansas which was the first night of their UK Tour with support from Sassafras and Fast Eddie, tickets cost £1.00.

The 1970’s was a time of Southern Rock from America with the Allman Brothers who had hits with Jessica and Ramblin Man and Lynard Skynard, you could hardly go anywhere without hearing Freebird whereas today they are known equally for Sweet Home Alabama thanks to the film of the same name, but there were plenty of other great bands including Molly Hatchet, the Marshall Tucker Band, Atlanta Rhythm Section and Black Oak Arkansas.

Led by charismatic lead singer Jim "Dandy" Mangrum he came across as a mid 70’s Dave Lee Roth, with long blond hair, bare chest, white jacket, white jeans and platform boots, with a very distinctive voice and is the only singer of a rock band I have seen who also played the washboard. Black Oak Arkansas  were / are (they are still going) a five piece band with three guitarists who really knew how to rock with the two lead guitarists teasing the audience by threatening to smash the guitars together, which they eventually did at the end and threw the remaining parts into the audience. After the concert we saw a truck parked outside which was packed with Gibson guitars which would all be destroyed by the end of the tour, such was the Rock’n’Roll excess of the 70’s. Although Black Oak Arkansas were a fantastic live band I never felt their studio albums reflected this, which is why I think they never received the prominence of their counterparts.

Support band for the tour was Welsh rockers Sassafras who toured extensively across the UK and America and released several albums, following in the footsteps of fellow countrymen Man and Budgie. The other support band on the night was Fast Eddie who I can’t find any information on, but there is mention of a band called Fast Buck which featured Scott Gorham who joined Thin Lizzy a few months before this show and they did replace him to honour their live show commitments. I have a feeling that they are the same band as all of this rings a bell, but it was nearly fifty years again so I could be wrong.

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50 Years of Music Blog (Part 3)

50 Years of Music Blog (Part 3)

It was my older brother Ken who took me to my first gig, we were a large family and we use to share a room, so I would go through his record collection whilst he was out. He had been to number of gigs and before we went he suggested I keep a gig diary because he wished he had, as even then he couldn’t remember all the bands he had seen, especially the support acts. So I did this for about 9 years and still have it to this day, which is really helpful when writing this blog.

The first gig I went to was on 25th January 1975 with Hawkwind plus support from Swan Revival and Al Matthews at Bracknell Sports Centre, tickets cost £1.00 (yes a pound, I haven’t missed a zero). It still amazes me to this day, that my brother and his friends were happy for me to tag along. I was a geeky, skinny just turned 15 year old, where as my brother and his friends were the epitome of mid 1970’s cool, with their long hair, denim jackets and flared trousers, my Mum wanted to make sure I was smartly dressed with an ironed shirt, smart trousers and my Parker jacket which were all the rage at the time. I can only imagine I stood out like a sore thumb amongst all the Hippies.

Bracknell Sports Centre was THE local venue for touring bands with a capacity of several hundred and ironically only a mile or so from where I currently live 50 years later, although no longer putting on music events. Hawkwind were one of the most prolific live music bands in the 70’s performing at most festivals and venues. The album they were promoting at that time was Warrior On The Edge of Time which featured Lemmy and two songs that were to become synonymous with Motorhead, which is the song of the same name and Kings of Speed. My memory of the gig itself was the smell of Patchouli oil, hundreds of hippies, the light show by Liquid Len and the lensmen and I remember the cover of Warrior On The Edge of Time being projected on the big screen, and sax player Nik Turner walking past us as the band left the stage wearing a frog mask!

I still have the programme from that concert which includes a short story by author Michael Moorcock whose band The Deep Fix who were due to be the support band but were replaced by Swan Revival. I did an internet search but can’t find out anything by them, although my memory is that they were Glam Rock. The first act on was Al Matthews who recorded one album and is best known as an actor who played Gunnery sergeant Apone in the Alien films amongst others, sadly he passed away in 2018.

Although I didn’t get to see Michael Moorcock perform until a few years later I became a fan of his writing and have over 60 of his books. His most famous characters include the Science Fantasy novels featuring Elric of Melniboné and the Jerry Cornelius novels who was like a 60’s psychedelic James Bond if memory serves me right. He also wrote a trilogy of Fantasy novels where Hawkwind were the heroes fighting corporate businessmen who were known as the straights who fired music guns with songs by Elton John etc at the Hippies and Hawkwind fought back with band members performing live constantly whilst others flew around in their Silver Machines.

I did get to see Hawkwind a few times after that at the Fulcrum, Slough on 15th June 1977 with Motorhead (much more about them in a later blog) who were the support band, tickets were £2.00. The Hawklords at Uxbridge University on 24th November 1978 with Softies as support, tickets were £1.70. Then again as Hawkwind at the Top Rank, Reading on 27th October 1980 with Vardis as support, tickets were £2.75. At the Glastonbury Festival on 20th June 1981 where they headlined the Saturday night on the Pyramid Stage and the Hexagon Reading on 28th September with Ginger Baker on drums, which I always thought was a strange combination, Mama’s Boys were the support, tickets were £3.50

Over 50 years later and Hawkwind are still going strong with 38 albums released to date.

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50 Years of Music Blog (Part 2)

50 Years of Music Blog (Part 2)

 Fifty years ago this year the last Windsor Free Festival took place at Windsor Great Park. This annual festival would run for 9 days and attracted thousands of music goers from all over the country much to the annoyance of some local residents and businesses with No Hippies signs on doors of many of the shops and pubs in the town. The Festival attracted a lot of interest in the local and national media, primarily as it took place in the Queen’s back garden, which included a piece on page three of The Sun newspaper with a picture of topless female festival goers and the headline Royal Sex Olympics, presumably as the real Olympics were taking place at the same time.

I was fourteen years old at the time and my parents said I was too young to go but as the Festival was so close to where we lived, I would open the bedroom windows and listen to the early hours of the morning. Bizarrely on a Sunday afternoon of the week of the Festival my parents put me, my two younger brothers and my sister in the back of the car and drove us the mile or so down the road. It was like going to a Safari Park, my Mum made a packed lunch and thermos flask of tea and we parked on the edge of the Great Park along with other local residents who had the same idea, so we could watch the Hippies in their natural environment from the safety of our car with the strict instructions not to unwind the windows and under no circumstances open the doors. As we looked out through the large windscreen the only thing missing was a David Attenborough wildlife commentary.

A few days later the media coverage escalated from page 3 of the National newspapers to the front page when hundreds of Police Officers raided the Festival in the early hours of the morning to physically remove them from the site. The aggressive nature of this approach prompted the Home Secretary at the time to ask for a National enquiry. This followed a sit in by hundreds of Festival goers by Queen Victories statue outside the main entrance of Windsor Castle.

Many years later when I was working at Windsor Arts Centre I was involved in a Community Play called Don’t Stop the Music which looked at the relationship between music and the town. Not only was the Free Festival stopped due to public pressure but also the Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival which later went on to be Reading Festival, the second Ricky Tik Club which played host some of the biggest names of the 60’s including Stevie Wonder, The Rolling Stones, The who and many more and The Old Trout that played host to Oasis, Blur, Faith No More and the Pixies and several other events.

January 1975 saw me go to my first live music event which I will talk about next time.

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50 Years of Music Blog (Part 1)

50 Years of Music Blog (Part 1)

This year marks the 50th year since the start of my passion for music as 1974 was when I brought my first album and single. Growing up as part of a large family in Windsor, there were nine of us and up until this point I was really a football fan like my Dad who took me to watch Chelsea play at home every other week as it was the closest First Division team (before the Premiership) to us, but the wonderful thing I remember was when Chelsea weren’t playing at home he would take me to random matches so I could see some of the great Legends. So we went to watch Southampton play Manchester United so I could see George Best, Dennis Law, Bobby Charlton and co, Watford versus Stoke to see 1966 World Cup Winner Gorden Banks and a friendly with Fulham who were playing Santos which featured Pele and most of the Brazilian 1970 World Cup Winning team.

As my older brothers and sisters started getting jobs of their own, getting into relationships and moving out, I ended up sharing a room with my older brother Ken and it was then that I started to explore his record collection, I also remember getting a small transistor Radio for Christmas and like many teenagers at that time, I use to listen to Radio Luxembourg and then latterly the John Peel show in  bed until late at night when I was supposed to be asleep, which opened me up to whole world of music.

The first single I brought was ‘I Know It’s Only Rock & Roll’ by The Rolling Stones, although we did have some children’s novelty singles before then, my Dad listened to Military Band Music which really wasn’t my thing although in later years he became a big fan of Max Boyce but this was more for the comedy, my Mum was the musical one of my parents and she was a fan of Country singer Jim Reeves as well as Tom Jones and Al Jolson, who isn’t Politically Correct  now but back then it was all part of the norm, with programmes like the Black & White Mistral Show being prime time Saturday night viewing, which never sat right with me even at that age.

The very first vinyl album I brought was ‘Diamond Dogs’ by David Bowie, I am not entirely sure what motivated me to buy it but I think it might be that brother had ‘Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders of Mars’ (one of my all time favourite albums) and it had just been released. It occurred to me whilst writing this blog that back in the day before streaming sites if somebody else had an album we didn’t feel the need to get it ourselves, instead we would go around a friends house and listen to it and buy something different instead.

Growing up in such a large family with the hustle and bustle of people coming and going, can feel quite lonely and at times and I didn’t feel like I fitted in, what I felt when I listened to David Bowie was that there was someone out in the world who spoke to me then. I remember listening to ‘Kooks’ from ‘Hunky Dory’ and thinking these are my people.

As far as Bowie albums go ‘Diamond Dogs’ is largely ignored but I still love it to this day from the opening lines of ‘Future Legend’ I was hooked.

“And in the death
As the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare
The shutters lifted in inches in Temperance Building
High on Poacher's Hill
And red, mutant eyes gaze down on Hunger City
No more big wheels

Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats
And ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes
Coverting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers
Like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of Love-Me Avenue
Ripping and rewrapping mink and shiny silver fox, now legwarmers
Family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald
Any day now
The Year of the Diamond Dogs

This ain't Rock'n'Roll
This is Genocide

The whole album conjured up a whole world in a way which only David Bowie could do accompanied by the gatefold sleeve image of Bowie being half man, half dog. The only hit to come from this album was ‘Rebel Rebel’ but there are so many good songs on it from the title track to ‘Sweet Thing’ with it’s pre Punk distorted guitar.

This opened the floodgates for my Bowie obsession at that time and I started collecting the back catalogue with ‘Aladdin Sane’ followed by ‘Hunky Dory’ which listening to it now I think is a masterpiece, ‘Man Who Sold the World’ and even the ‘World of David Bowie’ which I remember buying from Woolworths in Windsor for a pound, ‘Space Oddity’ was one of my brothers albums, so never I technically owed that, although I  went out and brought ‘Ziggy Stardust’ as soon as he left home.

A year later (1975) David Bowie released the title track to his new album ‘Young Americans’ and I have to say the fifteen year old me hated it, for me it was too slick and polished with an American soul feel. I remember the first time I heard it my family were driving back from a weekend on the coast and it came on the radio and my Mum turned it up as she knew I liked Bowie and after I heard it  I don’t think I said a word the whole journey back, so mixed were my emotions. Fifty years on I appreciate it a lot more along with a lot of his later albums and the genius of David Bowie is that he changed his identity more than any other artist in history and was so ahead of his time that it was too big a change for me at the time.

David Bowie is still one one of my all time heroes, I have joked with friends that after he passed away the World has never been the same and I know many people who feel the same.

January 1975 saw me go to my first live music event which I will talk about next time.

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