I put this together using whatever photos I could find of Tommy Bolin and the band, which included drummer Narada Michael Walden, fresh from his time with the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
Michael had just released his first solo album, The Garden of Love Light, which features Jeff Beck and Carlos Santana. Tommy's band took the track 'Delightful' and played a beautiful version of it here, catching the groove just right. There's a later show on the CD this was taken from (First Time Live) which is much quicker, and loses the groove as a result.
So here we have just about the best example of Tommy Bolin's short-lived band. For their first gig on April 28, 1976 (Deep Purple had split up in
March) the TB Band played at La Paloma Theater in Encinitas, San Diego.
The band members are Norma Jean Bell (sax), Reggie McBride (bass), Mark
Stein (keys) and Narada Michael Walden (drums).
The song 'Delightful' is from the first solo album by NMW, The Garden of
Love Light.
And it's obviously captivated folks, to judge from the comments on the YT page. Over 200,000 views last time I checked. Enjoy.
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When Steely Dan reformed in the 1990s, their website was an extension of Fagen
and Becker's sardonic humour. This list appeared on the site, together
with things like '36 Rules for Bands'. Anyone who has been in a band, or
in a studio, should get a laugh or two out of this.
EXPRESSIONS TO AVOID DURING A RECORDING SESSION
1.Ready, Freddie (pronounced red-eye
fred-eye)
2.Bingo, gringo
3.Uno, Bruno
4.The phones sound O.K. but I need more of
myself
5.We won't need a click
6.I like what you're trying to do but not the
way you're doing it
7.An excellent first attempt
8.Was that the sound you had on the demo?
9.Make the click louder
10.That was a pretty good take for this time
of night
11.If you want the tempo any brighter than
that, we better wait for a sunny day
12.No dynamics? We're playing as loud as we
can
13.I think that's a pretty good sounding take
for what were getting paid..
14.That was great, let's do it again
15.Is that about as tight as you boys want to
get it?
16.Is it possible the click is speeding up?
17.I'm at the point where I'm making dumb
mistakes - before I was making much smarter mistakes
18.So many drummers, so little time
19.Why don't we do the double first and the
lead will be easier to get once we've got the double
20.I never had this problem when I was being
produced by Lenny and Russ
21.We got some things, we need some things
22.Fabulous
23.Punch in at the section
24.You can't make ice cream out of shit
25.You can't polish a turd
26.Just let your spirit soar
27.My spirit's already sore from the last
thirty takes...
28.Close
29.Less is more
30.Less is Paul
31.Less is Brown
32.Less is less
33.That's the way I've been playing it all
along
34.I just wish I could get a whole band that
sounds as good as I do
35.This will be a great opportunity for me to
show off my chop
36.Let's hear the bass, if you can call it
that
37.Does your amp have an underdrive channel?
38.You can erase that one, I remember exactly
what I played
39.We'll catch that in the mix
40.You guys can fix that in Soundtools, right?
41.I brought my kid along, he's never been in
a recording studio before
42.My girlfriend sings great background vocals
43.I know a great drummer
44.You guys want to try some heroin?
45.Your girlfriend's been in the bathroom a
long time
46.Please, man, stay away from my faxes, okay?
47.I'm not going to be any more dishonest with
you than I am with Donald
48.I'd like a little more of a live feeling on
this tune.
49.I also play eleven other instruments
50.Sorry I'm late, I just got through with my
blood test (or CAT scan)
51.That vocal's not a keeper is it?
52.That's how I wrote it but that's not how I
like to play it
53.I can't think of any improvements that
won't make it worse
54.That ground loop is a trademark thing for
me
55.That's the new old comp from today - I want
to hear the new old comp from last Tuesday
56.That reverb would sound a lot better if it
were coming out of a piece of MY GEAR
57.How bout we get rid of these 3M machines
and get ourselves a frozen yogurt machine
58.Skunk called, he's on his way down
59.The frozen yogurt machine is broken
60.When was the last time we worked together?
Tonight. IF YOU LIKE MY BLOG, PLEASE HIT THE FOLLOW BUTTON ON THE SIDE PANEL THANKS
While we're on the
subject of behaviour in the studio, here's a glimpse of what it was like to be in the studio back in the day (early 1980s) with legendary producer Quincy
Jones. My reaction in the comments section (from 2009 apparently) is: have they
been at the nose candy or what?
"I Love Quincy" documentary from 1982, featuring Patti Austin
For his live shows in 1970 and afterwards, Elton reworked this heavily orchestrated song for the three piece band, with remarkable effect.
As he said of the breakthrough shows at the Troubadour in LA in August 1970 : "We came on; I was in flying boots and hotpants and did Sixty Years On. They weren't expecting it. They thought it was going to be a low-key thing, because the music on the 'Elton John' album was very orchestral. But with a three-piece band, we went out and did the songs completely differently and just blew everyone away. We knew halfway through the show that we were on fire."
I created this clip having discovered it buried in a much longer documentary and thought it was worth creating as a stand-alone, since the performance is so rare. Over 130,000 views last time I checked.
I love the expression on Eric Clapton's face in this photo. He has joined Bob Dylan on stage for the encore finale at the famous concert at Blackbushe Aerodrome in July 1978. I imagine he's trying to follow the changes as Bob runs through Forever Young or whatever it was they were playing.
What a day this was. We'll forget about the fact that the transport system wasn't up to getting us back home that night and that we had to sleep rough in London. For all that, it was a glorious day with a real festival spirit and some truly fabulous music.
As well as Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton, the bill included Joan Armatrading, Graham Parker and the Rumour and a couple of bands who I have no recollection of at all, Merger and Lake.
Both Parker and Armatrading had top notch bands at that time. Here's a sample of GP and The Rumour live in 1978, playing a track from the 'hit EP' referred to by Kid Jensen.
And I was a big fan of Joan Armatrading at this time, especially the album Joan Armatrading (which had Love and Affection on it) and the follow up Show Some Emotion. Here's a clip of her playing a track from the latter album.
Musically, the highlight of the Blackbushe concert was Eric Clapton's set. The band were really cooking and the music had just the right mix of blues and swing. Here's a decent audio recording of Clapton's set.
By the time Bob Dylan came on, our group was a little more laid back and we were sat round a campfire near the back of the crowd, singing along to all the classics and the new songs from Street Legal. Here is a reasonable audio recording of Dylan's set.
There's a variety of other, mostly silent or poorly-recorded footage of the day on YT, which is probably only of interest to those who were there. Here is some amateur video of it and more here
This interview is featured in the anthology "Greatest Hits - The Best of the NME" published to hit the Christmas market in 1974. The book also features interviews with Mick Jagger, Slade, Ray Davies, Lou Reed, Sly Stone, Syd Barrett and the New York Dolls, among others. But since it is one year today since we lost David Bowie, I thought I would share the interview he did with Charles Shaar Murray. In it, Bowie reflects on his 'rock star experiment' with Ziggy and what drives him to keep the whole thing fresh and interesting.
Bowie was always open and honest with good interviewers and CSM gets him to open up on his feelings about stardom and success. He also reveals his feelings about certain bands and, in particular, remembers how The Who were not really Mods, in the sense that he was a Mod, right on top of the latest fashions, rather than five months behind like The Who.
So I hope you can read it. Click on each page to enlarge it. Enjoy. Love on ya!
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The shock of the new - that's how it felt to behold the reformed King Crimson in 1981.
My ticket for the Discipline show and a recording of it
Six years previously, Robert Fripp had called a halt to the band, which by then was just a three piece, with John Wetton on bass and vocals and Bill Bruford on drums.
They had recorded the album Red, which had been one of their most commercially successful albums, and completed a US tour, when Fripp pulled the plug, to Wetton and Bruford's disappointment.
They were at the peak of their popularity, but that was part of the problem for Fripp. They had become like a conventional rock band and he didn't want that. The closer they got to the mainstream, the less comfortable he became.
In 1975, Fripp enrolled at the International Academy for Continuous Education at Sherborne House in Gloucestershire. Students at the IACE underwent an intensive training in the techniques that founder John Bennett had learned from G.I. Gurdjieff.
Gurdjieff taught that most humans do not possess a unified consciousness - and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep" - but that it is possible to awaken to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff's method for awakening one's consciousness unites the methods of the fakir, monk and yogi, and thus he referred to it as the "Fourth Way".
In this interview, Fripp talks about his search for meaning and direction, having ditched his music career. Notably, he refers to his approach of setting a goal for a specific period as "the drive to 1981", calling it his "personal discipline".
By the end of 1976, Fripp had 'recovered' (in his words) from the IACE experience and, once back into his stride musically, he wasn't idle. He continued his occasional collaborations with Brian Eno and became David Bowie's go-to guitarist for the albums from Heroes to Scary Monsters (1977-80).
In 1981, news came through that Fripp had a new band. Me and three bandmates, all big Crimson fans, bought tickets for the first gig in London,
May 1981 at Her Majesty's Theatre, Haymarket.
Tony Levin and Chapman Stick
They were called Discipline - no doubt inspired by the IACE experience. Only Bruford remained from previous configurations of KC. We had no idea what to expect, but we hoped they would play some old stuff. We certainly didn't expect it was going to be a life-changing
experience, in the sense that this new band was making music from the
future, such that their influence endures into KC’s music to this day.
So Discipline started off the concert playing a new track (called Discipline as it turned out) and the first thing
that struck me was the rhythm, a hypnotic pulse driven by Bruford's electronic drums, but
with a distinctive bass.
Belew and elephant noises
Those of us who had seen Peter Gabriel live around this time would have seen Tony Levin playing his Chapman Stick, an odd looking bass instrument. Levin is the acknowledged
master of the instrument.
Then all hell broke loose! The band launched into Thela Hun Ginjeet.
[check it out!] We were pinned back by the dual onslaught of Fripp and new lead
guitarist Adrian Belew producing all manner of sonic fireworks. Bruford attacking his kit with staccato rolls, Levin slapping at his bass.
Each new track had an distinct edge, from the "this is a dangerous place" storyline of Thela Hun Ginjeet to the sheer shimmering beauty of Matte Kudesai, or the interstellar soundscape of The Sheltering Sky. Belew was not only an amazing stunt guitar player - as he had proved with Frank Zappa and Talking Heads - he was an excellent vocalist too. Zappa's song City of Tiny Lights is a good example, and with Crimson he excelled on Matte Kudesai.
They played some old too. Red was tucked into the set early on and they played Larks Tongues In Aspic part 2 as an encore. The clip of Larks Tongues here gives you an idea of the energy they brought to the old material. But it was the new ones that really had us gripped. Like Elephant Talk, a bizarre but
compelling statement of the new Crimson.
Soon afterwards, an almost inevitable name-change, from Discipline back to King Crimson, took the band into a highly successful period, artistically and commercially, that has sustained right up to the latest line-up, which still owes much to the inventiveness of the 1980s version.
Everyone has their favourite period of Crimson and there have been so many different phases. But 40 years on from this particular gig, I can still remember how we were blown away
by this new music.
Fans of Frank Zappa's early and mid 1970s albums rate 'One Size Fits All' as one of several career high points. Featuring some of the band's stage favourites from the period, including Inca Roads, Florentine Pogen and Andy, it is a consistently excellent record musically, with outstanding contributions from his core group members at the time - George Duke, Ruth Underwood, Chester Thompson and Napoleon Murphy Brock.
Here is Pete Makowski's review from the weekly UK music paper Sounds from June 1975, when the album was released. Not particularly detailed or illuminating, but it does reflect the widespread acceptance of the album, one of his most enduring recordings.
Some Zappa purists dismiss the mid-70s material (the trilogy of Overnite Sensation, Apostrophe and One Size Fits All) because it marks the closest Zappa ever came to the mainstream. But their accessibility is entirely due to the quality of the songwriting and the playing on these records.
The basic track for the opener, Inca Roads, was taken from the recording of a 'TV special' in Los Angeles, the video of which reveals just how tight and well-rehearsed the band were, as all Zappa's bands were!
The solo on the album is lifted from a show in Helsinki during the 1974 tour of Europe. This was typical of Zappa, who recorded pretty much everything and rarely let a good performance go to waste.
There's one story told by drummer John Guerin (who appears on the Hot Rats album track 'It Must be A Camel', and also on the Apostrophe' album).
Guerin didn't recall playing on the Apostrophe sessions - that's cos he didn't. Zappa had liked the drums at another recording session and simply isolated them to create a new song, which turned out to be ExcentrifugalForz.
The 74/75 band featured on One Size Fits All
Having at least two gifted vocalists in the band, Brock and Duke, allowed FZ to craft songs that were not only technically challenging for the musicians, but were also exceptionally tuneful.
The quality of the material on One Size Fits All is such that several of the tunes were a staple part of the Zappa stage show for many years. Even now, Dweezil and his band Zappa Plays Zappa, will feature songs like Florentine Pogen in their set.
Guerin told Modern Drummer magazine: "Frank was a
genius in the editing room. For instance, on the Hot Rats album, we let the
tape run most of the time. There was no music, he just directed different
feelings, or we’d establish a groove and he’d cut it off. Then, a few months
later, an album with actual songs would come out. That was the beauty of his
editing.”
On One Size Fits All, the track Sofa #2 features a lyric in German, the translation for which is typically bizarre:
I am the heaven I am the water Ich bin der Dreck unter deinen Walzen (I am the dirt beneath your rollers) (Oh no, whip it on me, honey!) Ich bin dein geheimer Schmutz (I am your secret smut) Und verlorenes Metallgeld (And lost metal money) (Metallgeld) Ich bin deine Ritze (I am your cracks) Ich bin deine Ritze und Schlitze (I am your cracks & crannies) I am the clouds I am embroidered Ich bin der Autor aller Felgen (I am the author of all tucks) Und Damast Paspeln (And damask piping) Ich bin der Chrome Dinette (I am The Chrome Dinette) Ich bin der Chrome Dinette (I am The Chrome Dinette) Ich bin Eier aller Arten (I am eggs of all persuasions)
Ich bin alle Tage und Nachte (I am all days and nights) Ich bin alle Tage und Nachte (I am all days and nights)
Ich bin hier (I am here) Und du bist mein Sofa (And you are my sofa) Ich bin hier (I am here) Und du bist mein Sofa (And you are my sofa) Ich bin hier (I am here) Und du bist mein Sofa (And you are my sofa)
Yeah, my Sofa Yeah-ha-hey
In the absence of the complete 1974 Roxy shows on Youtube, you should seek out the DVD entitled 'A Token of His Extreme' which contains the whole show. For fans of this period Zappa it is well worthwhile.
And if you haven't seen the 'classic albums' series edition about the Overnite Sensation and Apostrophe sessions, you should definitely check that out too. Here, Dweezil shows how FZ used subtle percussion effects to provide the magic 'eyebrows'.
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