Tag Archives: petetownshend

Greatest Music Quotes Of The 1980s #3: Bob Geldof Special

Posted on by

It’s fair to say that Bob Geldof’s efforts to kickstart Band Aid (‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’), USA For Africa (‘We Are The World’) and Live Aid were full of tension, drama and bruised egos.

And as each year goes by, more stories are coming out about that 1984/1985 era (many feature in the superb recent doc ‘The Greatest Night In Pop’ and Paul Vallely’s book ‘Live Aid: The Definitive 40-Year Story’), and more and more it seems like it was a watershed time for 1980s pop.

There are sundry tales of managers trying to get their artists higher up the bill at Live Aid (and trying in vain to get soundchecks…), egos running wild (especially in the USA), but also gratifying tales of altruism and friendship.

So a lot of people had a lot of entertaining things to say. Here are some choice quotes from the era, with a cast of characters including Geldof, David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, Diana Ross and Paul Simon.

‘It sounds like f*cking “Z Cars”.’
Bob Geldof upon first hearing Midge Ure’s ‘Christmas’ synth melody in the middle of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’

‘You’re a f*cking millionaire and you want free food? There’s a f*cking chip shop on the corner. Go and buy your own lunch.’
Bob Geldof’s response to a star asking if there would be catering during the recording at Sarm West in Notting Hill

‘A huge voice erupted out of this little guy. I was standing next to Bono and I jumped. It felt as if I was standing next to an opera singer. He had the same massive power.’
Midge Ure on hearing Bono’s ‘Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you!’ line

‘I can’t go until I see Phil Collins play.’
Culture Club’s Jon Moss explaining why he was hanging around for so long in the studio

‘It’s pathetic but the price of a life this year is a piece of plastic with a hole in the middle.’
Bob Geldof tells Radio 1 DJ Simon Bates why people should buy the single

‘It’s really great what you’re doing. We want to do that over here. Will you come over?’
Michael Jackson rings Geldof from LA

‘It was a slap in the face. I know she felt bad. They didn’t think she could sing. It broke her heart.’ Nile Rodgers on Madonna not getting an invite for ‘We Are The World’

‘That’s like the Statue Of Liberty walking in.’
Billy Joel watches Ray Charles entering A&M Studios

‘Daryl, I’m your biggest fan. Would you sign my music for me?’
Diana Ross to Daryl Hall during the recording

‘Say what?! It’s three o’clock in the goddamn mornin’ – I can’t even sing in English no mo’! Ring the bell, Quincy, ring the bell!’
Ray Charles loses patience with Stevie Wonder’s attempts to teach the assembled vocalists a Swahili chant

‘That wasn’t any good.’
Bob Dylan after the vocal take that producer Quincy Jones deemed the keeper

‘Nice, Dylan.’
Bruce Springsteen to Bob after the aforementioned take

‘If it all goes well, no one will ever hear about you. If it’s a disaster, you’ll be famous.’
Harvey Goldsmith’s final words to Live Aid band organiser Pete Smith at the end of his interview

‘Oh Bobsy, I’m not so sure. I just don’t think it’s the right thing for us.’
Freddie Mercury’s initial response to Geldof about Queen playing at Live Aid

‘Is Geldof involved? I’m only doing the Geldof thing.’
David Bowie to his PR Bernard Doherty after getting TWO invitations to do charity work in 1985

‘You’ll never get Keith to agree. Cos Keith don’t give a f*ck.’
Bill Wyman to Geldof on his chances of getting the Stones together for Live Aid

‘Bob picked the wrong year, the wrong decade actually, to ask the Rolling Stones to do anything.’
Bernard Doherty on getting the Stones to appear

‘I took the idea from the television programme “Sunday Night At The London Palladium” which had a revolving stage at the end with all the performers of that week saying goodbye.’
Bob Geldof on the Live Aid revolving stage

‘I’ll do it. But Roger (Daltrey) will only do it if Kenney (Jones) doesn’t play. And John (Entwistle) will only do it if Kenney DOES play.’
Pete Townshend to Geldof on getting The Who back together for Live Aid – Kenney Jones had been their drummer since the death of Keith Moon

‘If The Who appear, we know we will get an additional million pounds of revenue. Every pound we make will save a life. Please, Roger, do the f*cking show.’
Bob Geldof pleads with Daltrey to do Live Aid – he did, and Kenney did appear on drums

‘Well, pull out, dude. You announce it, though.’
Bob Geldof to Bryan Ferry who was angry that he had been announced for Live Aid without even agreeing to participate

‘Oh f*ck. I didn’t think you could actually fix that!’
Phil Collins’ manager Tony Smith on being told by Geldof that Phil would play in both London and Philadelphia (he would also drum with Led Zeppelin at the latter gig)

‘We had this unbelievable discussion with Michael Jackson’s people. We were saying this is to help people in Africa and he just wasn’t interested.’
Harvey Goldsmith on trying to get Jackson to play Live Aid

‘They couldn’t give a f*ck, Bob.’
Quincy Jones whispers to Geldof his summation of why Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Prince and Stevie Wonder failed to appear at Live Aid

‘Call NASA, Harvey!’
Bob Geldof to Harvey Goldsmith, getting excited about sending Mick Jagger up in a space shuttle to duet with Bowie at Wembley

‘Sorry, sir. It takes six months for us to plan to do something like that.’
The man from NASA – he say no…

‘The Beatles can’t be reformed. John is dead.’
Bob Geldof kiboshes rumours that he’s been trying to reform The Beatles for Live Aid

‘I don’t care how many songs you want me to do, but I’m giving up one to introduce this on stage or I’m not doing the show.’
David Bowie on the CBC video which married harrowing images of starving Ethiopians with The Cars’ ‘Drive’

‘I thought: either I’ve done something really clever or really stupid…’
CBC’s Colin Dean on his edit of the above-mentioned video

‘I’m not going to have someone like Bill Graham talk to me in the way he’s talking to me. I won’t work with this guy. I’m sorry.’
Paul Simon tells Geldof why he’s pulling out of Live Aid

‘I’ve been on tour forever. We’ve just got married and if I don’t give her a honeymoon, then it’ll be a divorce!’
Bruce Springsteen tells Geldof why he won’t play Live Aid

‘Well, f*cking pull out. No one’s getting a soundcheck. I’m going back to bed.’
Bob Geldof to U2 manager Paul McGuinness on the eve of Live Aid – the latter had threatened to withdraw U2 if they didn’t get a soundcheck

‘I don’t think I can do this. It’s been six years since I’ve done anything.’
Paul McCartney has a crisis in the car on the way to Live Aid – his wife’s response was: ‘Shut up. You’re doing it.’

‘She asked me whether I could get her on. I told her to just turn up.’
Phil Collins remembers meeting Cher on the Concorde during his flight from London to Philadelphia

‘I have terrible memories of it all going wrong. Poor David (Gilmour), his guitar wasn’t working for the first couple of songs. With his first hit, the drummer put his stick through the drum skin. Then my mic wasn’t working, which for a singer is a bit of a handicap. A roadie ran on with another mic, so then I was holding two mics taped together and I wasn’t really sure which one to sing into.’
Bryan Ferry looks back on his Live Aid performance

‘Looking back, I think we were all a bit overexcited and I remember coming off and thinking it was very scrappy.’
Brian May on Queen’s performance

‘Queen were absolutely the best band of the day.’
Bob Geldof

‘I walked in and just stood there, and we looked at each other and he burst into tears. I’ve never seen him do that, before or since.’
Bernard Doherty on David Bowie after his Live Aid performance

‘He wouldn’t let go of my hand. He said, “You’re that lovely boy from Boomtown Rats, aren’t you?” I said, “No, I’m the lovely boy from Ultravox…”’
Midge Ure on Freddie Mercury at Live Aid

‘I ain’t taking shit off today. You might hold it against me ten years from now…’
Madonna to the Philadelphia crowd – pre-fame topless photos had just been published in the newspapers

‘No, it doesn’t go like that!’
Jimmy Page to Phil Collins backstage at Philadelphia before performing with Led Zeppelin – he had requested that Collins play air drums through ‘Stairway To Heaven’ to prove that he knew the song

‘The whole thing was a disaster, really. Robert wasn’t match-fit with his voice and Jimmy was out of it, dribbling. If I could have walked off, I would have.’
Phil Collins on playing with Led Zeppelin

‘She came out and literally blew the console apart!’
Philadelphia monitor man Dave Skaff on Patti Labelle’s performance at Live Aid

‘This is your Woodstock, and it’s long overdue…’
Joan Baez to the Philadelphia crowd

The Worst Album Titles Of The 1980s

Posted on by

It was one of the many issues that probably had managers and marketing people tearing their hair out during the 1980s.

What to name your album? It might be a low-risk strategy to name it after the first single – even better if that song is a big hit – or a ‘pivotal’ album track.

But oftentimes 1980s acts went out on a limb, looking for a ‘poetic’ title, something ‘novel’, something… You get the picture.

Here’s a selection (to be regularly updated) of 1980s album titles that went off-piste.

Some are pretentious, some weird, some have needless word repetition (hello Sting), some fudge punctuation or foreign words in an infuriating way, some are rubbish puns, some are desperate to shock, some are way too high-falutin’, some throw concepts together in a seemingly random way. But the reaction to most is: eh?

Of course a bad title didn’t stop some of these being great albums, though, tellingly, very few were big hits…

Getting The Holy Ghost Across (Bill Nelson)

Talking With The Taxman About Poetry (Billy Bragg)

Three Hearts In The Happy Ending Machine (Daryl Hall)

The Secret Value Of Daydreaming (Julian Lennon)

Steve McQueen (Prefab Sprout)

Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars (Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians)

The Uplift Mofo Party Plan (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

Mother’s Milk (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls (Pat Metheny/Lyle Mays)

Into The Dragon (Bomb The Bass)

Angst In My Pants (Sparks)

Tennis (Chris Rea)

Love Over Gold (Dire Straits)

North Of A Miracle (Nick Heyward)

Misplaced Childhood (Marillion)

Script For A Jester’s Tear (Marillion)

Boys & Girls (Bryan Ferry)

Journeys To Glory (Spandau Ballet)

Through The Barricades (Spandau Ballet)

Seven And The Ragged Tiger (Duran Duran)

Big Thing (Duran Duran)

Modern Romans (The Call)

The Secret Of Association (Paul Young)

Shabooh Shoobah (INXS)

Remain In Light (Talking Heads)

If This Bass Could Only Talk (Stanley Clarke)

Blood & Chocolate (Elvis Costello)

A Salt With A Deadly Pepa (Salt’n’Pepa)

Splendido Hotel (Al Di Meola)

Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun (Dead Can Dance)

The Moon Looked Down And Laughed (Virgin Prunes)

Architecture & Morality (OMD)

The Dream Of The Blue Turtles (Sting)

In-No-Sense? Nonsense! (Art Of Noise)

In Square Circle (Stevie Wonder)

Lawyers In Love (Jackson Browne)

The Story Of A Young Heart (A Flock Of Seagulls)

The One Giveth, The Count Taketh Away (Bootsy Collins)

You Shouldn’t-Nuf Bit Fish (George Clinton)

All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (Pete Townshend)

Difficult Shapes And Passive Rhythms Some People Think It’s Fun To Entertain (China Crisis)

Working With Fire And Steel (China Crisis)

Franks Wild Years (Tom Waits)

So Red The Rose (Arcadia)

Café Bleu (The Style Council)

The F**king C*nts Treat Us Like Pricks (Flux Of Pink)

Chalk Mark In A Rainstorm (Joni Mitchell)

I, Assassin (Gary Numan)

Civilised Evil (Jean-Luc Ponty)

Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D’Arby

Children (The Mission)

Casa Loco (Steve Khan)

The First Of A Million Kisses (Fairground Attraction)

Bebop Moptop (Danny Wilson)

 

More crap 1980s album titles? Of course. Let us know in the comments below (particularly looking for more in the metal, Goth and prog genres).

David Bowie: Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) 35 Years Old Today

Posted on by

bowieRCA Records, released 12 September 1980

10/10

‘Albums of the ’80s’ lists are all the rage these days. Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) would easily be in the movingtheriver top ten. It might even be in my top one.

It’s a timeless, masterful work which, for me, can only ever be consumed in its totality. It’s also the collection that all subsequent Bowie albums have been measured against. I would put it over and above Low, Ziggy Stardust and Hunky Dory for its sheer consistency.

ScaryMonstersBackCover

Here’s my case for the defence, track by track:

1. It’s No Game (Part 1)

I’ve previously written about this being one of the great ’80s album intros. Vocally, Bowie channels John Lydon and Peter Hammill to deliver a New York/New Wave anti-fascist tirade that ranks among his great performances. Producer Tony Visconti ‘f***s with the fabric of time’ to create a cavernous, Eventide-drenched mix and guitarist Robert Fripp delivers one of his most unhinged statements. Avant-rock heaven. Adapted from Bowie’s early demo ‘Tired Of My Life‘.

2. Up The Hill Backwards

A brilliant treatise on press intrusion and the wretchedness of celeb culture inspired by Bowie’s ‘dealings’ with the press during his failing marriage, with an ingenious central image of paparazza snapping away at their prey as they shuffle ‘up the hill backwards’. Endlessly catchy with a beautifully-realised unison vocal – the only track in the Bowie canon which doesn’t feature his solo singing.

3. Scary Monsters

Bowie revisits his finest Mockney accent to deliver a bleak, blanked-out, darkly funny tale of semi-stalking. There’s more Phil Spector-style brilliance from Visconti and another Fripp masterclass in balls-out guitar playing. The only minor criticism is that it possibly goes on for about a minute too long.

4. Ashes To Ashes

An instant classic with a very Bowie mix of child-like innocence and creeping malevolence as the hopelessly drug-addicted, world-weary Major Tom drifts off into the ether. Effortlessly superb songcraft with three or four memorable sections, boundary-pushing lyrics (‘Visions of Jap girls in synthesis’!) and a myriad of majestic hooks.

5. Fashion

The lameness of the style wars is in Bowie’s sights this time as he almost mumbles the ironic verse lyrics over a tough New York disco/funk/rock groove. And there’s more barking mad Fripp soloing. Danceable, amusing, timeless. Originally titled ‘Jamaica’ in demo form.

6. Teenage Wildlife

Initially coming across as slightly lumpy and leaden, the track builds and builds in intensity to deliver a powerful message to Bowie’s ‘mythical younger brother’ about keeping a sense of perspective as one gets older. His patented ‘histrionic’ vocal style is superbly realised and drummer Dennis Davis holds it all together with aplomb. Originally titled ‘It Happens Every Day’ in demo form.

7. Scream Like A Baby

Spooky dystopian fable about a future society’s outlawing of homosexuality and other ‘deviant’ behaviour. Bowie’s ingenious stuttering provoked many a schoolyard titter and the weird vocal doppler effects are perfectly realised. Revamped from the Bowie-written/produced ‘I Am A Laser‘ originally recorded by Ava Cherry/The Astronettes.

=bowie

8. Kingdom Come

A superb cover of a track from Tom Verlaine’s debut album, Phil Spector is the obvious influence again with Davis’s booming, overdubbed tom fills and some anthemic, reverb-drenched backing vocals. Majestic, powerful, intriguing. Verlaine was apparently supposed to play guest guitar throughout the album but bowed out at the eleventh hour.

9. Because You’re Young

An ‘advice’ song to his son, Bowie offers the lessons he has learnt and looks back with great poignancy and not a little sarcasm on his carefree, youthful days. Peter Townshend strums along (apparently he arrived at the studio drunk and ready to party, but was stunned to find Visconti and Bowie sitting quietly at the recording desk like ‘two sober, little old men’!) and Bowie delivers a superb, kaleidoscopic lead/backing vocal combo.

10. It’s No Game (Part Two)

Carlos Alomar’s masterly rhythm guitar anchors this reprise, with Bowie doing his best Iggy croon and offering up images of world poverty, media saturation and dunderheaded political/cultural strategies. We hear the multitrack tape spool off its reels at the very end to close one of the great albums of the ’80s or any other decade.

A big nod to Nicholas Pegg.

Sondheim Meets Springsteen: Prefab Sprout’s From Langley Park To Memphis

Posted on by

prefab

Prefab go Pop. There are big-name guest spots (Stevie Wonder, Pete Townshend), gospel choirs, an orchestra and Deacon Blue’s producer.

The lengthy recording period and increased budget certainly paid off; synths and strings glisten, Paddy McAloon and Wendy Smith sound like they’re singing in the room with you and one can hear every nuance of Neil Conti’s tasty drumming.

Steve McQueen producer Thomas Dolby could only find the time to oversee four out of the ten tracks; of these, only ‘Knock On Wood’ sounds like trademark TD. Apparently, once McAloon learned that Dolby would be unavailable for much of the recording, he flirted with the idea of using a different producer for each song. The notion was quickly abandoned but it reinforced the idea that this would be Paddy’s most collaborative project so far.

At the time of its release, Paddy publicly declared that he hated the sound of records being made in the late ’80s and in response seems to have looked for songwriting inspiration from pre-rock’n’roll forms – Gershwin, Berlin, Cole Porter, Broadway musicals (he also later said that he was slightly obsessed by Barbra Streisand’s The Broadway Album around this time).

Paddy had also by now made big strides in his keyboard playing, writing all but two From Langley Park tracks on piano. Consequently, his melodies are daring and original, but there’s arguably a fair degree of musical ‘schmaltz’ in the arrangements too, particularly on ‘Hey Manhattan’, ‘Nightingales’, ‘Nancy’ and ‘The Venus of the Soup Kitchen’, but it’s Stephen Sondheim schmaltz rather than Disney schmaltz. The wonderful ‘Nightingales’ sounds like the score from some kind of futuristic Broadway musical.

CBS obviously had high hopes for the album and their faith was paid off in the shape of a hit single, ‘King of Rock & Roll’, and one near-hit, ‘Cars And Girls’, though one wonders how McAloon views those now – I’ll wager with a degree of sheepishness. But I remember being extremely excited to see the video for ‘Cars And Girls’ popping up on ‘The Chart Show’.

Listening back after all this time, it’s From Langley‘s minor, more understated tracks that really stand the test of time. ‘Knock On Wood’ and ‘Enchanted’ could have come from Steve McQueen.

The former features a simple, unusually direct lyric from Paddy over a surreal, subtle pot-pourri of percussion and synth effects from Dolby. One wonders what McAloon’s demo sounded like. It’s slight and simple but no worse for that.

‘Nancy’ is gorgeous, a ‘Brief Encounter’esque tale of unrequited romance in the workplace, possibly inspired by McAloon’s relationship with his fellow Sprout (it doesn’t take a huge effort to imagine the word ‘Wendy’ in place of ‘Nancy’).

‘I Remember That’ sees McAloon in full-on crooner mode, emoting over MOR strings and weirdly-stilted gospel backing vocals. Paddy pokes fun at Springsteen’s obsessions on ‘Cars And Girls’, but then hilariously attempts a four-on-the-floor, Springsteenish rocker ‘The Golden Calf’ which doesn’t quite come off.

It’s hard to overstate the weirdness of the closing ‘Venus Of The Soup Kitchen’, a collision of slick Steely Dan drums, wonky Farfisa organ, distinctly-unfunky vocals from the Andrae Crouch singers and some amusing cocktail guitar from McAloon, coming over like a Ken Loach tale told in Broadway-musical style. For better or worse, there’s nothing else remotely like it in the Prefab output.

So, an important, big-selling album for Prefab (reaching #5 in the UK album charts) and another hugely impressive chunk of songwriting from McAloon. He was in a bullish mood, talking to the media about chart placings and competing with Michael Jackson and Prince, and his purple patch led to an even more cogent and powerful piece of work in the extraordinary Jordan The Comeback.