It's Miller Time

Frankie Miller is someone I had always meant to check out. I mean, I was vaguely aware of the man and the musical ballpark that he operated in, but never quite got around to giving him a proper listen. Until recently.

No doubt I saw Frankie Miller on Top Of The Pops back in 1978 when Darlin' hit the UK top ten, but probably found his music a bit grown-up alongside fluffier distractions such as Blondie, Sarah Brightman & Hot Gossip, Queen and Boomtown Rats who all charted at the same time. I next heard Frankie's name around 1984 when I found myself in a recording studio for the first time. It was a tiny, pine-clad space in the converted loft of a terraced house in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. The studio owner, a charming gent called Stewart Blandamer, had a clock on the studio wall fashioned from a copy of Miller's Darlin' 7" single. It turned out that Stewart had written the song for Frankie and been rewarded with the financial wherewithal to set up a home studio in which to record talentless local bands such as my own. As a bunch of teenage headbangers we were excited to discover that Stewart was responsible for playing the tenor sax on Status Quo's Hello LP, but the Frankie Miller writing credit was, no doubt, far more lucrative. To his eternal credit, Stewart was patience personified and sent us home, dreaming of stardom, with a tape sufficiently well-recorded to make our numerous deficiencies achingly clear. I would never have knowingly thrown away such an important historical artefact, but my copy does seem to have disappeared. Perhaps a music lover stumbled upon it and decided that the only humane thing to do was to put it out of its misery and have it destroyed. The world will just have to cope without ever hearing High Time For Love or Don't Let It End. An incalculable loss!

Even when not pursuing his solo career Frankie Miller's fingerprints seem to have been all over the music industry. Before setting off on his solo path, Frankie was in a band called Jude with Robin Trower, Jimmy Dewar and Jethro Tull's Clive Bunker, but they never recorded together. What a waste! Having said that, could you realistically have two vocalists of the calibre of Miller and Dewar in the same band? Surely Dewar wouldn't have been content to just play bass? The Live And Dangerous version of Still In Love With You by Thin Lizzy is, quite possibly, my all-time favourite ballad, but for years I was unaware that it is Frankie who duets with Phil Lynott on the studio version of the song. Twenty years after that recording, in 1994, while in the process of putting a band together with Joe Walsh, Nicky Hopkins and Ian Wallace of King Crimson, Miller suffered a brain haemorrhage and fell into a coma. Another of those 'what if?' stories that seem to litter the music industry. Miller's Paul Rodgers / Rod Stewart / Bob Seger-hybrid of a voice fronting that line-up would have been quite something! Most importantly though, Frankie survived.

No doubt discouraged by a more modest level of commercial success than his vocal talents deserved, Miller would often write for others and had the likes of Ray Charles, The Eagles, Rod Stewart and Joe Cocker queuing up to record his songs. Bob Seger covered Miller's Ain't Got No Money on his Stranger In Town album and has cited him as a major influence. Perhaps Miller has a Stranger In Town clock on his wall to remind him who pays his mortgage.

Here's a couple of killer tunes from Miller's The Rock album, complete with one-time McCartney sideman Henry McCullough on lead guitar. Blues-Rock at its best!

Concerto For A Rainy Day

Living a stone's throw from the River Thames is a wonderful thing. Twenty minutes is all it takes by train to get to central London from the Shelf-Stacker abode, yet the tranquillity of the river can make it seem that the big city is a thousand miles away. In what now seems like another lifetime I would walk the length of the Holloway Road to get to work, stepping over freshly spilt blood on the pavement outside the type of pub you really don't ever want to find yourself in, senses numbed, inured to the ever-present tension and hostility that seeped from the concrete around me. Now, the closest I get to hostility is when a couple of swans square up to each other on the lazy swell of the river. I'm more likely to see a heron fly overhead than a beer glass these days. Idyllic. But there is a down side. That stone's throw is in danger of becoming a half-hearted lob as, in common with much of the UK, the relentless rain is threatening to bring the river into our home.

Okay, I'm losing you, I know. What the hell's this got to do with record collecting? Well, just that, by my reckoning, a mere one inch of water would be enough to destroy over a thousand of my LPs as they're sat on the floor waiting for the day when I miraculously find shelf space for them. I've already told Mrs Shelf-Stacker that in the event of a flood - fuck the soft furnishings! - I'm getting my vinyl to higher ground. Her response was that perhaps the kids and the cat should be my priorities. Sod 'em, they have legs, they can look out for themselves. In fact, they might want to help carry my babies to safety. I've just read that back and, perhaps it doesn't show me in the best light.

While I take a long, hard look at myself, here are two of the most atmospheric, evocative, inclement weather-related tracks ever commited to vinyl. Love 'em! They're sure to clock up plenty of needle time on my Ark.

Hedge Over Troubled Water

You know how sometimes you can't see what's right in front of your face? Well, I guess sometimes you can even miss what's right in front of someone else's face. I must have looked at the sleeve of Simon & Garfunkel's ubiquitous Seventies dinner party soundtrack a zillion times without noticing Art Garfunkel's brief but valiant dalliance with facial hair. That's one hell of a 'tache you've got there Art! You might want to get a tissue though - you seem to have a small, man-shaped bogey caught in it. And there was me thinking it was Art who got up Paul Simon's nose!

High On The Hog

Have you ever noticed that little column over on the right? Hi-Fi Hogs? Well, why not? I thought music fans loved lists! In case it needs spelling out, this is a selection of some of the many records currently floating my coracle. Do you give a monkey's? Or even a Monkees? Probably not. Perhaps if I zhuzh things up a little by explaining why these LPs are making my music-loving heart glow like the valves in a Vox AC30, you'll start to care.

Frost - Through The Eyes Of Love (1970)

For starters, I love that psychedelic artwork by renowned artist David Edward Byrd. Carelessly, I've yet to hear the other Frost albums, but can they possibly offer up anything as thrilling (or with such a kick-arse title) as Fifteen Hundred Miles (Through the Eye of a Beatle)? Don't let the harmony vocals on opener Black As Night fool you, Frost have the urgency and thuggish momentum to overturn tables and knock fully grown men off their feet. Lead guitarist Dick Wagner later shored up Alice Cooper after the original, classic Alice line-up imploded. No wonder Welcome To My Nightmare is such a humdinger. The whole of Through The Eyes has an amped up The Move feel to it, what with Dick Wagner's and Don Hartman's Wood and Lynne-alike vocals, the bass working harder than a fat man's heart and the guitars flitting between a caress and a scalping.

Turning Point - Creatures Of The Night (1977)

Not to be confused with that other classic album of the same name by Jazz Rock / Fusion pioneers Kiss. Turning Point features ex-members of Ian Carr's Nucleus and Isotope - two other bands well worth exploring if, like me, you get off on all this clever-clever, noodley, wankery. Admittedly, there's nothing here as singalong as I Love It Loud, but listening to this will increase your IQ.

Highway Robbery - For Love Or Money (1972)

I've been slumming it with a CD copy of this album for ages, but finally managed to pick up a pristine vinyl pressing last month. Highway Robbery's one and only album is up there with other gobsmacking debuts by Captain Beyond, Montrose and Stray Dog. Soundwise, chuck Uriah Heep into the mix and you've got the picture, or whatever the aural equivalent is. I was tempted to link to a YouTube video for All I Need (To Have Is You), an uncharacteristically sensitive little ditty featuring acoustic guitar, bottleneck guitar and lead and harmony vocals that scream David Byron-era Uriah Heep, but the gonzo little devil on my shoulder persuaded me to inflict Promotion Man on you instead. Damned fine choice lil' devil - slide guitar to the max!

The Golliwogs - Pre-Creedence (1975)

Sporting a moniker I'm sure they'd sooner forget, the pre-Creedence Clearwater Revival Golliwogs laid the foundations for the CCR sound we know and love. More than just a curio, there's some must-have material here. Walking On The Water features some of the best wasp-in-a-jam-jar fuzz guitar you'll ever hear.

Randy Pie - Highway Driver (1974)

German and funky. Are you sure? They get labelled as a progressive rock band, but the groove overrides everything. Despite not singing about bringing daughters to be slaughtered, Mrs Shelf-Stacker's ears prick up whenever The Pie shake the mancave. My US version of this LP has the same tracklisting as the UK pressing, features a lame cover illustration of a bird in flight and, just to create confusion, is self-titled (as is their debut). Hmm, record companies - don't you just love 'em!

Spooky Tooth - The Last Puff (1970)

I think I said enough in my last post. If you're not a convert yet, you never will be.

Jonathan Wilson - Fanfare (2013) / Jonathan Wilson - Gentle Spirit (2011)

What should I listen to today? Neil Young? Crosby, Stills and Nash? Tom Petty? Bob Dylan? Pink Floyd? Oh, I know, I'll stick them all in a blender and whizz myself up a Laurel Canyon-flavoured Jonathan Wilson smoothie. Has to count as at least three of my 5-a-day! Have a swig - it's tasty and soooo good for you.

Bloodrock - Bloodrock (1970)

If you're not from the USA, you'd be forgiven for never having heard of this bunch of hairy herberts. By all accounts D.O.A. from the Bloodrock 2 LP was a radio staple on the other side of the pond in the Seventies and seems to attract as much derision as anything by Iron Butterfly or Grand Funk Railroad. No surprise then that I'm a fan. It seems that Grand Funk Svengali Terry Knight very nearly pulled off the remarkable feat of turning another critics' piñata into a huge commercial success. Think Black Sabbath, Grand Funk, Uriah Heep. Okay, enough thinking already - this ain't Turning Point!

 

Beckett - Beckett (1974)

Another Progressive Rock band who refused to be constricted by that label. The track here has more in common with Led Zeppelin or the criminally overlooked Detective than Yes or Genesis, but their sole album features its fair share of introspection, moody orchestration and 5-minute-plus excursions. A Rainbow's Gold was covered by Iron Maiden for the B-side of some juvenile, Boys' Own, gallopy-crap 7" or other, but don't let that put you off. This is a stonewall classic from an album that is mystifyingly unheralded. Vocalist Terry Wilson-Slesser went on to front Paul Kossoff's Back Street Crawler, turned down an offer to join AC/DC and was considered as a replacement for Paul DiAnno in Iron Maiden. He should have been a star.

Now, do pay attention at the back, 'cause the Hi-Fi Hogs will be changing and I shall be testing you. Here endeth today's lesson. Class dismissed!

Re-imagining The Beatles #6 - Spooky Tooth

Record collecting has always been a thrilling journey of discovery for me. Back when I was waiting for my voice to break I would devour every word in Sounds and Kerrang, hoping to find out more about the music that got my adrenaline pumping. If an artist that I loved mentioned their musical influences in an interview, I just had to find out for myself what that music sounded like. So many of my contemporaries listened only to current music and were happily ignorant of what had gone before, but for me, gaining an understanding of the bands that had inspired Black Sabbath, ELO or Queen made me appreciate their music all the more. I wanted my record collection to be an aural and visual incarnation of all those Pete Frame rock family trees with their numerous, sometimes surprising, links between bands. No link between two groups was too tenuous to whet my musical appetite. Very little has changed for me in that regard. Of course, it's easier to find music that shares musical DNA with my favourite artists now, whether through Amazon recommendations based on my purchases, Last FM playlists, fan forums, or a thousand other Google-enabled explorations. In some ways the ease of discovery has taken away much of the mystery and excitement that was part and parcel of unearthing new music (or, more specifically, old, yet-to-be-heard music), but the pay off is the sheer volume of discoveries falling into my lap.

So, how do these cogitations tie in with the subject of today's post? Well, I'm getting to that. As a thirteen year-old I was completely obsessed with Judas Priest, to the extent that I nicked my schoolfriend's little sister's copy of Jackie magazine for a single paragraph recounting the ridiculous story of the mighty Priest fighting rednecks in a bar with baguettes as weapons. (Jackie headline: 'Use Your Loaf'. Predictably.) And so it will hardly come as a surprise to you that when I found out that one of my favourite tracks on Priest's Stained Class LP was a cover, I had to hear the Spooky Tooth original.

 Of course, I then became aware of the links between Spooky Tooth and Humble Pie, Art, Roxy Music, Widowmaker yada, yada, yada... prompting yet more purchases. The Spooky Two LP, featuring the original version of Better by You, Better Than Me, left me wanting more: cue the The Last Puff album with its cover of I Am the Walrus. 

As Beatles tunes go,  I Am the Walrus doesn't strike me as the easiest or most obvious choice of cover, but the Tooth's reworking of Lennon's Edward Lear-alike lysergic nursery rhyme, succeeds in steering it into Vanilla Fudge territory with the tune just about emerging, albeit bone-weary and leaden-footed, from the sonic bog. The half-heartedly celebratory 'whooos' that follow the 'I am the Eggman' line of the original are dispensed with here. What elevates this version of the song is the fleeting moment when a chorus of female voices, like guiding nymphs leading us out of the wilderness, breaks through the murk with songbird clarity. No sooner do we hear them than they're gone, but their appearance completely alters the mood of the song, transforming a Mogadon-fuelled funereal dirge into a statement of defiance and hope. God, don't you just love it when music talks to you like that!

Slade? Must Be Christmas!

 In the UK at this time of year, you can't leave the house without having Noddy Holder bellow "IT'S CHRISTMAAAS!!!" at you from every shop doorway. Depending on your personal taste, this can either be a reason to barricade yourself indoors and shop online for all your presents, or act as an annual reminder that Slade were one of the greatest charts-hogging bands that this country has ever produced. On 10th December London's Evening Standard newspaper reported that Noddy Holder and bass player Jim Lea, writers of Merry Xmas Everybody, will earn an estimated £512,000 of royalties from their yuletide classic this (and every) year. Now, that's what I call a pension plan! As an integral part of my childhood, I can't help but love the song. I daresay Noddy and Jim don't give a monkey's what you may think!

But, there is so much more to Slade than that song and their well-known chart hits. When a band has the kind of era-defining singles chart success that Slade enjoyed in the early Seventies, it is easy to forget, or remain blissfully unaware of the fact, that they were a damned tidy hard rock band. Early material, released as Ambrose Slade, then under their abridged moniker, demonstrates a band that, whilst clearly in possession of some serious chops honed on Hamburg's Reeperbahn, had yet to fully distill their own style from their R&B, Motown and Psychedelic influences. In many ways this search for an identity is what makes the Beginnings and Play It Loud albums so listenable. With covers of songs popularised by The Beatles, Steppenwolf, The Amboy Dukes, Marvin Gaye, The Yardbirds and Frank Zappa rubbing shoulders with confident, well-crafted originals, this brace of albums will surprise anyone dumb enough to have dismissed Slade as a cheesy novelty act.

Beginnings offers up Genesis, a slow-burning, atmospheric instrumental with swirling, phased guitar, propulsive bass and wind sound effects. From the same LP, Pity The Mother couches delicate finger-picked acoustic guitar, a sensitive vocal performance, tension-building violin sawing and acid-fried lead guitar runs within a tune that pays homage to the kind of rattling dynamics that Pete Townshend employed in Tommy.

Choosing just one stand-out from Play It Loud is quite a task, but I'll plump for Dirty Joker which is a noisy, groovy and yes, dirty, three-and-a-bit minutes of Hard Psych complete with sitar-aping guitar, hand claps, heaven-rattling vocal harmonies and an unusually tasty spot of bass wankery.

For any of you wanting your seasonal fix of the big Christmas tune, check out this brief and decidedly unseasonal live rendition (with vocal duties handled by a raucous and adoring crowd) taken from Slade's triumphant Reading Festival set in August 1980. Not a version that's likely to chalk up as much airplay as the original single, but a nice way of documenting the affection that British punters have for this outstanding band. Merry Xmas Everybody!

PC RIP OK!

It's been a while! My laptop has decided to die on me. It's been a long, drawn out death with the plucky machine still holding on by the tips of its micro chips. I'll keep this brief as it's likely to spit out its dummy at any moment.

I saw these items listed on eBay and thought that they were a nice addition to my earlier post bemoaning the state of some of the photos people use to sell their LPs. Initially, when I saw the snaps, I applauded the seller for using a visual pun on the albums' titles to add interest to his listings. What a genius, using a spot of visual humour to boost his chances of flogging some two-a-penny LPs! Err, perhaps not. I soon realised that all his LPs were photographed in the same way regardless of their title. Oh well, accident or design, it still tickled me!

Meat Loaf LP going like a Bat Out of Hell!

'Rush Through Time' by Rush inhabiting another dimension

Here's where I began to twig that the seller might not be a master of photographic wit....

Iron Maiden's 'Number of the Beast'

No, that last one doesn't quite work, does it!? Whatever, get yourself over to eBay while you still can. These albums are going quick!