Mott The Hoople - The Ballad Of Mott

It's hard to make anyone understand the fawning and adulation that Mott The Hoople get from their fans. It's a devotion every bit as deep as that of a catholic, a Seventies miner to the union or a Morrissey fan.

It's hard to explain the devotion and utter Hoople trainspotter mentality to the casual listener who looks upon them as a one trick All The Young Dudes pony or may remember All The Way From Memphis, the fan's love is deep and never leaves them.

Why?

Before the 2009 reunion gigs, the band hadn't played a chord together since 1974, nigh on four decades since a studio album and their fan base was only ever enough to sell out a mid size UK Tour of the Apollo's and Empire's of the world. Yet at those reunion gigs, I witnessed grown men crying, myself included.

Their albums largely hit the middling reaches of the chart and their best stuff on the Island label, rarely did that.

Together just over five years, that produced just seven studio albums and yet the reunion was named as the gigs of the year and they commanded the column inches of all the popular press.

Two things strike me as the reason for their deity like appeal.

Firstly, on their day, live they were untouchable, they made shows look like they were playing just for you, they milked every corner of the venue.

Secondly, even if they didn't care about the fans, they gave you the impression that they did, songs were about the fans or about the band, everything seemed so heart felt. As a fan you felt wanted, as though you were an extension of the group and that they understood exactly how you felt.

Of those albums, Mad Shadows is the absolute masterpiece, even though Brain Capers seems to have been extolled to heights that it doesn't really deserve over the years and Mott appears in every music magazine's Top 200 albums ever.

The rest were certainly patchy. If you want to hear them at their best, the medley from the live album is what you need.

There were two Mott The Hooples, like two different bands. The Island Years were a ramshackle delight, probably purposely c/o Guy Stevens. The CBS Years were glamtastic, rescued by David Bowie with All The Young Dudes and the resulting album, it was dressing up and fun and all about the kids.

However, in all this glam joy, there was still plenty of serious music, take the wonderful "Alice" on "The Hoople" swansong.

In truth, the end was when Mick Ralphs left, Ariel Bender (Luther Grosvenor) kept them going for another 12 months with sheer enthusiasm and Morgan Fisher added a musical excellence that was more professional, but Hunter's writing had less heart.

Mick Ronson joining seemed a marriage made in heaven and the money beckoned, a paydirt tour of the USA and a sell out UK Tour were largely organised, but different managers made the union impossible and that was it.

Their final single, Saturday Gigs said everything about the band, who else would sing about their history with Goodbye's at the end and make it so catchy?

In those days, rock stars were revered in a way they aren't now and won't be again.

Their influence on other bands, most notably The Clash is there for all to see and the plaudits that are passed down from the likes of Mick Jones, Michael Stipe and Morrissey are in tune with the fans, for they were and remain massive followers of the band.

Morrissey has the same fan adulation as Mott, but you sense the two way acknowledgement isn't there.

The band carried on as Mott and British Lions with decent albums that are appreciated, but they weren't Mott The Hoople.

Ian Hunter started a solo career that produced some gems, particularly the first album with Ronson that contained some material that was for Mott The Hoople and his last three albums which  have been up there with anything he's ever done and a new one is out next month.

The last YouTube clip is Lounge Lizard, a song that was to appear on the next Mott The Hoople album, but instead, became part of that Ian Hunter solo debut.

The Ballad Of Mott however rolls on, there'll never be new material, but you can admire the legacy.

As Hunter sang on that final single, Don't Wanna Be Hip, But Thanks For The Great Trip.

Comments are encouraged and also your own thoughts of bands who experience similar devotion.

Sgt Kipper : The Advent Of Todd Dillingham

At ASH, we have always been long term admirers of the magnificent Todd Dillingham. So I'm delighted that his brother Mick has written this article about how the musical adventures began.

Mick is a dear friend of mine. As a journalist, he is outstanding. People often complement me on the music I recommend and how much I know. Well I know less than half of what Mick knows. His consistent uncovering of great bands and artists is awe inspiring.

He has also been involved in all things ASH related from the very beginning, approaching nine years now. Mick hasn't been writing as much lately, which is a crying shame, I'm hoping this is about to change. You can find more of his work here. 

There is no better person to write about the beginnings of Todd's psychedelic delights than Mick.

Todd was always the classic bedroom musician, first and foremost. An eccentric outsider not really built for this big bad world of ours. He always loved music and for his fifth birthday got the latest Beatles album and by his teens he had a big record collection and went to a lot of gigs. He taught himself how to play guitar and was quite a superb player, but Todd being Todd, he never really did anything with it other than entertain us all with his ability to make up silly songs on the spot.

In his mid twenties he wrote a few songs, The Summer, Fading Just For You which he went into a tiny studio to record. But then one day he won a couple of hundred quid on the horses and went and bought himself a four track Tascam recorder. More brilliant songs started pouring out, matched by musical invention and quality playing. These home recordings, most of which remained unreleased, though a handful turned up on various releases, were staggering stuff and eventually brought him to the attention of Nick Saloman.

Art Into Dust was Todd’s first album, the bulk of which was recorded in a couple of days up at Mick Crossley’s (Flight Reaction) place in Saffron Walden with Nick Saloman (Bevis Frond), for release on the man’s Woronozow label.

Todd’s song Lament has already appeared on the fourth Ptolemaic Terrascope EP, given away free with the magazine (and played on the John Peel show!). Another track Reality appeared on the Woronziod sampler. Todd also played his first (of only ever two) live appearances with a short acoustic set supporting The Bevis Frond at an all dayer at The Dome in Tufnell Park. He was very nervous and sat on a stool during his four song set.

Twink, the legendary drummer from Tomorrow, The Pretty Things and The Pink Fairies who happened to be in attendance that day and aware of Todd’s nervousness beforehand very kindly and spontaneously grabbed maracas and a tambourine and joined him on stage to play along. The crowd also got behind him and cheered and clapped after each number with warm appreciation.

Saloman had been dragging his heels for a few years over doing the album by then, so it was a relief when he finally decided it was time. No sooner had the recording been completed then Todd was given the chance to record down in Canterbury with the legendary Richard Sinclair, Andy Ward and Jimmy Hastings.

With some money from our Father, we headed down the Canterbury to spend five days recording at the same studio as Sinclair was using for the Caravan of Dreams album. In retrospect the studio was too big for the task, but an album’s worth of tunes was captured.

When Saloman found out about this, his nose got out of joint and he decided not to release Art Into Dust after all. A few months later, Voiceprint came on board wanting to release Wilde Canterbury Dream. On hearing about the unreleased debut they decided that it would be cool to release that as well, a few weeks after Wilde Canterbury Dreams. So Todd went from nothing to two albums just like that.

Expanding the original album for the Voiceprint release, Todd added a home demo, Am I Alone and two tracks recorded recently with Andy Ward in East London. Little Green Pears, with a young Canterbury based guitar player Nicky Johns and a mind bending 24 minute version of the Floyd’s Interstellar Overdrive on which Andy shines like a thousand stars on the drums. This then was Todd’s second but really first album Art Into Dust.

Todd was very prolific at this point and the thousand pounds or so made from the first two Voiceprint albums was ploughed back into recording using small studios, first in East London and then another in West London.

Andy Ward (Camel, Caravan Of Dreams and later Bevis Frond) was the only constant, not only was he a lovely bloke to hang out with ,but one of the best drummers this country ever produced. The brilliant Terry Burrows a.k.a Yukio Yung of Chrysanthemums fame often came down over the next few years to lay some superb stuff down.

Andy got electric violin player Anthony Aldridge down to the studio a couple of times, one of them on  the same day that Rob Ayling of Voiceprint arranged Mike Wedgewood of Caravan/Curved Air fame to join in. First Mike and Anthony overdubbed their parts onto the Vast Empty Spaces suite that Todd and Andy had been working on that dominates the album of the same name.

Then Todd and Mike recorded Little Sister together that also made it to the third album. The musical highlight of the session was the epic prog monster Janus At The Gates of War, recorded live in one take, Todd and Anthony in the main room, Andy and Mike in the drum room. Peter Giles was the engineer (no not the Crimson bloke) and he was also a fine keyboard player always up for playing along.

Todd was never really Rock Star material but if you plopped him down in a modest studio, boy could he create, sometimes recording and mixing four or five songs at a session. Andy Ward was amazing and there was a synergy between him and Todd that meant that he easily and brilliantly kept up with the breakneck pace. 

Andy actually found refreshing when recalling the often interminable time spent in the studio with Camel. Like the three days spent sitting around in some big expensive studio, bored to distraction, while the engineer miked up the drums.  Todd’s approach to all the talented musicians he was fortunate enough to record with was straight forward and clear: just play entirely what you want to play and that was it.

Vast Empty Spaces came out on Voiceprint soon enough and sold out within a few months and the money from that helped continue the recording.

Todd had so many songs at this point and was writing more every week. As the recording sessions mounted up he would sort through the pool of recordings and compile the next album from them. With Bevis Frond’s offer to put out Sgt. Kipper on Woronzow and with so much great stuff to choose from, far too much for Kipper alone, the idea of self releasing Astral Whelks was born. It was released in a limited edition of 450 copies and was very much the sister album to Sgt. Kipper. With its potent blend of Psych, Prog and Folk Pop it remains many folk's favourite album by the man.

The opening three songs had already seen the light of day on various vinyl singles, but all were noticeably alternative mixes done at the time of recording. The next three tracks were from the same sessions with Andy and Terry blazing away. Janus also made its debut. While it and the title track were long prog epics, The Turquoise Mountain with Peter, Andy and Anthony was the biggest of all.

Based on the adventures of Brian Blessed’s attempt to climb Everest, the vocal version did not quite work, so most of the vocals were stripped away in a second mix (and the song redone as The Blessed One, which remains unreleased).

The Summer was one of Todd’s oldest songs and had already appeared on the Wilde Canterbury Dream album, dating from the very first real studio session Todd ever did a few years before. The version on Whelks was all new with Andy on drums and the only appearance of younger brother, Peter, on bass.

As a teenager Peter had been in Todd’s first and only attempt at forming a band, Coloured Rain (This was when Todd had just started writing songs seriously and he had a dozen or more gems already home demoed.) Unfortunately the other two members of the band (on drums and rhythm guitar) were low on talent and high on delusions of grandeur. After three or four rehearsals it became clear that Todd’s songs and those of the drummer, (who was a big Police fan and insisted on singing his third rate Police knock offs in a fourth rate Sting voice) where not really sitting well together

What sealed the band’s inevitable fate was a really useless, amateurish day up on Hampstead Heath spent "filming a video" or two with nothing more than a rented home video camera and with no thought of how it was going to be edited or any such important issues. Let's hire a camera and go up the Heath was the plan in its naive entirety. It really was a hopeless shambles. At one point two Italian girls who were there with a friend taking glamour photos wandered over to see what was going on with the video camera (quite a novelty in those days). The drummer basically bigged up the whole thing up and told them they could be in the video if they wanted, dancing along to one of his songs.

So while the band mimed along, these two dumb girls gave it their sexy dancing all. The other two band members thought it was great, (it wasn’t), the Dillingham brothers wanted to curl up and die with embarrassment. Later it started to rain and as they sheltered from it, the non-Dillingham members of the band started going on about the certainty of being on Top Of The Pops and playing Wembley within the year.

Todd and Peter left the band a few days after. Peter moved up north a while later and on one of his visits back to London, Todd thought it would be nice for him to pop down the studio and play bass on one of those Coloured Rain songs, The Summer, from all those years before.

Sgt. Kipper was the main focus though and a lot of the best recordings were earmarked for that. It was to be a full length cd and a double album on vinyl . Unfortunately some sort of technical snafu on the vinyl art meant that Todd made not one penny from the release.  

With no money forthcoming, the next studio was an even smaller affair and though some amazing recordings were produced, in the end we couldn’t even scrape together enough to continue even that. There was a EP and a ten inch for Pink Lemon but there was little money to be made from them.  A while later Todd got married and moved to the States and stopped making music until a few years back when he started up again.

Let's Do The Show Right Here : Glam In The Movies

Glam Rock coincided, for me, with buying records, primarily singles, under my own steam. I'd be 9 or 10 and Glam appeared for da kidz in a way those early to mid sixties did for the older generation. It was your scene, your parents hated the clothes and the ambiguity of the dress and it was as though those buy an album days were over.

Albums were again made up of two or three singles and quickly recorded filler. If I had been older I'd have been drawn to the serious players, Bowie, Bolan, Roxy Music etc, but you just liked the singles, you could discover albums as you got older and more importantly, had more money.

The singles were primarily led by Chinn and Chapman and Mike Leander writing for bands on the RAK or Bell labels. Others got onto bigger labels, Sweet on RCA, Sweet and The Rubettes on Polydor. Others used the scene as a quick direction to something they thought more substantial, such as Sparks.

We may now look incredulously at the Boy Bands that crop up nowadays in a snobbish music collector way, but there were plenty of boy bands and one or two hit wonders in the Glam days, plenty to make the girls scream and the boys show how they were into something much more mature in Sweet and Slade.

Sweet only got the B Sides for their own stuff, Slade did it all in the prolific (for a time) songwriting axis of Holder and Lea.

It's easy to laugh now at someone like Les Gray who looked a bit like a Bricklayer dressed up in drag when he was asleep, but you can't deny how good those singles were, Tiger Feet, Dynamite and Rocket et al and remember Mike Chapman moved onto Blondie. I suppose Suzi Quatro was the token girl and you sensed that she was thrown fish, whilst the better stuff was handed to Mud and Sweet.

Music TV then was aimed at the teenage audience, it's nowhere to be seen now. It wasn't just Top Of The Pops, that 5.15 slot on ITV with the likes Of Lift Off and later, Supersonic feeding the frenzy of those teenage fans. This passed on to bands running the shows, The Bay City Rollers most notably, but also The Arrows, Granada TV being the most notable provider of this essential entertainment.

So it was only natural that the Big Screen would join in the fun, as it had a decade or more earlier with The Beatles and Cliff Richard. The majority followed the Cliff Richard, Let's Do The Show Right Here model and the results were patchy to say the least.

Only one film really reached any heights and that was obviously Slade's In Flame, but before looking at that in more depth, it's worth noting the two David Essex led films, That'll Be The Day and Stardust. Both could have been cliche ridden and for music fans, the latter did have a fair bit of that, but the quality of the writing of Ray Connelly  and some of the acting was largely first rate.

The two films also brought that first era of aiming music at the kids into the second. That'll Be The Day was for all intents and purposes, the story of Merseybeat, Billy Fury played a great take on Rory Storm as Stormy Tempest, Keith Moon and Ringo were present and correct too. The first Brit wave is there too with Marty Wilde and Adam Faith. The film's a cracker and takes the story to the Mid Sixties.

Stardust takes us onwards to the Glam days and despite some of the obvious plot directions, it's still a great film.Keith Moon is still present, now joined by Dave Edmunds and an uncredited, Nick Lowe as the fame comes, the group splits and David Essex's Jim MacLaine loses the plot. Larry Hagman's there in a rehearsal for his JR Role. MacLaine writes a Rock Opera which tells you all you need to know.

Ray Connelly got a BAFTA for the screen production of Stardust and Adam Faith, a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In truth, Adam Faith is the star of both films as Jim MacLaine's manager, a tortured soul, in love with the star, it's a really poignant role.

Slade In Flame then. It still stands the test of time as a film now. It's often said that the film was reason that Slade's star dimmed because of the time filming it and the plot which made it look like the band hated each other. I go less with that theory, Glam was coming to the end of it's run anyway and Slade had partly realised this and wanted to break America, they failed miserably on the US Tours and by the time they got home, it was largely over. They did come again though as a sort of older brother to the NWOBHM brigade.

The film itself is a gritty take on the Music World, managers using thugs and muscling in on bands and the plot was largely stories related by Slade about things that happened to them and other bands in their careers. It's an absolute gem of a film, gritty, realistic and star turns from the Noddy Holder and Jimmy Lea.

An interesting side note is that the original idea of a comedy was rejected by Dave Hill because he got killed in the first fifteen minutes of the script. Set in the late Sixties, it's a highly recommended watch as are the two David Essex films. As for the music, a film that can open with How Does It Feel and close with Far Far Away, shows what a writing team Holder and Lea were, it wasn't all foot stompers.

Less recommended is Never Too Young To Rock, largely a vehicle for the Glam scene and starring Mud, The Rubettes and The Glitter Band. It's a bizarre tale of Freddie Jones searching out groups with the aid of a group detector van for a show and that largely is it. Most of the performances come in the last half hour and seem tagged on to try and sell the film. Truly awful.

Much better is Side By Side, another Glam vehicle and all these were coming to screen as the scene was dying. It's not Oscar material, but it's a funny in parts story of Two Music Clubs next door to each other, trying to outdo one another. Starring Stephanie De Sykes, Terry Thomas, Barry Humphries and Mud's drummer Dave Mount in the starring roles, it's fun knockabout stuff.

The film wins in the artists it promotes, all playing in the respective clubs. You have Fox, Mud, Kenny, Hello, The Rubettes, Desmond Dekker, Mac and Katie Kissoon and Stephanie De Sykes herself. The soundtrack is pretty good too with Lynsey De Paul and Skyhooks amongst the addition.

Finally, a mention for Three For All. A vehicle for Showaddywaddy, a band that get unfair criticism for their Rock and Roll Revival act in the Seventies, a shame really because they revived great sing along songs, as did Darts. But this film is dreadful.

Starring Adrienne Posta with the likes of Robert Lindsay, Paul Nicholas, Richard Beckinsale, Diana Dors, George Baker and Arthur Mullard. It even features Graham Bonnet, well before the Rainbow days.

The story of a band going off to Spain to record an album, I have no idea why, and the hilarious adventures of their girlfriends trying to get over there to join them after not being invited. 9 songs from Showaddywaddy, but you can listen to those on the Greatest Hits. Band can't act shocker and a true waste of money.

Caddy - The Better End

I've been listening to a lot of Scandanavian music through the past week, no particular reason and no particular scene preference. There's been Folk, Prog and Death Metal (I did have a taste for the likes of Gehenna for a 12 month mindfest).

Power Pop wise, Sweden's strength is outstanding, must be something in the water. I am no Swedish Power Pop expert, but my great friend Nick Fletcher is, he's extremely knowledgeable in all things, but the directions he gives me to the Swedes are outstanding.

So with Scandanavia in my head, I should get around to Norway and Tomas Dahl's Caddy. I say get around, because I should have brought this album to the attention of all well before now. ASH Things, hearing etc got in the way, but these are crap excuses becvause the album is fantastic.

Dahl has been around for a bit, he was drummer and Bass Guitarist in The Yums Yums, a splendid underrated Norwegian Power Pop band, but it doesn't end with drums, because he's a one man band.

Tomas plays everything on the Caddy album and as a side note there is a real refreshing change with a one man album coming from someone who can drum, none of that awful programmed drum sound that you can get.

The Better End is a wonderful album. There's Teenage Fanclub comparisons and I know how boring they can be, but they are proper comparisons. There's a real jingle jangle to the album, almost Byrds like, but the harmonies give it far more.

If I had to make one real observation, Caddy remind me so much of Cosmic Rough Ryders.

Amongst all this jangle and melodic mellowness, there is a real gem of a song. People know how much I rattle on about Dom Mariani and Tommy Keene, well our Australian Power Pop God, Mr Mariani is on the No Sudden Moves and it's wonderful. That DM riff, well you know it's him without being told.

There's been an album before this, first as Go Slow and then as Electric Hero. I have this as a download, I'd love to be directed to a physical copy if anyone can help.

You can buy the The Better End on CD from Ray's excellent Kool Kat Musik here. There's also a great Blue Vinyl release from Sugarbush, which is how I choose to listen to the album. I think Markus has some copies left, you can check here.

Finally, I know many of you know of our Lurcher, Crash. He listens to a lot of music, most of it unwillingly. Whenever this album gets put on, he comes and sits by me, no higher recommendation.

The Monkees - Here We Come : The Monkees At 50

Quite a few of you non UK people have been saying that you can't get at the recent excellent 2 PART  BBC Radio 2 documentary due to the region restrictions on I-player,

All three surviving memories discuss their story.

I have uploaded both parts to the I Don't Hear A Single Facebook Group on a 7 day We Transfer link. This will allow you download it quickly and free. If you want to join the group, details are at  the Top Right of the Blog.

This is hot off the press, I only ripped it to 320 last night, so I haven't edited the front end of both episodes, so you'll get the news ahead of each 57 minute episode. If I attach the link in this post, it'll get taken down and the Blog likely reported.

The BBC Blurb is below:


Back in 1966 the TV & pop worlds were shaken by the arrival of The Monkees, a post-Beatles, pre-boy band sensation who took the charts by storm, selling millions of records off the back of their hugely successful TV series.

The songs - I'm A Believer, Last Train To Clarksville, Daydream Believer and many more were instant pop classics and The Monkees, Mike Nesmith, Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork and Davy Jones. were instant pop stars.

Except that they weren't. They were actors playing a part, pretending to be a band, miming on screen and singing over other people's music. But like Pinocchio, they wanted to be real and the puppets turned, wrestling control of their records from the hands of the TV moguls and striking out on their own, This path that led them to the Sgt Pepper recording sessions, Jimi Hendrix avant-garde film-making and a completely unique type of stardom.

Now, 50 years later, The Monkees are back with a big hit album full of songs written for them by the likes of Paul Weller, Noel Gallagher and Andy Partridge of XTC, alongside Neil Diamond and Harry Nilsson.

In this two part series, The Monkees tell their own story with new, exclusive interviews with the 3 surviving band members, alongside their friends, family and associates.

What This Place Is About

I've been asked by a few artists for a sort of FAQ's for here and so I am happy to illuminate the world.

This is the Public Blog from the Anything Should Happen stable. ASH is in it's ninth year and has largely been a private affair with a large group of musicians, critics, collectors and fans. Membership has been closed for many years due to number limits invoked by Blogger.

We've tried to venture into the Public Eye in the past, but the time commitment was too great. Whilst ASH has been a collective, this place is largely me.

My music tastes are extremely varied. Over the past nine years, I've become noted for Power Pop and New Wave, but that's a small part of what I like and this place will reflect that.

This place isn't Pay To Play or any such term. I review what I like. In the past I've reviewed good and bad and sometimes been scathing. The policy here is that only what I like will be featured. It's unfair to be negative to something that others may like just because it doesn't float my boat.

Having said that, it's important to note that this place isn't a PR Blog. nor is it gushing, I just write about what moves me. I wouldn't tell you about something that I don't rate. People who respect my opinion will, therefore, know that if something appears on here, I like it.

Interview wise, I don't do them. I'm not good at them, but I do like talking about music and with musicians. So there are two planned audio features. The monthly Podcast, starting next month, will feature an hour of talking and the hope is that it will develop into musicians talking about music, which will include stuff about their career.

The other monthly audio affair will be a sort of Radio Show.

Here will feature the new and the old and any artist who wishes to have anything featured on here can contact me at any time. I love to discover artists that I've never heard.

The days of these sort of Blogs featuring hundreds of comments are long gone, so I'm aware that a lot of the chat will be on Social Media, particularly Facebook. That's ace, it's not about comments, it's about you liking something that's being reviewed and then supporting the artist in any way you can.

The Junipers - Red Bouquet Fair

Leicester seems the centre of the universe at the moment and The Junipers are doing their bit to keep it that way. Their 2014 debut, Paint The Ground, but this follow up is even better. There's added depth and melody.

The mellow vibe is still there as is the vocal strength, but the arrangements add far more. It's classic Psych Pop but not stuck in that mode. There are times that they could be The Idle Race and yet others when they could be China Crisis and of course, Beatles comparisons spring far and wide.

Robyn Gibson's voice is a thing of beauty and everything seems aimed at enhancing that. It's one of those albums that you play all the way through.




You can buy the album for download or on CD here. The best way to listen to this though is on Vinyl and Sugarbush have released limited editions on Black or Red Vinyl. You can buy these from the Bandcamp site, but International Dwellers get free postage direct from Sugarbush.

The band celebrate the album's release with a show at The Musician in Leicester on Thursday 25th. The support is the wonderful, Duncan Maitland, well worth six quid of your money.

Thee Oh Sees - A Weird Exits

Amidst all this sing along chorus stuff, there has to be a blow out and Thee Oh Sees are back. The new album A Weird Exits is released on Friday and it's suitably noisy.

John Dwyer's crew are in two drummer mode and it's suitably excellent. Not for the faint hearted, it's a great dollop of 60's Garage Psych. San Franciscan excellence.

They begin a tour around Europe and the UK from Sunday before returning to States dates. Details can be found here.

You can listen to the full album below :

Then you can head off and buy the album from Castle Face Record's site whwere there is a splendid 45 plate Vinyl release here. Alternatively you can buy the CD at the favourite emporium of your choice.