The Sensational Alex Harvey Band "Hot City - The 1974 Unreleased Album" Full previously unreleased studio album by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band recorded in 1974 finally gets released 34 years later!
In early 1974, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band were planning to record their upcoming third album. The band, had been constantly touring and were well rehearsed when in late Janauary, they went into Advision studios in London with legendary US producer: Shel Talmy to record their biggest album to date.
By April, the sessions were finished and the album was mixed. However, after completion the band and management had some reservations about the overall sound and amazingly they decided to scrap the entire album. Shel Talmy the returned to Los Angeles with his tapes.
Most of the song titles eventually showed up on the official album ´The Impossible Dream´ later that year with a different producer on board and the songs changed dramatically.
You can now hear how the album sounded with the original versions of these songs. SAHB fans will be totally surprised and amazed at the different styles, delivery and lyric arrangements of well known SAHB songs such as Vambo & Man In The Jar.
There are also two versions of both Anthem and Tomahawk Kid and an previously unreleased song `Ace In The Hole´ which has not been heard even by the band since those sessions in 1974.
As SAHB became the biggest band of 1975, these recordings were quickly forgotten about. Now after 34 years, MLP have re-discovered the fully mixed unreleased album by a rock group on the verge of stardom. The recordings were re-assessed by both Shel and the band and an agreement was reached.
Now re-mastered and with the band´s full approval, you can hear how songs like Vambo, Man In The Jar, Anthem and Sgt Fury originally sounded.
This CD release features 11 tracks and comes in a deluxe package which includes a 20 page booklet with rare photos and extensive liner notes from the band with track/track comments and opinions (by Kaj Roth from http://www.melodic.net/?page=news&id=11313).
Man In The Jar (Hot City album version):
Track List: 01.Vambo 02.Man In The Jar 03.Hey You 04.Long Haired Music 05.Sergeant Fury 06.Tomahawk Kid Version 1 07.Ace In The Hole 08.Weights Made Of Lead 09.Last Train Version 1 (Aka - Anthem) 10.Tomahawk Kid Version 2 11.Last Train Version 2
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band: *Alex Harvey - lead vocals *Zal Cleminson - lead guitar *Chris Glen - bass *Hugh McKenna - keyboards *Ted McKenna - drums
Combining the Sensational Alex Harvey Band's third and fourth albums, The Impossible Dream and Tomorrow Belongs To Me, offers perhaps the archetypal vision of Alex Harvey, as his long-nurtured alter-ego, the comic book hero Vambo, finally burst out of imagination to take on a life of his own on stages across the world. Yet what would become the group's most successful albums also stand as their patchiest.
From The Impossible Dream, "River Of Love," "Long Hair Music," and "Weights Made Of Lead" seem particularly throwaway; casualties, perhaps, of the sheer volume of live work which the band was putting in.
Certainly there was nothing to rival its predecessors' "Faith Healer," "Next," or "Isabel Goudie," although when the album was good, it was great.
The sparkling "Sergeant Fury" and "Tomahawk Kid," a dramatic (if slightly off-kilter) tribute to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island were already live staples, while the impossibly moving, and so aptly-titled "Anthem" would allow Harvey to live out all his Scottish pride -- when SAHB toured the US in early 1975, he even arranged for a couple of bagpipers to join them on stage for the closing minutes of the song.
Tomorrow Belongs To Me is weaker still, despite the uniform excellence of its contents onstage.
Indeed, like Impossible Dream's "Hot City Symphony," the epic "Give My Compliments To The Chef" and "Tale Of The Giant Stone-Eater" were surely designed with live, as opposed to studio, dynamics in mind, while the bulk of the shorter pieces once more tend to be throwaways.
Again, however, there are exceptions -- one can readily imagine "Sgt. Fury" swaggering carelessly down through menacing shadows of "Action Strasse," while the almost religious intensity with which Harvey emotes the title track (from the stage show Cabaret) is virtually worth the price of admission alone.
One can also safely say that, linked on one CD, the two albums work better as a whole than they ever did alone -- again, testament to the sheer dynamic of SAHB-period live shows.
That the best of that show is preserved only on the criminally short album Live on the Test only adds to this set's vitality.
Live on the Test showcases the best, but you should hear the rest. (All Music Guide review by Dave Thompson).
Give My Compliments To The Chef:
CD1 - The Impossible Dream: 01."Hot City Symphony Part 1: Vambo" 02."Hot City Symphony Part 2: Man in the Jar" 03."River of Love" 04."Long Hair Music" 05."Hey" 06."Sergeant Fury" 07."Weights Made of Lead" 08."Money Honey"/"The Impossible Dream" (Jesse Stone, Mitch Leigh, Joe Darion) 09."Tomahawk Kid" 10."Anthem"
CD2 - Tomorrow Belongs To Me: 01."Action Strasse" 02."Snake Bite" 03."Soul In Chains" 04."The Tale of The Giant Stoneater" 05."Ribs and Balls" 06."Give My Compliments To The Chef" 07."Shark's Teeth" 08."Shake That Thing" 09."Tomorrow Belongs To Me" (Fred Ebb, John Kander) 10."To Be Continued...(Hail Vibrania!)"
N.E.X.T. Next. What a way to start a song. As Alex Harvey spells out the letters of the title, before leering the word into the microphone, the band breaks into a tango beat to support him, which is perhaps one of the defining moments in the career of "The Sensational Alex Harvey Band" and its inspirational leader.
In 1972 Alex Harvey had reached the grand old age of 38, way too old in those hedonistic days of music to consider becoming a Pop Star.
But tragically, Alex's younger brother by some ten years, Leslie, had been killed in an electrical accident during a sound check with his group "Stone the Crows" at the Top Rank in Swansea. The cause was an unearthed microphone.
This tragic event spurred Alex on to have one more go at cracking the big time.
At the time Alex was earning a crust in the orchestra of James Rado's iconoclastic musical 'Hair', but was persuaded by his manager, friend, and mentor Bill Fehilly, to go up to his native Glasgow, Scotland, to check out a gritty Progressive outfit called Tear Gas.
The band was in the throws of giving up all dreams of stardom and going back to 'normal jobs'. They were so broke that in true Scottish tradition they had resorted to haggis hunting up the side of mountains to find sufficient nutrition to survive.
However, Alex, recognizing talent when he saw it, coerced the band to stick together and plant him in as lead singer and inspirational genius. Putting "Sensational" into the title of the band, they went into the studio and in six days had recorded their first album, released in early 1973, before starting to play live anywhere that would have them.
Not surprisingly, they quickly built up a reputation of one of the hottest acts on the live circuit.
Out front was Alex himself, skin tight jeans, dirty red handkerchief hanging from his back pocket, black and white looped T-shirt, with Alex's huge head sticking out the neck (with all the creativity going on in this head, it needed to be a big one), topped off by an unruly mop of unruly jet black hair, the perfect leader.
Next to him was Zal Cleminson in a green rubber jumpsuit with cake white clown's make-up, which exaggerated his gurning face as he cut loose during the solos, and becoming a complete maniac, the perfect foil.
On the other side of the stage on bass was a man who could of made a living as an Elvis impersonator, or at least one of Elvis' bouncers Mr. Chris Glen, the perfect man to have on your side if the chips were down.
On Keyboards, as befitting this lot, was Hugh McKenna, who looked more like a university music teacher than a Rock 'n' Roll star, the perfect musical director.
And keeping it in the family, on drums you had Hugh's brother, Ted, the perfect rock onto which to hoist your Rock 'n' Roll flag.
The first album was a reasonable commercial success, but for once the record company saw the potential in this group.
Later that year they booked a full month for the band to record their follow up album and brought in top Glam Rock producer Phil Wainman.
The results were 'Sensational'. Alex sung with such pathos you cannot help but love him. Nobody else at the time could of gotten away with singing the title track, the J. Brel tribute to European Brothels, or `Gang Bang' poking fun, of an unmentionable subject.
Zal Cleminson's guitar playing throughout is nothing short of brilliant, and the band supports them note for note.
All of the songs here were to stay in the band's stage act in one way or another until the end, especially 'The Faith Healer' with its throbbing Tooltelbug drone opening, which was to become the band's standard bearer and opening song. (The sight of Alex staggering to the front of the stage screaming "can I put my hands on you" used to send the audience into raptures.)
`Vambo Marble Eye' became a saga that Alex was going to take to higher plains on the live stage. Final number 'The Last Of The Teenage Idols' was inspired by an event way back in 1957, when Alex Harvey won a Daily Record organized competition to find the Scottish Tommy Steele (true - I promise!), which brings the album to a fitting rocking climax before we are lulled away by a final burst of do-wop.
In another year, "The Sensational Alex Harvey Band" was the biggest touring band in Europe, quite a turn around from Haggis chasing. Unfortunately, the work load was just too much and after suffering declining health, Alex left the band in 1978, after which the band imploded.
Later in 1982, Alex would die of a heart attack while on tour in Europe, a day before his 47th Birthday. Although Alex's career did not really catch fire until late, but when it finally did, it sure burned bright. If "The Sensational Alex Harvey Band" is a mystery to you, pay attention.
Alex Harvey was one of the greatest ring masters to have ever strode across the field of Rock 'n' Roll.
The first two "Sensational Alex Harvey Band" albums, "Framed" and "Next", have just been released as a special 2-for-1 box set, a bargain not to be missed (by Kim Fletcher).
Midnight Moses:
Faith Healer:
Faith Healer lyrics: If your body's feelin' bad And it's the only one you have You want to take away the pain Go out walkin' in the rain You watch the flowers go to bed Ask the man inside yah head Your spirit never has to grieve All yah got to do's believe
The faith healer The faith healer
All yah got to do is feel Your body's going to start to heal Fingertips and holy fire Everlasting sweet desire It don't matter what the doctor said The healer man will sail away Immortality for two The miracles, can come to you
The faith healer The faith healer
Can I put my hands on you? Can I put my hands on you?
The faith healer The faith healer
Faith, and hope and charity It's simple relativity He can make you understand All make up to take his hand Remember when somebody said Ask the man inside yah head The fingertips of holy fire Everlasting sweet desire
The faith healer The faith healer Can I put my hands on you? Ahhh...(6 times) The faith healer....(3 times)
CD-1: 01.Framed 02.Hammer Song 03.Midnight Moses 04.Isobel Goudie (My lady of the night/Coitus interruptus/Virgin and the hunter) 05.Buff's Bar Blues 06.I Just Want To Make Love To You 07.Hole In Her Stocking 08.There's No Lights On The Christmas Tree Mother 09.St Anthony
CD-2: 01.Swampshake 02.Gang Bang 03.Faith Healer 04.Giddy Up A Ding Dong 05.Next 06.Vambo Marble Eye 07.Last Of The Teenage Idols (parts 1-3)
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Framed is basically blues-rock. On one track ('Isabel Goudie') Harvey goes for a mock-"epic" sort of presentation, probably with prog-rockers of the time as the object of his ridicule, and a couple of tunes venture alternatively into folk-rock and/or heavy metal territory, but the core of this album is blues-rock.
Four four beats, twelve bar structure, you know the drill. But it's blues-rock done like never before - or after. Positioning themselves in the middle of the glam epoch, Harvey and the band transform blues-rock into glam theater.
They go for a BIG sound, and if I didn't hate to break up the perfect alignment of the review, I'd have made that BIG several sizes larger - it's B-I-G, B-I-G, as in really really big.
Enormously loud everything - guitar, drums, pianos, shouted vocals, going at Zeppelinish volume and more than that. The attitude, however, is not Zeppelinish. It's a head-spinning cross between macho posturing and cabaret brawling, yet done extremely tongue in cheek: there's no mistaking Harvey's mock-barroom attitude for the real thing.
Which, of course, firmly places him in the glam camp: everything loud, tacky, and glossy, yet everything self-consciously ironic at the same time, widely grinning at its own destructive decadence. Music that is perfect for satisfying your lowliest urges and ridiculing them at the same time - music you can't do without!
The main attractions of Framed are, of course, (a) the excellent skill of guitarist Zal Cleminson, who rarely uses his instrument to show off but always uses it to make the music powerful and attractive, and (b) Harvey's own vocal stylizations, replete with exaggerated Cockney-isms and/or bluesmaster howling where it is necessary.
It doesn't always work, but it works more often than not, and anyway the very fact that it works at least sometimes already speaks volumes - this is, after all, an extremely unimaginative kind of music-making, and it takes real inspiration to make it outstanding.
And it's outstanding on the very first track - the title one, a cover of the old Leiber/Stoller original, slightly lyrically shifted to suit Harvey's own lyrical needs.
The very intro is classic: the sound of a cell door slammed shut opens it, and then you have that slow, unnerving cymbal chuckling, at times interrupted by the five-note guitar riff - slow, slow, slow, as if it were taking full time to enjoy itself and give the listener a pre-taste of the POWER that will follow.
The combination of this goofy slowness (and it is goofy!), Harvey's Cockney accent ('they asked if my name was Alexander 'n ah sed wwwwwhhhyyy sssshaaaaaaaauuuww'), Cleminson's short but effective guitar solo and the ecstatic chorus simply makes 'Framed' one of the best "comic" blues-rockers of the Seventies.
Then the insults begin coming. I take 'Hammer Song' to be a venomous parody on the "folk rock" thing - a nonsensic 'epic ballad' ('don't let the sun go down, said the man with the fire firing the furnace... I've been buried in the snow, and I keep on firing, keep on firing, keep on firing... firing the furnace!' is a typical lyrical quote from the song) that sends me rolling every time I hear it; and, like I already said, 'Isabel Goudie' with its three parts, one of them called 'Coitus Interruptus', by the way (I presume you know what that means, right?), most certainly mocks the progressive strain of the time. It's not very memorable, but it's extremely funny at the least - which is less than I can say for a lot of prog, of course.
These tracks don't kick ass, though. What does kick ass is the terrific rocker 'Midnight Moses', with an unforgettable riff the kinds of which were only being written back when Black Sabbath, Budgie, Blue Oyster Cult, and Deep Purple ruled the heavy premises - a spoof on 'Midnight Rambler' or what? Whatever the answer is, it's just one of those classic glam-rockers which totally shake your behind off and at the same time revel in the realization of their own idiocy.
A true marvel. I'm also a sucker for 'Buff's Bar Blues', which is just what it bills itself as, but how can you resist a bar blues with lyrics like "Drinking Aspumanti, reading John McLain/His sister in the grubber and his brother was the same, he's got the Buff's Bar Blues"? It's one of the goddarn funniest bar blues I've heard in my life, and no, I'm not inclydyng Skynyrd yn thys catygory.
The cover of 'I Just Wanna Make Love To You' seems somewhat overlong to me (although the slow mastodontic arrangement is immaculate by itself); but it's fully redeemed by the fast-paced 'Hole In Her Stocking', the eerie half-hard rock, half-carnival number 'There's No Lights On The Christmas Tree, Mother, They're Burning Big Louie Tonight' (which tells the story of exactly that subject, if you're curious), and the blasphemous 'St Anthony' (which, if I'm not mistaken, uses the metaphor of St Anthony's temptations as an excuse to tell a particularly seedy S&M story), which is as red-hot funky as anything in the epoch and finishes the album with a whole shotgun blast (I mean, METAPHORIC shotgun!).
And throughout, Alex is being sly, funny, intelligent, and powerful. There's really not a bad track included, although, like I hinted, some might be overlong; I'd personally like to have him lambast some other musical sub-genre to shreds than to waste such an awful lot of time on 'Isabel Goudie'.
It's kinda funny, though, that once Harvey adopted the tongue-in-cheek glammy attitude instead of the more sincere approach to music-making that he used to have, that he actually started to find some real popularity. Kinda speaks volumes of the epoch, doesn't it? (George Starotin's).
Track List: 01.Framed 02.Hammer Song 03.Midnight Moses 04.Isabel Goudie 05.Buff's Bar Blues 06.I Just Want To Make Love To You 07.Hole In Her Stocking 08.There's No Lights On The Christmas Tree 09.St Anthony
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Ariel formed in mid-1973, after the breakup of Spectrum. When Spectrum drummer Ray Arnott announced he was leaving to join Ross Wilson's new band Mighty Kong, Putt and Rudd commendably decided to end the band rather than try to recruit a new member, feeling that it wouldn't be possible to recreate the special spirit of that group.
Within a few months of Spectrums's farewell performance their new band (whose name was taken from the character in Shakespeare's "The Tempest") was up and running.
Ironically, the two new members, Tim and Nigel, had originally come to Melbourne to work with Ross Wilson and Ross Hannaford on their new project (which became Mighty Kong) and it was after they departed that Wilson asked Ray Arnott to join, thus precipitating the split of Spectrum!
Strong record company interest in Ariel quickly led to a contract with EMI's progressive Harvest imprint. Their superb debut single "Jamaican Farewell" looked set to repeat the early success of Spectrum but it only managed to reach No.34, its success hampered by lack of airplay, especially in Sydney, although it impressed the industry enough to win the FACB 'Single Of The Year'.
They toured as support to Gary Glitter November 1973 and released their excellent first LP A Strange Fantastic Dream in December, with writing credits split fairly evenly between Gaze and Rudd.
According to Noel McGrath, the album was also the first use of Moog synthesizer on an Australian rock record (though it's possible Tully may have been the first Australian band to recod with one) and producer Peter Dawkins still names it as one of his favourite productions.
It fared well commercially and critically, reaching #12 in the LP charts in February 1974, although there was a minor controversy about Stephen Nelson's brilliant, hallucinatory cover painting, which included (shock! horror!) a hypodermic syringe.
Airplay for the LP was further hindered by the banning of three songs ("Confessions Of A Psychotic Cowpoke", "Medicine Man" and "Chicken Shit") by the commercial radio industry's self-regulatory body, the FACB.
One particularly important outcome for the group was that EMI International's President, Allan Davies, fell in love with the album: "You know, Peter," he enthused to Dawkins, "I can't recall ever hearing a song about necrophilia!" Renowned British DJ John Peel also picked up both album and single and "said some really nice things about both of them".
These and other factors led to Ariel being invited to tour the UK and record their next album at Abbey Road.
Tracks 1. Jamaican Farewell - 2:50 2. No Encores - 3:47 3. Confessions of a Psychotic Cowpoke - 4:43 4. And I'm Blue - 2:52 5. Garden of the Frenzied Cortinas - 7:46 6. Miracle Man - 5:29 7. Chicken Shit - 4:23 8. Worm Turning Blues - 2:56 9. Wheezer Grunter Module Threadaboy/Harry v. Dirchy (God the Man) - 4:20 10.Hard Way to Go - 3:49 11.And if it Wasn't for You - 2:32 12.Red Hot Momma - 2:38 (Bonus Track on CD Version)
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band "Hot City - The 1974 Unreleased Album"
