The Flamin' Groovies at the Gijon Sound Festival 15/4/2016

I have always had a soft spot for the Flamin' Groovies.

I bought their classic Shake Some Action as soon as it came out in the spring / early summer of 1976 on the strength of the review in the NME. That album, along with the first Ramones (which I bought exactly one week later - also on the recommendation of the NME) seemed to be the fast forward button into punkish things to come.

By 1976 there was change in the air. Punk was about to happen and the Groovies album, along with the similarly retro first two Dr Feelgood albums, appeared to point to the way forward, away from all the excess of early 70s glam and prog rock and back into a new refreshingly stripped down, black and white world of skinny ties, drainpipe trousers and the three chord trick.

In fact it's arguable that the Groovies were the first band to see 60s retro as a way forward - in the USA anyway. .At the time its resolute re-affirmation of the values of 1965 - three minute songs with catchy hooks and jangly guitars - can be seen as both a forerunner of, as well as an influence on, the likes of late 70s Mod revivalists The Jam, and also the later psychedelic Cosmic Amerikana bands of the early 80s - The Rain Parade, The Long Ryders et al.

Shake Some Action is a classic album brimful of some seriously catchy self penned songs (and a few covers) that still sounds fresh some 40 years later.

But it wasn't just that it had some great songs on it - I Can't Hide, You Tore Me Down, I Saw Her, Teenage Confidential are all classics - but it  also appealed to my own teenage 60s mod nostalgia obsession and I spent the latter months of 76 I trying to track down their previous albums Teenage Head and Flamingo - not easy in those days, as neither album had sold especially well and they were, by that time, long deleted.

However, due probably to the hype around the burgeoning UK punk scene and the Groovies evident influence on it along with other similar purveyors of high energy rock like the New York Dolls, Stooges and MC5 - whose albums I was also eagerly trying to track down at the time - both Teenage Head (1971) and Flamingo (1970) did get a surprise reissue as a double album package on the UK Kama Sutra label in late 1976.  

And when eventually I found it - in, of all places, Boots the chemist who, in those days, sold vinyl albums as well as cosmetics and aspirins - and took it home, I was staggered to hear a completely different band (Cyril Jordan and bassist George Alexander being  the only two musicians Teenage Head and Shake Some Action had in common) and musical approach; one that owed far more to the raunchy R'n'B of the Stones, and even 50s Rock and Roll, than to the jangling mid 60s poppery of the Beatles and Byrds. 

Teenage Head is in fact a classic hard rock album - comparable to the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers. Flamingo is no slouch either. On both albums singer Roy Loney swaggers and leers in best Jagger mode and guitarist Cyril Jordan also proves a dab hand at coming up with memorable chunky block chord riffs à la Keith Richards.  Lead track Teenage Head being a prime example.

As a guitarist Cyril should not be underestimated. Groovies albums are packed with some killer riffs - Slow Death, Heading For The Texas Border, High Flyin' Baby all come to mind and Shake Some Action (co-written by him and Loney's replacement, Chris Wilson) is a glorious pop song that really should have been a massive hit.

Strange to say though that despite being one of my favourite bands of 76 I never got to see them live.

So when I heard the reformed band - Roy Loney, Chris Wilson, Cyril Jordan, original founding member and bass player George Alexander, plus drummer Victor Penalosa - were coming to the Gijon Sound Festival on their 50th Anniversary tour, I was seriously looking forward to seeing them.

They did not disappoint. It was a blasting white hot set chock that drew on "hits" from both the early Roy Loney era and the later Chris Wilson band.

Cyril is still a very tasty picker and the years have given Loney's voice a power and confidence which I think he lacked as a younger singer.

Check these clips from Youtube for proof.

So, 50 years on from when they formed and 40 years on from when I bought Shake Some Action, this is how good they were...

Better than ever?

Shake Some Action!

More from the show here

More stranger than known

The Rolling Stones' finest hour - "Get Yer Leeds Lungs Out"...

The Sadies - This Week's Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band in the World live...

The Tarnished Gold - Beachwood Sparks

The Ugly Beats and Peralta live in Gijon 11/12/2014 - Sublime Nineteen-Sixty-Sixicity

10 Best Rolling Stones Live Tracks - Mick Taylor Years 1969 - 1973

The Rolling Stones in 1969

This selection of 10 (mostly unreleased) Rolling Stones recordings grew out of my last Rolling Stones at Chess Studios post. As I said there, the Rolling Stones are unique now in that unlike their contemporaries, the Beatles, Who, Byrds or Beach Boys, there are no official box sets or anthologies of unreleased gems, alternate takes or killer live material. However this doesn't stop the spread of some really classic material doing the rounds on the internet.

So, looking at what's available on Youtube, I decided to compile some of my favourite live Stones cuts recorded between 1969 and 1973 when Mick Taylor was the lead guitarist. Many, including myself, consider this period to be the band's most creative period. Taylor added a virtuosity they had previously lacked. In the 5 years he spent with the band, they recorded a string of albums which are now considered some of the band's finest - Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street, Goats Head Soup, and It’s Only Rock’n’Roll.

I also think that this was their peak as a live band. In the five years that Taylor was with them they went form being a band that was coming out of semi-retirement (as a touring band) and had to prove themselves to American audiences on the 1969 tour to "the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world" of the early 1970s.

Here are some recordings from the classic 69 - 73 Taylor years - mostly unreleased - which would surely gain a place on any Rolling Stones boxed set anthology.



1. Brown Sugar (with Eric Clapton on slide guitar) - December 1970
Raw and fairly rough sounding. Probably recorded on18th December 1970 at Olympic Studios in London at Keith Richards' birthday party.  It was a toss up which version to release. I think the band made the right decision as, although this version probably wins out on energy, the single version swings with a leaner, funkier feel.

2. Cocksucker Blues 1969
Not strictly live I know. Submitted as the band's last single for Decca in 1970. With a title like that the label understandably didn't want to know. Even so the band had fulfilled their contract and could therefore move on to a new deal with Atlantic which gave them their own label and greater control.There are a number of alternative versions of this knocking about including a full band version. I think this early version is superior if only for Jagger's vocal.

 
3. I'm Free - Live in Oakland. 1969 Tour of USA
From the "LiveR Than You'll Ever Be" bootleg - one of the first rock bootlegs ever released and still one of my favourites. Like most of the recordings from this tour, it has quite an informal feel and Jagger seems quite chatty.

After three years away the band have to work surprisingly hard to get audiences up and on their feet. A lot had changed since their last US tour in 1966 and the Stones now had to prove they really were “the Greatest Rock’n’Roll Band in the World” and could match the incendiary standards of the likes of the Who, Hendrix, Cream or San Francisco bands like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane.

Although terminating in the disastrous Altamont festival, the tour was highly successful and put the band back on the rock royalty center-stage along with Dylan, The Who and the recently separated Beatles.

Originally released on 1965's Out Of Our Heads LP this version of is slower and has a pretty nifty Mick Taylor solo.

4. Roll Over Beethoven - Berlin 1970
Very few recordings of decent sound quality survive from the short 1970 European tour. Here is a revived and rather rough sounding Roll Over Beethoven. Keith takes the solo and the band rip through it and give it the definitive 1970s Stones raunch'n'roll

5. (I can't get no) Satisfaction - Leeds 1971
The Live at Leeds boot contains some of the best music the band have ever recorded. I have discussed its merits in more detail here  The Rolling Stones' finest hour - "Get Yer Leeds Lungs Out" This slowed down but mightily funked up version of Satisfaction is a highlight.
Sublime.The band at their peak.

6. Love In vain (Madison Square Garden, NY) - 1972
The 1972 US tour was an infamous, wild, drug-fueled ride through an America that had turned cynical and and pessimistic. The 60s dream was over. The Stones chaotic free concert at Altamont in 1969 had even, in part, helped to kill it. The band played amphetamine fueled 90 minute sets that tore through the songs and left everyone breathless, including Mick Jagger, who seems to bark out the words to many of the songs instead of singing them.

The singer may sound bored and the rhythm guitarist is starting to feel the effects of his heroin habit but new addition Mick Taylor comes into his own on this tour. His playing on the 69 tour seemed tentative but throughout the 72 tour he plays with total authority. On this version of Love In Vain he plays a stunning solo - both soulful and precise - and far superior than the one on 1969's Get Yer Ya-Yas Out.

7. Gimme Shelter - Philadelphia 1972
An absolutely breathtaking Taylor solo. A band at their live peak.
Listen to it twice. Both early and late sets. It's like having the inside of yer head tickled...

8. Bye Bye Johnny - (Madison Square Garden, NY) - 1972
More from the MSG show. Jagger introduces the band. Keith just can't wait - the band rip into it and the first one to the finish is the winner....

9. Midnight Rambler - Brussels, Oct. 17, 1973 (first show).
By the 1973 European tour the band had added Billy Preston to the touring party and were on the verge of sounding slick. Midnight Rambler is taken and breakneck speed and Mick Taylor spits fire.

10. You Can't Always Get What You Want - Brussels, Oct. 17, 1973
I have seen the band play this song with Ron Wood and, compared to this version, it just seems an overlong rambling directionless mess to me.

This, thanks to Mick Taylor and Bobby Keys' sax solo, is majestic.

More stranger than known
The Rolling Stones' finest hour - "Get Yer Leeds Lungs Out"...

Key To The Highway - The Rolling Stones at Chess Studios 1964 and 1965

The Faces BBC Sessions - 5 Guys Walk Into The BBC....

Amazing Journey - The road to "Live at Leeds". The Who Live in Philadelphia 19/10/1969

Key To The Highway - The Rolling Stones at Chess Studios 1964 and 1965

Key To The Highway
We are now 50 years on from the first Rolling Stones' Chess sessions in Chicago and also just over half a century on from the band's rise to fame so it's a pity that the Stones' vintage back catalog has become such a neglected thing. Unlike their contemporaries, the Beatles, Who, Byrds or Beach Boys, there are no box sets or anthologies of unreleased gems, alternate takes or killer live material. Stones' compilations tend to feature the same already well-known songs recompiled and repackaged as greatest hits CDs released every 5 years or so to coincide with the latest world tour.

And it's not like they are putting out any great new stuff either - their last album, the instantly forgettable A Bigger Bang, came out as long ago as 2005. So for a band that seems to have retired from doing anything new - never mind creative - it seems a shame that such a stunning back catalog - and one that helps define the rock era - should be so neglected. This dereliction has arguably led to their importance as the UK's foremost rhythm 'n' blues pioneers being undervalued. The Stones brought rhythm 'n' blues to a mass white audience - not only in the US but in the world. No mean achievement.

Fortunately, as is so often the case in the internet age, fans have taken care of any lack of interest the band or record company may have and "liberated" rare recordings previously hoarded or only available on expensive and shoddy bootlegs. As a result we have some pretty nifty compilations and playlists which in a more sensible world would have already seen official record company release but also serve to re-emphasize the importance of the band's legacy.

The Chess Sessions
One such is the "2120 South Michigan Avenue" compilation (see youtube clip below) of all the sessions the band recorded at Chess studios in Chicago in 1964 and 1965. In the early 60s many blues fans, and the Stones themselves, considered the Chess studios as the home of the blues. Muddy Waters (who according to legend helped the band unpack when they arrived), Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry and a whole host of blues musicians and singers recorded for the label. On their first US tour the Stones were keen to visit and record there and, although Chess didn't let out their studios to non label artists in those days, manager Andrew Loog Oldham managed to blag a session for the band in the summer of 1964. For the full story go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame page here http://rockhall.com/story-of-rock/features/all-featured/7710_the-rolling-stones-at-chess-records-satisfaction/

The Stones at Chess studios 1964

This may not be the best music the band ever recorded but it is key to what came later. Herein are the seeds of some of the best rock music recorded in the 60s and 70s. Let us not forget that, arguably more than the Beatles, the Rolling Stones set the template for what a rock and roll band in the 60s and 70s should look like, sound like and be like. And in 1964, the band arrived in the USA with the self appointed task of re-educating the American teenage public about the blues - an American music which white America had either forgotten about or was simply unaware of - and placing it firmly in the mainstream culture of US and western music where, 50 years on from these sessions, it still remains.

Many of these tracks were originally released on the albums "Rolling Stones No. 2" and "Out Of Our Heads". The songs It's all Over Now and Little Red Rooster were released as singles and the remainder surfaced on British EPs, American LPs - which often had different track-listing to their British versions - or single B sides. To my knowledge, Key To The Highway, a version of Mercy, Mercy different to the one on Out Of Our Heads, and a Bill Wyman song, Goodbye Girl, are all still officially unreleased. But the great thing about this compilation is that it arranges the songs chronologically thus leading the listener to re-evaluate the Rolling Stones as a blues band.

Ian Stewart (seen behind) played piano on the sessions

Confessin' The Blues
Remember this is the Stones as blues purists. Before the the mania and excess that was still to come but also before they'd started to write their own songs. In fact at the time of these sessions, the band were still relatively unknown in the US and, although they followed in the wake of the Beatles and the other British invasion bands, they would not achieve real success in the US until the release of their own (I can't get no) Satisfaction in early 1965 - written around the time of the last session here.

These sessions are not just an apprenticeship though. The thing that stands out when you listen to all of them together is how superior, as blues players, they were compared to contemporaries like the Yardbirds, Pretty Things, Them or the Animals. Those bands tended to play the blues with a stomping heavy rock'n'roll beat. Listen to the Stones on these sessions, especially on Down The Road Apiece or Around and Around, and you hear a band that really knows how to swing.

And the man who put the swing in the band was, of course, drummer Charlie Watts. Charlie was at heart a jazz drummer and he had an instinctive feel for playing just behind the beat emphasizing what Keith Richards maintained was the "roll" in rock 'n' roll - in other words making it swing. Charlie is really the star of the show here. Add Keith's great sense of timing and Chuck Berry riffing to the mix (check Keith's outstanding solo on It's All Over Now - one of his best) and you have band that has much more of an innate grasp of the blues essentials than their rivals.

That's not to say that they have all it down just yet. Jagger's vocals on the blues numbers occasionally verge on mimicry and pastiche  ("Oh dee clap o' mah hands"). It is only on the later soul numbers like Don Covay's Mercy, Mercy, Otis Redding's That's How Strong My Love Is and especially Bobby Womack's It's All Over Now that he starts to sound assertive and comfortable with what he's singing.

British EP "5 by 5" featured 5 songs recorded at Chess

Exile on Main Street
By the end of these sessions Keith Richards and Mick Jagger had started writing their own material and Keith had come up with the Satisfaction riff - he actually woke up in the middle of the night with it in his head and, before he forgot it, quickly got it down on tape. With that now iconic song the band broke through to the American mainstream. They would go on to become the so called bad boys of pop beloved of the tabloid press and then, after the Beatles split, reinvent themselves as "the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world". Although the blues remained an important influence in their music, they never recorded again in the Chess studios after 1965.

However the spirit of these recordings does resurface rather spectacularly on 1972's Exile On Main Street, arguably their finest LP. With tracks like Rip This Joint, Shake Your Hips, Stop Breaking Down and Ventilator Blues, it is a classic rock album soaked in the sound and the spirit of Chicago blues. And these sessions act as handy curtain raiser to that album.

So, 50 years on, it's worth listening to these sessions again and remembering that without the Stones the blues would not be as central in mainstream culture as it is today. These sessions are a vital part of the band's legacy. And also some great music. Take a listen (tracklisting below).

Recorded At Chess Studio Chicago, USA, 2120 South Michigan Avenue, 10/11 June 1964:
1 - It's All Over Now     3:24   
2 - I Can't Be Satisfied     3:25   
3 - Stewed And Keefed     4:07   
4 - Around And Around     3:02   
5 - Confessin' The Blues     2:46   
6 - Down In The Bottom     2:42   
7 - Empty Heart     2:36   
8 - Hi- Heel Sneakers     2:57   
9 - Down The Road Apiece     2:54   
10 - If You Need Me     2:02   
11 - Look What You've Done     2:18   
12 - Tell Me Baby     1:53   
13 - Time Is On My Side (Version 1)     2:52   
14 - Reelin' And Rockin'     3:36   
15 - Don't You Lie To Me     1:59   
16 - 2120 South Michigan Avenue     3:40   

Recorded At Chess Studio, 8 November 1964:
17 - What A Shame     3:04   
18 - Fanny Mae     2:12   
19 - Little Red Rooster     3:06   
20 - Time Is On My Side (Version 2)     3:00   
21 - Goodbye Girl     2:08   
22 - Key To The Highway     3:18   
23 - Mercy, Mercy (Version 1)     2:43

Recorded At Chess Studio, 10 May 1965:
24 - Mercy, Mercy (Version 2)     2:45   
25 - That's How Strong My Love Is     2:24   
26 - The Under-Assistant West Coast Promotion Man     3:22

Bonus track
27 - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction     2:44   





More stranger than known
The Rolling Stones' finest hour - "Get Yer Leeds Lungs Out"...

The Faces BBC Sessions - 5 Guys Walk Into The BBC...

Ry Cooder and Little Feat live - Rampant Slide Zone Syncopation

Peter Green - "A Mind To Give Up Living" - The Blues of despair and salvation

The Birth of the British Voice in Rock. British Psychedelia 1967 to 1974 - A Radio Kras podcast (in Spanish)

Last Friday I had the pleasure of appearing again on Gimi's show "In Campo Aperto" on Gijon's Radio Kras in Spain.

We decided to put together a program about British late 60s / early 70s psychedelia and the birth of the "British voice" in rock music.

One of the notable things about late 60s British psychedelia is that for the first time British rock bands stopped the pretense of singing in American accents and started to sing about more homegrown themes in an English accent - albeit quite a middle class one. British psychedelia gave the Brits a chance to take American music and really make it their own.

© D.Mainwood

It should be remembered that right up until the mid 60s everyone, including the Beatles, was singing American inspired pop and R'n'B in their best fake American accents. The true "British voice" in rock was born with Ray Davies and the Kinks singing about London's dedicated followers of fashion and well-respected men but then, around 1967, under the stewardship of Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd, Traffic, Caravan and quite a few others, it emigrates from the city to "get it together in the country" and explore the idyllic sultry summer afternoons of hazy childhood reminiscence in a manner that seemed quite heavily influenced by Lewis Caroll. British pop music of this period seems to take on a much hazier and greener hue as if to reflect the countryside itself. As I have observed elsewhere I can't help but think Jonathan Miller's (somewhat psychedelic) 1966 film interpretation of Alice In Wonderland may have had an influence on this new exploration of the pastoral but anyway, by the summer of 1967, a new interest in all things arcadian in British pop can plainly be heard in the addition of a new palate of instruments, such as flutes, mellotrons, harpsichords and horns, to create a kind of bucolic English baroque 'n' roll. Traffic and the Pink Floyd may have led the way but even the Rolling Stones sidestepped their usual R'n'B to make Ruby Tuesday and Dandelion - two of the finest examples of the new sound. The Beatles, as usual, topped everyone with Strawberry Fields Forever - a song and production which, in my opinion, is a kind of impressionist pop classic. In fact, considering its themes, perhaps this period can even be seen as a kind of British musical version of 19th Century French impressionism.

It has been criticized as an ephemeral and rather naive stage in British rock but some glorious music came out of it. So here is the show we put together as a kind of celebration of British pop's impressionist psychedelic baroque'n'roll period and its first attempt at a uniquely "British" sound. It is a mixture of the popular and well-known with a few unreleased rare things like the Traffic and Pink Floyd BBC concerts from 1970 and 1971 respectively.

Enjoy. The commentary is in Spanish.



Pink Floyd - See Emily Play / Paintbox / Kinks – See My Friends /  Victoria  / Shangri-la / Beatles – Strawberry Fields Forever / Rolling Stones - Goodbye Ruby Tuesday / She’s a Rainbow / Traffic – Paper Sun /  40 Thousand Headmen  / Traffic BBC in Concert (April 1970) - Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring? / Every Mother's Son / Medicated Goo / John Barleycorn Must Die / Pink Floyd BBC Concert (September 1971) – Fat Old Sun / One of These Days / Yardbirds – Happenings 10 Years Time Ago / Tomorrow – My White Bicycle / Pretty Things – Defecting Grey / Zombies - Beechwood Park / Hung Up On A Dream / Caravan - And I Wish I Were Stoned / Don't Worry / Robert Wyatt – A Last Straw / Little Red Riding Hood Hits The Road / Kevin Ayers – Stop This Train /  Religious Experience / Rolling Stones - Dandelion

Download here
https://archive.org/details/Aperto200614

http://radiokras.net/index.php?id=2162




More stranger than known
Jonathan Miller's Psychedelic Alice in Wonderland

Parallax - The Pink Floyd BBC Sessions

The Intergalactic Sofa - A Radio Kras Podcast 

My Radio Kras Podcasts - From Punk to Funk

Ten 21st Century Summer Psychedelic Nuggets 

The Faces BBC Sessions - 5 Guys Walk Into The BBC...

In the early 70s there was always great debate about who really was "The Greatest Live Rock 'n' Roll Band In The World". Most claimed the title for the Rolling Stones, many said Led Zeppelin and some said The Who. Also equal contenders were the Faces. The Faces brand of lurching raunch'n'roll rivaled the Stones on a good night and with alcohol fueled cheeky good time cheeriness probably inspired greater levels of audience participation than Mick and Keef, Page and Plant or Daltry and Townshend ever managed to achieve. The best evidence for their live greatness can be heard on their still officially unreleased BBC sessions.

Stewart, McLagen, Wood, Jones and Lane - The Faces

The Faces
The name of the group was The Faces. Not Rod Stewart and the Faces. The Faces. It was a band. Rod Stewart was the lead singer. Ronnie Wood played the guitar and had a sound that rivaled, and arguably surpassed, Keith Richard's for rusty bucket raunchiness. Ronnie Lane played a funky, melodic, chunky bass and also sang and wrote a few songs. Ian McLagan provided a snaky classic Hammond organ sound and Kenny Jones played some of the most propulsive drums in British rock.

The band had grown out of the Small Faces. Singer / guitarist Steve Marriott had decided that the Small Faces weren't serious enough for him and he wanted to put some hair on his chest, play boogie rock and hit it big in the USA. So off he went off to form Humble Pie with his mate Peter Frampton. With the lead singer / guitarist having left them in the lurch, the three remaining Small Faces teamed up with Rod Stewart and Ron Wood, both of whom had just left the Jeff Beck Group and were looking for a band. Stewart was the last to join as the wary and unconvinced Ronnie Lane, already let down by one lead singer, had an inkling that Stewart, who already had a promising solo career on the go, probably wouldn't stick around for long once fame struck. Which is pretty much what happened.


The BBC sessions
The band never really recorded a classic album and after Rod Stewart's solo success they seemed to be cast further and further into his shadow. There are some great singles but the band are best remembered live. Unfortunately the official live album "Coast to Coast: Overture and Beginners", recorded at the end of their career after Ronnie Lane had left, completely fails to do them justice. The evidence for their true live greatness is to be found on many of the strangely still unreleased BBC sessions from the period. The band recorded quite a large number of live sessions from 1969 to 1973 - probably as a result of their being BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel's favourite band - and they are dynamite. A list of songs and session dates can be seen at the bottom of this post.

Proof? Listen to this mammoth 12 minute version of Ike and Tina Turner's "You're My Girl (I Don't Want To Discuss It)" from a concert recorded at the Paris Theatre in London for a John Peel's Sunday Concert radio show on May 13th 1971. It shows how stunning the band really were live. Ron Wood intros the song with an agitated Meters / James Brown style hard funk guitar riff - kind of punk funk - McLagan's keyboards respond to Wood's riffing, and rhythm section Lane and Jones anchor the heavy funk while Stewart goes into his best soul man mode. Around 4 to 5 minutes in it starts to get almost unbearably intense. And loud. Stewart is lost in the sheer power of a band possibly somewhat overawed at the flow of events themselves. The band go way beyond whatever the sum of their individual parts is to achieve glorious funkified musical transcendence. This is the longest recorded version of this song and is far superior to the version released on the Five Guys Walked Into A Bar 4CD Box. It's far more powerful than anything the Stones were doing at the time and it's classic 70s British rock at its best. Why is it still unreleased?
Listen.

You're My Girl (I Don't Want To Discuss It)

In fact, as far as I'm concerned, the best and most enjoyable Faces music is actually to be heard on these BBC sessions. Here is where you hear the true soul of the band. Their official albums are all dry patchy affairs and it's only on these sessions that you experience what the band really had to offer. Especially on the May '71 gig. That would make a classic live album all by itself. It's 40 minutes of  R'n'B drenched supercharged rock'n'roll and includes versions of Bad N' Ruin, Bobby Womack's It's All Over Now, Had Me A Real Good Time and the Temptations' (I Know) I'm Losing You. The tempo, pace and power just don't let up. And of course these are far better versions than the officially released ones.

Here are some more BBC session highlights from youtube

Devotion (from the 19/11/1970 session).
Rod Stewart and Ronnie Lane giving it some nice vocalizing. Stewart really did have one of the great white soul voices of the era.

Too Bad
"Gimme the moonlight...". The entire band sounding three sheets to the wind then... Mac intros, a frenzied riff from Ron Wood and everyone is off like the clappers. The last one to finish buys the next round.

Had Me A Real Good Time
The band's live appeal summed up in one song.

Memphis
An extremely muscular cover of the Chuck Berry song. Almost verging on punk at times. Stewart is overwhelmed by a band going at it like a battalion of tanks.

Underrated
It has been said over the years that the Faces were sloppy and a bit of a mess live. So drunk they couldn't keep it together etc. Rod Stewart, at the end of the band's career, was wont to cast a few aspersions in interviews about their musical prowess but then he had his own agenda going on and anyway was probably being led astray towards the 70s superstar high life by then girlfriend Britt Ekland. Like Steve Marriott, the poor old Faces were simply not good enough for him anymore either.

The recorded evidence on these BBC sessions and other live performances suggests completely the opposite. At least as long as Ronnie Lane was in the band (he quit in mid 73 to go solo) they were easily one of the best live acts around. True, after he left things did seem to slide a bit as they headed off into musical boogieland and played Rod Stewart's more successful solo material. However when they were good they were truly great and the alcohol fueled merry-making was very much a part of the act. Even on a rough night they'd be guaranteed to put a smile on your face.


Sounds for Saturday
Here's a show they recorded for BBC2 TV on 26th October 1971 which gives an idea of them at their peak. Recorded before a television audience it doesn't have the sheer rapturous punk energy of the May '71 radio concert but it does show them off in all their raunch'n'roll glory. Rod Stewart was one of the great front men of the era and Ronnie Wood, even if his lead work, especially on Love In Vain is er... somewhat clueless, can be seen here as a demon rhythm guitarist.

Three Button Hand Me Down / Maybe I’m Amazed / Too Much Woman-Street Fighting Man-Too Much Woman / Miss Judy’s Farm / Love In Vain / Stay With Me / I’m Losing You 

The End - Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind...
The band pretty much fell apart after Ronnie Lane left. Lane jumped ship when Stewart started to focus more on his solo career. He was never happy about the "Rod Stewart and The Faces" billing they got in the US. They weren't a backing band after all. They struggled on for a year or so with Tetsu Yamauchi as a replacement but Stewart could now barely summon up the interest and they only managed to record a couple more singles.  

Ron Wood eventually went off to join the Rolling Stones in their declining years. Kenney Jones joined the Who for a while after Keith Moon died and Ian McLagan formed his own band, worked with the Stones and Dylan, and is still gigging. There is talk of a reunion in the next year or so but relations between certain members still seem somewhat fragile. It's a pity they can't all make up and be friendly as good time mateyness was one of the things the band managed to conjure up so well on stage and was so much a part of their appeal.

If there is a reunion it will be without poor old Ronnie Lane who died in 1997 after many years of suffering multiple sclerosis. However a reunion and a BBC sessions release would be good news indeed. As Kenney Jones said earlier this year when talking about reunion possibilities, "the Faces never finished on a good note, so it would be nice to finish on a good note, and that would be that."

And that, on the back of an official release for these BBC sessions, would complete the legacy of the Faces - one the greatest Rock 'n' Roll bands of the classic rock era.




Bonus clip - London Rock
Faces clip from 1970 TV documentary London Rock
The band are interviewed and seen rehearsing. Kenney Jones talks about his childhood “where we grew up and used to play on bombsites” and the two Rons discuss life and philosophy down by the river with their girlfriends in tow. "What's needed now is a revolution in the nut" says one Ron. "I just came for the ice cream" says the other.
What a wonderful bunch of lads they were.

A list of the Faces BBC Sessions
This is just a list I compiled myself from internet sources over the years. It is not definitive and I don't claim complete trustworthiness for it..
If anyone can see any mistakes or can improve on it let me know.

15 tracks appear on Five Guys Walked Into A Bar 4CD Box.
Still plenty left for an official release

1) 9th March 1970 BBC Top Gear
01 Shake, Shudder, Shiver  2:45
02 Love In Vain  7:12
03 Wicked Messenger (Brian Matthew intro) 2:55
04 Maybe I'm Amazed  5:19

2) 10th March 1970  ‘Dave Lee Travis’,
London, Camden Theatre. Host: Dave Lee Travis.
01 Three Button Hand Me Down
02 Flying
03 Wicked Messenger
Note: Broadcast on the 15th March 70.

3) 28th March 1970, Top Gear, Playhouse Theatre, London
 01 Wicked Messenger
02 Devotion
03 Pineapple and the Monkey
04 Shake Shudder Shiver
 
4) August 27 1970 "Mike Harding Show", Aeolian Hall, Studio 2, London
01 All Over Now
02 Three Button
03 Around The Plynth
Broadcast 1st September 1970

5) 15th September 1970 ‘Top Gear’, Maida Vale, Studio #4, London
Host: John Peel.
01 Had Me A Real Good Time
02 Around The Plynth
03 Country Comfort
Note: Broadcast on the 19th September 1970.

6) 19th November 1970, Paris Theatre, London
1 You're My Girl (I Don't Want To Discuss It)
2 Wicked Messenger
3 Devotion
4 It's All Over Now
5 I Feel So Good
34:02

7) 20th April 1971 ‘Sounds Of The Seventies’ Kensington House, Studio T1, London
Host: Bob Harris.
01 Oh Lord I’m Browned Off
02 Love In Vain
03 Maybe I’m Amazed
04 Had Me A Real Good Time
Note: Broadcast on the 3rd May 71.

8)  29th April 1971 ‘Top Of The Pops’ TV show, London.
01 Richmond
02 Bad’n Ruin

9) 13th May 1971 Sunday Concert, Paris Theater, London,
01 I Don't Want To Discuss It  13:18
02 Bad & Ruin 5:06
03 It's All Over Now  6:35
04 Had Me A Real Good Time  6:15
05 Losing You  6:21

10)  28th September 1971 ‘Top Gear’  Maida Vale, Studio #4, London
Host: John Peel.
01 Stay With Me
02 Too Bad  3:42
03 That's All You Need/Plynth 8:03
04 Miss Judy’s Farm
05 Maggie May
Note: Broadcast on the 6th October.

11) 26th October 1971  ‘Sounds For Saturday - The Music Of The Faces’, TV (BBC2)
01 Three Button Hand Me Down
02 Maybe I’m Amazed
03 Too Much Woman-Street Fighting Man-Too Much Woman
04 Miss Judy’s Farm
05 Love In Vain
06 Stay With Me
07 I’m Losing You
Note: Broadcast 1st April 1972.
Total 43m.17s.

12) 17th February 1972 "In Concert", Paris Theater, London
01 Three Button Hand Me Down 5:00
02 Miss Judy's Farm 4:04
03 Last Orders Please 2:54
04 Devotion  6:32
05 Too Bad  3:42
06 That's All You Need/Plynth 8:03
07 Stay With Me  4:18

13) 8th February 1973 "In Concert", Paris Theatre, London
01. Silicone Grown 2:54
02. Cindy Incidentally 2:45
03. Angel 4:39
04. Memphis, Tennessee 4:11
05. True Blue 4:25
06. I'd Rather Go Blind 5:15
07. You're My Girl (I Don't Want To Discuss It) 5:27
08. Twistin' The Night Away 4:30
09. It's All Over Now 3:48
10. Miss Judy's Farm 4:03
11. Maybe I'm Amazed 5:24
12. Three Button Hand Me Down 5:17
13. I'm Losing You 6:25

14) 12th February 1973 'Radio 1 Club', Paris Theatre, London
01 Cindy Incidentally
02 My Fault
03 Borstal Boys
Note: Broadcast 1st March 1973
Total 9m.10s.

15) 1st April 1973 ‘In Concert’*, Paris Theatre, London
Host: John Peel.
01 Silicone Grown
02 Cindy Incidentally
03 Memphis, Tennessee
04 If I’m On The Late Side
05 My Fault
06 The Stealer
07 Borstal Boys
08 True Blue
09 Twistin’ The Night Away
10 Miss Judy’s Farm
11 Bad 'N' Ruin
12 Too Bad
Note: Broadcast on the 21st April.
Total 48m.05s.


This post is dedicated to the great John Peel. The Faces were Peel's favourite band in the early 70s and he features as MC on so many of these concert sessions.





More on stranger than known
Led Zeppelin at Southampton University 1973

Parallax - The Pink Floyd BBC Sessions

Ry Cooder and Little Feat live - Rampant Slide Zone Syncopation 

The Rolling Stones' finest hour - "Get Yer Leeds Lungs Out"

 

Jonathan Miller's Psychedelic Alice in Wonderland

 

Shown on BBC TV just after Christmas 1966 Jonathan Miller's Alice in Wonderland caused a similar media furor to that of the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour exactly one year later. The Daily Mail called the film X rated and it was even seen as an attack on family values. This is not therefore the Alice in Wonderland of Disney or more recent adaptations for children. This was made for adults and most of the characters are played by actors in standard Victorian dress. It also explored some of the more philosophical and existentialist themes that are often ignored in other versions of the story. Alice asks "Who am I?" and is lost in world where nothing is real.

In other words, this is 1966 and Alice is going down to Strawberry Fields...

Seen now, this film can be viewed as an evocation of the same ethereal spacey English summer afternoon that The Pink Floyd would explore on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, or The Beatles on Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds and Strawberry Fields Forever.  A multitude of other British psychedelically inspired bands were also about to trip through these same fields during 1967's "summer of love" which was just round the corner. The soundtrack features the sitar of Ravi Shankar which also imbues the film with a humid air of psychedelic sensory abandonment.


US band Jefferson Airplane probably recorded the most famous ode to Alice and the psychedelic exploration of inner space with their White Rabbit but, unlike their American counterparts who took acid and headed off into both inner and outer space, British hippies took hallucinogenics and were transported back to a kind of idealized magical summer afternoon of childhood innocence. There is a very strong pastoral influence in British psychedelia which can be heard in many recordings from this period. Try watching this film with the sound off and listen to the first couple of Traffic, albums or Donovan, The Zombies, The Incredible String Band, Sgt Pepper, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, The Rolling Stones' 1967 singles Dandelion and Ruby Tuesday as well as parts of Satanic Majesties, or any decent late 60s psychedelic compilation; Mojo magazine's Acid Drops, Spacedust & Flying Saucers for instance, and you will hear the mood that is evoked by the film is also that which is explored by the music of this era

As this film was shown on TV in late December 1966 it's no stretch of the imagination to suggest that this film must have had an influence on the development of British psychedelia in the months that followed.

Miller's directing style is slow and photographic. Scenes appear at times to be staged for a Victorian photo album.The film also features some of Miller's acting friends and acquaintances and can perhaps also be seen as part of that surreal strand in British humour that was prevalent in the 60s. Peter Sellers is the King of Hearts and two of Miller's fellow cast members from Beyond the Fringe, Peter Cook and Alan Bennett are the Mad Hatter and the Mouse. Steptoe and Son's Wilfrid Brambell plays the White Rabbit, Leo McKern (who would go on to play No.2 in The Prisoner) is in drag as the Ugly Duchess and even Malcolm Muggeridge (the journalist and broadcaster famous for accusing Monty Python's Life of Brian for  blasphemy) is in it as the Gryphon. Coincidentally, it also features Monty Python's Eric Idle as an uncredited member of the Caucus Race.
.
So if you are in the mood for a trip back to the pastoral psychedelia of Grantchester Meadows or Strawberry Fields Forever then follow the white rabbit below.
But make sure you're home in time for tea...


Jonathan Miller's Alice in Wonderland (1966)

• Directed by: Jonathan Miller
• Produced by: Jonathan Miller
• Written by: Lewis Carroll (novel); Jonathan Miller (teleplay)
• Music by: Ravi Shankar
• Cinematography: Dick Bush
• Editing by: Pam Bosworth
• Release date: 28 December 1966

Note on location

The scenes of Alice running down corridors of wide open windows at the beginning of the film were shot at the now demolished Royal Victoria Military Hospital in Netley near Southampton. Part of the building still exists as a museum and the stairs Alice runs down can be seen from the entrance. The museum commemorates the old hospital which was originally built in 1863 and  was used for military personnel during various wars of Empire and the 1st World War. Psychiatrist R.D. Laing worked there in the 1950s when he was in the army.


The grounds are now a country park. I've often been down there walking the dog. There is a duck pond and fields and woods at the back. And on humid soporific summer days, when there's no one else around, it can still cast a spell...

Bella at Netley © David Mainwood

More
Jonathan Miller's Alice In Wonderland (1966): A Suitable Case for Treatment
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01439685.2011.572607#.Ub7xwJySIx5




Now try this
Parallax - The Pink Floyd and the BBC
http://strangerthanknown.blogspot.com.es/2013/02/parallax-pink-floyd-and-bbc.html

The Rolling Stones' finest hour - "Get Yer Leeds Lungs Out"

This hour long recording, originally made for the BBC at Leeds University on 13th March 1971, and bootlegged in the 1970s on vinyl as "Get Yer Leeds Lungs Out", is easily the finest unissued live music by the Rolling Stones. In fact the last 45 minutes from Midnight Rambler on is arguably some of the best music they ever recorded.

After the hysteria and drug busts of the mid 1960s and the death of Brian Jones still overshadowing the band, the Rolling Stones returned to touring in 1969 with new guitarist Mick Taylor in tow. Taylor, fresh from John Mayall's band, added a virtuosity to the Stones' music which put them on a par with contemporaries like Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton and other blues wailing guitar heroes of the day. The Stones were now a band with a blues maturity they had previously, in their mid 60s pop incarnation, lacked.

The 5 years which Taylor spent with the band can be seen as their most artistically creative (Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street, Goats Head Soup, and It’s Only Rock’n’Roll were all recorded during his tenure). As a live band, they were at their tightest and most energetic and Mick Jagger was at his youthful demonic peak. The 1969 American tour saw the band reinvent themselves as “the Greatest Rock’n’Roll Band in the World” and although terminating in the disastrous Altamont festival, the tour was highly successful and put the band back on the rock center-stage along with Dylan, the Who and the recently separated Beatles.

The Rolling Stones played Leeds University in the spring of 1971 on the penultimate date of their first UK tour since 1966. Recorded in the Refectory in front of (presumably) less than a thousand slightly stoned hippy students, it has an intimacy and informality that the later Rolling Stones' arena shows lack. It sounds like a band in a club. Jagger talks to rather than shouts at the audience. The Watts / Wyman / Richards rhythm section has the funky looseness soon to be recorded on Exile On Main Street and there is a tight rhythm guitar / lead guitar interplay between Richards and Taylor, both of whom instinctively know when to leave space for the other. Taylor’s playing is arguably better on the '72 American tour however on that tour the band tended to pay everything too fast and a lot of the funk present here was lost. This is a recording of a band with a virtuoso lead player who is however playing within, and functioning as a part of the band, rather than in front of it, as Eric Clapton, Alvin Lee or Johnny Winter would have done. It isn’t about the guitar player it’s about the music. It’s about the “roll” as well as the “rock” as Keef said. This is a prime recording of the "roll" in the Rolling Stones.

And this is the dirtiest, rawest, rudest guitar sound Keith Richards ever achieved. His amp sounds as though the speakers have gaping holes in them. Midnight Rambler burns and crackles and Brown Sugar is far more incendiary here than on the single version. The flick knife intro precedes a guitar sound which is the aural equivalent of rusty razor blades. Jagger still sounds as though he is interested in what he is singing and makes an effort to put some life in the words as opposed to the breathless barking and yelping he would be making on the 1972 tour and for quite some time thereafter. The version of Satisfaction here is slower than the single and has a much funkier arrangement that seems to owe a lot to James Brown and Otis Redding. However the overwhelming climax here is Chuck Berry's Let it Rock. It is everything you ever wanted from the Rolling Stones. Richards and Watts appear to take inspiration from the opening lines "In The Heat Of The Day Down In Mobile Alabama, working on the railroad with the steel driving hammer" and pound and hammer their way through the song to bust through into a moment of true magical inspiration when the band takes off and appears to become energized and overtaken by some higher power. Their own momentum overtakes them and it's the song itself that seems to be playing the band. I swear about half way through they all sound like they are levitating...

It'll leave you breathless.

I have no idea how often I have listened to the last 45 minutes or so of this show over the years. For me Midnight Rambler through to Let It Rock it is the quintessence of the Rolling Stones. It has all the rawness, grace, swagger and danger of what rock music was supposed to be about in the early '70s. The Stones were soon to lose their ability to conjure up those qualities but should anyone now too young to know ever ask you who were the Rolling Stones and what was all the fuss about...
Play them this.


Note; The track list for the hour long BBC broadcast is Dead Flowers / Stray Cat Blues / Love In Vain / Midnight Rambler / Bitch / Honky Tonk Women / Satisfaction / Little Queenie / Brown Sugar / Street Fighting Man / Let It Rock (the band opened with Jumping Jack Flash however the early part of the show is missing)

Midnight Rambler starts below at 14:45