Music videos that feature Thunderbirds

[uwe]

Tommy had that terse tone I liked. He was as un-Blackmore as you can get, but the first time I heard him I thought: This guy is different. BTW, they rated each other even though both were not without arrogance as regards other guitarists.

Private Eyes is still one of my favorite rock albums and then there is of course always this great rendition:

[Highlander]

Travelling south from Scotland... Saturday Rock Show on Radio 1... heard this for the first time as a brand-new release... easily my favourite song of his, damaged hand or not...
Still remember it coming over the radio that he was gone, all too soon...

[uwe]

It was a great song of his for ze Purps to cover and they did it swell (if you listen carefully to the harder tracks of Private Eyes you can hear how the "Purple Wall of Sound" also left a lasting imprint with Tommy, his backing band sounds much heavier on Private Eyes than on Teaser). I remember ordering Last Concert in Japan from the UK at the time (1977) from a dealer who had procured some copies of the Japan only release (it was an NME ad) and sending him - pre PayPal daze, much less did student Uwe have a credit card (or his parents) - the necessary GBP in bills I exchanged at the bank! Everyone laughed - "They'll never send it, you know!" (they hadn't even mentioned the possibility of international shipping, I just doubled or tripled what they had asked for UK shipping), but send they did it, nicely packaged too (to this day: danke!). I almost wetted myself at receipt. "Errr, you have a package from England!?" my mom welcomed me after school. I was mighty proud having it at the time - it took years until it saw a European release and all my friends loved it, especially Wild Dogs and the You Keep on Moving and Smoke on the Water versions on it. Still have it too. Plus the cool Japanese sheet inside which I couldn't read a word of!!!

That concert is today regarded as one of the better ones of the Mark IV line up, never mind Tommy's bad-shot-of-heroin-afflicted-arm at the time. He grooved! And Glenn Hughes was obviously in seventh heaven playing with him after years with aloof Ritchie and that enthusiasm rubbed off on the whole band. Some Peruvian produce might have helped of course, "Marching Powder" wasn't only another Tommy Bolin song DP would perform.

[Highlander]

Now as an (possible) odd quirk, it would not surprise me if we both bought it from the same shop at the same time... wasn't in Hammersmith in West London was it...? if you recall...? only place that I knew that stocked it at the time...

[uwe]

It's too long ago, Ken, but it might have been. I believe it was a London address.

[Highlander]

Great shop... walk out the front door, look left, and there was the Hammersmith Odeon...!

[Stjofön Big]

This here combination could be seen as a little bit odd. Only goes to show the versatility of the T-bird:

[4stringer77]

Just found this vid of Felix Pappalardi playing his Thunderbird.

This is a better version of the audio which reveals a very woody sounding Thunderbird II probably strung with flats.

and here's the singer, Mountain's drummer, Corky Laing talking about the bass. I think it's evident he mixed the bass up with the EB1 regarding it's sound. Funny how he says him and Leslie thought it sounded like an elephant fart and he preferred the kind of tone Duck Dunn was getting with his P bass instead.

You'll have to watch the last vid on youtube it seems.

[uwe]

Do Epiphone TB Pros count too? Played by middle-aged Slade-adoring punks? Jake?

[Dave W]

Do Epiphone TB Pros count too? Played by middle-aged Slade-adoring punks? Jake?

I'm not going to listen to that, and I've never listened to more than a couple of Slade songs, but The Vibrators were always considered a punk band (Automatic Lover, Stiff Little Fingers). You just said in another thread that there's no connection whatsoever between Jim Lea and punk bass. So which is it?

[uwe]

Read the other post again in full, Dave! I was initially paraphrasing there Jake's daring hypothesis. Before proceeding to dismember it in Blitzkrieg (Bop) fashion. You know, the ole Hegel/Marx thing, Thesis - Antithesis - Synthesis.

If Slade had nothing to do with punk, then the US had nothing to do with the UK and you're all Spaniards really.

I had valiantly hoped that the irony of a statement such as

"Jim Lea and punk bass playing really is like maple and syrup, there is no connection whatsoever ..."

would not go unnoticed to more seasoned eyes, but of course I should have flagged the obvious contradiction via italics or somesuch ...

Of course, there is always the chance that Jake, who should be more attuned to his home products, might have picked up on the caustic nature of my statement a tad bit earlier. 

Humo(u)r is a lot like sex at highschool, not everybody gets it at first, but the eventual experience ... tends to be of revelatory nature!!!  

[Dave W]

I knew you were trying to get some point across, it just didn't make any sense. Lost in translation from arena rock to punk.

[uwe]

You and your little filing compartments. Weren't The Clash arena rock too? The Damned as spoofy as Slade. Didn't Television's Marquee Moon feature more harmonic guitar leads than an Allman Brothers and a Wishbone Ash album put together?

[Granny Gremlin]

Uwe, you are really trying to get a rise out of me aren't you. 

Weren't The Clash arena rock too?

Nope; playing a few arena shows (in the age of arena shows) towards the end/pinnacle of your career does not make you arena rock.  ... Just like how the KLF were "stadium house" without ever really playing a stadium (at least not before that genre was defined, and they had moved on).

The Damned as spoofy as Slade.

Again, nope.  I don't recall Slade ever singing about topics even remotely as serious as LGBT issues, youth violence, and the cult of celebrity as a social disease.  The Damned's spoofyness was limited to their wardrobe and even then, they did it better and with more taste and political statement than Slade ever cared about (see above re LGBT issues and cross-reference with Captain Sensible's drag). ... also a lot of sarcasm.

Didn't Television's Marquee Moon feature more harmonic guitar leads than an Allman Brothers and a Wishbone Ash album put together?

I doubt this is even possible ... and Marquee Moon is rather slim on the guitar overdubs - they just didn't have the budget for that much studio time.  They were also using Jazzmasters vs Les Pauls -  they just sound like that - more trebly, less low end beef and richer in harmonic content (see also Sonic Youth).

But it's all rock, so of course some things done by classic/prog bands would also be done by punks (not just the windmills). It's not that punk can't do anything classic rock did, more so that it had to do it different - more or over the top for example, as here - 2 guitars both playing lead and no rythmm/riffage (very unlike the Allmans and Wishbone; very blues rocky with melodic leads and synched instruments vs TV's quirky jazziness with dueling minimalist leads).

[uwe]

Don't get me started on The Clash who were too chicken shit to venture out of their hotel in Belfast without bodyguard protection when Rory Gallagher had toured Northern Ireland and Ireland a few years earlier while the bombs were going off left and right. Nonchalantly and without police protection.

The Clash were a bunch of poseurs. It's the one thing David Lee Roth and Johnny Lydon agree on.