Never cared for the "new" Quo line-up. Too much of a cabaret for me.
But now they've announced a reunion tour and album.
With Lancaster and Coghlan.
http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/news/classic-quo-are-back/
Heysannah, quosannah, sannah, sannah, sannah, Quo!!!
I will die a content man after having seen them again. No one, absolutely no one plays root note eights with the same pummeling urgency as Alan Lancaster. And I always missed his voice - on the legendary Quo Live album fro 77 he sings the majority of the material, Rossi being relegated to the hits with his pop voice, Lancaster (and in part Parfitt) doing the rockier stuff.
Großartige Neuigkeiten!!!
Rossi has always been an unusually frank interview partner, what he said to Classic Rock is no exception.
Now that's tempting... 8)
OK I keep hearing about these guys and apparently I'm the last person on earth to hear any of their music. ("But I'm hearin' good things, maaan..") What's a good starting point for them? Is this just another case of "music industry shenanigans" that I've never heard them, or is it just because I'm from rural Wisconsin?
I inherited my father-in-law's record collection and I've been going on kind of a "70's music binge" lately. It'd be nice to add some more I'm not familiar with to the pile.
boogie down with the quo! i liked dog of two heads myself...
Quote from: daan on June 26, 2012, 11:12:49 PM
OK I keep hearing about these guys and apparently I'm the last person on earth to hear any of their music. ("But I'm hearin' good things, maaan..") What's a good starting point for them? Is this just another case of "music industry shenanigans" that I've never heard them, or is it just because I'm from rural Wisconsin?
I inherited my father-in-law's record collection and I've been going on kind of a "70's music binge" lately. It'd be nice to add some more I'm not familiar with to the pile.
You haven't heard of them because you're in the US. They're a one-hit wonder in the US: Pictures of Matchstick Men, from late 1967 - early 1968. And that's apparently not representative of their music since.
When someone starts a discussion here about them, you usually won't find any Americans joining in. We don't know 'em. Probably won't find them in your father-in-law's collection.
They probably don't tour with these outfits any more either. ;D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQkD-L9EMuk
Imagine Herman's Hermits morphing into Grand Funk Railroad in the early seventies - this is what happened to Quo who went from singles pop to live high energy rhythm & blues boogie rock around the same time. The comparison to Foghat is not entirely without merit.
When we Yuropeans talk about Classic Quo, we mean this here (even though that clip from 83/84 already lacks the original drummer from the classic seventies line up):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoXweFcFM74&feature=related
Between 71 and 77 they were one of the top rock bands in Europe (and incidentally Australia) who ruled the rock festival circuit.
Not very representative for their impact on the Dutch airwaves Uwe....
Their biggest hits in The Netherlands were:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKe2OfXLxuc
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr3JO0MhFTY
and the inevitable soccer stadium rocker:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI1KF65beSc
Too many hits here when they were in their prime but Down Down was the only number 1 they ever had... surprised myself with that one ...
Two I've always loved...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_mHSGlyRa0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4wNdFppo44
This was a popular stage number...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyvKX5f3rno
Quo always suffered with the 3 chord wonders tag, or if you have one you've got em all, but they were very much a Brit institution with the denim-clad hordes...
Quote from: Basvarken on June 27, 2012, 10:34:01 AM
Not very representative for their impact on the Dutch airwaves Uwe....
I chose a Lancaster sung song because I always liked his voice best and the album on which he wrote the most - Quo from 1973 - is my favorite (and Rossi doesn't like it because it's too heavy for him). Rossi sang 80% of the singles, Parfitt the other 20%, but live throughout the seventies, Lancaster sang most of the material - the concert classix so to say. Of course, Quo's greastest worldwide hit was this here, a Fogerty penned song, Lancaster deemed too lightweight, but which Rossi wanted to cover, he was proven right as regards commercial prowess:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x62ncFPS6o
The Status Quo feud between Rossi and Lancaster is also a musical one, Rossi sees Quo as a pop band (and turned it into one after he ousted Lancaster) and essentially doesn't like like hard rock, much less minor chords and dark or "too serious" music in general and Lancaster is the other extreme, he always wanted Quo to be perceived as this earthy "serious rock band" and despised Rossi's novelty and even c&w leanings:
Status Quo in Lancaster mode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smw1UuK4SXs
Rossi drove Lancaster mad with stuff like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aozLfWW0pDU
i should like quo given my fondness for british boogie and blues rock but i don't and here is why. imo they lack the blusey element the other bands have so i hear more of a standard rock band then a blues/rock/blues thing. but most of all i find their guitar tones weak and a bit thin sounding. not enough power if you will.
or maybe it's the fact that francis said nothing to me when i saw them in 1974. ;D
The Foghat reference is very audible. In the early 70's a friend of mine was a French exchange student, he went on and on about Qou. I have not heard some of these songs in many years. I noticed the bass player in the Rain clip playing a mirrored pg Mustang, a influence on Steve Harris perhaps?
yeah foghat is there but maybe not enough so.
"or maybe it's the fact that francis said nothing to me when i saw them in 1974"
:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
Ah, the twin Tele sound, not fat and thick and sustain-rich or very distorted, true. And you probably find the blues missing because Rossi tends to solo in major keys giving Quo poppy/folky charm but not dark blues feeling.
Rossi has explained that after their early sixty pop hits the band felt marooned in the British blues boom and not taken serious by its comtemporaries, they were seen as a singles band in the coming era of the album LP. People would drool over old US Delta and Chicago blues recordings "and we had no idea what it was, we didn't know any of that music, not any of the great black blues artists" says Rossi (an Italian immigrants son). So off they go and buy blues records and listen to them, trying to understand the music and be hip. It's learning by doing and copying and Lancaster has said that "since Rossi basically did not know what he was doing on the guitar fretboard he started playing solos in major keys where any other guitarist would have played minor, he wasn't even aware of it, it just became his sound and style, and of course it made us more accessible to people".
... and Foghat took the British blues boom back to where it came from... that was always the irony of it for me, being that they came fro two Brit blues bands... Rod Price was even Kossoff's replacement in Black Cat Bones before teaming up with 3/4's of Savoy Brown...
Rossi's family were in the ice-cream (van) business around London...
(http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5023/5613998634_b04abf0b7a_z.jpg)
all very acurate observations so far IMO.
The band didnt need to have thick (phat) sounding guitars when they had such a thunderously big rhythm section in Lancaster and Coghlan. Uwe is right, the best album IMO is the Live one from the late 70's. Killer version of "45 hundred times" on that album. The studio album from around that time "Blue for You" had some great tracks too, like Rain, and Mystery song.
Can't agree more, Bret... can't agree more...
It's a mystery to me.
Hi Bret, we've missed you.
I know you Yankees don't care about Status Quo, but what the heck;
Here's a video of them getting ready to perform in the original line up again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9tqKCWrqvY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic-azX4N-uk
This is heart-moving, Rob, vielen Dank, where may I kiss you first?
No one, absolutely no one plays root note eights like Alan does. Man, has he turned frail, he used to be the most muscular one among them. Hope his MS condition allows him to tour next year. I'll see them wherever they play. Who knows, Francis might still spot that kid from the Wiesbaden audience in 1976 ...
I saw the original line-up just the once as a kid, and they looked like this............
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY96gAVjz_c
....... this song is still a dance-floor filler for any UK pub-band even now, it was their regular starter for a while & I believe is again now.
Alan wanted to carry on in this vein but Francis especially wanted to move with the times & escape from the 3-chord-wonder tag that they'd been given in the media. I think it was Margeurita Time which was the clincher for Alan, he refused to appear on Top Of The Pops to play it & they had Slade's Jimmy as a dep, who was appearing on the same show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oChnHlBnpo
There was another single around the same time where they had a life-size puppet on strings instead of Alan.
The "new" Quo is/was a cabaret band, Beach Boys covers etc. No matter how they dressed it up it was still Francis & Rick and A.N. Others in the band. But they have such a huge live fan-base that they're still a massive draw.
Quo have always been big in Australia. But, I guess they really need the money ....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdV4pr4frd4
That's really sad; The two of them are very good at sending each other up so I'd like to hope it's something along those lines - but I doubt it!
As one YT comment goes, it's as bad as the time that Noddy Holder made their classic far Far Away into a "Youngs" frozen fish advert. Their song to do what they like with, how they expect to keep any cred afterwards is beyond me.
Thanks Dave :)
Mark, I've been dealing with Coles a lot lately as we have finally managed to get them to stock our product. The marketing dept are saying that the Down Down campaign has been the most successful marketing strategy they have ever run.
Quote from: Freuds_Cat on November 07, 2012, 04:10:11 PM
Mark, I've been dealing with Coles a lot lately as we have finally managed to get them to stock our product.
That's easy - just make sure your wholesale price is the lowest. That's how Coles and Woolworths' precurement departments decide what gets stocked.
Thankfully and amazingly that is no longer the case
Quote from: Aussie Mark on November 07, 2012, 02:57:13 PM
Quo have always been big in Australia. But, I guess they really need the money ....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdV4pr4frd4
Love that vid - it's cute. Quo were never above making the mickey of themselves, I find that extremely likable. I find earnestness grating. What distinguishes us from animals is the ability to laugh.
Quote from: godofthunder on June 27, 2012, 05:03:26 PMI noticed the bass player in the Rain clip playing a mirrored pg Mustang, a influence on Steve Harris perhaps?
I always figured that was Phil Lynott's influence, but I guess we'd have to ask Mr. Harris. ;D
Lancaster played a Mustang as early as 1970 - whether that had a mirror pickguard I honestly don't remember. Eric Bloom had a mirror on the back of his "stun guitar" before anybody else had come up with the reflection idea.
That Backwater vid is so painfully honest ... Kudos to them for leaving everything like that and not patching things up, it's from the Alan Parker documentary about them, an official release. It has hesitant singing and playing, you can tell that Francis Rossi is not really comfortable anymore playing that kind of synchronized riffy stuff that was prevalent on the Quo album (and makes it my favorite, songs were mostly written by Lancaster and Parfitt on it), Parfitt's second vocals are off, there are awfully cocked up chord changes everywhere and Rossi can barely pull off the solo which sounds out of tune at first ... the list goes on.
But no worries - when their tour starts next year, they'll have it down pat again. :mrgreen: And this is how Backwater used to sound:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x6LeNhdR1Q
Quote from: uwe on November 08, 2012, 10:09:06 AM
Lancaster played a Mustang as early as 1970
Like here for eg. I remember when I saw the "new" line up they did the extended version of this & I was among a seething head-banging mass at the front being carried around in waves of people; spilt beer, sweat and damp denim & leather...........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLnKd0o2HXM
I have tickets for the Wembley gig! The regular tour with two dates at the Hammersmith Apollo sold out within 24 hours, some gigs within minutes! Who'd have thought, some people do seem to remember Alan and John.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0PI_LzUhq8&feature=related
Dear Brethren, I'm - as I write - in Row 7 of Wembley Arena awaiting the return of the magnificent Frantic Four!!!
Have fun! I hope Lancaster is in better shape than the previous shows...
Quote from: uwe on June 27, 2012, 09:10:22 AM
Imagine Herman's Hermits morphing into Grand Funk Railroad in the early seventies - this is what happened to Quo who went from singles pop to live high energy rhythm & blues boogie rock around the same time. The comparison to Foghat is not entirely without merit.
Foghat, yeah - Grand Funk, not so much. GFR, even at their most commercial, were far more than boogie rock - simply by virtue of Farner's voice, and while they may have had a couple of tunes that worshipped at the Altar Of The Suspended Chord, the songwriting was a little more... 3 dimensional?
Dear Brethren, as I type, I'm sitting in a slightly slumped position on my sofa, with a glass of merlot...
Enjoy the show Quo...
I expect a full report... at least forty-five hundred lines... ;D
Quote from: uwe on November 08, 2012, 10:09:06 AM
And this is how Backwater used to sound:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x6LeNhdR1Q
Back in 1990 that video was my first exposure to the real Status Quo opposed to the "Army Now" stuff. "Backwater" is one of my favs and all the albums from "Dog Of Two Head" to "Live" are great.
How did you like the show Uwe?
It was moving and painful at the same time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4mOgq3-fpM
They played basically a mid- and early seventies set (even Rocking all over the World did not make the song list) and the sound was excellent, Wembley Arena full and the (more than middle-aged) audience lapped it up.
I've seen Quo three times before (once with and twice post-Lancaster) and if I have one impression from this concert then it is how Parfitt's forceful and accurate rhythm guitar propels/propulses the band forward and how everything is arranged around this force of nature. He is Keith Richards, Malcolm Young and Johnny Ramone combined. And at the same time totally Rick Parfitt.
Rossi (who has matured as a lead guitarist and has a more commanding tone in his solos these days than he used to have) unselfishly took a backseat in the set, most of the singing was done by Parfitt and Lancaster (who for all his health issues was in fine voice, his gravelly tone hasn't aged a bit). There wasn't even Caroline for Rossi to sing. It's no secret that Francis doesn't really like hard rock nor does he consider himself to be a hard rocker, much of the schism of the band in the late seventies and early eighties had to do with Lancaster's refusal to follow Rossi in branching out in pop territory (which gave Status Quo hit singles, but a loss of credibility with their original seventies audience). And watching him playing the very hard rock arrangements from Quo's quintet of monolithic albums until the mid seventies (Piledriver, Hello, Quo, On the Level and Blue for You), I detected parallels to Eric Clapton doing the Cream reunion, Rossi is doing this more to close a chapter with Coughlan and Lancaster (and help them with their pensions no doubt) than to gratify his own musical tastes. That doesn't speak against the man, he played and sang well, but his heart is somewhere else (Parfitt on the other hand was in full seventies mode and probably sang the lion's share of the evening).
Coughlan drums with Quo like no other drummer does though probably all his successors know more chops than he does, but his drumming just complements the sound in the way Bill Ward comlemented Sabbath, Criss complemented Kiss, Ringo the Beatles or Watts the Stones. He fluffed the intro break of Junior's Wailing right at the beginning (will kick himself for it, the gig was being filmed and recorded for posterity, but I'm sure they have evened it out by the time the DVD hits the stores! ;) ).
Which brings us to Alan Lancaster, the bass player I patterned my early style on most. Alan was all smiles that evening and relished being before the old Quo audience who loved him for simply being there. He sang well and forcefully. But ... the man is health-wise clearly not well. For all his denials about suffering from MS, if it's not MS then it must be something equally terrible. Lancaster was always the most muscular with Quo, the most agile, the one with the macho moves on stage. On Sunday he could hardly move at all - think Mick Mars - and stalked actoss the stage bravely but less than confidently. He's frail, severely hunched, the whole right side of his body seems to have motoric issues, the pick was taped to his right hand (and he would sometimes relocate it with his left hand which is in obviously better motoric shape), his picking movements are stiff and awkward and while his Mustang bass was mercifully mixed between Coughlan's bass drum and Parfitt's deep chugging rhythm guitar so that the casual listner would not notice anything, his bass playing can no longer throb like it used to (he used to be mainly a down stroker and was fast at it), he now strums his bass Phil Lynott style (but less agilely) which is ok to fill the music with deep frequencies but doesn't pulse anymore. No comparison to the forcefulness of, say, Rhino, his successor in Quo. It's hard for me to write this as Alan was visibly (and deservedly) happy and proud about the gig, but if his motorics deteriorate further, he won't be able to do this for very long. When he sat - together with Parfitt - on the drum riser while Rossi was crooning Most of the Time, I was worried he might not be able to get up again and sure enough, in a touching moment, Parfitt helped him a little as inconspiciously as possible. Likewise at the end of the encore - and Alan's picking strength was already waning, you could see and hear it - you could see that the second he was behind the curtain, someone was by his side to support the poor guy.
Physically, Parfitt and Rossi walked the very fine line between doing the old "Quo Row" routines then and now (especially Parfitt - four heart bypasses or not - was muscular in his playing and movements) and not doing it too often so Alan's illness-induced inertia would not be too evident. Sometimes the two would even take him in the middle of their Quo formation, but the Quo member that used to be the most agile and athletic on stage can no longer move to the music.
I just hope that Alan is not in pain. Bitch of a disease that is. But I'm happy that he has/had the chance to do this once more/one final time with the band where his lifeblood is in. Unlike Rossi who sometimes muses about life outside Quo, Alan lives and breathes Status Quo and very little else, musically at least. In more than 30 years after his departure from Quo he never found another musical home (let's forget his various stints with the - Aussie - Party Boys which are basically a tribute band living off the glories of its members mined with other, previous bands).
Quote from: uwe on March 19, 2013, 07:05:15 AM
It was moving and painful at the same time.
Kind of like bad Mexican food. :P
Thank you for the detailed observations Uwe. From the videos that I saw from the Wolverhampton and Hammersmith gigs I was worried about Lancaster's health too. He staggered from the drumriser to his mic. And he seemed to be constantly checking and relocating the pick in his right hand.
Parfitt looked fierce. Keeping (what is left of) the power up.
It's a true shame (on me) that I never got to see them during their heyday; purely my fault; but the part of me that wishes I did is also very glad I didn't go on Sunday...
I saw Quo 3 times pre 79, all with that great lineup. They never disappointed.
I also saw Alan with the Party boys a couple of times too. To call them "basically a tribute band living off the glories of its members mined with other, previous bands" is quite harsh. Although, I can understand this view coming from someone outside Australia and New Zealand. Some of the bands that are big here are not even known in the US or Europe yet will pull bigger crowds than international acts. Cold Chisel and Skyhooks comes to mind. The Party Boys did do covers yes, but every member that walked through the revolving door that was the Party boys, was bona fide Australian (or international) rock royalty. Bias from me maybe, I'm Australian and are friends with three of them. Give them credit for playing a lot of songs that were originally played or written by one or two members when in the originating band.
Party Boys were not just a tribute band or a cover band as such. They did write some of the songs on the self titled album. They were something different to all the other band formula's going around at that time. No Youtube video that I've ever seen does them justice. And man they kicked serious arse live. They were the real deal IMO. Like I said I can understand Uwe's London/LA journo viewpoint but The party boys were not an international band.
In this case I would say Context is everything.
"Like I said I can understand Uwe's London/LA journo viewpoint ..."
Ouch!!! Forgive me, my antepodean friend!
For the record, even though I've unfortunately not been there yet (which needs to be corrected) I love both Australia and NZ and do not think that either is the end of the world. I think the Skyhooks are brilliant as are Midnight Oil, I like what the Finn brothers have done in their various bands (how many people outside of Aus or NZ are like me the proud owner of a Split Enz CD, not just Crowded House!), AC/DC is a rock benchmark, I have Little River Band CDs, Bob Daisley, the Bee Gees, Graham Bonnet etc ... My daughter went to school in NZ for half a year. I even share the roof with four Australians (one spike-tail monitor and three blue-tongue skinks/lizards). I adore your country just for its reptile wealth!!! But I rather see the real Pink Floyd than The Australian Pink Floyd, never mind how much they have perfected their tribute act.
I have a CD of Alan Lancaster post-Quo material that features some Party Boys stuff and it is well-played and produced, the original compositions are able AOR. I'm sure that they could deliver the goods live, but they were neither a permanent fixture in Alan's musical life nor did they from their very concept strive to be original.
Will it console you that I even have a Kylie double CD and think that "Confide" is a classic track?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg2cSnVs5Tk
And I never liked LA when I was there either (in all fairness: it's been some time, late eighties). Not at all an organically grown urban city from a European viewpoint.
Australia deserves to exist just for this brilliant version here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6yupjjQ32s
Deep Purple have used it as opening music to their concerts (or as when the lights go back on) and even have done a jazz version of SotW that rips off Rolf's arrangement.
As brilliant as Rolf is, just like Steve Morse spending more time in DP than Blackmore ever did, Rolf has lived most of his life in the UK. Most younger Australians only have a vague idea of who he is at best. People here still think of Kylie as the chick from Neighbors (TV soap opera) who made it big in music. She too has lived more of her life in the UK than in Australia.
Sigh, it's an inherent urge in man to attempt to escape from prison islands.
(Running from the boomerangs and cat-calls ...)
Frohe Ostern, liebe Australier!
Based upon recent news the UK can keep him :-\
Keep who?
him :popcorn:
(http://thedirt666.weebly.com/uploads/2/5/3/3/2533691/1267957_orig.jpg)
Whew! I thought you meant HIM!
Rolf
Quote from: Freuds_Cat on March 29, 2013, 06:25:18 AM
Based upon recent news the UK can keep him :-\
I had to look it up to see what you were talking about. Sure hope it's not true.
Wait a minute! How many HIM's are ther? Is there not only one HIM?
The "him" Bret is talking about would be Rolf Harris. Apparently he's been arrested in connection with the Jimmy Savile child sex scandal.
http://theneedleblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/30/rolf-harris-spends-christmas-at-the-priory/
Ok, that might put some of his work in perspective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmL3m2zcoOI
But let's not jump to conclusions, in this day and age the child molesting allegation against a male, whether true or not, is tantamount to a nuclear attack. You can neither run nor hide.
Maybe "Jake the Peg" with his extra leg?
http://youtu.be/KJleJbn9G6Y