Do we really need THIS tribute album?

[Lightyear]

Das Boot(y)

Das UBER Boot(y)*


*With apologies to my European bretheren for lacking the Germanic font set and the missing umlaut

[Freuds_Cat]

"Take This" came out in '85 - I have it on vinyl. Not a stellar effort. That was in the interim between two BadCo incarnations.

Yep I got that wrong. the CD release was 98. Should have realised because I'd seen the album before 98. Thx for that.

[uwe]

I just bought the new Bad Co Live triple CD - from an April live gig in ole Blimey. And the triple Live CD from the Mott the Hoople reunion shows at Hammersmith. Both feature Ralphs (who's not as extrovert a guitarist as either Paul Kossoff or Ariel Bender), it will be interesting to hear him well-weathered in the different line-ups. Don't hit me, but I never thought him a brilliant guitarist, he is sparse and does what the song calls for. Which was perfect in the Bad Co setting and fine with Mott though Ariel Bender added more guitar hero extravagance on stage to the band (while being clearly the less competent guitarist in the studio as even Hunter has said).

That said, Herr Ralphs at least came up with his own rhythm parts while the much heralded Herr Kossoff had real issues holding a beat even when not on drugs. I just read from Andy Fraser a comment that he regrets in hindsight to have "pushed around Paul so much in the studio with the rhythm parts". "What we should have done is get a proper rhythm guitarist and let Paul play his beautiful lead lines instead of undermining his self-confidence even further." I was baffled to read that the guitar riffs in "Alright Now" (riff-arrangement-wise a blueprint for countless Bad Co numbers) were 100% Fraser's ideas and that they were spoon-fed to an unwilling Paul Kossoff.  Now we all know why Fraser did not play on the verse - he was hearing "his part" already anyway. 

[uwe]

Might as well get farther off topic:

XLNT short history of U-Boat War:

http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/atlantic/uboatwar.aspx

That was an interesting read, thanks. I was never that obsessed with U-Boats, sneaking up on unsuspecting merchant ships in a potential coffin under the water struck me as thoroughly unattractive. Certainly nothing I would have volunteered for had I been unfortunate enough to be asked at the time. Interestingly enough, the U-Boat guys who have always nurtured a rather military-decorum lacking, maverick- and almost "pirate"-image in the German public view, were perceived - together with Waffen-SS men - "as the worst and most ardent Nazis" by their British and American captors who would even create special P.O.W. camps for the U-Boat and SS-men to segregate them from other Wehrmacht men. Murders of perceived "traitors" were not uncommon and I must say that that hasn't left my view of the German U-Boat crews untarnished. Intimidating or worse even killing someone because he visits "democracy courses" offered by the English in the camps (which proved popular with a lot of Germans POWs who had been raised as children in the Nazi state and only experienced derisory propaganda remarks about democracies, Helmut Schmidt, cancellor of Germany in the seventies and early eighties, received his social-democratic imprint when visiting these courses as a captured Wehrmacht officer, he never failed to mention the gratitude and "political debt" he felt for that) or volunteered to work for British farmers is not heroic. At all.  

[dadagoboi]

That said, Herr Ralphs at least came up with his own rhythm parts while the much heralded Herr Kossoff had real issues holding a beat even when not on drugs. I just read from Andy Fraser a comment that he regrets in hindsight to have "pushed around Paul so much in the studio with the rhythm parts". "What we should have done is get a proper rhythm guitarist and let Paul play his beautiful lead lines instead of undermining his self-confidence even further." I was baffled to read that the guitar riffs in "Alright Now" (riff-arrangement-wise a blueprint for countless Bad Co numbers) were 100% Fraser's ideas and that they were spoon-fed to an unwilling Paul Kossoff.  Now we all know why Fraser did not play on the verse - he was hearing "his part" already anyway.  

As a buddy of mine said the other day, "I'd play with Ralphs, he's alive."

I disagree about Kossoff's inability to hold down a beat.  Playing with Kirke, Fraser and Kossoff didn't have to march in lockstep.  On his web site, Fraser gives thanks to Kirke for allowing him the freedom to play whatever he wanted.  I gotta believe although Fraser came up with the riff and wrote the song, the subtle chord variations were Kossoff's on 'Alright'.  That combined with his accompaniment behind the Mr. Big solo, his passion and incomparable vibrato among other things set him apart from journeymen guitar players.

[Highlander]

I always liked the story my dad used to recount when asked why he disliked the Japanese so much...

"Spike Milligan was once interviewed by Terry Wogan and Terry said, 'You're not very keen on the Germans, are you...?' Spike looked round, leant forward and replied in conspiratorial tones, 'They tried to kill me, you know...' " to which he would follow with a smile...

Mind you, it would have been interesting to know his father's views, as he had a RN ship sunk by a German torpedoe in WWI and a MN ship sunk by a German mine in WWII...

Das Boot is probably my favourite War movie, and should only be viewed in German... again, an example of an actor who made his best film early in his career and (imo) failed to live up to expectations as he moved on (Jurgen Prochnow)... how many other actors can you think of like that...? Orson Welles...? Rutger Hauer..?

[dadagoboi]

Das Boot is probably my favourite War movie, and should only be viewed in German... again, an example of an actor who made his best film early in his career and (imo) failed to live up to expectations as he moved on (Jurgen Prochnow)... how many other actors can you think of like that...? Orson Welles...? Rutger Hauer..?

+1.  I've seen Das Boot at least 10 times in all versions.  The long German is the best.

[Highlander]

I still have the tapes I recorded when the long version was shown as a 5 part mini-series in the UK - the DVD I presently have has various versions on it...