Evidently Steve Miller has no love for RRHOF (+Why Uwe is now a broken man!)

[gweimer]

Did I mention that I saw the Ian Gillan Band at the Marquee...?

I did see Trapeze, but only post Hughes...

I got to open for Gillan in Chicago.  Outstanding show.  I later interviewed Ian Gillan when he was in Black Sabbath.  He was another easy to talk to person.  Trapeze is one band I would have loved to have seen.

[Highlander]

Nice...

IG was a moody bugger backstage at the Reading Festival gig... I think the "joke" had started to wear thin by that point... at least there was no problem with the "henge" that night... no doors to worry about...

I've only just clicked where your tag-line comes from the other day when the song was playing...

[uwe]

Sigh, Ken, wasn't that Hellcat/Corsair mix-up embarrassing enough? Do you now have to give further evidence that The Kinks, a quintessentially English band, never amounted to as much at home as in the former colonies?

When I read Gary's tag line for the first time (he's had it a while), my immediate thought was this here:



I bought a German Kinks compilation in the mid-seventies - it was among my first 20 albums or so, along with Alice Cooper and Deep Purple - and heard that double album to death because you could hear the acerbic lyrics so well in the mix.

[westen44]

I was in a band that did "A Well Respected Man," "You Really Got Me," and "Tired of Waiting."  I liked the Kinks then more than I do now, but the songs were fun to sing.  A unique band, though.  Sometimes I see remarks by people praising them like they were the greatest band ever.  I don't see that, but if someone feels that way, I can respect it. 

[uwe]

The Kinks are the type of band that is either unjustly belittled or - the other extreme - unjustly elevated to "should have been as big as The Beatles/Rolling Stones"-status. Well, Ray Davies was neither Lennon/McCartney in music terms nor did he have Mick Jagger's cross-gender sex appeal or the musical ability of the Stones to sound American yet remain inherently British. But I think he was the best lyricist of all the great Brit 60ies bands - better than Pete Townshend who could be a bit maudlin for my taste and hazy in what he really wanted to say - , Davies was a witty observer, and I liked the English dance hall component in the music he wrote. Whether he invented heavy metal with You Really Got Me is debatable, but his solo albums of the more recent years are really nice.

And that is Jon Lord tinkling the piano on You really Got Me's second verse! Only got a couple of Pounds for it.

[uwe]

yeah, i saw trapeze. i would call it 'we are the music...'tour. 1973/4? original trio and whats his name played a jazz bass. trapeze was on a triple bill with bang and steve miller.

Such modesty is the sign of truly a great man!!!

Glover left Purple in the summer of 73 following their second Japanese tour. Before that Blackmore, Paice and Lord had already paid several Trapeze gigs a few visits to check Glenn Hughes out (who initially thought they just dug his band). Trapeze were finally making some headway in the US in 1972/73 following the strong "You are the Music, We're just the Band"-offering so Hughes - by his own admission not a great fan of Deep Purple Mk II - had to be coaxed with money, the chance to sing alongside Paul Rodgers (then slated as Gillan's replacement, but he preferred to form Bad Company instead) plus doing plenty of lead vocals himself. By the fall of 73 he was rehearsing/co-writing (uncredited at the time for contractual reasons) for Purple's Burn album (after having auditioned David Coverdale with the others when it became clear that Rodgers wouldn't join), so you must have seen him with Trapeze early-ish 73, Nofi! Oh my.

Any more memories of that gig? Please divulge!!!

On paper, Trapeze were a strange combination. Mel Galley was not a hard rock, not even a blues rock guitar hero and you couldn't have called Dave Holland's drumming "funky" even in the 70ies, actually he was quite a stiffer and his drumming with Judas Priest during their golden 80ies era was suitably metronomic, he mostly emulated a drum machine (as he was required to do, no doubt, Priest wanted simplistic drums). Glenn's love-it-or-hate-it voice was, however, something very different and his naturally gifted bass playing of course propelled the band's groove forward (and caught Blackmore's attention who wanted a more adventurous and edgy bass player for Purple than Glover was, Hughes bass playing would change Deep Purple's band groove and even Ian Paice's drumming approach radically too). But put all three of them - Galley, Holland, Hughes - into the Trapeze equation and they really shaped an idiosyncratic sound for the time.





The swan song of that particular line up, soul influences were peaking:

[nofi]

although i was a big trapeze fan, had medusa on 8 track for pity's sake, i went mainly to see miller that night. trapeze were an added bonus and they did not disappoint. hughes was an atlanta resident for a short time in the early eighties. he was bloated and strung out. a few attempts at forming a band were futile and he moved on.

however, here in atlanta we did not get those spin off bands like rainbow,  dio, gillan, et al. we only got purple mk2 once and my lovely wife was at that show. uriah heep stayed away although my sister saw them in a rodeo areana in 1970. i recall sabbath only twice, my son saw the black and blue tour.

what we did get in spades were foghat, savoy brown, rory gallagher, robin trower, wild turkey and the like. the boogie circuit i suppose. even status quo made an appearance opening for gallagher.

but i digress...

[uwe]

Danke schön.

I always liked Gallagher (Rory ones, not Noel and Liam) gigs, he was an honest soul and one hell of a guitar player. Did prefer the keyboard four-piece with Lou Martin to later incarnations of the band though, it gave his music more color.



Great loss. Great shirts.

[Dave W]

How did we get to talking about The Kinks?

I've been a fan for 50+ years. And tomorrow I plan on seeing a local Kinks tribute band playing at a Record Store day 2016 event.

[westen44]

How did we get to talking about The Kinks?

I've been a fan for 50+ years. And tomorrow I plan on seeing a local Kinks tribute band playing at a Record Store day 2016 event.

I think it was unplanned--with one post leading to another.  It began with Kenny's post.  But he was just making a comment, not trying to turn things into a discussion about the Kinks. 

[gweimer]

Danke schön.

I always liked Gallagher (Rory ones, not Noel and Liam) gigs, he was an honest soul and one hell of a guitar player. Did prefer the keyboard four-piece with Lou Martin to later incarnations of the band though, it gave his music more color.



Great loss. Great shirts.

My favorite Rory song!  My friends and I walked into a record store in high school, and heard "Catfish" by Taste playing.  We were forever hooked.  We saw him open for Savoy Brown on the Street Corner Talking tour, and I had the honor of interviewing him once for the Illinois Entertainer.  He was a great, down-to-earth soul.  I interviewed him at Park West, where he had a sold-out house, despite The Who also playing that night in Chicago.  There was a small fire in the building, and Rory made sure my girlfriend was brought into the dressing room so she'd be safe.

[uwe]

How did we get to talking about The Kinks?

I've been a fan for 50+ years. And tomorrow I plan on seeing a local Kinks tribute band playing at a Record Store day 2016 event.

Since when have you turned Anglophile, ole Grumpers?  We got to the Kinks via Ken's late reaction - as he tends to have.

Have you heard the last three or four Ray Davies solo albums? You should be in immediate pre-ejaculation mode!

Plus Jon Lord (of stadium rockers Deep Purple in case you were uncertain) played with the Kinks on You Really Got Me, so all threads end in Ritchie Blackmore or his organ player all over again. Not to mention long time late incarnation Kinks bassist Jim Rodford who played with Argent who had a guitarist who wrote Since You've Been Gone and I Surrender for Rainbow. It's all very circular, believe me!

[nofi]

"so she'd be safe"! you actually bought that?

[uwe]

Nofi, you and your devastatingly cynical world view!

Not wishing to deliberate here about the sincerity of Mr Gallagher's selfless fire, life and safety measures in connection with the esteemed significant other of a - likewise esteemed - member, I do venture forth this:

Back in the 70ies BRAVO, a German teen oriented magazine (hey, they were Deep Purple-centric for a while!),





had a lengthy, albeit on an anonymous basis, interview with an, uhum, established groupie. As she told about the pros and cons of her job description plus the people she had "gotten to know" (David Cassidy, Rick Parfitt and Jimmy Page were among them I believe to remember, but I might just be projecting evil on the Zeppelin tunesmith), the interview ended on an empathy-drenched note (and I remember all this as if it was yesterday):

Q: "Which one of the rock stars was the nicest one to you?"

A: "Without a question Rory Gallagher! He was very gentle, had great manners, we had breakfast together and he even paid for a taxi to get me home safely. I ironed one of his shirts. He's very shy and romantic, you know."

I'm unsure now about the part whether he liked animals or not. Probably if they had Catholic rites and didn't wear any orange.

I felt honor-bound to get this out. Nofi's vile, dirty old man speculations about what might or might not have happened in a dressing room many decades ago while the flames (of desire?) lept higher and higher shall leave no bad aftertaste (half-pun not intended!) with us or compromise enduring memories of either Rory Gallagher or Gary's girlfriend. Whatever happened there, whether safety code prescribed or not, happened with class and due decorum.

[Highlander]

Sigh, Ken, wasn't that Hellcat/Corsair mix-up embarrassing enough?

Can't help that I was not a kinks fan... I don't own a single recording of theirs...

And yes, being somewhat distracted and mind-elsewhere-syndromed I can sometimes dip-in late... but slow and steady wins the race... maybe...