Slade Redux

[Freuds_Cat]

OK I know how many Slade fans this forum has. I was one myself once upon a distant past.
As a teenager I was the proud owner of Slayed, Slade Alive, Nobodys fools and Sladest.
All on LP of course.

Over the course of time it got harder to take the time to listen to my old LP's.
Recently I picked up a handful of Slade albums on CD including:

Slayed


Old, New, Borrowed and Blue


Nobodys fools


and

Slade Alive


I cant seem to find myself a copy of Slade in Flame at a reasonable price (the ones I've seen have been 3 or 4 times what the other albums cost)

I have been bashing the hell out of these albums in my car for the last week and have found that I now hear them quite differently to how I remember them.

Man how good was/is Jim Lea? Great note selection, feel and sound.

[TBird1958]

I think I was 12 or13 when a buddy turned me onto Slade, he had just gotten a copy of Slayed? and after hearing it once I was begging my folks to take me to the record store to get a copy - I drove my proper German mother bezerk by playing that record over and over, I think it started to turn white I played it so much   
I still have all those plus a few others on vinyl, I treasure them, I love Slade.
I still occasionally read Chris Charlesworth's liner notes from Slayed, especially enjoying his comparison of Slade to other bands/players of the time, they not having any grand illusions of their musical abilities, but rather being all about having fun at a show.........A big influence on me!
     
 

[ilan]

I heard them for the first time when I was like 10 years old - a classmate's older brother was a Slade fan.

It wasn't until the internet that I finally found out what he was singing in the first verse of "Thanks For the Memory" (Como estas chickadee...)

[gweimer]

I was more of a Mott The Hoople fan, but I did like all the Slade they played on the college radio station, "Gudbye To Jane" being a favorite.  Quiet Riot probably owes most of their career to Slade.



I picked up a copy of Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply when I did record reviews for The Illinois Entertainer.

I never knew that this song was actually an old folk hymn until a few years ago.

[godofthunder]

Jim was is a fantastic bassist often over looked, Entwhistle even admired him. Jim is in my top three. I have been listening to Nobody's Fool quite a bit of late. A fantastic collection of songs and very well produced. ONBB is a persoanel favorite of mine though usually not all that well regarded. The production is a bit sparse (I like that)  Do We Still Do It is one of my all time favorite songs. Slayed? is the watershed album, it proved they could write songs with the best of them. Slade Alive is just imho one of the best live albums ever full of youthf ull exuberance and raw energy, with just a glimps of the song writings skills to come. I have all those cds in my car and then some. Listening to Slade and Jimmy play bass never fails to put me in a good mood.

[Highlander]

I even went as far as getting hold of the "Ambrose Slade" LP (they covered an Amboy Dukes/Nugent track - "Journey to the centre of the mind")

I don't have anything but tapes now, but I have no player (home/van/car) since converting to the Ipod... win some/loose some... 

Bret - Never knew you saw them; Oz I presume...? Alice Cooper Band...? Not someone else that saw the originals...? gutted... but happy for you, and Mark... that is one band I wish I had seen...

[Freuds_Cat]

I saw Slade here in Adelaide late 93. One of the first gigs I went to after arriving home after 3 years away. Never got to see Noddy or Jim 

    * Steve Whalley - Vocals
    * Steve Makin - Guitars / Vocals
    * Dave Hill - Guitars / Vocals
    * Craig Fenney - Bass Guitar / Vocals
    * Don Powell - Drums


I saw Alice Cooper also here in 78 when he toured the Welcome to my Nightmare show.
Cant remember the line up now, I just remember loving every minute of the show.

UFO I got to see in London 92 at the Town and Country. No Schenker unfortunately.

# Phil Mogg - vocals
# Laurence Archer - guitar
# Pete Way - bass guitar
# Clive Edwards - drums
# Don Airey – keyboards

Never got to see Foghat

[Highlander]

Saw that (Alice) tour in '75 which was filmed - lineup then was...

Prakash John - Bass
Whitey Glan - Drums
Dick Wagner - Guitar
Steve Hunter - Guitar
Jozef Chirowski - Keys

He toured with variations of this lot - 1974–1977
Dick Wagner (guitar)
Steve Hunter (guitar)
Prakash John (bass)
Pentti "Whitey" Glan (drums)
Josef Chirowski (keyboards)
Tony Levin (bass)
Allan Schwartzberg (drums)
Babbitt (bass)
Jim Gordon (drums)
Bob Kulick (guitar)
Mark Stein (keyboards)
Freddy Mandel (keyboards

Saw the original Slade lineup a few times, earliest being '73 or '74... last being early 80's always gave a rocking show...! Merry Xmas in summer at Donnington...?!?!?
... and Saw UFO with Schenker once, in '78... Obsession tour at the (obligatory) Hammersmith Odeon... last time was a night Mogg was p*ss*d and abused the audience, which deteriorated into a slow hand clap - he demanded the audience stop it and everyone clapped even louder, so he stomped off... never bothered seeing them again - lineup featured Mogg/Way/Raymond/Chapman/Parker...
... never saw Foghat, discussed elsewhere...

[godofthunder]

Still taunting me with having seen Slade  I Loved Foghat........................... saw them late in their career, live I was bored stiff, maybe at that point they were to?

[Highlander]

Nah... far too much respect... anyway, if I was trying to wind you up I'd have posted pics I took at Donnington... 

Past "Stone Blue" and especially after Rod Price left they spiralled down... the live CD "Road Cases" is worth checking out - very bluesy - shame that Rod and Dave are gone...

If you saw the original 3 piece Grand Funk or with Craig Frost, around WAAB, that might sting... Mark got me with Alice... THAT HURT...

[godofthunder]

Nah... far too much respect... anyway, if I was trying to wind you up I'd have posted pics I took at Donnington... 

Past "Stone Blue" and especially after Rod Price left they spiralled down... the live CD "Road Cases" is worth checking out - very bluesy - shame that Rod and Dave are gone...

If you saw the original 3 piece Grand Funk or with Craig Frost, around WAAB, that might sting... Mark got me with Alice... THAT HURT...

Oh come on Ken lets have a look at Donnington

[uwe]

Slade in Flame (their Sgt. Pepper in my view) was remastered with all the other albums one or two years ago and is available at EURO 9,90 here in Germany. There is also an expanded set with the DVD of the original film. If you have such trouble getting it in Aussie land, I can procure a copy here for you.

Uwe

[Freuds_Cat]

Thanks Uwe, see how I go finding it here. Its on Amazon but I resent paying more in postage than I do for the actual album.  Silly of me but after being forced to do this so many times it just needles me.

[uwe]

Slade's issue was that their hit singles/chart fodder status contravened their album ambitions.  Managment positioned them in that way initially, produced their singles in a teeny bop manner (with Holder's vocals overloud and often drowning out the subtleties and detail of the music, much to the chagrin of Lea) and failed to get them out of their rut when it was time, rather sending them on a never-ending US tour too late as the eternal opening act from the midseventies on (when their star as a singles band in the UK had already sunk) with too little airplay (or bribing of DJs!) to build upon. Let's just say that Chas Chandler who managed them was no Peter Grant. That the other three only shared in part Jim Lea's quest for musical credibility and a more adult image is the other side of the coin.

How does it feel (the album version, not the cut down single) is still the high point of their art. A song written by Jim Lea pre-Slade as a teenager, they turned it into a vast arrangement going from gentle to majestic with great walking bass lines (plus horns and orchestra and all) to gentle again with Lea playing subtle melodies on bass in the intro and outro that would have been reserved for the guitarist in most other bands. It's a song that wouldn't have been out of place on a Paul McCartney & The Wings album.

[Barklessdog]

I remember a time when any Slade posting was verboten. Ah, its nice to live in the free world.