» Listings for 2024

1. 2023/4 Albums Thing 307 - Slade “Slayed?”

   Posted on 9:25am Wednesday 3rd Apr 2024

   Around the age of 12 my musical tastes started to, not narrow, but become more partisan shall we say. The cause of this was my growing obsession with the Black Country’s, nay, the country’s finest Glam Rockers, the mighty Slade. 

   The first evidence of this growing obsession came when I bought…AN ALBUM. The album in question was “Slayed?”, their 3rd studio album but their first as bona fide pop stars. It was home to the singles “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” (#1 Sept 1972) and “Gudbuy T’ Jane” (#2 Dec 1972, the week of my birthday !) . It had a great picture of them on the cover looking like some rough arsed gang of Glam boot boys and all sporting the word SLADE biro’d across their knuckles (I’m sure they were going for the gang-tattoo look but I was 12, I didn’t know what a tattoo was, but I did have easy access to biro’s). 

   Keeping those two singles company were a raft of Slade classics. Track 1 Side 1 “How D'You Ride" was considered as a single (maybe The Seers realised the potential in that opening riff when they lifted it for “Wild Man”); “The Whole World's Goin' Crazee" is good a time time rock ‘n’ roll song about being in a good time time rock ‘n’ roll band driven along by a stampeding herd of elephants style performance by Jim Lea and Don Powell; if you listen very carefully at the start of “I Won't Let It 'Appen Agen" you can hear Don shout “yeah” he was having such a good time playing it. 

   Side 2 is made up of 4 bangers in a row by the now settled songwriting partnership of Holder/Lea including those #1 and a #2 singles plus “Gudbuy Gudbuy” and “I Don’ Mind’. Other than covers of Janis Joplin’s “Move Over” and live favourite “Let The Good Times Roll” Nod and Jim wrote all the songs on “Slayed?”.

   I gotta make mention of a track that’s not on this album. I’ve always admired bands that made non-album singles. Record companies don’t want singles that aren’t on albums, they want singles on albums to help sell the albums. Non-album singles are a nuisance, something to put extra resources into, chiefly, an extra expense. Three of my very favourite bands often released non-album singles (is it a coincidence they were all on Polydor ?), The Jam, The Wonder Stuff and obviously Slade made one of THE greats in the thundering Glam Rock behemoth that is “Cum On Feel The Noize”. It was released after “Slayed?”, between it and “Old, New, Borrowed And Blue, it entered the charts at #1,  it stayed in the charts for 3 months! It is like a microcosm of all good things Slade, it’s loud, you can stomp about to it, it’s got an ace singalong chorus and think about what they’re asking you to do. They’re not asking you to listen to the noise or hear the noise or dance to the noise, they’re inviting you to FEEL THE NOIZE, and feel it I still do.

   NME said “Slayed?” was "one of the greatest rock 'n' roll releases ever"! The Illinois Wheeling Herald concluded (and I love this especially as Slade never did crack America) "Slade is punk, street rock at its best and loudest" and no matter what you think of them Slade DID have an influence on Punk Rock. The juggernaut was rolling and Slade were about to become as big as it gets.

   I Won't Let It 'Appen Agen - https://youtu.be/PlOsRKIQIJw?si=QE9az14DfnFHPNd1

2. 2023/4 Albums Thing 306 - Slade “Slade Alive ! ”

   Posted on 10:05am Tuesday 2nd Apr 2024

   In 1971 Slade had their first 2 hit singles, “Get Down And Get With It”, which reached number 16 in August, and “Coz I Luv You”, which became Slade’s first number 1 in November. The latter of those two was the first of their string of 70’s hit singles written by the partnership of Noddy Holder and Jimmy Lea. Their live set still leaned heavily upon covers but Nod and Jim were starting to get it together on the writing front. They didn’t yet have enough of their own songs to put together a whole album but a new one was needed. Slade had made their bones slogging the length and breadth of the country playing live, they had a reputation as a formidable live band, not just players but entertainers. Manager Chas Chandler formulated a plan to record Slade where they were at their best, in front of an audience.

   So on the 19th, 20th and 21st October 1971 Slade set up at the Command Theatre Studio in London’s Piccadilly. The BBC used to own the former theatre that had been converted into 3 studios all set up to hold a full orchestra and an audience. The band performed 3 shows in front of a specially invited audience of Slade fans so that the band’s increasingly talked about live show could be captured perfectly.

   “Slade Alive!” was released in March 1972. Slade were so confident in their live show that “Coz I Luv You”, their number 1 hit single, isn’t even on this album! Their first hit, a cover of Little Richards “Get Down With It” (actually Bobby Marchan’s “Get Down With It” but Slade didn’t know that at the time) is on the album, cunningly retitled “Get Down And Get With It”, and if you are ever sat near me when I receive a text message be prepared for your ears to be assaulted by Noddy’s full throated roar of “WELL ALLLLLRRRIIIIIGGGGGHHHHHTTTT EVERYBODY” which has been my text notification for many years.

   For a single buying pop kid, as I was up until then, the album is a big progression. I knew what albums were about, a collection of songs that mostly were not singles, which were split between the 2 sides of the record with nice uniform silent gaps between the tracks. I owned “Slayed?” so I knew what to expect and my Dad had albums by The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder and others that demonstrated the same behaviour. But “Slade Alive!” was different. There were no uniform silent gaps between the songs, the band were talking, in fact everyone was talking, and shouting, and belching, and stomping, and clapping, and woooo-ing, in fact there was even a hint of someone bawling out swear words from the audience. 

   This album captures exactly what Slade were in the months just before they became the biggest band in Britain, a fearsome, finely honed live band fronted by one of the greatest voices in rock and roll who also happened to be something of an old time music hall character constantly involving the audience in the show. You can hear the excitement in the room from the very start when “Hear Me Calling” just slides into being, the audience pick it up immediately, clapping and stomping and hollering along and you can feel the band feed off the vibes in that room.

   It’s another record I own multiple copies of (1972 original, 2017 45th Anniversary Edition, 2022 Red/Black splatter vinyl). Despite various statements to the opposite, they played and recorded 3 nights so surely there must be more material as there are only 7 songs on the album. Whatever, I bloody love it, “Slade Alive!” is the greatest live album ever made, no argument will be entered into…

   Hear Me Calling - https://youtu.be/K9o_1uMlBSc?si=Y0Hhe1_JuyOcyXYj

3. 2023/4 Albums Thing 305 - Slade “Play It Loud”

   Posted on 9:00am Saturday 30th Mar 2024

   Slade were my first musical obsession. The first single I bought was "Skweeze Me Pleeze Me". The first album I bought was "Slayed?". I’ve had many musical obsessions since (The Jam, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, the Drive-By Truckers, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen) and I look forward to many more but Slade were my first musical love, and you know what they say about first loves…

   “Play It Loud” was Slade’s 2nd album, but first for Polydor, released in November 1970. Their first album was the snappily titled “Beginnings” (or the even more snappy “Ballzy” as it was retitled in the US) for Fontana Records from May 1969. They were still called Ambrose Slade then and their debut was a 12 track affair, 8 covers from the likes of The Beatles, Frank Zappa, Steppenwolf, The Amboy Dukes and Marvin Gaye interspersed with 4 originals, 3 of which are credited to all four members as writers rather than the later better known duo of Holder/Lea. “Beginnings” opening instrumental, “Genesis”, grew lyrics and reappears on this album retitled “Know Who You Are”. It survived in their live set until around the “Slade Alive!” period.

   When they jumped ship to Polydor it was decided they needed an “angle”. Skinhead was a big deal in those early 70’s days so some bright spark in the Polydor marketing department decided Slade should become skinheads. This is how we find our heroes staring out from this album cover, shorn of flowing locks and making like the least convincing bunch of bovver boys you’ve ever seen. Dave Hill looks like a reet scruff bag, Noddy Holder seems like he could make a good fist of playing the Artful Dodger, Don Powell actually comes over as being genuinely hard and they all look like they’re getting ready to kick the shit out of Jimmy Lea who has the air of a music student on his way to an orchestral rehearsal about him. Tales exist of lots of skinheads turning up to Slade gigs to see this skinhead group and the band barely escaping with their lives when the skins realised there weren’t gonna be no moon stomping tonight.

   The album is this time made up chiefly of original material, although still none by that famed Holder/Lea partnership that would eventually conquer the British charts. Here we have writing credits for all four, Powell/Lea/Holder and a third of the album written by the rhythm section of Powell/Lea. The rest is made up with covers of Bread’s “Could I”, Max Frost & The Troopers Garage band classic “The Shape Of Things To Come” and Neil Innes “Angelina”. If you’re looking for badly spelled chart toppers, well you’ll find none here.

   There are a couple of good uns tho’. “Genesis” is back with lyrics and its new title. “Dapple Rose” is a tearjerker of a ballad about an old horse who is likely headed for the knackers yard. “Pouk Hill” is a song about somewhere they used to play as kids which I recently discovered I drive past every time I go up and down the M6 between home and Birmingham. “Sweetbox” is a proper dirty rocker to finish on,  but still with a hint of the 60’s about it.

   This is Slade finding their way, discovering who can write, who writes best with who. It’ll take ‘em another year or so to figure it all out but Noddy’s voice is there and some of Dave Hill’s guitar work points to what is just around the corner. 

   Know Who You Are - https://youtu.be/sudbJszW1F4?si=394xwNTtypnOBrB-