Tony Savage Band - Bye Bye Bluebird

Tony Savage Band –Bye Bye Bluebird/ Faster Than Lightning –Living Sound LS 102901 (1977 Aus)

Talk about picking an obscure Vanda & Young track...I mean choosing the B side of Haffy’s Whiskey Sour’s Shot In The Head takes some beating in the obscurity stakes.
Of Tony Savage himself I can’t find out anything...Unconfirmed rumours speak of a band winning a competition resulting in the recording of this single and/or perhaps a tenuous link with TMG. One clue is that the recordings took place at Atlantic Studio which forges a link to the Aussie Surf band The Atlantics (the recordings were also engineered by Peter Hood). The Atlantics also had their own Chicago imprint in the 70s...Please fill in the gaps!

Bye Bye Blue Bird is a bright,rocking take of the number with the band sounding supremely confident. Faster Than Lightning (written by Tony Savage) is a pounding Bar Boogie number sporting a loud electric piano with the amusing lyrics conveying the bragging attitude of a 14 year old Sharpie...

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Johnny Dick -The Warrior

Johnny Dick –The Warrior/ She Was My Babe –Albert Productions AP-10949 (1975 Aus)

Johnny Dick seems to have sat on many a rotating drum stool, having drummed with the Billy Thorpe’s Aztecs, the La De Da's and Stevie Wright among others. Check his bio above.
The Warrior was JD’s first and seemingly only solo outing. Produced by the mighty Vanda & Young team, The Warrior is a fine entry in the unrepentant, un-PC Red Skin Gimmick Glam sub-genre. More convincing than Adam and The Ants, once it gets going the chorus just rips. Oooh-Ah-Oooh-Oooh-Ah! (words of wisdom indeed...) Johnny Dick certainly raises my tepee!
More obscure Vanda & Young coming soon. Thanks to Luke of http://wallabybeat.blogspot.com/ for turning me on to this corker (check out the Sparkle and Beaut singles!)

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Linda Kendrick –Sympathy For The Devil

Linda Kendrick –Sympathy For The Devil/ He Wrote Me A Letter –Dawn DNS. 1063 (1974 UK)

Linda Kendrick –Sympathy For The Devil/ He Wrote Me A Letter –Pye PY 3106 (1974 French issue)

Sympathy For The Devil is an overblown but fun production by Lynton Guest and Jimmie Edwards (Stumpy, Washington Flyers). Although toned down lyrically, Linda’s version features a choir, lush orchestration along with neat harpsichord runs and Stonesian slide. There is also an edited demo version which in order to shorten the running time; cuts out the first verse thus emasculating its impact and flow. Linda later went all Plastic New Wave-y with her take on Stupid Cupid.

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It Means Nothing To Me...

Oh...VIENNA
Just back from a jaunt through 3 former Eastern Block countries, ending up in Vienna where I got the opportunity to check out the record stores... And boy what a great city and the shops are full to the brim with vinyl!
Checked out 6 stores and five of them were great for finds. I would have needed more than my allocated 6 hours and I only scratched the surface in many of them.
The main shops of note were Moses Records, where they was a huge selection of cheap singles and the amazing institution which is Teuchler. The shop has existed as a family business for 60 years and the current owner Jean-Marc has been running it for 40 years. There are 1000s of singles and it took more about 3 hours to get through ¾ of them plus the stock in the shop represents only 30% of the vinyl they hold...the mind boggles. Scout Records also had a fine selection as did Music Und So. Those 4 shops also had very friendly staff and owners. Anyhow I ended up with nearly 50 singles, some of them still unheard (probably a fare share of turkeys...), some favourites –Stud Leather –Cut Loose (German pic sleeve), Matchbox –Rod, Tracey Dean plus some spares...

Only a few hours before I depart these shores again...stay tuned. The next review will be up in a couple of days

Badge –Sing Don’t Speak

Badge –Sing Don’t Speak/California Saga –Pagoda 256 (1973 Argentina)

Argentina? Yes, I have picked up a few interesting ones from this country as there were a clutch of Glam-tinted releases at the time. One particularity is that several of them were covers of the hits-of-the day –check out Albatross’s English AND Spanish cover of Abrazame Y Complaceme (c’mon...easy to work out...). Another particularity is that the Argentine 45 in fact often played at 33.3rpm! Although Argentina had a healthy underground scene, Glitter did not gain a strong foothold in Las Pampas, some like Norah had to move to Spain in order to fully accomplish their stomping mission (more on her soon). John Bright’s I’ve Tried It is suitably raucous, but its country of origin is uncertain as is Sunday's who released the splendid Hard Way To Go. Still, there is bound to be more to be discovered from Argentina and South America in general.
Anyhow Badge’s cover of Blackfoot Sue’s 2nd hit is pretty credible, it has a nice bouncing groove and the fuzz is fuzzy in a matchbox-kind-of- manner, and is on a par with the Italian Multiple Sound’s Ultra fuzzed up version (I need that one!!!). Badge released at least two singles as they also covered Blackfoot Sue’s Standing In The Road. It is still unclear if they ever covered Glitter Obituary...

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Bear Brothers –Bondiago

Bear Brothers- Bondiago/Red Shoe Trucken- Dart ART 2023 (1973 UK)

Bondiago is an interesting Fuzzed up crossover semi-instrumental track which sits at the cusp of Glam, Prog and Pounding Discotheque fodder (1973 mode). There’s even a hint of Riders on The Storm in the keyboard motif. It all ends up sounding a bit like Galahad with bushy moustaches on the soundtrack of an obscure Spaghetti Western... On Red Shoe Trucken, the Brothers up the stomping, again the mix of genres is similar with chants and prominent Hammond and it’s all very hypnotically repetitive. Producer/song writer Keith Bonsoir, mainly produced Reggae and Disco, but also produced The Glammy Run For Your Life single by Bo –Jangle.
In Germany, where this record was released in a fine looking sleeve featuring the sprouting brothers themselves, the slides ended up being switched, but were they German as some have stated? Or a UK duo? Five years later the Bear Brothers would commit the collectable 12 inch Zsha Zsha Zsha, also produced by Keith Bonsoir, but Funky Disco does not warrant losing any more dead skin over ...

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Limonaya –Walk, Walk, Walk

Limonaya –Walk, Walk, Walk/Waiting For The Summer –CNR 141.286 (1974 NL)

Starting off like a near approximation of the Tigers on Vaseline, the track then turns into a mostly straight ahead rock affair. Not stupendous, but catchy and certainly a worthwhile addition to the eclectic CNR catalogue. Haarlem’s Limonaya featured ex Bintangs Ronald Krom with Rob ten Bokum , Rob van Donselaar and Aad Hooft, so I’m not too sure as to why only two band members appear on the sleeve. It seems that Walk, Walk, Walk was the only Limonaya release

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My Version is Better than Yours Part 12: Tim Moore vs. The Dirty Angels –Rock and Roll Love Letter

Tim Moore - Rock and Roll Love Letter/The Night We First Sailed Away -Polydor 2001689 (1975 UK)

Dirty Angels - Rock and Roll Love Letter/Same –Sire SAA 719 (1975 US)

OK, perhaps the Bay City Rollers had the best produced version, although the subtle chord change hook at the top of the chorus is kind of Rolled Over http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNLdOx5zcRs

The cover by the usually anaemic Records suffers from plodding drums (BTW, I am not completely down on The Records –Starry Eyes is a classic song best enjoyed in its album version due to the fine 12 string overdub).

But here we have the original version by Tim Moore. It is the longest version by far with a nice dense and compressed sound. The Dirty Angels cover oozes rock and roll attitude and a perfect US adaptation and a non-LP track to boot. If you don’t already know the Dirty Angels, their Tell Me is a Powerpop classic and is available on both their albums. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-eT-qk2efE

Whatever the version -Rock and Roll Love Letter is the perfect Powerpop tune!

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