[This digest is the copyright of the Move "Useless Information" Mailing List. Re-publication or re-distribution of "Useless Information" content, in any form whatsoever, is expressly prohibited without prior written consent.] USELESS INFORMATION The Move Mailing List Digest Issue #352 May 13, 2002 In this issue: * Ed Ward's review of "Brontosaurus" * Roy's long-lost songs * The Move Oct. 1969 US tour (cont.) * New Improved Formula - Super Active Wizzo * Super Active Wizzo - fan interest? (cont.) * Mendelsohn's "Shazam" review * ...and loving it! * Who sings "Hello Susie"? ============================================================== To POST TO THE LIST: Send an e-mail to: move-list@eskimo.com Useful Web addresses: TheMoveOnline: http://www.themoveonline.com Official Roy Wood site: http://www.roywood.co.uk Face The Music Online: http://www.ftmusic.com Join the ELO List: http://www.eskimo.com/~noanswer/showdown.html Move List Info & Archives: http://www.eskimo.com/~noanswer/movelist.html TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Send an e-mail to move-digest-request@eskimo.com with the word "unsubscribe" (no quotes) in the subject line ============================================================== Subject: Ed Ward's review of "Brontosaurus" Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 21:13:27 -0700 From: Richard Messum As long as we're collecting reviews, i thought i'd send this one along, a brief consideration of the "Brontosaurus" 45 by Ed Ward in Rolling Stone (taken from The Rolling Stone Record Review, 1971). "A & M isn't helping to promote this any with their ad showing a couple of brontosauri fucking. If you got off on Shazam, you'll love this song, heavy as its namesake, describing a dance ('She could really do the Brontosaurus') that must be fun to do. Much too long for AM radio, this oughta be one of those 'underground hits' you hear so much about." My, hasn't the art of rock criticism progressed since the 70's. Cheers Richard (and cats) ********** Subject: Roy's long-lost songs Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 09:36:05 -0700 From: Rob Caiger Richard Pasquini wrote: >Plus "On The Road Again", "Alive"...and all the unreleased rare >stuff...hard to get...and every B side etc... We are trying - it would have helped over the years had Roy shown an interest, but there you are. Done that, its out, onto the next thing..... >Why not a limited massive box set for his base fans It's a plan - a distant one at the moment - but definitely a plan for next year. You wouldn't believe the work that goes into tracking these tapes down. Roy was originally signed to a management company (in The Move, then ELO, then as Wizzard and a solo artist). He recorded for various record companies who may have tapes in their archives - or not. EMI, Deram, Warners, etc, etc, were not obliged to keep tapes as strictly speaking, they didn't own them. The management company (as they paid for the recording sessions) might have them, possibly the multitracks but usually the stereo masters - but are they the original masters or merely copies (from where most of Roy's CD's have been "remastered" from)? The record company might have the stereo masters, but usually these aren't the original first generation stereo master, taken from the multitrack, and sometimes containing overdubs recorded directly onto the 2-track tape. Then you have to bring the studio into the mix. As an EMI artist for the later years of The Move, ELO's beginnings and Wizzard / solo, it would have been lovely if Roy had done all his recordings in Abbey Road, which is what most EMI artists had the option to do. But no, with the exception of Boulders and some singles and b-sides, Roy (and Jeff Lynne) preferred Phillips Studios, De Lane Lea, and Air. If they'd been in Abbey Road, tapes would have been archived automatically - great system there, thank god. Session multitracks recorded in these studios were mainly left there after mixing down to the stereo master - when the studios no longer exist, you start to panic! Phillips Studios has been long closed but thankfully, they possessed meticulous engineers and an efficient archiving system. This tape archive has been owned by various record companies over the years, now with the Universal group who are has thorough as Abbey Road / EMI in their tape record system. Even if the boxes were untitled, or just labelled "EMI artist" many of Roy's studio multitracks have been tracked to this location and recovered, all in perfect condition and most boxes are still containing handwritten lyrics, track sheets (for all the many instruments) and much song material. Then you get to the management company, run by Don and David Arden originally and also Jet Records. Consider that all the tapes that they owned went missing during the mid-eighties when Don and David had to "leave the country". It's been an interesting experience tracking these down and David has been a huge help. It is from these that I found the original multitrack sessions for California Man and Do Ya, spliced onto an ELO multitrack containing two songs - no.1 and no.2 (both of the boogies from ELO 2) and - just last week - the first generation Philips Studios stereo master for Wizzard Brew, with a different track listing than what was released. The investigations continue..... >...some demo versions of "She'll Be Gone" or a demo version of Roy >singing "Farewell". No, not found so far. I thought I'd find Roy's vocals for Farewell, if only as guide vocals, when I discovered the multitrack (the stereo master was destroyed). But no, there's nothing of his voice on there. But, having the multitrack does raise the possibility that Roy could go in and record new vocals. We shall see. Lion's Heart (admittedly his solo demo version) is on the b-side of Roy's last CD single, the live version of Christmas. Best - Rob ********** Subject: Re: Roy's long-lost songs Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 11:14:39 -0700 From: "Doyle, Joe" From Rob: >.....the first generation Philips Studios stereo master for Wizzard >Brew, with a different track listing than what was released. Gasp, thud.....scuffle....(staggers back to his feet).... what!? Oh Rob, you can't just leave us with this tantalising snippet. What was on it that never got released? Drooling and dribbling in anticipation. ********** Subject: Re: Roy's long-lost songs Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 14:57:09 -0700 From: "Michael J. Cross" Joe2 (Doyle, that is!) wrote this in response to yet another titillating tidbit of news from Rob: >Drooling and dribbling in anticipation. I think that it would be really helpful if we had a drooling emoticon that we could all put to use when talking about upcoming releases/reissues. Personally, I find myself drooling quite a lot when I think about the remaining First Light series being released later in the summer. Mike Cross Rochester, NY 0 0 | {__} . . . ********** Subject: Re: Roy's long-lost songs Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 01:19:44 -0700 From: "Richard Pasquini" > ...Lion's Heart (admittedly his solo demo version) is on the b-side of > Roy's last CD single, the live version of Christmas. Can someone tell me how I can get this CD single????? I live in the U.S.A. Thanks much, Richie P.S. Rob, you're absolutely wonderful...wish I could help you...would love to go through any Roy Wood Tapes... ********** Subject: Re: Re: Roy's long-lost songs Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 16:03:15 -0700 From: Rob Caiger We've got some copies of the Christmas CD single left - what is the interest on the list for this? And also the 1993 first Roy Wood Big Band tour programme? Best - Rob ********** Subject: Re: Re: Roy's long-lost songs Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 09:59:29 -0700 From: "Doyle, Joe" From Richard: >P.S. Rob, you're absolutely wonderful...wish I could help you...would >love to go through any Roy Wood Tapes... Join the queue mate! ********** Subject: Re: Re: Roy's long-lost songs Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 16:03:00 -0700 From: Rob Caiger > P.S. Rob, you're absolutely wonderful...wish I could help you...would > ove to go through any Roy Wood Tapes... It's the bit were "they" blind-fold you and take you on strange car journeys to god knows where to investigate "lost" tapes that I'd happily swap. Music's good though, when we finally get to retrieve it... ********** Subject: Re: Re: Roy's long-lost songs Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 23:13:45 -0700 From: BigLarry26 Rob writes: >It's the bit were "they" blind-fold you and take you on strange >car >journeys to god knows where to investigate "lost" tapes that I'd >happily swap I can just picture an agent showing up wearing a suit and dark glasses like MIB, with the briefcase hand-cuffed to his wrist! ********** Subject: Re: The Move Oct. 1969 US tour Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 18:37:04 -0700 From: "Tyler C.Sherman" I had heard that The Move played the Fillmore East too. Can anyone confirm this? And , Lynn, I think you are right. "Shazam" came out in Feb. 1970, didn't it? And Carl quit in Jan. didn't he? Wizzards, Tyler ********** Subject: Re: The Move Oct. 1969 US tour Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 19:05:44 -0700 From: Lynn Hoskins >I had heard that The Move played the Fillmore East too. Can anyone confirm >this? And , Lynn, I think you are right. "Shazam" came out in Feb. 1970, >didn't it? And Carl quit in Jan. didn't he? Tyler, I remember this being discussed on the Move List a while back so I did an archive search. Henry Laura posted this in January 2000: "The Move never played The Fillmore in New York. In 1969 I had tickets to a show at which they were to be the opening act on a bill with Leslie West's Mountain and The Steve Miller band. Bill Graham made the announcement that while they had played The Fillmore West they had cancelled the Fillmore East date. Needless to say I was crushed." I recall that there are several list members who drove a great distance to see the Fillmore East show. I checked the timeline... Carl did leave The Move in January, 1970. And then Shazam was released in February in the UK. Jeff Lynne came onboard in March. The new lineup consisted of Roy, Jeff, Bev, and Rick. ********** Subject: Re: The Move Oct. 1969 US tour Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 20:23:18 -0700 From: Greg Weatherby Lynn Hoskins wrote: > I recall that there are several list members who drove a great distance > to see the Fillmore East show. I was one of them. Came into NY all set to see the Move, only to get to the Fillmore and find out that it had been cancelled. Not a good day. Plus I stayed at a stumblebum hotel in the East Village. When I checked in, the guy behind the caged window asked me where I was from, I told him, and I can still hear him, clear as a bell, "Go home". Probably thought I was a runaway or some such! ********** Subject: Re: The Move Oct. 1969 US tour Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 09:59:25 -0700 From: "Robert Elliott" I wrote: >I am interested in hearing from anyone who knows where and on what >dates the Move played during their 3 week Oct. 1969 US tour. The only >confirmed dates that I know of are the Whiskey A Go Go in Los Angeles >and the Fillmore West shows in San Francisco from Oct. 16-19. Thanks for the comments re. my question about the Move's short US 'tour' in Oct. 1969. There are posters and handbills from the Grande Ballroom with the Move playing there on Nov. 15 and 16, but these dates are after they had returned to England. They were also booked to play at the Fillmore East in NYC on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, but they too would have been after they had left the US. If anyone knows the dates that they did play at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit with the Stooges I'd appreciate hearing from them. As a side note, Rick Price recalls them 'driving from Chicago to LA along Route 66', however I haven't been able to find any proof that they actually played in Chicago. His comments about the US 'tour' can be found at : http://martinkinch.members.beeb.net/rick.html ********** Subject: Re: The Move Oct. 1969 US tour Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 16:03:48 -0700 From: "stephen mulcahy" i understand that the band was supposed to play my hometown of boston after the fillmore west shows. because of the lunacy of having to travel, by car, over 3000 miles they decided to go home. according to bev bevan's comments in pete frame's excellent rock family trees book. ********** Subject: New Improved Formula - Super Active Wizzo Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 15:39:30 -0700 From: "richardkenworthy" The twin CD SAW with the Sight and Sound In Concert if the BBC will licence it is the definitive option. As I recall the RWWB never played any other concert and so this was the first and last airing of these songs. Frankly I'm amazed that the Sight and Sound concert has never been released by the BBC. I suppose publishing constraints may have been a problem - Wizzo, AKA Mainstreet, not being issued until recently. I want to hear a legal copy of French Perfume with the electric guitar solo rather than acoustic, and the jig that preceded Another Wrong Night. Getting California Man and Are You Ready To Rock from the Sight and Sound broadcast may go some way to us missing out on the Alive album, or will that be another old newie that may be released next year. Best yet would be a Sight and Sound DVD, back in 1977 few of us could afford VCRs to record the concert for posterity. Let's be honest SAW or Sight and Sound is only going to sell to keen fans or completists. Rob get something set up on the Woody web site ASAP so that we can gauge demand from those outside the list. It is possible that if demand is low the price may have to be higher, but hey it is worth paying for so that this recording sees the light. Not so much First Light, as beyond the light. And while I'm saying my 2p worth can we have The Stroll and other singles released around 1976/1979 on the CD too. ********** Subject: Re: Super Active Wizzo - fan interest? Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 09:36:32 -0700 From: "Dale G. Leopold" Put me in for a Super Active Wizzo CD as well. I've always been intrigued by attempts to cross musical boundaries. I even wrote an article in Crawdaddy about this: "A Rock Fan's Journey Into Jazz," in which I argued that the best of the "fusion" bunch generally came from the rock side, since jazz-based artists were too often "slumming" in an attempt to cash in on the rock audience, while the rockers (Jeff Beck, Santana, Zappa) were genuinely stretching into new territory). Roy's efforts in this regard are unlike anyone else's--love the pedal steel breaks! Dale in Richmond ********** Subject: Re: Super Active Wizzo - fan interest? Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 15:40:18 -0700 From: Bruce Markow Chris writes: >I will defiantly put my name down and 'front up' a payment for this album >(and any other projects you have up your sleeve). I'm sure that other >folk will feel the same way too. Could I suggest some sort of >'registering of interest' and (in time) 'pre-payment' for-forma be >made available so that like minded fans can assist your negotiations >with the record company by 'putting our money where our collective >mouths are'! There aren't ALL that many of us on this list to make a huge dent on the record company numbers. Perhaps if we all committed to buy at least TWO copies, one to keep and cherish, and at least one other to give away and turn on a future Roy Wood fan... ********** Subject: Mendelsohn's "Shazam" review Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 19:06:24 -0700 From: Lynn Hoskins This was posted to the Move List back in 1998 by Mike (Tremelo7). He said he got it from a book of Rolling Stone record reviews, and edited out the first half that was a brief history of the group. Rolling Stone May 14, 1970 by John Mendelsohn Those tens of thousands of tours they've endured have paid off handsomely for the Move: their music, both in performance and on this album., is both powerful and intricately structured and flowing. Shazam is a brutally energetic rock and roll album. It opens with "Hello Susie," which, in a substantially different form, was a large hit by a popular British teenybopper act called Amen Corner a while back. The Move introduced it during their American visit with sarcastic remarks about how they'd restored it to its original state, and surely their own version will make even the hardiest teeny wilt with horror. Devastatingly brutal and containing some absolutely lewd guitar, it's sung with unutterable viciousness by Wayne, who delivering some of the nastiest growling ever captured on vinyl, sounds like he'd just as soon bite off Susie's head as look at her. "Beautiful Daughter," a tuneful little pop ditty embellished by a string section that sounds like it just arrived from a McCartney session, is a definite throwback to the first Move album, where, occasional syrupy Paulie imitations are to be found. In "Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited," an adaptation of a charming song about confinement in a mental hospital from the first album, the Move show us all their new tricks. Poundingly rocking and energetic, its orgasmic choruses are yanked in by siren-screech guitar-slides from Wood, after the last of which there appears a short acoustic bridge that introduces an amazing series of composed movements that alternately feature a baroque Spanish guitar line in front of Price's stalking sinister bass, explosive drumming, and finally a choral repetition in falsetto of the baroque guitar line. The walls of the Whisky very nearly crumbled when the Move performed this one there last October. "Don't Make My Baby Blue" is a Mann-Weil semi-schlocker which the Move have converted into a stunning display of all the techniques that characterize the most compelling, "heavy" rock and roll. Wood here employs a monstrously ferocious Jimmy Pagish guitar tone that he makes work perfectly in the context of the song. He slices the song in half in the middle with a screechingly dissonant wah-wah explosion that will floor you, and then at the end hands it over to Bev, whose drum explosion signals the torrent of sirenish harmonies that end the song. "The Last Thing On My Mind" clinches it: what the Move here do with Tom Paxton compares quite favorably with anything the Byrds ever did with Dylan. And perhaps not coincidentally, the Move use all the Byrds' tricks, right down to the dense-sounding twelve-string guitar and massive high choruses that will remind you of jets taking off. Do what you can to prevent this from being the last Move album. Petition Regal Zonophone in England or A&M (who's still sitting stupidly on the first album, afraid to release it). Or write your congressman. The Move must be kept going to give us more albums like this one. - John Mendelsohn 5-14-70 ********** Subject: ...and loving it! Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 20:44:20 -0700 From: Plastic Ono Dream i am loving all these old reviews! what makes them special is that...they're old! meaning they were written when they albums were released, and "the move" was still together! it's exciting, in contrast to all the wonderful things we say about the music now, because it's from back then. keep 'em coming please! ********** Subject: Re: ...and loving it! Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 20:23:33 -0700 From: Greg Weatherby Plastic Ono Dream wrote: >i am loving all these old reviews! what makes them special is >that...they're old! I must be very special! ********** Subject: Who sings "Hello Susie"? Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 19:25:55 -0700 From: Lynn Hoskins From Meldelsohn's review: >Devastatingly brutal and containing some absolutely lewd guitar, it's >sung with unutterable viciousness by Wayne, who delivering some of the >nastiest growling ever captured on vinyl, sounds like he'd just as >soon >bite off Susie's head as look at her. CARL sings "Hello Susie"???? What?!? Is this true? Are you telling me that all this time I thought I was listening to Roy's trademark growl, but it was actually a snarling Carl? P.S. Bruce M, if everyone on the Move List bought two copies of "Super Active Wizzo," we could make a real nice dent. This list is more heavily populated than it appears. ********** Subject: Re; Who sings "Hello Susie"? Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 09:35:34 -0700 From: "Tyler C.Sherman" I've heard a version of "Hello Susie" done for a BBC broadcast with Carl singing it straight. I don't think it's him on the album, his voice is just too smooth to deliver such a gritty vocal attack. I don't know of any other song the Move ever did where Carl sang anything like this.It's gotta be Roy. Mendelsohn obviously assumed that since Carl was known as the Moves 's "lead singer" that it must be be him. Of course, at this point Carl had left the band and Mendelsohn seems to be unaware of it as there is no mention of it in the review. Unless it is mentioned in the breif history the was omitted from this post. And, yes, I agree with Plastic Ono, it is very cool to read these reviews again. Wizzards, Tyler ********** Subject: Re: Who sings "Hello Susie"? Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 09:37:47 -0700 From: "Dale G. Leopold" Now now, I would trust your ears and not Mr. Mendelssohn on this one. Surely that is indeed Roy's trademark growl on Hello Susie. It's funny; I listened to Shazam for more than 20 years before discovering (via this list and Carl's website) that it was Carl singing "Beautiful Daughter" (and most of the rest of the album) and not Roy. Boy was I embarrassed. Roy is still a very versatile vocalist--just not as versatile as I had originally thought. And my opinion of Carl has grown leaps and bounds. Not only could he handle the frothy pop of "Sonmething," but he acquitted himself admirably on the "heavy" Shazam numbers (especially Don't Make My Baby Blue--awe-inspiring vocals there!), especially since he apparently wasn't that into the heavy stuff. For those who have seen Carl recently, has his voice held up? It reminds me of the time I asked Cheap Trick's (criminally underrated) Robin Zander, following a show in '97, how in God's name his voice held up night after night, with no apparent signs of strain. "Daily oral sex," he replied, then after a pause he quicky added "with women!" Dale in Richmond End of Useless Information #352 ******************************* [This digest is the copyright of the Move "Useless Information" Mailing List. Re-publication or re-distribution of "Useless Information" content, in any form whatsoever, is expressly prohibited without prior written consent.]