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HOOK END - SPACE STUDIOS - today
Sarm Hook End:
This fabulous studio has
undergone an extensive technical and
cosmetic refit. The upgrade has seen the installation of a new 96
frame SSL 9000j
- series console with 80 channels fitted, Total Recall and
Ultimation. The 12 Focusrite
ISA85110 (mic amp/EQ) modules that were housed in the old SSL
4000E console
have been rescued, and are now located in rack form along with the
rest of the outboard. The studio 'Two Track' equipment has also been upgraded
and improved
with the addition of the new HHB CDR850 and two Sony R700 Dat
recorders.
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Ten Years After:
Not my cup of tea, I'm sorry to say. Had great problems watching Alvin
Lee in the "Woodstock" movie. It goes on and on and
on... But I admit he has good technique and can reel off impressive
jazz phrasings. And Leo Lyons' moustaches - and bass chops -
impressed me too.
Ric Lee on drums played with Stan
Webb for a while - like everybody else, I almost added (on
album "Roadies Concerto" 1981).
To be fair, I never caught T.Y.A. truly live - perhaps that could have
changed my mind.
Lester Bangs of "Creem"
magazine did. He waxed it poetically about Alvin in the April '73
issue:
"When he's in full flight Alvin slides up
to the microphone and grins like a moose. He's built like a football
player, and his guitar english is in accordance with the image -
none of this fey barely-touching stuff for Mr. Lee (unless he wuz
touching one of the Bobbettes) - he grits and grinds and bumps and
juts, making it clear without overstating his virility that he don't
fuck around.
He has a great sense of humour, too - whilst playing 78 RPM ultimo
methedrine guitar with one hand, shaking the mike with the other,
bouncing stage front in a kind of electric slouch (like a vibrating
spring) and singing in the corniest and most blatant ripoff of
something resembling an old New Orleans Smiley Lewis vocal style
ever heard, he'll swivel his skull and literally leer at the
audience with glee at once sly and mindless. Naturally they ate it
up. That man ain't no fool."
Mind you: Lester was a T.Y.A. fan! About
the group:
"...TYA are in some ways the
granddaddies of the whole blooming boogie-bloozup-getdown school of
band which has proliferated since they first hit the sets. Savoy
Brown copped their riffs in all comradeship, Cactus would
be lost without their model, and Foghat would never had
existed had TYA not blazed the trail, Alvin hacking away the
jungle with a machete..."
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ALVIN LEE
"IN FLIGHT" WITH NEW BAND:
In an effort to
expand his musical horizons, Alvin Lee has suspended his
activties with Ten Years After and undertaken a tour with a new
band to perform material from his second solo album, "In
Flight". The grind of touring and the limitations put upon
Lee by "the violent thrashing and gritting of teeth"
in the Woodstock festival film had reached the point of
exhaustion. Ten Years' attempts to break into more lyrical areas
had failed, and Lee was spending his time between their gigs
recording songs totally atypical of the band's previous output.
Alvin ultimately
retired to his country retreat to consider his next move. One
night he was visiting at George Harrison's home, and discussed
his dilemma with Harrison advisor Terry Donan. Donan insisted
that most musicians don't possess enough independence to follow
a direction of their own choosing.
"Well"
said Lee "I can choose to do whatever I want, whenever I
want to do it." Donan called his bluff: "If you're as
independent as you say you are," he taunted, "then why
don't you put on your own solo concert at the Rainbow Theater in
London?"
The rest as we know
is history and thanks to Donan's idea Alvin pulled off one of
the greatest concerts of all time.
1975 CBS Inc. Circus
Magazine
Photo from 1973 |
