Lou Reed (of the Velvet Underground) was and still is a bit different, and “Take A Walk On The Wild Side” is no exception.
Kinda weird, but sticks in your mind…. doop, de doop, de doop, de doop de doop, doop, de doop, de doop, de doop de doop, doooooop… :-).
He did come to New Zealand in the Seventies, as far as I can remember I didn’t go.
If I recall rightly, there may have been some controversy, as in he didn’t play!
Anyway, this is the original, and many say the best, version of “Take A Walk On The Wild Side”:
Another song from Lou Reed I quite like, despite the title, is “Vicious”:
And here’s some live Lou Reed, “Sweet Jane” live in Paris in 1974 (I don’t actually know this, but it sounds cool; just read it was a Velvet Underground song):
I just had a look in my record collection, and I actually have a Lou Reed album, “The Bells”, but it’s from 1979 and none of these songs are on it as they all came out in the early Seventies.
Just read that it’s Lou Reed’s birthday in two days time, the day after mine, and the same day as a friend in Berlin.
By coincidence, one of his albums was titled… “Berlin”.
One of my favourite cities, in fact I nearly moved there in 1983.
Come to think of it, why don’t I just include “Berlin” here as well…
In 1974 Alastair Riddell’s band Space Waltz took New Zealand by storm with “Out On The Street”.
The rest of the world, with the exception of Australia, has probably never heard of it.
Many considered Alastair to be “New Zealand’s David Bowie”. He certainly cultivated that image.
Anyway, that year, Space Waltz were the winners or runners up of a television music competition called Studio One New Faces – what you might call an early forerunner of “American/Australian/ etc. Idol” or the UK’s “X Factor”.
To promote “Out On The Street” they went on tour, and after the exposure of the show and the release of their album, they toured again in 1975.
At the time I was the editor of a school magazine, and it just happened to be the May holidays, if I recall correctly.
Space Waltz were playing in Gisborne, and I managed to get an interview with them.
I did the interview at the sound check, and then we all went to a small restaurant to have dinner before the concert started.
Unfortunately, although there were no other guests, the restaurant took so long to deliver the meal that we had to leave without eating so the show could start on time!
Some of the members of Space Waltz went on to greatness in other bands, such as Split Enz and its successor Crowded House (keyboarder Eddie Rayner, called Tony Raynor on the album cover, who also worked with Paul McCartney), or Citizen Band (guitarist Greg Clark, drummer Brent Eccles).
And when Phil Judd, co-founder of Split Enz, left the band, Alastair was invited to replace him.
He declined, and Neil Finn, the little brother of the other co-founder Tim Finn, headed for London to join his brother’s band, and the rest is history. Neil wrote a number of hits for Split Enz and later formed super band Crowded House (I interviewed him and his brother in Frankfurt in 1991.).
But back to our story…
Actually I don’t know what has since become of Alastair Riddell, though I did find out he later had a band called Modern Contour. And much shorter hair.
I still have my copy of the album “Space Waltz”. Before I got it, I used to listen to “Out On The Street” over and over again on a compilation LP.
So here it is, “Out On The Street”, first the clearer album version:
This is how Space Waltz performed “Out On The Street” on New Zealand television:
And also from the “Space Waltz” album, “Beautiful Boy” (in black and white and followed by the judges’ comments on Studio One, and the competition they were up against, a family singing what would now be considered a “politically incorrect” traditional piece):
No doubt in my mind where the talent in that particular talent show lay…
Paul
P.S. I’ve meanwhile just read that Eddie Rayner and Alastair Riddell re-made the “Space Waltz” album and released it in 2004.
P.P.S. Some time later, I came across this video showing a cross-section of the guys “then” and many years later, on The Paul Holmes Show I believe:
Was 1978 “The Year Of The Cat”, when – I think – I heard the song of the same name by Al Stewart all the time?
Well, the song itself apparently came out in 1977.
It was helped on its way to success by none other than Alan Parsons, and was, it seems, part of the inspiration for him to establish The Alan Parsons Project. He then went on to produce the album “Time Passages”.
Anyway, without further ado, here’s “The Year Of The Cat” from Al Stewart:
Presumably from the same album, and also a hit shortly after or thereabouts, was “On The Border”:
And, as mentioned, a later album was “Time Passages”, which must have been successful because I certainly remember it well:
I don’t remember much else about him though, and I’m not even sure if I knew what he looked like!
Just now on seeing the videos I thought he looked very young.
I guess that could have something to do with time passages…. or at least time passing…
When I heard the name Alan Parsons mentioned today, in my mind I was in a student flat in about 1977 in Waldegrave Street, Palmerston North, New Zealand, listening to “The Raven” from the album “Tales Of Mystery And Imagination”, the first from The Alan Parsons Project.
The Alan Parsons Project was founded by its namesake Alan Parsons, a young engineer at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London, and Eric Woolfson, who wrote most of the songs and sang on many of them. Woolfson died at the beginning of December last year (2009).
Alan Parsons first came to prominence engineering the Beatles album “Abbey Road”, and was also particularly well known for his work on Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side Of The Moon”, as well as many works by The Hollies.
He also played a major role in influencing the sound of Al Stewart’s “The Year Of The Cat” and “Time Passages”, which he also produced.
The Alan Parsons Project was really a fluid group of different musicians around these two main protagonists, and produced studio music in the genre some call progressive rock.
“Tales Of Mystery And Imagination”, released in 1976, was a tribute to horror writer Edgar Allen Poe. Here are two tracks from it:
“The Raven” (lead vocals by Leonard Whiting, Alan Parsons lead vocal through a “vocoder”):
“(The System Of) Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether” (vocals John Miles and Jack Harris):
The following year “I Robot” was released. There are a number of tunes from this record I still remember well.
Firstly, of course, the title track, “I Robot”:
“Breakdown” (vocals Allan Clarke):
“I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You” (vocals Lenny Zakatek):
“Some Other Time” (vocals Peter Straker and Jaki Whitren):
“Don’t Let It Show” (vocals Dave Townsend)
Although in the early years there was little live material, later you can find more, and especially recently, although The Alan Parsons Project itself ceased to exist back in 1987 already.
Here is a live version of “Don’t Let It Show”:
In 1980 the musicians released the album “The Turn Of A Friendly Card”.
It featured the song “Time”, with lead vocals by Eric Woolfson:
Finally, from the 1982 album of the same name, “Eye In The Sky”, also sung by Eric Woolfson: