My Seventies Music

Tag: Palmerston North

  • Magazine – “Rhythm Of Cruelty”, “Believe That I Understand”, “I Wanted Your Heart”, “Talk To The Body”, “Permafrost”, “The Thin Air”, “Feed The Enemy” and “Back To Nature”

    Magazine album "Secondhand Daylight" (1979)

    Magazine is another of those UK New Wave bands whose music I first heard played by the house band (Snatch) at the Majestic Hotel in Palmerston North, New Zealand, prompting me to buy their album “Second Daylight” with songs like “Rhythm Of Cruelty”, “Believe That I Understand”, “I Wanted Your Heart”, “Talk To The Body”, “Permafrost”, “The Thin Air”, “Feed The Enemy” and “Back To Nature”.

    Listening to some of the tracks now I’m not so sure why I bought it, but I think it might have been “Rhythm Of Cruelty” I heard at the Majestic (though I don’t recall the women at the pub being dressed like this…):

    “Believe That I Understand” might have been another one I heard in Palmerston North:


    Not sure about “I Wanted Your Heart”:


    Here are some more tracks from “Secondhand Daylight”, some of them seem a bit obscure for a “post punk” band, but you might like them, so I’ll let you make up your own mind…

    “Talk To The Body”:

    “Permafrost”:

    “The Thin Air”:

    “Feed The Enemy”:

    “Back To Nature”:



    That last one wasn’t quite what I was expecting, think I confused it with “Slow Motion” by Ultravox…

    Paul

  • (UK) Squeeze – “Goodbye Girl”, “Cool For Cats”, “Up The Junction”, “Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)”, “Tempted”, “Black Coffee In Bed” and “Annie Get Your Gun”

    (UK) Squeeze album "Cool For Cats" (1979)

    Squeeze are a UK band (I always thought they were called UK Squeeze) who began charting in the late Seventies with songs like “Goodbye Girl”, “Cool For Cats” and “Up The Junction” and continued to record in the Eighties and Nineties.

    Actually I’ve just seen that they were called UK Squeeze initially outside the UK to avoid legal conflicts with other bands in North America and Australia, this must have been the time when I first became aware of them.

    I don’t know any of the songs from their first album, “Squeeze”, but I do recognise numbers from the second, “Cool For Cats”.

    Two tracks from this one reached Number 2 on the UK charts, “Cool For Cats” and “Up The Junction”.

    I remember the live band at the Majestic Hotel in Palmerston North, New Zealand, playing “Cool For Cats” in 1979.

    Most of their other songs I know I actually taped off a live show in Germany a few years later.

    Here’s the 1978 track “Goodbye Girl”:



    “Cool For Cats”, from the album of the same name, went to No. 2 in the UK and 5 in Australia:

    Many Squeeze songs tell a story, and the 1979 track “Up The Junction”, another No. 2 hit, is no exception (if you’ve heard of the big railway junction just south of London, you’ll get the play on words in this one) :

    The following year Squeeze again had a number of singles, one of them was “Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)”, sung here live on TV a few years later in 1985:

    Another Squeeze favourite from around this time is “Tempted”:

    And “Black Coffee In Bed”:

    “Annie Get Your Gun” is a typical Squeeze track:

    And this is “Annie Get Your Gun” live in 1982:

    I hear Squeeze are together and touring again, must keep an eye out for them…

    Paul

  • Mi-Sex – “Graffitti Crimes”, “Computer Games” and “But You Don’t Care”

    Album cover of "Graffitti Crimes" by New Zealand band Mi-Sex (1979)

    Mi-Sex was a top New Zealand band that went to Australia in the late Seventies and had a lot of success there, culminating in their first album “Graffitti Crimes”, featuring the title track as well as songs like the Australian No. 1 single “Computer Games” and their recent other single from 1979, “But You Don’t Care”.

    I remember their predecessor band Father Thyme playing at dances in the “Old Woolroom” at Massey University in about 1977 or 1978.

    I distinctly remember they played “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” by Pink Floyd – or maybe it was “Welcome To The Machine” from the same album (not so distinct after all…), and I also remember chatting to the bass player, Don Martin, in the breaks.

    Mi-Sex, however, played quite a different style, quite New Wave, and when I was planning the 1980 Massey University Student Orientation (two weeks in February-March when term started in New Zealand after the summer vacation), I tried to hire them for a festival we were running – for NZ$10,000, a lot more than Father Thyme had commanded.

    Unfortunately they were already booked for that time, so it didn’t happen, and I had to be content with buying their album, which I think I bought in Germany, having gone there a couple of weeks after Orientation ended to write my M.A. thesis.

    As I said, the album, released in July 1979, was called “Graffitti Crimes”, here’s the title track:

    One of my favourites is the 1979 single “But You Don’t Care”:

    And finally the hit “Computer Games”, which wasn’t on all versions of the album:

    Mi-Sex disbanded in 1984, and unfortunately lead singer Steve Gilpin died after a car accident on his way home from a gig in 1991.

    But their music and the memory live on.

    Paul

  • George Thorogood And The Destroyers – “You Got To Lose”, “Madison Blues”, “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer”, “Ride On Josephine”, “I’ll Change My Style” And “Delaware Slide”

    Album cover of "George Thorogood And The Destroyers" (1977)
    The George Thorogood And The Destroyers album of the same name came out in 1977, with a track list (largely covers of blues evergreens at that stage) that included “You Got To Lose”, “Madison Blues”, “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer”, “Ride On Josephine”, “I’ll Change My Style” and “Delaware Slide”.

    Now GD and T, as they are sometimes known, or also George Thorogood And The Delaware Destroyers, are not exactly mainstream, so you didn’t hear a lot of them on the radio where I lived.

    In fact you didn’t hear them at all, and it wasn’t till I returned to New Zealand from Germany for a few weeks in 1982 that I heard this record for the first time staying with friends in my old university town of Palmerston North, but since then it has been one of my favourites.

    I bought a copy and took it back to Germany, where I introduced it to some acquaintances of mine in a blues band.

    They probably don’t remember that, but I like to think in doing so I had a slight influence on their music…

    Whatever.

    The eponymous album, as music critics seem to like to say – meaning the name of the record was the same as the name of the artist, go figure – begins at a cracking pace with “You Got To Lose”:

    The inimitable George Thorogood slide guitar sound continues with “Madison Blues”:

    This one is nearly ten minutes long, look at the way those fingers and thumb move on the electric guitar on “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” – and note the “duel” between guitar and saxophone at around six minutes into the song:

    I just looovvve this one, “Ride On Josephine”:

    “Delaware Slide” is pure instrumental:

    This next one is actually from later (1982), and was used a lot in films and television – “Back To The Bone”:

    Finally, from the first album again, “I’ll Change My Style”

    Be a shame if he did…

    Paul

  • The Cars – “Just What I Needed”, “My Best Friends Girl”, “Good Times Roll”, “Touch And Go”, “Since You’re Gone”, “Shake It Up” and “Drive”

    "The Cars" album cover
    Looking for a present for my sister in the late Seventies, I bought her the 1978 The Cars album, aptly titled “The Cars”, so I could also listen to tracks like “Just What I Needed”, “My Best Friend’s Girl” and “Good Times Roll”, which I had heard covered live by resident band Snatch at the Majestic Hotel in New Zealand’s university town of Palmerston North.

    “Touch And Go” from the 1980 album “Panorama” is another track from The Cars I like, as is “Shake It Up” from the album of the same name, which apparently came out in 1981, though I seem to remember hearing the track before that. (As it was written years earlier by Ric Ocasek, I guess that’s possible.)

    A later song by The Cars that has always been a favourite of mine – though I’m not even sure I knew it was from them – is their 1984 hit “Drive”, which was featured at the Live Aid concert in 1985.

    This song from 1978 was at Live Aid too…. “Just What I Needed”:

    The huge crowd at Live Aid certainly enjoyed it, but I kind of prefer the earlier version, this reminds me of the atmosphere at the pub where I used to dance to this song in the late Seventies:

    “My Best Friends Girl”:

    “Good Times Roll”:

    Can’t say I remember “All Mixed Up”, also from the first album, but I like the sound:

    I definitely have memories of “Touch And Go”, from the “Panorama” album:

    “Since You’re Gone”, from the “Shake It Up” album, has the feel of an Irish singalong (makes me think of The Pogues!):

    And of course, the title track from that album, “Shake It Up” itself:

    “Drive”, from the 1984 album “Heartbeat City”:

    The sadness in this song is made more poignant still knowing that the singer, The Cars bass player Benjamin Orr, died just a decade and a half later of pancreatic cancer. He was still performing live six days before his death.

    Because “Drive” is such a beautiful song, here it is again live:

    Take care.

    Paul

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