Heroes, Saints & A Foolish Promo Video

It was July 1982 and Saracen's keyboardist Richard Lowe was talking to Kerrang!'s Howard Johnson and feeling bullish:

"Our last album was originally released last November on the same day as AC/DC and it outsold For Those About to Rock in our home area of the North Midlands by a considerable amount. Our manager was distributing the album himself, running all over the place, and no sooner had he got back home than the phone would ring with people demanding more!"

The album was Heroes, Saints & Fools, which Saracen released on the small Nucleus label in 1981. I like the idea that it in charity shops across the North Midlands it can be found rubbing sleeves with Paul Young's No Parlez and James Last's 40 Golden Greats. It's not a bad album, consisting mostly of slightly slapdash prog metal leavened by a corny attempt at writing a single ("No more lonely nights for me / Neon lights have set me free").

Saracen received a bit of attention back in 1981/2 and were seen by some as the next big thing. Admittedly these people tended to be either members of the band (in the same interview quoted above they claimed they could go "one better" than Uriah Heep) or Tommy Vance, who was a fan of the album and gave them a Friday Rock Show session. They never made it big in the end. Apart from anything else, they took too long to release their second album, which didn't come out until 1984, by which time a lot had changed.

However along the way they signed to Neat Records and released a much better attempt at a single We Have Arrived, which despite a slightly ropey sci-fi lyric thumps along pretty well. They even got a chance to make a promo video for it when Neat decided to make a compilation VHS called Metal City.
It's a wonderful capsule of a certain time and place. Look at the sweatbands! The drummer in his football shorts! The Eddie Van Halen guitar decoration! The scantily clad girls trying to find something to dance to!

I also really like how it depicts Saracen's Rock & Roll lifestyle as driving round the countryside in a Bedford van while girls overtake them in a Vauxhall Cavalier (note the RAC sticker). It's got the NWOBHM written all over it.

Rox: Northern Glam

British Hair Metal never really took off, thank the Lord. The NWOBHM bands grew up with Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and AC/DC rather than Kiss or the New York Dolls, neither of whom were that popular in the UK in the 1970s. So, while the early 80s saw bands like Motley Crue gearing up in California, back in the UK, metal bands favoured denim and leather, and there was an unwritten rule that anything beyond a pair of striped Spandex trousers was venturing dangerously into New Romantic territory.

Of course, there were exceptions. The above picture of Rox appeared in Kerrang! No. 27 in October 1982. You kind of see why Hair Metal never really caught on in the UK. First of all, cloudy skies and council houses just didn't provide you with the same backdrop as Sunset Strip or Laurel Canyon. Then there was the matter of giving yourself cool names. Rox did have a go at this, but you have to say that Kick-ass Kev Kozak, Red Hot Red and Bernie Emerald just didn't have the same quality as Ace Frehley.

The overall impression is a bit like one of those "American Burger Bars" that you sometimes come across when traveling in Europe, which operate under the belief that a poster of the Statue of Liberty and couple of black and white photos of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe will make you feel that you've magically crossed the Atlantic (I don't think it's a surprise that the one British Hair Metal band that did make it big- Def Leppard - plastered themselves in Union Jacks).

Branded Metal

I took the above photo a couple of weeks ago while out shopping. I wasn't aware that Converse had released a set of Black Sabbath trainers. The ones featuring the artwork of the first album are tempting in a garish way; I like the fact that they subtly declare your allegiance. You can imagine yourself seeing someone the bus wearing these and nodding knowingly. "Can you help me?", you would ask, "Are you for my brain?" they would reply. Except of course there's the likelihood that the person wearing them wouldn't recognise the secret language, or indeed any Sabbath song.

The evidence is accumulating that Heavy Metal band names, logos and artwork may live on longer than their music. Bands such as AC/DC, Motorhead, Kiss and Black Sabbath seem to being used more and more frequently to project some kind of image, real of otherwise; imagine Che Guevara but with a Jack Daniels T Shirt.

I've nothing against bands "maximising their revenue streams" via Motorheadphones or Kiss Koffins, but I can't help thinking that ultimately they'll overdo it and become shorthand for a lifestyle choice, like what has happened with Bob Marley and happening with the Ramones.

Of course, the irony is that 40 years ago the idea that Sabbath and fashion would in any way intersect would have seemed as likely as Ozzy singing in front of the Queen at Buckingham Palace. But then what do I know? Perhaps the officially-licensed Sabotage Chequered Underwear and Red Tights Combo is already in development.

Motorhead - The Tiswas Years

It may seem a bit strange, but I've always regarded Motorhead as a singles band. Maybe this is because when I was first starting to buy records and follow the charts they were regularly up there in the Top 10, duking it out with Blondie, Abba and the other big names of the period. Don't believe me? Well have a look at the copy of Top of the Pops above where an outlay of a few pounds you could listen to cover versions of Super Trouper, Woman in Love and ... Ace of Spades (I'd love to hear that cover version by the way, has anyone got it?). Then, have a look at their chart record between Dec 1979 early 1982; not many other bands had a 1980 and 1981 as good as Motorhead.

Dec 1979  Bomber (34)
May 1980  The Golden Years EP  (8)
Nov 1980  Ace of Spades (15)
Feb 1981  St Valentine's Day Massacre (5)
Jul 1981  Motorhead Live (6)
Apr 1982  Iron Fist (29)

Looking back, one of the more enjoyable aspects of that period was that metal bands were quite prepared to do the publicity circuit in order to sell their records. There was very little of the sullen "we're too cool for this sort of thing" that came in later. So you had Judas Priest miming to Hot Rockin' on kids show Razzamatazz, AC/DC live on duff live show Rock goes to College, and best of all, Motorhead and Girlschool, appearing on Saturday morning's Tiswas. You can see Lemmy and Denise playing the custard pie game in the clip below.

Eventually, the hits dried up for Motorhead. Part of this was due to changing tastes: Rainbow, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest and Whitesnake were all in the Top 20 in the same years as Motorhead, but only David Coverdale would return there in later years. But a large part was due to Motorhead themselves; Iron Fist was a ham-fisted follow-up to Ace of Spades and as the 80s went on, Lemmy started knocking around with the Comic Strip comedians, appearing in their TV shows and films. It's hard not to think that the band lost momentum. Here they are at the height of their fame, performing Please Don't Touch with Girlschool on Top of the Pops in February 1981.

We'll Bring the House Down

 
Like many other folk, one of the first singles I bought was by Slade. However, unlike most of those folk, mine wasn't one of their classic stompers on that familiar red Polydor label from their 1972-74 heyday. Mine was We'll Bring the House Down, which was released on the appropriately-named Cheapskate label in January 1981 and against all odds put them back in the top ten, with a heavy metal song to boot. Yes, for a couple of years, Slade, to all intents and purposes, were part of the NWOBHM.

Slade, according to the British Hit Singles & albums were "the most successful British group of the 1970s based on sales of singles" (Translation: they sold more than Queen and T. Rex but less than Abba). In 1973 they were the first band since the Beatles to have a single enter the UK charts at number 1. In total, they had three singles go straight in at number one, despite the fact that one of them, Skweeze me Pleeze Me, was absolute rubbish. They were huge. However, by 1981 they hadn't had a Top 10 hit in six years. They were getting desperate. So desperate that they released a version of the hokey cokey. Twice. It failed to chart. Twice.

Then they played the Reading Festival in 1980 after the Blizzard of Oz pulled out (can't imagine what was wrong with Ozzy) and they stole the show. Tommy Vance broadcast the show on the Friday Rock Show and for the first time in years they had a bit of momentum. They then released We'll Bring the House Down, which rode the wave of metal singles charting in the top 20 in 1980-81 and reached No. 10. The single itself was a cheap-looking thing, released in a flimsy black and white picture sleeve, it looked more like a UK Subs or Angelic Upstarts single than something from the most successful British group of the 1970s based on sales of singles. But it made a hell of a racket. It's basically a cross between a 70's football chant and a 70s heavy metal song, but not for the first time the band's charisma, musical chops and energy combined to transform a pretty thin song into a hit.

And that was that for a few years. The follow-up, Knuckle Sandwich Nancy wasn't a hit, and they didn't return to the chart until the end of 1983 when they had one of the biggest hits of the career with the truly awful My Oh My (serious contender for the 1983 Xmas No. 1) which was followed up with another top 10 hit, the equally bad Run Runaway, where they sounded like Big Country. Best remember them this way.

And if you're a Slade fan (and who isn't really? Be honest) you can head over to Bandcamp where this blog's friend John Medd has released his first EP, which features a cover of Slayed gem I Won't Let it Happen Again (even if he's corrected the grammar, the big posho).