Budgie - hotter than a dockers armpit

10am Monday 18th December.
Wow - what a week. Last monday I was watching Iron maiden blast the socks off all and sundry at the Cardiff International Arena. On saturday the venue was somewhat smaller as I went to Tom's bar in Pontypridd (I got there eventually! The area has a one-way system competing for the coveted prize of "Most confusing road system in a small Welsh town!" It's a big award. Really!) to see classic rockers BUDGIE. Wow. And wow again. If you've not come across Budgie before (what!) i suggest you pop out and buy one or two or nine of their albums right now. I recommend Bandolier or Nightflight or In For The Kill. They have more killer riffs per record than almost any other band. It's why Metallica covered Breadfan and Crash Course In Brain Surgery on their 1988 Garage Inc album. Iron Maiden covered I Can't See My Feelings on their Fear Of the Dark CD (Bonus Disk), Sound Garden reinterpreted Budgie's Homicidal Suicidal - while Van Halen used to play In For The Kill live their early days. In fact Iron Maiden's main man Steve Harris is a big Budgie fan! No wonder. In front of about 150 people in a crowded venue, the band started with a few numbers from their latest album You're All Living In Cloud Cuckooland. Two of those songs, Justice and Dead Men Don't Talk, were phenomenal. New guitarist Simon Lees plays at a blistering rate. You can barely see his fingers move up and down the guitar fret. He adds a real sharp modern punch to the Budgie sound. (See pics of Burke Shelley and Simon Lees above - taken on a mobile phone)
Next up, as the band start one of their classic tunes, I Turn To Stone, the whole crowd start singing the opening line seconds before lead singer Burke Shelley got there!!! By the time the band finish an hour and half later with Breadfan, the place was bouncing so much, it moved two buildings down the street and has since had to change its address!!!

I met up with the band backstage and they were great - I'd spoken to the drumer Steve Williams and Burke before for my book ROCK LEGENDS AT ROCKFIELD, as a whole chapter looks at Budgies time there - when they recorded their first six albums at the studios. They also returned again a few years later to record again.
As we chatted pre-show Steve (the drummer) told me a great story from 1978. Budgie had been recording and touring in Canada for a year or two and had been away from the UK music scene for a while, missing the advent of punk.
Upon their return their promoter lined up a few gigs in the UK. In Hastings they had trouble with the support act, who were not happy that they could only use two thirds of the PA system. Budgies manager explained to them that the full pa was traditionally held back for the main act. Undeterred, two of the group barged into Budgie's changing room and confronted their manager. Waving their fists at him and telling him he was "out of order" to treat them this way. And they weren't going to stand for it. Well Budgie's manager at the time was a big guy. He grabbed the two guys, forcefully threw them out of the dressing room and told them that if they didn't like it they could Fuck off!!! Later the band discovered the two guys from the support act who'd complained were Malcolm MaClaren and Johnny Rotten. The band: The Sex Pistols! It was their first ever gig.

Anyway on Saturday Budgie tore the roof off Toms with a cracking performance. If you like Black Sabbath or Rush or classic hard rock. Get a Budgie album now!!

2pm Back to writting the book. The final chapter is coming on apace. Kasabian and the Tokyo Dragons had a ball at Rockfield. KT Tunstall struggled and quit the place because she was overwhelmed by its history. Coldplay also struggled for their first album and thought their record company was going to dump them (Oh if only I could build a time machine!!!!) while Starsailor revelled in the studios history.
I've had difficulty writting the sort of summary at the end of the chapter but in taking a few choice quotes from people who've recorded their down the years I think I've nailed it. I end on a quote to highlight the bizarre, surreal and yet homely atmosphere at Rockfield. It involves homemade trifle and studio mixing desks!!! Enough said for now!

4pm
It's on to the christmas cards. This is harder than writing the book. My arm is now sore. I need an Xmas card stunt arm to finish this! A search on Google for Stunt Body Parts R Us proves fruitless. I press on. Cards done. Now to catch the post. What do you mean last christmas posting day was yesterday? Damn!!! Hand delivered maybe???


Jeff Collins
ROCK LEGENDS AT ROCKFIELD will be published by The University of Wales Press (Europe) and University of Chicago Press (USA). It will be available to buy on Amazon.co.uk and amazon.com.
Published spring/summer 2007 date TBC.

Book 2 is to be the story of BUDGIE!! STAY TUNED!!!!

Iron Maiden Rock!!!!!

11am Monday 11th Dec -- It's Iron Maiden live tonight - the first time I'll have seen the band live. I don't know how I've managed to miss them so often in the past. First though I have to spend a few hours putting together chapter nine of my ROCK LEGENDS AT ROCKFIELD Book. This one is about the eighties. It mainly features Simple Minds and food fights, Clannad trying to go hard rock to break the USA, Echo and the Bunnymen having a nightmare trying their tricky third album and Ian McNabb's Icicle Works. But former Iron Maiden singer Paul Di'Anno also recorded there in the 80's having left Maiden. He did his first solo album there. Here's an extract from my interview with Dianno guitarist Lee Slater who bumped into a ROCK LEGEND while working on that record:
" We had already done a demo at Rockfield about a year earlier and that’s when we met Robert Plant. In fact, he came in to say hello and at the same time dropped us a case of 24 beers for us to enjoy. We had a chat about the band, the studio, Zeppelin (of course) what he was doing at the time etc. To be honest, most of the time my chin was on the floor in amazement that Robert Plant had walked in with a case of beer and said "Hi guys, how's it going?"
Lee also tells a fantastically hysterical story about a drummer who fell asleep drunk in the toilets while having a dump and how the band had to remove him. Who says being a rock star is all abour glamour????? Drummers form a theme of the Dianno segment and the singer himself talks about another drummer they used for one session who got into some "Girl Trouble" at Rockfield and ended up in the police cells.
7pm After a good day's writimg it's time to head off to Cardiff's steamy sauna that is the International Arena. Lauren Harris - Maiden bassist steve's daughter - is up first and she's excellent. You should check out her songs on her website www.myspace.com/laurenharrisuk. Then it was the turn of Trivium - who weren't bad. But it was the arrival of Maiden that got the crowd really going. They bounced on stage to perform the whole of A Matter of Life And Death - their new album - for the first 70 minutes. This was great. The album is fantastic. One of the band's best for years and it was excellent to hear the whole thing live. (See Live pics taken from my camera phone above) Then they spent the next forty minutes playing a handful of songs from their back catalogue including Fear Of the Dark, Two Minutes To Midnight, Iron Maiden, The Evil That Men Do.
The stage set was a cleverly constructed world war II bunker complete with ramparts, searchlights, barbed wire and (eventually) a huge tank. Bruce Dickinson was outstanding. He hardly stopped running all show. He was full of energy and on the top of his game.
The only problem for the band was that it was so hot that there was condensation forming above their stage lights in the roof and raining down on the stage. It was aas if the stage had a different eco-system to the rest of the arena and by the end of the show the band were soaked having had to play the gig in a virtual shower.
9/10 for Maiden. they were terrific and if you can get to see them --- do so.


Jeff

ROCK LEGENDS AT ROCKFIELD is published Spring/Summer 2007 by University of Wales Press.

Mission impossible for Iron Maiden tickets + Tokyo Dragons and Kasabian at Rockfield

10am Monday December 4th.
Today's task is to make a start on my final chapter (that is the last one in the book as I've still another two to piece together before the whole book is finished). I start sorting through my interviews and research when an email drops into my inbox. It's seems the ticket I've been sent for the Iron Maiden concert at the Cardiff International Arena a week today has been sent to the wrong address. EMI Records PR people have sent it to my old employers BBC Wales, who I left three months ago to go freelance.
Damn! This is going to call for some Mission: Impossible style planning to retrieve that. I shall have to hire a helicopter and get one of my friends to learn how to fly it. Then I can be lowered by cable from the helicopter at midnight wearing nightvision googles (I can probably get an ex-Navy Seals pair on Ebay dirt cheap!!) - I can cut my way through the BBC Post Room roof using special hi-tech laser cutters (Also available on Ebay). Once in, I can get the helicopter to move closer to the building and ......Hold on! This is a bit too complex. I'll have to turn to PLAN B. Call the BBC Post room and get them to hold onto the letter, while I pop down at lunchtime and pick it up. Problem solved. And by midday I have one Iron maiden ticket in my hands.

12pm
It's back down to work on the final chapter - the one documenting this decade. Kasabian, Tokyo Dragons, KT Tunstall, UFO's Pete Way, and The Darkness are among the bands to feature (plus a very funny tale about Coldplay nearly bottling their first album).
The Tokyo Dragons themselves have been extremely helpful. I first bumped into the band in October 2005 when I reviewed their School Of Rock Tour at Cardiff for Classic Rock Magazine. They were playing along with the Answer and a band called Sound Explosion. The triple bill involved rotating the three acts as headliners. A bad move on the part of the promoters. If they'd set out to confuse the fans of each of the three bands, they couldn't have done it better. That night in Cardiff The Dragons were headlining and were the last act on. The Answer were first up and, long after they'd been on, I bumped into a group of guys from Northern Ireland, who'd travelled over specially to see the Answer. "We can't wait to see them. They're great live", one of the gang informed me proudly. "But surely you seen them?"' I asked. "They've already been on". I don't like being the bearer of bad news - particularly when it leads to grown men crying. Cue outbreak of emotion (fuelled by much alcohol). This group of Answer fans had turned up late because their tickets had "The Answer" printed in capitals at the top of the ticket with the other two groups in lower case below. Oops!!! The group of angry irishmen troop off to find any luckless person related to the Promoters, who they can take their anger and disappointment out on.

When I arrived during the soundcheck earlier that evening, The Answer - and in particular their lead singer Cormack Neeson - were incredibly helpful and really great people.
The Dragons were likewise fantastic guys. They invited me backstage for some beers prior to their slot and we drank and chatted about music in general - including bands that have influenced us like AC/DC, Motorhead, Thin Lizzy, The Allman Brothers and Grand Funk Railroad (despite the crap name a bloody rocking band). The band are hugely pleasurable company. They eventually took the the stage (See the top two photos) - with the chanting of DRAGONS, DRAGONS, DRAGONS becoming deafening. The band played material from their debut album Gimme The Fear (A Must Buy for any rock fan!!!) and were outstanding.
Gimme the Fear had been recorded at Rockfield and produced by Pedro Ferreira - who produced The Darkness' debut album.
Here's an extract of the interview I did with them about working at Rockfield.

STEVE LOMAX - Lead Singer - I thought of all the famous records made there: Budgie, Sabbath, Motorhead and thought “Let’s get it on.....One night I saw Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody on the TV. And I thought ‘Fucking hell, that was recorded here.’ Out of the window of my room, I could see the studio where it was recorded and I thought ‘ Yeah I recognise that sound.’

Kasabian also recorded at Rockfield during the 2000's (or the naughties - depending how you like to describe it.)
The band spent three months at Rockfield - recording music, enjoying lock-ins at the local pub and sampling the local fish and chips.

Producer Jim Abbiss - who also produced the Artic Monkeys debut Cd - was at the helm for Kasabian's number 1 LP Empire.
Here's an extract from my interview with Jim.

Q: Why Rockfield?
A: The guys used to live on a farm in Leicestershire and they used to do all their recording in a disused dairy shed. They basically spent a couple of years making their first album, being able to work in their own time and completely free to be able to jam stuff and record whenever without disturbing anyone.
After that, they’d been on tour for two years pretty much non-stop and hadn’t been able to do an awful lot for the next record. So I thought it was pretty important to take them somewhere with a lot of different recording spaces and try to recreate some of the elements they'd had on the farm that they used to rent out and record at. So Rockfield was a home from home and the beauty was that we took out the coach house - which is the smaller studio - but gave us the bigger accomodation house. So we used one of the spare bedrooms as a demo studio, which allowed us to work on something in the main studio, while also doing stuff in the demo studio. It meant the writing process could be ongoing and within two days on being down there, the band said they felt completely comfortable and it reminded them of how they made their first record.
Having been away from home on tour for two years it was kind of important to do that.
Q:NOT ALL THE MATERIAL WAS WRITTEN BEFORE ROCKFIELD, IS THAT RIGHT?
A:The guitarist Serge is the main writer and he had enough ideas to do an album. But they weren’t all completed and worked out. What we did was to start recording on the five tunes that were completly worked out. Apart from some arrangements and what sound we wanted, they were as good as worked out. So it was a case of getting a good performance out of the band. And while that was going on, they were carrying on in the demo studio to take the other stuff to the next stage.
Over the course of our time at Rockfield there were a couple of pieces that were just little ideas. We didn’t even know if they were going to make it, but they came off amazingly and the guys jammed them and they became more complete ideas -- so it was a completely fluid process.
Q:HAVE YOU ANY EXAMPLES OF IDEAS THAT TURNED INTO SONGS?
A: The Doberman, the last song on the album, started out as a very simple idea of Serge's on acoustic guitar but the guys jammed it and made it into a full-blown, long, complex arrangement. There’s also a track called Seek and destroy, which again was a little two bar synth loop, with an idea for a melody -- but we didn't know whether it would turn into anything and that came together in the space of a day. We recorded it very quickly and all just instantly fell in love with it.
At the start of the record we didn’t think we’d have those two songs. Yet they’re almost two of my favourite tunes."

Jim was very helpful and gave me a big insight into how the band recorded Empire at ROCKFIELD.

At last the final chapter is taking shape. Hopefully it'll be drafted into an 'Almost complete' version by the middle of next week.



ROCK LEGENDS AT ROCKFIELD by Jeff Collins will be published in spring/summer 2007 by University of Wales Press in the UK and Europe (and University of Chicago Press in the States).