Dave Edmunds -- "I Hear You Knocking" (1970)

Dave Edmunds has had many rock and roll lives, and if there's any justice, one day he'll be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Welsh guitarist is one of the few famous rock and roll purists still around. For Edmunds, it seemed like music never progressed past 1967 or so, and the only thing that ever happened was rock and roll and rockabilly... basic, raw, no tricks, all based on Chuck Berry riffs and licks.

Way before Edmunds was a member of Rockpile, put out several classic rock albums in the New Wave era, hung out with all the pub rockers like Brinsley Schwarz, or produced early 80's rockabilly revivalists The Stray Cats, he put out this lo-fi, one-man band version of an old rock tune first recorded by Smiley Lewis.

A bare bones production, Edmunds probably was not much of a drummer, so he used only a hi hat to keep the steady 4/4 beat. I don't even think he bothered with a kick drum. Surrounded by an old plate reverb. He used the old "telephone effect" for his vocals, EQ filtering off both the high and low ends to create a tinny up close tone. Edmunds laid down a flawless classic blues rock progression, palming down the guitar strings for that back and forth motion.

You can't really say Edmunds' version "cranks" -- it's a real throwback to late 50's cheap rock productions where it was all arranged Berry licks and yelping and howling.

If you're like me, digging the little things that people sometimes put on their records, this one featured Edmunds calling out the names of famous 50's rock artists during the solo:

Fats Domino!
Smiley Lewis!
Chuck Berry!
Huey Smith!
(and one other name I still can't hear clearly)

The other cool little thing: when that solo is over and Edmunds finishes shouting out those names, he plays his one and only piano chord of the entire song to act as a bridge back to the third verse -- an augmented one, it seems to me.

Below are a few videos, including where you see poor Dave standing by himself lip-synching with that amazing looking Gibson in his hands, then another with Rockpile, and finally with a foll blown band including two drummer and a horn section. Long live rock and roll!
I Hear You Knocking - Dave Edmunds (Dec. 1970)

Here another early TV spot. Check out the boots. What show was this where people just hung out or danced?

With Rockpile (yes, that's Nick Lowe on bass)

Edmunds with the full treatment... and an awesome Telecaster!

Spandau Ballet -- "Gold" (1983)

I guess after posting about ABC, it reminded me of the other band that could have been their close cousins, Spandau Ballet. More white English boys playing black-influenced music, feathered hair, a saxophonist, live drummers, and banging 12" remixes.

However, they differed in a few respects. While ABC's Martin Fry always seemed to have a wink in his eye and relish his cleverness, Spandau Ballet's lead vocalist Tony Hadley would rather croon in his powerful baritone. Fry masterminded ABC, while the engine behind Spandau Ballet were the Kemp brothers, guitarist Gary and bassist Martin. ABC employed strings and brass, while Spandau Ballet filled out with synths and jazzier motifs.

Over the arc of both careers, I found Spandau Ballet was as consistent as ABC. While ABC's second album, Beauty Stab, was a disappointing flop, they got right back up again and reinvented their sound for How To Be A Millionaire. Spandau Ballet never replicated the success of the album True (and its title song), their following album Parade was practically a sequel, fairly close in quality.

At first, Spandau Ballet were pretty much a UK sensation, the poster boys for the New Romantic movement, which I guess was another way of saying handsome English white guys making black-influenced dance music. The single "Chant No. 1 (Don't Need This Pressure On" was strictly a hit in New Wave UK and American clubs, a bit rough and crude, yet a catchy chorus.

However, they fell in with the production team of Steve Jolley and Tony Swain, who really polished up their music, added a punchy compression to their mix, and upped their songwriting game, and that made all the difference. The album True was an international success, mostly on the the back of the title song, a six-minute New Wave ballad. When the song was a hit, I was assisting in Arista Records' A&R department on West 57th Street, often pointing out to the staff that the lyrics made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Then again, a lot of Spandau Ballet lyrics are a bit obtuse.

Fortunately, "True" was the last song on a rather great album, full of tunes that rivaled any Duran Duran album at the time. Rising to the top was "Gold," which never quite became a hit here in the US, but was notable for having that one syllable hook of the title word ("Gold!"), hitting right on a jazzy minor ninth chord for it.

With the song starting with just keyboards, Hadley whips out the croon right away, holding that last note of "tall":


Thank you for coming home
I'm sorry that the chairs are all worn
I left them here I could have sworn
these are my salad days
slowly being eaten away
just another play for today
oh but I'm proud of you,but I'm proud of you
there's nothing left to make me feel small
luck has left me standing so tall-l-l-l-l-l-l.


The give and take between Hadley, and the Kemp brothers' whispery coo's and echoes, with intensely ascending chords made for an exciting "building" effect. Jolley and Swain loved covering all the vocals in a wonderful warm reverb. A prominent Yamaha electric piano rolls chords and doubles the melody, even echoing the chorus later in the song. Tuned bongos synched up just before the second verse. Jolley and Swain paid particular attention to separating all the instruments, giving the kick and snare a deep punch that you can even hear in the video below.

All the little things of this song worked: Hadley's dramatic rush into the word "Gold" while the Kemps hit it right on the downbeat, the weirdly off piano notes during the opening verse, squeezing the word "indestructible" into the chorus, the piano glissando just before the final chorus, and the minor chord motif that underlines the last few bars.

When I see this video, I wonder what happened to Tony Hadley. He seems capable of pulling off a Rod Stewart and singing "the great American song book" and other classics to extend his career. Several years after True, the Kemps took a shot at acting and played the title characters in the brutal British gangster film "The Krays."

Another ABC similarity: an album full of amazing 12" extended remixes. The "Gold" remix is also my favorite, a true tour de force that starts very mellow and jazzy for about a minute, then pounds in with the drums, tuned bongos and the whole shebang. It is almost like an overture leading up to Hadley's vocals, which drop in about three or four minutes into the mix.

SPANDAU BALLET - "GOLD" (LIVE)

ABC -- "Poison Arrow" (1982)

When punk rock burst onto the scene in the mid to late 70's, they took their cues from 60's garage rock and 50's twangin' rock and roll. With that, the floodgates opened and the New Wave movement spewed forth all kinds of innovative bands which distinctly borrowed other American genres.

The one genre the English music acts revered the most was American soul music and R&B. There was a sudden rush of interest in Motown, fueled with the 1983 "Motown 25" NBC-TV special, where Michael Jackson moonwalked across the stage to "Billy Jean." Phil Collins covered "You Can't Hurry Love," Soft Cell merged "Tainted Love" and "Where Did Our Love Go?" Kim Wilde discoed through "You Keep Me Hanging On." The Jam lifted a Motown groove for "A Town Called Malice."

The one English act that took the whole phenomenon through the roof was ABC, who had the good fortune to team with "let's make it big baby" producer Trevor Horn and create their landmark debut. Mining all kinds of soul styles, ABC paired oh-too-clever lyrics with bright shiny production values, swirling strings, popping horns, thumb-pulled bass licks, and a nice dose of theater.

Singer Martin Fry was the perfect lead vehicle, his not-subdued English accent actually sounding more compelling than any tabloid reporter. He and the band dressed up to the nines, and each song was going to be a performance, inviting all to dance no matter what your day gig was.

"Poison Arrow" still remains my favorite ABC song, just a notch over "The Look Of Love," probably because there's this weird tongue in cheek attitude, like Martin is just winking at the audience, crying his heart out to the disco beat, but you hear the hiss in his voice:

If I were to say to you "Can you keep a secret?"
Would you know just what to do or where to keep it?
Then I say"I love you" and foul the situation
Hey girl I thought we were the right combination.

Who broke my heart?
You did, you did
Bow to the target,
Blame cupid, cupid
You think you're smart
Stupid, stupid.


Then into the chorus, Fry raising it up to a falsetto, laying on the guilt, and you can truly picture Cupid shooting this poor sap down:

Shoot that poison arrow to my hear-r-r-rt
Shoot that poison arrow
Shoot that poison arrow to my hear-r-r-rt
Shoot that poison arrow


As with many Trevor Horn productions, the arrangement are impeccable. Three deep piano notes lead into a pulsing 16th-note hi hat, claps and barreling kick, a floating sax, and then the funky bass climbing to a peak and boom, right into the R&B groove of the song. It's the kitchen sink of soul -- xylophone, more sax, heated congas. Fry doesn't even begin singing until about 35 seconds into the song, which is a mere 3:24.

Later, the song takes its break, most instruments falling away to the piano and drums, where Martin has his little conversation with the heartbreaker:

He: "I thought you loved me but it seems you don't care."

She: "I care enough to know I can never love you."

With not even a second to breathe, a huge loud electronic drum fill comes takes up all the space, and then the final choruses.

This time in music also featured many classic 12" extended remixes of New Wave songs, another lift from the disco era. In the case of "Poison Arrow," there had to be at least a few, and for The Lexicon of Love, it seemed every song had at least two. There was even one 12" disc that featured an orchestra performing an overture of all the album songs. These were fantastic records, and there is a British import of all of them on one CD.

Below are two fun and kinda cheesy videos and then a real treat: the first is the official song video, which features "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and its Cupid character whipping off one of those arrows, and even more importantly, ABC itself in all its tuxedo and gold lame suit glory. The second is ABC doing their lip-synch of the ever popular British TV show "Top of the Pops." As always, half the fun is watching how the musicians goof around to the recording they have to play to, and in this case, the ridiculous upright attempting to copy the funky electric bass of the recording is the notable culprit. And the third is a kindly posted video of the 7-minute remix of "Poison Arrow."