For reasons that continue to baffle their fans, Slade and America were uneasy bedfellows during the period when they achieved their greatest success in the UK. My theory is that it was simply bad timing. In 1973, the year they first visited the US, the counry wasn’t prepared for Noddy Holder’s showmanship, the ‘audience as part of the show’ style that subsequent rock acts, most notably Bruce Springsteen, employed, or, quite simply, the clothes they wore. Instead of being too little too late, they were too much too soon.
Reading my Just Backdated memoir not so long ago, Don Powell, Slade’s indefatigable drummer, came across a quote from Steely Dan’s Walter Becker that implied Slade weren’t among his group’s favourite acts. “How they ever managed to get enough money together to come here and tour is a miracle,” Becker told me when I interviewed him and his partner Donald Fagen in April of 1974.
Slade, of course, were pals of mine in those days and I’d done my best to promote their interests in the columns of Melody Maker, mostly on the strength of their live shows. Now MM’s man in America, I had waited ages for an opportunity to interview the notoriously reticent Steely Dan men, and thought it best not to come to Slade’s defence lest Donald and Walter walk out on me.
“Steely Dan doesn’t have a, nice word to say about us, do they?” Don emailed me earlier this week. “I remember when they supported us. I think, they experienced the wrath of our notorious road crew.”
In the event Slade were amongst a host of acts Becker and Fagen didn’t much like, among them Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. They described Black Oak Arkansas and “absolute trash” and grudgingly admitted that Yes and ELP were skilled musicians, even though their music was not to their taste. “I will grudgingly admit that English bands are more polished performers,” said Becker. “Their recordings are more carefully made… but I can’t understand how that is.”
My email exchange with Don on this matter prompted him to do a bit of research that unearthed the promotional advert at the top of this post and also that on May 5 & 6, 1973 Slade appeared on a three-act show, in between bill toppers Humble Pie and openers Steely Dan, at the Winterland Arena in San Francisco. Although Humble Pie and Slade seems like a reasonable mix to me – both boasted fantastic guitar playing singers – whoever though it was a good idea to have Steely Dan open up this show needed their head examined. Clearly this would have been the Slade gig at which Becker and Fagen watched from the wings, horrified at the antics of Noddy and his boys.
Slade’s American adventure, especially the period when they lived in New York, roughly between 1975 and 1977, is generally dismissed as a something they’d prefer to forget. They slogged their guts out on the road for scant pickings, failed to generate much in the way of record sales, lost a good deal of money and returned to the UK with their tail between their legs.
But America wasn’t entirely indifferent to Slade, as the advertisement above – albeit it a concert from before they went to live in the US – demonstrates. In those days the Philadelphia Spectrum held around 18,000, and Slade topped the bill there over the Eagles and others “quite a few times”, according to Don. It's interesting to note that Lou Reed, of all people, opened the show. Another city where Slade drew big crowds was St Louis where I saw them twice, and you can find my report on an early 1974 show here: https://justbackdated.blogspot.com/2014/08/slade-ambassador-theater-st-louis-mo.html
No comments:
Post a Comment