Prime Joe Madden
Our Dylan has taken the time to digitise my German uncle Manfred’s 34 year old camcorder footage of a trip to the Town Mouse in Burnley to watch the Uptown Band. The footage isn’t amazing, arguably the band isn’t either but I’ll say without hesitation that my Dad is. Performing basically the same set he’s been pedaling ever since with the same jokes but on here it’s all just a little bit fresher. Singing in his deafeningly loud full voice across idiosyncratically complex bass lines he’s dragging the band along with him and forcing them to have a better gig than they’re technically capable of. This might be just before I started regularly coming along and watching the gigs, I’d have been 13 at the time of this video but over the course of the next two years I started coming along to every gig and soaking it all up. Just over two years after this video was captured Don Calverly, the beautifully faultless and gentle man on the keyboards, would die in the most tragic and unfair of circumstances. That would leave this tight little group of middle aged friends, tentatively dipping their toes back into a social life built around the music they’d loved as teenagers together, absolutely devastated and drained of any desire to continue. That was when I stepped in, to help for one gig when I honestly didn’t have the necessary abilities yet. I’ve never actually been allowed to step back out, we just carried on doing shows and they brought me up. They treated me with absolute patience, respect and care. They never criticised me as I learned in public. They never highlighted or discussed my onstage disasters. They lent me equipment, they bought me drinks. Nicky joined about a year later, probably about thirteen at the time. Then I started bringing my friends from college and they took them all in with the same warmth and enthusiasm. And the band got bigger and bigger. Pretty much everyone in the Earlies had to play with the Uptown Band at some point. Pretty much everyone my age in East Lancashire who could play an instrument ended playing with them, whether they liked it or not. It was everybody’s apprenticeship and it’s the reason there’s a whole seam of Burnley and Pendle musicians that can walk onto any stage in the world and feel no fear. We got our ten thousand hours in on the tiny stages of pubs and working men’s clubs in East Lancashire and it set us for life.
I just called these guys middle aged a few sentences back but I’ve done the maths now and realise that my Dad is 42 in the video, a full five years younger than I am as I sit typing this. I don’t look at it and think of him being younger than me, that’s pretty much impossible because he’s always my Dad. It’s good to have a record of him in his second prime though.
Chicago Transit Authority
Of the many bands Joe Madden introduced us to and educated us about I think Chicago had the biggest and most long lasting effect. Sorry, I should call them Chicago Transit Authority so it’s clear what we’re talking about here. Chicago is the power ballad hit factory of the late 70s and 80s, sweet baby making music featuring Peter Cetera up front with his knicker-emptying tenor voice. That version of Chicago was where everybody got to make a shitload of money. They didn’t do the Karate Kid tune, that was Cetera solo, but they may as well have as that’s the kind of emotive 80s guff they were working towards. Don’t get me wrong, I actually adore The Glory of Love. I think it takes every one of us back to the year where we won the All Valley Karate Championship and the hand of Elizabeth Shue. I’d like to steer you towards the band’s explosive beginnings though. Chicago Transit Authority was the name of the band when they released their self titled first album in 1969 and they landed with a double vinyl belter that is among the greatest debut albums ever. It’s only twelve tracks across the four sides too, which means they didn’t give two fucks for brevity, my kind of people. Do me a favour and listen to the whole thing today.
Obviously the lyrics are a bit underwhelming, often when groups of amazing musicians come together they have almost nothing to say but I’ve definitely heard worse. What a band though! Three phenomenal vocalists who would each rival anyone in their day. They have a drummer with a totally integral, fluid and melodic style that is a through composed voice in the arrangement. They are the only rock band I can think of that found a way to use a brass section to accentuate what they’re doing and keep it rock. They aren’t punctuating and answering vocals like in the R&B of the day, they’re another through composed, meaty piece of the orchestration. They barely even repeat sections and it’s riddled with counter melodies and discordant harmony. Everybody picks up pieces of percussion, everybody is on backing vocals, everybody is amazing. And then there’s Terry Kath on guitar, perhaps the most amazing. The guitarist that Jimi Hendrix said was better than him, if that wasn’t enough Hendrix later called him the best in the Universe although that was pretty much implied in the first comment. There’s a nearly seven minute guitar fuck around on the album called Free Form Guitar, I’ll confess that I do skip it every now and then but it is pretty incredible. A more easily way to digest his brilliance is to listen to any version of 25 or 6 to 4 which came from Chicago II.
I love the loose jammy way they kick into this, the absolute antithesis of showbiz. They’re basically half setting up, half sound-checking whilst getting a groove going. Cetera sounds phenomenal singing on a rocking tune and then around the three minute mark Terry Kath takes off in full modal brilliance. From the same gig Make Me Smile is well worth a watch, probably one of my favourite outings for their brass section.
I’ve ripped off Chicago time and again, it’s never deliberate but when I’m doing it I find myself in a good mood and then realise what I’m doing. Check out this tune, Hold The Position, from my second solo album Understand the Rules:
If you’re a bit bored by it skip to the two minute mark where I went full Chicago, it’s almost comical. When I gave it to Nicky and Matt to play they totally leaned into it and made it even more Chicago. I’m not even embarrassed, I love it.
The first time I ripped off Chicago was on a cover we did with the Earlies but I’ll talk about that another week.
A Northern Podcast
Simon Lee Abbott, who is also known as Seek the Northerner, came round and interviewed me in the kitchen this week. I can’t post the interview here due to his Youtube settings but this is the link anyway. I first met him when I was about 14 up Burnley Wood and we have lots of mutual friends. It’s a rambling hour’s conversation but you might enjoy it if you’re missing me. One of our mutual friends is DJ Woody with who I made The Point of Contact album in 2016. I found this video Woody had made out of footage of us making the record the other day, set to the tune No End from that album. It made me feel nostalgic for our old shithole studio in Colne. Only a little bit mind.
What a great memory and story surrounding it. If you recall we met your dad when he came to a rehearsal and then our gig at the Met in Bury a couple of years ago. Very cool guy… Send him our love!