It was a gift to discover this episode on Roy Wood and The Move posted a few days ago. This is very long and perhaps too detailed in places, but much essential information. It’s a holiday. You have time.
I’d always thought Glen Matlock lifted the opening of “God Save the Queen” from any number of rockabilly songs. I was right about the ultimate origin, but turns out there was an intermediate step: he took it from Roy Wood’s “Fire Brigade,” and Wood had lifted it from Eddie Cochran’s “Something Else.”
That kind of stuff makes my day.
In both this episode and the previous one on the Small Faces, Hickey mentions Don Arden’s sending goons to dangle Robert Stigwood from a balcony, but doesn’t mention that one of the goons was Peter Grant (according to Grant’s biography). Grant referred to this practice as “showing them the view.”
Another fun fact (or rumor) not mentioned: Jimmy Page wanted to poach Marriott for the new super group he wanted to form as the Yardbirds disintegrated. Arden threatened to have his hands broken if he did.
“the other band members thought this was a daft idea”
– seemingly every two minutes in this episode
This podcast had it all, and by all I mean:
– the host offhandedly encapsulates all the major postwar British governments in about five minutes, a boon to morons such as myself
– the Yiddish origin of Woolworth knockoff recordings
– offshore pirate radio insanity
– Allen Klein, Peter Grant
– Tony Visconti
– David Jones
– The Prisoner
– Jimi
– the chicken-in-a-basket circuit
– 15 overdubbed cellos
Pretty remarkable. I found a rare Carl Wayne on lead vocal rendition of Fire Brigade, while looking things up.
And I think I saw Roy Wood in the Jazz Sabbath mockumentary.
I’d never heard that alternative “Fire Brigade,” thanks for posting.
As for daft ideas, RW was full of them. His albums are exhausting, crammed full of ideas ranging from “that’s fucking brilliant” to “what the fuck were you thinking?!”
Great episode! Thanks to you bastards, I’m addicted to this podcast now.
Hahaha. That nails it.
I’ve becone addicted to that podcast too. I learn something in every episode. At first I’d scroll through and pick one that interested me every now and then. In the past week I went back and listened to the first five, hoping to work through most of them (can’t see myself sitting through anything about Jefferson Airplane).