Tiggerlion on Slade Alive! released 24/03/1972
Slade spent five years as grunts, churning through the hard yards in the tough pub and club circuit of the Black Country and beyond without a sniff of a hit. That’s despite having Chas Chandler as their manager for two of them, a man with a track record of success with The Animals and Jimi Hendrix. They changed their name from ‘N Betweens to Ambrose Slade to Slade. They even shaved their heads and donned bovver boots to catch the skinhead craze. It didn’t work. Noddy Holder and Don Powell were scary enough with hair. Studio sophistication, a variety of writing combinations, unusual cover versions yielded nothing. However, their live act became legendary. With a supple, muscular rhythm section, a showman lead guitarist, an extraordinarily powerful lead vocalist and a salt-of-the-earth attitude, Slade were a band who connected viscerally with their audience and guaranteed a good time. It was only when they turned to that strength did they find success.
Get Down And Get With It is a call to arms. Perfected over years, it was a centrepiece of the live show, and was captured in the studio in a single take. Slade thought of it as a Little Richard screamer until Bobby Marchan’s lawsuit taught them to do their homework more thoroughly in future. By then, its footstomping, handclapping, scarf-waving appeal to audience participation had broken into the singles charts where it stayed for fourteen weeks. Coz I Luv You, an unexpected number one, cemented the Lea/Holder songwriting partnership and set the template for their future smash hits.
For their next album, Chandler decided to record live in front of an audience invited from their fan club, specifically hiring the Command Theatre Studio, London for three nights to ensure good quality sound. It was a brave decision for an act with just the one minor hit single and no album success up to that point. Slade played their usual set, every song finely honed and almost second nature. This band is not the one with mirrored hats, multi-coloured socks, platform shoes, crazee fringes, Super Yob and Christmas number ones. This band has the aesthetic of peaky blinders, Holder galvanising the crowd with a genuine Black Country burr while wearing a flat cap, and it plays straightforward rock,hard. Nothing about them could be described as Glam.
Seven songs were selected, three originals and four covers. It opens in the thick of the action with Ten Years After’s Hear Me Calling. Already, the fans are clapping along enthusiastically and shouting out to the stage. They are very far from being passive recipients of a performance. The atmosphere crackles and fizzes. It’s absolutely infectious, firing up the adrenaline, everybody getting “in the mood”. It’s a song to test the mettle of the rhythm section. Its multiple pace changes can easily go rogue. Don Powell is a very clever drummer. He keeps it simple but finds different ways to maintain interest without losing any vigour. Jim Lea is the secret ingredient, the real musician in the band. He can play piano and violin. He was a member of the Staffordshire Youth Orchestra and performed at first class honours level in a London music school practical exam. His bass playing is agile and inventive, adding a bounce and melody to the groove. Dave Hill was born to be on stage and, as he proved on Top Of The Pops, he loves the camera and loves dressing up. He’s the one in a silver suit for the video of Get Down And Get With It. He is left-handed but, like Wilko Johnson, plays guitar right-handed. As a consequence, he isn’t the best at picking out the notes but his chords are unusual and distinctive. He plays the dynamics, not just of the song but of the whole room, interacting confidently with any audience. As he said to Lea and Holder, “You write them and I’ll sell them.” Holder, meanwhile, holds down the rhythm and adds to the overall noise on second guitar, conducts the crowd and, generally, provides monstrous, force-of-nature vocals. His voice is restrained on Hear Me Calling, letting only one scream loose with a minute to go. He doesn’t need to stretch himself yet. According to eye witness Richard Cox of the Derby Evening Telegraph, a mass of squirming, raving bodies are doing the work for him.
In Like A Shot From My Gun is an original that never appeared on a studio LP or single. It is greeted like an old favourite, the crowd’s perfectly timed chanting boosting the song’s power and momentum. This is the moment the album comes alive. The fans are getting involved spontaneously. There is no evidence the band are instructing them. It’s a synergy of everyone in the hall, all working together in the creation of a glorious event, the band feeding off the audience as much as the other way round. The only other occasion that comes to mind is on Bob Marley And The Wailers Live!! Then, it’s almost a spiritual experience. Here, it’s more like a pagan ritual: frankly hedonistic, boozed up louts celebrating life with a gang of lads just like them. It’s equally exhilarating.
John Sebastion’s Darling Be Home Soon is a pause for breath, revealing a sensitive side. The band are remarkably subtle and the singing sweet. The alcohol rears its head in the middle section when there is a loud, on-mike belch. The finger of blame pointed at Hill for many years but Holder confessed it was him on The Frank Skinner Show in 2000, claiming that the real cause was the excess beer he’d drunk before going onstage. It did the trick because, after clearing the pressure in his gullet, he can really stretch his vocal chords, delivering a genuinely emotive performance. It was hard work satisfying audience expectation at every gig after the LP was released.
Know Who You Are proves Slade recognise a good song when they hear one. This song was originally an instrumental called Genesis until Holder added lyrics. Its bassline jumps out, triggering standing on seats, hands clapping above heads. It’s the sound of a hundred people who know exactly who they are and what they are doing. They are living in the moment, enjoying themselves. There is no pretension, no tongue-in-cheek, no hint of irony or subversion. It’s not a grand gesture nor a political statement. There is no desire for a revolution. This is not fine art. It’s entertainment, pure and simple.
Side Two is when they let rip, starting with Keep On Rocking, badged as an original but an amalgum of a Chuck Berry riff and Little Richards lyrics. No-one cares. The guitars are satisfyingly loud and the drums are thumped with alacrity. The call and response with the crowd works brilliantly but is just the hors d’oeuvre for the two that follow. Get Down And Get With It comes into its own in its natural habitat of the live setting rather than on the radio or TV. It’s a moment when all the stars align, as beautiful and as awesome as a lightening storm. “Everybody stamp your feet!” yells Holder and the response is immediate, thunderous and hair-raising. The song, the band, the crowd, are perfection, book-ended by the most amazing “awwwright!”s to emerge from a human mouth. And, just as the album hits its peak, it keeps going for another eight and a half minutes. The secret to Born To Be Wild is to maintain control while constantly notching up the excitement. Powell has a crucial role in both aspects and he delivers with aplomb. Hill, as you’d expect, is all about the pyrotechnics. The surprise is Holder’s guitar. Once he stops singing at the halfway mark and after the air-raid sirens go off, his forcefulness on the guitar pushes the impetus onwards all the way through to the end. “Ta, vurry much.”
The cover is a striking, instantly recognisable gatefold, the band tightly packed together, bathed in red light, Jim Lea leaning so far backwards his body is horizontal. It’s a composite of a photograph Chris Walter took at The Marquee. The inside features a cartoon of a giant blue teddy bear being worshipped by a naked man. He may have just got out of bed and he may be dreaming. The cartoon by M. Webb was the winner of a competition held by The Sun newspaper at a time when it was the UK’s best seller and was regarded as solid working class. Next to the list of credits are various quotes of people’s opinions of Slade gigs. Lord George Brown thought they were too loud. Richie Blackmore damns with faint praise; “They are a good group because they don’t care about the notes…” Penny Valentine in Sounds is enigmatic, “Own up time is nigh.”
Slade Alive! achieved all its goals. It more than represents their live act, it captures a rare active collaboration between fans and band. It was also their first album to be a hit, number two in the UK and staying in the charts for a whole year. It broke through in America, inspiring acts such as The Ramones, Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe and Kiss, who named an album Alive! in tribute. In Australia, it was huge, the best selling album since Sgt Pepper, hence bands like AC/DC. When Bon Scott died, there were rumours Noddy Holder could be his replacement. Back in the UK, Slade adapted their sound and style. They managed to retain the Lad Rock following that Slade Alive! personifies but also attract the teeny bop fans. They became a hit making machine for the next few years. Their whole package was perfectly designed to attain the results they did. They did so with humour and intelligence, unafraid of looking silly, a blessed relief in the po-faced post Woodstock era. Their songs are well constructed with precision-tooled singalong choruses and they always took care of the melody. They were never particularly fashionable but almost everybody loved Slade. You won’t find many with a bad word to say about them. It must have been enormously satisfying for a creative like Jim Lea to see a plan come together.
Ironically, it was when Slade diversified that their career stalled. The movie, Slade In Flame, was too gritty and grim for the teeny audience and its soundtrack, including brass and ballads, too varied. They turned their gaze to America and adjusted their sound to suit, but leaving their UK fans behind, who, in turn, had moved on by the time they came back. All these projects earned artistic respect but not the sales they hoped for and the band were left marooned in a wilderness. Redemption came with another incendiary live performance. The organisers of The Reading Festival 1980 needed a last minute replacement for Ozzy Osborne. In front of 65,000 Hard Rock fans, Slade came full circle back to the band they were on Slade Alive! They stole the show, winning the affections of press and public to such a degree, they enjoyed a good five year long coda to their career, including some success in the US.
Slade understood they were in the entertainment business. They wanted to have fun and thrill as many people as possible as they did so. Slade Alive! represents them in the raw before they added the trappings of Glam. It is more than simply a live album, springboarding their domination of the charts. It’s a cultural event, a rite of passage for the youth of the seventies, unapologetically Anglo-Saxon, loud and rude, and totally intoxicating from beginning to end.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
“You won’t find many with a bad word to say about Slade”.
Hi, there.
Mind you, I think Taylor Swift’s “Miss Americana” is a much, much better documentary than “Let It Be” so what do I know?
Your eloquence, sir, is as eloquent as ever. Hat duly doffed.
Jackthebiscuit says
Great review Tiggs. I am an unashamed fan of the mighty Slade. They were the band of my teenage years & I still love them.
I also believe that Slade in Flame is a great film with a superb soundtrack album.
FWIIW, I believe that the Mighty Slade in their pomp were one of the finest bands to come out of this country.
fitterstoke says
Thoroughly enjoyed reading that, Tigger – and, needless to say, it’s inspired me to dig out my battered copy and listen to it….
Junior Wells says
Was a guilty pleasure for me and my proggish mates.
3 original songs – none of the good ones.
fitterstoke says
Oho! No guilt for me – I was mostly buying singles at the time, from the louder end of glam rock. Mind you, I still watched TOTP every week, even after I became the prog behemoth that you see before you…
retropath2 says
I was more a Wizzard man.
Tiggerlion says
The problem with Wizzard (and The Move) is that they never made a truly coherent album. Great singles, of course.
dai says
Like Slade…
hubert rawlinson says
This is about the time I saw them, a radio 1 roadshow no less.
Colin H says
Their finest album by far, in my view. I’ve always preferred their period just prior to pop success (at which point Jim Lea simplified his fabulous bass playing among other changes).
Here they are on the radio just before that, rescued from a pal’s reel last week – the Beatley-prog Slade:
Moose the Mooche says
As in many other contemporary images, Dave’s hair looks perfectly waterproof. Could almost be a Ronco product.
SteveT says
They would be a brilliant choice for the heritage act at Glastonbury.
dai says
No Noddy no Slade
Slug says
They would, but I believe Noddy and Jim are not interested in reforming, and Dave and Don aren’t on speaking terms anymore.
I sense that if Jim Lea had been given free rein, he’d have led them up a prog dead end to obscurity. His awkward arty farty ambitions are evident in much of their early stuff and it remains in some of the band’s later ballads, and it’s only Noddy’s great voice that rescues those songs from being mawkish and absurd.
But they were probably the band who first sparked my interest in rock music as a kid, and their singles still sound bloody good over fifty years later. They deserve a lot of respect. And who else has ever named a song after a small hillock in Wallsall?
Colin H says
Pouk Hill – a classic!
fitterstoke says
Can’t agree with that – Jim Lea was Slade’s secret weapon…
dai says
Maybe, but Noddy is the main man surely. Not Slade without those vocals.
Moose the Mooche says
Guys, calm down. At this rate there’ll be cup-a-soup flying all over the place.
fitterstoke says
Agreed – difficult to be the secret weapon if you’re the “main man”.
I just thought the “awkward arty farty ambitions” comment was unfair and unjustified…
retropath2 says
I remember the excitement when “James Whild” Lea put out his solo record, folk clamouring to acclaim his position as all of the above.
Pretty poor stuff, on this reckoning, and exactly why Noddy was given the vocals to do for Slade!
fitterstoke says
I’ll just add this, before I retire to bedlam:
He was a fine bass player and one half of a fine rhythm section;
He was one half of a “hit machine” writing partnership;
Nowhere above do I suggest he should have been doing the vocals!
Jeez! You guys!
Moose the Mooche says
Feelin you bruh*. I keep thinking “Am I as bad as this at actually reading other people’s posts?”…. sadly the answer is: probably
*you’re welcome
retropath2 says
Oh, didn’t I say the song was shite and the bass unmemorable? Sorry, forgot.
fitterstoke says
Cheers, Moose!
Bargepole says
One of my earliest album purchases – probably acquired with a record token! In these days of reissues, it’s a surprise the full set had never been released as presumably the whole show was recorded.
fentonsteve says
The closest I’ve seen is the Live Anthology – Alive!, Alive Vol. 2, On Stage, At Reading ’80 – four live albums spread across two CDs.
TBH, being pummelled over the head loses its appeal after an hour or so.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
An hour?
Blue Boy says
Have never actually heard ‘Slade Alive’, but I remember when it was released, and, at the tender age of 15 agonising in a record shop for hours about whether to spend my carefully saved pocket money on either this record or ‘Honky Chateau’. Eventually after much mulling, I went for Elton. One of many life decisions that I am not at all sure I got right…
Tiggerlion says
Put it this way, I won’t be doing a Fifty Years Of Honky Chateau feature.
fitterstoke says
😿
Junior Wells says
Ha ha ha
Vulpes Vulpes says
On one of my lunch hour wanders around the shelves of Bristol’s Fopp before the fall, I stumbled across an end shelf stacked with the reissues of Slade albums at a fiver a pop. I splurged, grinning.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Blimey!
dai says
Can’t you do that?
deramdaze says
Beatles – even my aunt Fanny knows the B-sides, and she died in 1953.
Come on Big Boy – Tintern Abbey.
Two chances.
Feeling lucky?
Timbar says
Here’s them working an audience at Granada Studios in 1972
And here’s them having to work a bit harder a year earlier, with a Belgian audience
Cookieboy says
Fifty years ago, much to my father’s anger, my brother went in for one of those five lps for a dollar Record of the Month offers you’d see in magazines where you’d get these cheap records and then get pestered for the rest of your life to buy more. It didn’t end well for the company but he got in that initial offer…
Hendrix in the West
Paranoid
Morning of the Earth (Soundtrack to an Australian surfing movie)
Some Johnny Winter record and of course…
Slade Alive!
I think it’s the optimal way to make a live record with the small but attentive crowd. I love it that much a few years back I did a google search to see if there was any chance of the rest of the recordings being released and the answer was a definite “no”. The tapes are apparently long gone.
hubert rawlinson says
This from Facebook, Slade or for life, not just Christmas
Don Powell has kindly answered a few of our questions about Slade Alive! as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the albums release…
Q1. What are your memories of the recording of Slade Alive?
“VERY, VERY exciting actually. It was Chas Chandlers idea for us to record a live album. Our concerts were always an event, and he thought, it would be a GREAT move, as our previous LP, ‘Play It Loud’ hadn’t made a ‘dent’…….
‘Command Studios’, where we recorded Slade Alive is on Piccadilly Circus. It’s a small theatre set up for ‘live’ recordings. Absolutely perfect.
It only held a few hundred people, SO, invites were sent out to the then ‘Fan-Club’ to attend. What a GREAT response we had John.”
Q2. Which other songs did you play at Command Studios, that didn’t make it to the finished record?
“I’m sure, ‘Coming Home’ by ‘Delaney & Bonnie’ is the only song left off the album.??????? Don’t know why.? Getting permission?”
Q3. Are you pleased that the album is still so popular, 50 years on?
“Incredible. You know, of all the albums we’ve made, no matter where we were in the world, that’s the only one that was ever talked about. First time in Australia (1973), all these TV cameras were waiting at Sydney Airport for us when we got off the plane. We were saying, “who’s on the plane that you’re waiting for?” IT WAS US.!!!!!! It had outsold the Beatles, Sgt Pepper.
We were awarded a Triple gold award for it, apparently. It went gold another three times. On that tour with Quo, Lindisfarne and Caravan, we all travelled on the same coach. ‘Slade Alive’ was on the radio non-stop. Also, us doing radio jingles for the tour. They all kept on shouting, “ Not you F!”#¤g lot again!….. Very funny mate.”
Q4. Any other thoughts on Slade Alive?
“Slade Alive! was recorded over 3 nights. The idea was to pick the best out of the 3 nights….BUT, Slade Alive is actually all of the 2nd night.
Like I’ve said John, that album is timeless, lots of GREAT memories of when we recorded it.”
Don Powell, March 2022
Slade Alive! is available on limited edition red & black splatter vinyl.
You can order your copy here:
https://slade.lnk.to/sladealive-splatterFA
Junior Wells says
I am amazed that Morning of the Earth was in there. Excellent soundtrack to one of the great 70s Hippie/Surf movies.
niallb says
@Tiggerlion beautifully written.
If you’re ever walking along Piccadilly, (south side, same as The Ritz and F&M,) towards Picc Circus, you come to Waterstones. Right before it is a bus stop. The building at the bus stop is No. 201 and has a black door. That was Command Studios, the old BBC Piccadilly Theatre, where this recording was made.
https://willyoumeetmeonclareisland.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/the-studios-of-london-command-studios/
Tiggerlion says
Thanks, Niall
The engineers were top notch at Command Studios, though. They mixed Slade Alive! with the active participation of the band. Chas Chandler was unhappy and remixed it but the band insisted on the Command version and that’s the one on the album.
Loved your stuff on Roxy Music. I had toyed with doing a feature on the debut this year but I’ve already posted a review of the box set.
I bet the building is worth millions now.
fitterstoke says
Might you be persuaded, Tiggs? Toy no longer…
Slade, Bowie, Roxy, T.Rex – the sound of my youth…
Tiggerlion says
Since you ask:
fitterstoke says
Thanks for the link – it all comes back to me now…
niallb says
Absolutely. I did look to see the last time it changed hands, and how much it went for, but couldn’t find a recent document.
Twang says
Excellent piece Tig. Really brings back my teen years – I can actually smell the Party Seven as I write. I gave it a listen this afternoon – you’re spot on and it sounds much better than I would have imagined.