Tuesday, October 14, 2008

shang a lang



an early incarnation of the bay city rollers, circa 1971.
prior to the arrival of les mckeown in '73 on vocals and plaid.


"There are claims that the group sold 100-300 million records and generated the equivalent of £5 billion in revenue, with the band members themselves earning very little. According to BBC they sold 70 million records."


From the sublime content of the previous post, to the palpably crass and ridiculous. Produced and written by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter. Dross from the ashes of the group originally formed in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1969 with Pilot's David Paton and Billy Lyall.

Alan Longmuir (Bass guitar, accordian, piano); Leslie Richard McKeown (Lead vocals, guitar); Eric Faulkner (Guitar, violin, mandolin, bass); Derek Longmuir (Drums, congas, tambourine); Stuart 'Woody' Wood (Guitar, bass, piano, mandolin)

And if you believe the above 'official' instrumentation credits, you are obviously witless enough to buy Bush and Brown's financial bail-out.

A big influence on NYC's Ramones, however, who settled on a formula cleanly stripped back to guitar, bass, drums and vocals, and cut their cloth accordingly. An invaluable lesson certain CEOs might do well to consider as they continue to sit on in the greater scheme of things.

Without recourse to mendacious attempts at ill-fitting embroidery.

PURCHASE ROLLIN' REMASTERED

6 comments:

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

God damn it you Scots are a sexy lot.

ib said...

Yes! Countless centuries of sheltering between sheep from the howling wind and rain have doubless had their effect.

Or should I say, how dare you, sir...

WZJN said...

You got major cojones putting up BCR! I remember my sister making me stand on a chair - on her bed, to tack a picture of BCR on the ceiling so she could wake up to Derek.

Sad commentary that they ended up plunging toilets after all their success though.

ib said...

Oh, it was a lot worse than plunging toilets, let me assure you. I refuse to sully my keyboard but elaborating any further, but the Rollers' story is deserving of a biopic.

There was a brief period when even I wore tartan trim. Thankfully, I don't think there is any photographic evidence.

CTV said...

Oh, BCR were great. If you were prepubescent in their heyday. But songs like Saturday Night or Yesterday's Hero ... well, I admit, I enjoy them again.

I believe it is true that Woody used to play his own solos.

ib said...

They did do a pretty decent version of "Please Stay" on "Rollin'", admittedly. But how can you fail with such a great song ?

Joe Meek's production for The Cryin' Shames is impossible to beat, mind you.

I think I still have "Rollin'" somewhere on a very squeaky cassette. State of the Art.