Entertainment For Lively Minds
Parent's Records
Posted by David Wright on 10 May 2011 - 8:57pm.
This is one of the first records I remember playing on my Dad's old record player from the loft. I haven't heard it in years, it's not on Spotify, but still gives me a kind of thrill. It was my Dad's record, must ask him if he still likes it. I love the synth bits towards the end and the playing is great all over.
- More from David Wright.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Sky Geek
Actually it's about 2 mins 7 secs for the synth bits. Roy Orbison on drums and nice knitwear on the bassist.Never seen the video before, it's kind of spoiled my memories now.
To spoil your memories just a little more...
On the electric guitar is Kevin Peek.
Like John Williams, he's Australian. Unlike John Williams, Peek served 3 years in jail for fraud in the mid 90s. So Mr. Waring, your assessment (below) was correct in one sense.
Since then Peek has been bankrupted twice more and as we speak is out on bail in Perth facing charges over the A$60 million collapse of two business he was connected with.
Strangely, none of this appears in the Sky Wiki entry.
The Big O lookalike on drums is Tristan Fry. Like John Williams he came from the world of classical music and was slumming it with Sky. I believe he started out as a timpanist/percussionist with one of the big orchestras (LPO possibly).
Either it was you did the edits,
you didn't read it closely enough, or you're looking at a different Wiki page to the one I just checked.
Ah yes...
under "Individual work".
I did check before posting, but obviously not well enough. Apologies for not spotting that.
But, let's face it, that was the least significant part of my post.
Sky Fraud
Thanks for the info, most interesting, never realised Peek ended up being doing for fraud, funny after Paul Waring's comments!
Fry's Delight
The Big O lookalike on drums is Tristan Fry. Like John Williams he came from the world of classical music and was slumming it with Sky. I believe he started out as a timpanist/percussionist with one of the big orchestras (LPO possibly).
According to a Sky/JW forum (yeah, I was kind of shocked too) I just found*, he was spotted on the telly the other week, playing timpani for the London Chamber Orchestra at the Royal Wedding.
* Not in my bookmarks. On Google.
And he played vibes on
"Solid Air", unless my memory's tricking me.
I remember being shocked by that years back, reading the "SA" sleeve-notes, realising that the quirky little chap in Sky had to now be considered cool-by-proxy...or something.
Nick Drake
...he also played on Nick Drakes "Five Leaves Left". I think he played those shimmering marimbas on "Saturday Sun".
Sounds like
back in the day, he was the go-to guy for folk/prog percussion.
As well as the 8 or 9 Sky LPs and a couple by his mate John Williams, Tristan Fry also played on albums by:
Kevin Ayres - Bananamour
B.J.Cole
Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left
Lesley Duncan
Keith Emerson
John Martyn - Solid Air and One World
Matthews Southern Comfort
Shelagh McDonald
Planet Earth
Laurie Styvers
Walker Brothers - Lines (1976)
Pete Willsher
Terry & Gay Woods
There's several reasons for that...
He turned up on time, he could read the dots, he could nail the part first time and he had a parrot called Karlheinz.
Everyone needs a gimmick, even session players :-).
I've seen them live
Bet you all wanna shag me now.
1981. My (much older) brother and his wife had the first album and seemed to like it, so when they toured their second album (Sky 2, fact fans) they booked tickets for the show at the City Hall in Newcastle.
Not before asking me though. I was 17. I liked Thin Lizzy, Deep Purple, JJ Cale, Steve Miller, The Stranglers, Nine Below Zero. What interest would I have in bloody Sky?
'Yes' I said 'I'll go'
At least I knew who Herbie Flowers was. He seemed tickled by the whole idea of it. If I remember rightly he was dressed in a baggy blue home knit jumper, voluminous breeks and a flat hat.
Now as I have remarked before here and elsewhere
I like EVERYTHING and EVERYONE.
But then there is Sky.
Smug bunch of *real* musicians who made it abundantly clear that they hated every note of the shite they were playing and would much, much rather be playing *proper* music to *real* music fans, but hey, we can do this in our sleep and it pays the bills, so why the hell not, eh?
The playing might be technically accomplished, but it is as far from great in my book as you can get - not a single drop of emotion or joy invested in a single note. They make The Lighthouse Family sound like Otis Redding.
And don't get me started on the Lighthouse Family.
Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?
Frauds, the lot of them.
An up
I give you an up Mr Waring as I am in almost total agreement with what you say. However, and it shocks me to say it, I honestly would prefer to listen to the Lighthouse Family than anything by this mob. Even Herbie's jumper can't make up for this. It was awful in the 80s and has not aged well.
Sky High
I'm with you on The Lighthouse Family, their name is as bad as their music. You'll be pleased to hear that I don't own any Sky albums, infact the Toccata track is the only Sky track I have ever heard and I wasn't even aware there was a Sky 2. One man's musical pleasure is anothers musical pain.
I have to disagree with you on this one.
At the time of their release, for those of us with a penchant for more complex and demanding musical tidbits than almost anything from the Punk canon, and a depressingly large proportion of the drivel in the charts at the time, they were welcome relief.
I can remember seeing them on Nationwide or Pebble Mill At One or some such One Show equivalent of the day, and being gladdened that here were a bunch of capable musicians having a laugh knocking out some rocked-up classical music.
A brief inspection revealed connections with Curved Air and The Velvet Underground, and what was more, parents found it hard to sniff at them because they had been assembled by John Williams, the Allan Titchmarsh of classical guitar music, cardigan-wearer of the year and all round jolly good fellow.
I don't class it as fraud when a bunch of musicians decide to try putting bread on the table doing something a little different of their own devising. If my ears tell me anything about this band's playing it's that they are having fun doing it, and not having to try too hard. There's nothing wrong with that, and there are much worse things I could say about an awful lot of records out there.
I had the first 2 Sky albums
and to be honest my enjoyment of them was pretty short-lived. I would imagine they have aged quite badly. There is funny aside though - my Mum knew of my interest in Sky and that John Williams was the guitarist. As a surprise birthday present she bought me a 4 album boxset of his solo classical guitar pieces. Might sound reasonable now but to a young guy barely out of his teens and listening to new wave it was as boring as hell.
Thanks mum!!
I exaggerate for effect of course
And at the time I was listening to stuff with significantly fewer chords, so I was never going to be particularly well disposed to a band such as Sky.
However I spent most of the '70s up to my ears in Prog, and would argue that much of that genre was truly 'progressive' in that it involved technically competent musicians pushing the boundaries of 'pop' or 'rock' outwards, incorporating elements of classical or jazz or folk or whatever, to create something new and (on occasion, anyway) exciting.
I always felt Sky were pushing from the other direction - taking some great classical music and watering it down, strapping on a thumping great big drum sound and stripping out the nuance and feel that made the music great in the first place. 'Regressive' rather than progressive, if you will.
Fine, and if it puts food on the table, good luck to them. But there always seemed to be this air of 'you realise we are so much better than this, don't you?' about it that I found really irritating. Now that might all have been in my own head, but for all that it was a very real emotion it stirred up in me.
YMMV, of course...
To paraphrase Louis B. Mayer...
"no one ever lost a penny underestimating the intelligence of the public."
Sky sold bucket loads; millions of people liked what they did; it made money for all concerned; we're still talking about it 30 years later. Where's the problem?
Yep.
They crossed the age barrier too; you didn't have to wear a greatcoat to like them. Oh, hang on a minute, er, in fact Sky were prog for people who were actually *in* Dad's Army. Like my Dad.
we can do this in our sleep and it pays the bills...
"we can do this in our sleep and it pays the bills, so why the hell not, eh?"
That, of course, was the mantra of almost every session player who ever lived.
Christ!
I don't think I've ever actually seen what SKY looked like! 'No Oil Paintings' - Bloody Hell, not even Francis Bacon's.
They appear to be one of those acts whose discography is now only available via Charity shops.
Charity Begins With Sky
That is true, you can guarantee to see Sky records in charity shops, alongside albums by Andy Williams, Johnny Hates Jazz, Chris Barber. Tijuana Brass etc etc. I haven't looked to see if Sky are on I-Tunes, demand is maybe not sky high.
Is that Daniel Kitson on drums?
And how come the keyboard player's hands are hairy from side on, but perfectly smooth from above?
Either Kitson or
Kinky John, from Reeves And Mortimer's "The Club" sketches:
Cognitive dissonance
I have been listening to Brain Salad Surgery this evening so had just heard ELP's Toccata when I looked at this. Misread the title on the video and got a way down the comments thinking... "Carl Palmer looks like Roy Orbison?", "Can't remember Greg Lake wearing a nice sweater" etc.
Can't believe that anybody alive at the time didn't know what Sky looked like though. Their promotion was relentless and they managed to get on every TV show going. You couldn't turn on the TV without them popping up and John Williams talking about playing an electric guitar.
Not sure I should admit that I actually quite enjoy the first Sky album, though I much prefer JW doing his duets with Julian Bream. Mind you, I also owned at least 4 Rondo Veneziano albums before I flogged off all my vinyl last year so I must have a weakness for pseudo-classical.
OMG
that Sky track sounds like the Closing music from some mid 80s midweek Athletics special introduced by Jim Rosenthal.
Am I the only one who heard those twiddly synth runs
and thought... "it's MUSE!"?
See around 1:29 in this for evidence (I tried to link it straight to that bit but it doesn't seem to be working right):
Not Amused
Spot on, I thought Muse had nicked that from somewhere!
Bach
I always had a soft spot for JS's keyboard works in particular the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. So this didn't escape my notice at the time.
Not forgetting either that this was DAVID BOWIE'S BASSIST so of great importance to me at the time. Nor of course his legendary bassline on Walk On The Wild Side.
Looking back they do seem, as often happens with supergroups, lesser than the sum of their parts, and despite the urgency of the piece manage to turn in a rather pedestrian performance.
I'm sure they must have done the rounds of all the weekend shows particularly Val Doonican who was genuinely enthusiastic about his guests and often performed with them on his show.
He regularly did a spot with a featured artist, one of whom was John Williams, and was instrumental(!) in introducing me to the joys of the guitar.
Trivia
John Williams was at one time married to TV's lovely Sue Cook, she of Crimewatch and Nationwide fame.
Lucky man, say I.
According to...
Amazon it goes up to Sky 5.
And every last one
of them is gathering dust in the bargain bin of your local record store/charity shop.
Just like all the paperbacks from
Sven Hassel, Dan Brown, Alistair Maclean, Robert Ludlum and all the other millionaires who consistently delivered an enjoyable product to a huge audience.
Is it possible
to compare unsaleable books with unsaleable records?
In any case, I pass no judgement on the music of Sky, some of which I enjoyed at the time.
My dad died at the tender age of 56
Not far off my age now.
He loved Songs For Swinging Lovers by Frank Sinatra and a Fats Waller Best of. He played them all the time. I still know all the words to this day. Both are such joyful records.
He also had a Bee Bumble & The Stingers single I absolutely adored, thought Paul Simon's first three albums after the split with Art 'classic' and was very fond of This Is Soul, a compilation of Stax singles.
English Jazz was his real thing. It was very poignant for me when Humphrey Littleton featured on Radiohead's Amnesiac album. I was bewildered wondering what he would have thought of it. I can't imagine him appreciating Thom Yorke's whine.
The downside was he liked Status Quo. My younger brother agreed with him on that, though. Not me
That can only have been
Nutrocker b/w Nautilus on the orange Top Rank label. It was their only UK hit, hitting number one in 1962.
Produced by Kim Fowley, too,
That was the one
Perfect record for a pre-schooler. It's wild, encourages jumping around and making silly noises.
Which is, I suspect, exactly why ELP used it as an encore
John Williams and Pete Townshend
I saw this at one of the Secret Policemans Balls in the early 80s. It was remarkable, at the time, to see an artist like Townshend playing a solo acoustic version of a Who track. This was of course, 10 years before the 'Unplugged' craze.
The oul fella has gone on
The oul fella has gone on to amass thousands of CDs and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Irish, Irish trad and modern jazz. Our childhood's were full of music, I remember the Beatles, the Stones, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and loads more.
However, this is the sum total of the records he had. May be he borrowed and taped loads of music, but this is the sum total of his vinyl. I must have past his haul within a couple of years of buying records.
There's quality here, it's just the small amount that is striking.
Sky?
That takes me Bach
/coat
He still
Loves that record, especially the Herbie Flowers tuba, or whatever it is.
Tuba Smarties
I believe