#don arden

[shadowland]

"Tell Me (Have You Ever Seen Me)" The Small Faces with Don Arden in IBC Studios, 1966

[musicmags]

[zilabee]

Three years earlier the Beatles had been second on the bill to Little Richard at the New Brighton Tower Ballroom, just outside Liverpool. [...] They loved Little Richard, despite the fact that he could be a bit weird and a bit of a prima donna.

I was there that night when I saw “a look” pass between him and Brian, a kind of recognition. Nothing was said, everything was cool. Don [Arden] frowned, but he didn’t work it out because he didn’t understand the subtleties of gayness. He thought something secret was going on, that Brian was trying to lure Little Richard away to sign with him.

Don didn’t understand someone like Brian at all. Brian would never dream of luring anyone away from their agency, unless sorely tried. But that’s the way Don always thought. He once broke Robert Stigwood’s desk with a single blow with a giant ashtray, and then hung him out of the third floor window of his office when he thought Stiggy was trying to steal the Small Faces. [...]

In New Brighton that night, Don started an argument with Brian over Little Richard. In fact he went crazy. Brian didn’t respond. He just stood, quietly gazing into space and when Don had run out of steam, Brian said quite mildly, “I will be calling your employers on Monday and demand that they terminate your employment.” This was Brian’s sophisticated version of today’s, “Your ass is grass.”

Still, it stopped Don dead in his tracks. He said he’d been all over the world and nobody had ever talked to him like that. Politely. He was even more incensed, when Brian actually did book Little Richard a couple of weeks later at the Liverpool Empire.

Tony Bramwell - Magical Mystery Tours

[totallycorrectbands]

Steve: [to Don Arden] Here’s a slice of humble pie and a good fuck you to you, Don!

[vinylspinning]

Stray: Suicide (1971)

With a morbid-ass album title like Suicide, you’d be forgiven for worrying that London rockers Stray had taken a frightening turn into Black Sabbath-like depression and paranoia (the two bands actually shared management for a time) with this, their second LP, released 50 years ago this month.

But, instead, Suicide offered up more of the same blend of hard rock, prog-rock and other assorted musical genres as the quartet’s eclectic eponymous debut, only with more emphatic keyboards and wildly polarized, love/hate results.

I know what you’re thinking but, no, the keyboards weren’t to blame for the “hate” bits, so much as the band’s terrible attempts at penning radio singles, which ranged from the mindless repetition of “Do You Miss Me?,” to the cowbell-powered inanity of “Run Mister Run,” to the sappy, string-laden Muzak of “Dearest Eloise.”

However, I do advise you to grit your teeth and bear them, because the album’s remaining five cuts offer so much to love ... 

Powerful opener “Son of the Father” contrasted subtle passages of chilling beauty with violent, riff-driven verses and strings set to doom-like drones, all of them backing spiteful lyrics condemning the countless wars that have claimed generations upon generations of young men.

Both “Nature’s Way” and “Jericho” slammed wicked power chords and boogie grooves against striking melodies and even jazzy accents (also, check out the latter’s thundering descending riff), while the mesmerizing “Where Do Our Children Belong” unveiled a remarkably sensitive streak.

Finally, there was the controversial title track, which combined a Geezer-esque bass progression with foreboding fuzz chords and sizzling solo licks to relay its gloomy story, including some language that would NOT pass muster nowadays, though I’m pretty sure the boys were blithely unaware of their faux pas.

Obviously, all this didn’t make for a very uplifting finale, and it’s a shame about those three very weak tracks, but keep in mind that, as legend has it, Stray managed to record the entirety of Suicide at London’s Olympic Studios in just 30 hours!

It’s enough to make you want to slit your wrists.

p.s. -- A few of these words were borrowed, busted up, and built anew from my All-Music Guide review of Stray’s Suicide.

More Stray: Stray, Saturday Morning Pictures.

[biscuitsarenice]

Sharon Osbourne Presents Rock’n’roll’s Dodgiest Deals

Like father like daughter

[shadowland]

The Small Faces as vines (the part 2 that nobody asked for)

[shadowland]

The Small Faces as vines