May 11th – One of the saddest books I've read? Noel Redding’s
biography. He died on this day in 2003 and my guess he went with unfinished
business and pain in his heart too. I know, sounds strange, I know. The thing
is, you see, the thing is we never really know how these things are played out
do we? I mean, the Jimi Hendrix Experience is, for me, the quintessential rock
band. I have owned, at one time, everything they
have ever produced…and I’m not talking about those travesties of shite that greedy
companies put out year on year; the out-takes, the rubbish, the noodlings and
the utter tripe that is hailed as an all new set of recordings by Jimi Hendrix.
Don’t listen to ‘em and don’t buy ‘em. It’s just grubby pound notes gliding
into the pocket of some fuck-wit, money-grubbing arse that pretends that he really
likes Hendrix, man. and is doing him and us a favour by releasing these
forgotten gems (oh, yeah…tell you what, the only favour you’re doing is to your
own bank balance, end of. Why th’ fuck do you think they weren't released in
the first place? They weren't released in the first place because they were
sub-standard, that’s why. Arse).
These trivial scratchings only serve
to denigrate the memory of a really special band…with a really special front
man… really special.
He’s the only guitarist who never,
ever fails to send footsteps over my grave whenever I listen to him and I've
played his records to within a millimetre of their thickness, know the entire
back catalogue (of quality) can sing most of the lyrics and have performed many
of them on stage with various bands…that reminds me...
I remember doing a version of Fire. We opened the second act with it,
and here’s the thing. This was back in the day when H&S was shorthand for
Hers and Sirs so we were at liberty to do what we wanted with the various fire
elements for our show. So…we cut squares of material, bodged a hole in the
centre, fixed them to four of my six cymbals, put four HUGE piles of flash
powder on them (one at each side…artistic see…and this was a time when flash
powder came in a tub and you ladled out how much you thought you’d need with a
spoon) and then soaked the whole in lighter fuel. I can hear the sharp intake
of breath from here. Anyhow, in the lead break of Fire our singer would set light to the cloth, the flames would leap
into the air, the vapour would gradually burn off from the piles of flash
powder…bit like the preparation of a crepe Suzette…and the remaining flames
would set the flash powder off (you've seen the cannons on the AC/DC video of Those About To Rock? Think that, then
bigger). Long story short, in Nuneaton we did
our show in a club with no stage; band at floor level. Act two, rag, flash
powder, lighter fuel, 'way we go, burn, burn...…drunk on stage to light
fag…boom! No fag…no eyebrows, lashes or the front three inches of hair. Laugh?
I nearly bought me own drink.
Anyway, off piste again. What came
out in Mr. Redding’s biog was that the Jimi Hendrix Experience management tried
to cut both him and Mitch Mitchell out of any royalty’s payments so they could
keep what they'd fiddled them out of and make more on the re-releases even to
the point of editing them out of any video footage…nice huh? After all that
work they even went as far as slicing the video recordings so neither musician
figured in them…bless, and all for a few extra shekels to fill their greasy
palms. It’s what they do best, soil what are the greatest memories of the
ordinary folk like me in order to buy themselves an extra bottle of malt a
week…hope it chokes ‘em…Those of you in the biz, know and understand this; in
the main as far as rock-band management goes:
TALENT IS THE LAST THING ON THEIR
MIND, THEY ONLY WANT YOUR MONEY AND THEY DON’T CARE HOW THEY FUCK YOU OVER TO
GET IT.
OK, I’m over it now…thanks for
listening. X!
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