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A Belated Yawn In Your New Year!
A slightly belated happy New Year to everyone who still reads this rubbish and even all you miserable sods that gave up on me years ago.
It is now 43 years since I bought my first Manfred Mann record! For those wondering which one it was actually 'Sha La La'. Because my father had a reel to reel tape contraption, I had taped 'Do Wah Diddy' off the radio show
Pick of the Pops, (or rather my sister had, honestly officer!) so it was a while before I owned a copy. So you see illegal downloading of music was already a problem even then!
Just whilst I am on the subject of Pick of the Pops, can we have a moment of silence for Alan (Fluff) Freeman, who died just recently? Fluff as a
DJ probably did just as much in his own distinctive way to promote popular music as the legendary scouser John Peel. I don't know if you guys in
mainland Europe even know who I'm talking about. Freeman ran the official chart show here for a long time, complete with his very distinctive and
familiar countdown music. He went on to do amongst other things a prog rock show on the radio where he used classical music as his jingles
between songs. He also did Top of the Pops in the early days and was a familiar face on TV. Even if you have never heard of him I promise you
he helped to shape popular music in the sixties and often played Manfred's stuff and said nice things about them.
There is not a great deal happening at this time of the year. The sky has been grey since the turn of the year by us. Sometimes it rains and
sometimes it rains and we have sixty mile an hour winds. One way to cheer up is to enjoy close the curtains sit back and enjoy the new DVD. I
honestly don't remember ever having it so good. When I think back to the years of famine. An album every two or three years if you were lucky, a
tour every two or three years if you were very lucky! A live album that didn't sound a bit like the concerts it was taken from and absolutely no UK
TV coverage. (Well some things never change.) In contrast in the last few years we have had a good live album, a studio album a boxed set
including loads of unheard stuff, not least the lost recordings from the end of Chapter III and the start of MMEB. We have had a live DVD and now an Earth Band Best of DVD.
The DVD was not easy to do. All credit to everyone involved especially Nigel and Steve who literally trawled the world for suitable material. We
also had enormous help from fans in Europe and Australia, so we still have some fantastic stuff you ain't seen yet! As you can imagine pulling all
this stuff together and turning it to a nice imaginatively packaged DVD in time for Christmas was about as an impossible task as you can give
anyone. So spare a thought for Helen who seems to get better and better at not just doing the impossible but doing it brilliantly.
Whilst I am ranting on about this, here is another thought. It would have been very easy just to put together a bunch of videos and like magic have
a DVD. Having been starved of such luxuries for so long few fans would have complained. That is not what has happened. It was Nigel who
had the vision of incorporating some of the now legendary cartoons onto the DVD. Before any professional got involved Nigel was painstakingly
constructing mock-ups. There was a time last year when if a day went by without another DVD cartoon/music mock-up didn't drop through my
letterbox. I still have his first stab at 'Martha' where the synch between music, band and cartoon is about a verse out. (We should give that as a prize Nigel!)
The end result you see on the DVD might have had the professional treatment but it is all down to Nigel's efforts. Then there is 'Martha'. Most
record companies would have refused to let me mess with that for the sake of a moog solo. Steve let me stick the black and white version, I have
had for a long time, into the mix so now you have got probably one of the best moog solos, I have heard recorded. There is one on a Dominion bootleg from 1981 which is even better, but we don't promote bootlegs round here.
Everybody knows that I like Moog solos. I think that this DVD showcases Manfreds moog playing more than any release ever before!
Incidentally again in my opinion the live tracks from the first band, will give you no help whatsoever in winning an argument with Barry Winton who
as always insisted they were the best MMEB ever. It is a reminder of how important to Manfred and Mick's brilliant soloing a good engine room is!
There are other lovely moments on the DVD. Although I am always tempted to head for the live stuff there is some wonderful stuff early on.
'Joybringer' I hadn't seen before until we were putting this together or the two Plains Music tracks, which are brilliant videos. There are only a
couple of minor quality issues, which on a DVD, which spans thirty-five odd years is quite and achievement in itself. Like the re-masters and the
boxed set it is difficult to find the original masters for a lot of the stuff. In most cases they probably don't exists anymore.
So what next? Well there is talk of two or three more MMEB DVDs, although I have no idea when. There will be more live shows this year and as
far as I know they are playing 'Captain Bobby Stout' again. I would love to see a sixties DVD now to a similar high standard to the MMEB one, but I
have not heard of any plan to do this. I am also hoping that Manfred will progress his new recording project during 2007 and give us something
brand new to look forward to. One thing is for sure, as I said before we never had it so good, long may that continue. All the best Andy Taylor
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