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Post by cameron on Dec 23, 2014 18:41:17 GMT
Before the Christmas rush gets in the way, just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Christmas.
Here's a Hollies' rarity that isn't very well circulated:
"Winter Wonderland" live on Ready, Steady, Go in December 1965. Anyone know if there's the complete audio anywhere? I'm sure Dave Clark (of DC5 fame) is keeping the footage under lock and key!
Happy Hollie-Days!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2014 1:21:51 GMT
I'm sure Dave Clark (of DC5 fame) is keeping the footage under lock and key! I very much doubt it. He doesn't have much at all, not even any DC5 performances (which is why he inserted DC5 clips from The Ed Sullivan Show into the 80s/90s RSG rebroadcasts). Doubt if he has any Hollies, otherwise he wouldn't have included Just One Look from NME Poll Winners in the rebroadcasts.
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Post by dirtyfaz on Jan 3, 2015 8:06:10 GMT
I've heard this and it seems like only about a minute and a half exists. The piece I heard had about the same length of a Kinks track from the same special.
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Post by Gralto on Jan 5, 2015 0:48:02 GMT
Thanks Cameron for the holiday wishes - as per usual, I'm a bit late with mine! Hope everyone who visits this board had a nice Xmas-New Years break. This snippet of Winter Wonderland is another great example of how The Hollies, applying their vocal and musical abilities, could turn just about any song into a catchy beat raver that demanded repeat plays.
As for Dave Clark, my understanding is that he holds very few shows of RSG and nothing of The Hollies of those that do survive. There are two super brief fragments of Hollies clips on RSG and both were filmed by home viewers pointing a 8mm camera at their TV screen. Neither fragment has matching sound. Then there are two audio clips known to survive (of which Winter Wonderland is one), neither of which has surviving accompanying visuals. Again, these survive only due to home tapers watching the broadcasts at the time.
This is a real shame as The H appeared on the program playing live on ten occasions with songs like Bus Stop, I Can't Let Go, If I Needed Someone, I'm Alive and even album tracks like I Take What I Want played live (not mimed). RSG terrified some performers as it was THE music program in the mid 1960s which, from 1965, required artists to play their discs live. I have no doubt that the Hollies' popularity was positively impacted by their appearances on the show as it proved they could sing and play just like you heard on their discs. Unlike the DC5...
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Post by cameron on Jan 5, 2015 16:39:43 GMT
Sadly it's just more fuel for the fire of regret that there aren't more surviving Hollies live clips. Who was it that once said that Allan Clarke could sing the phone book and it would still sound good? I remember first hearing the complete Stockholm 1966 concert and not knowing the originals of "You Don't Know Like I Know" and "Cool Jerk" - upon tracking them down, I was quite disappointed! The Hollies versions knock them out of the water! They just have that magic live that's often missing in the studio. Some extra energy just comes to the fore: Bobby really steps up and shows off, Tony shows off his versatility and the harmonies are always tight. Whatever I get of them live, I just treasure it because it's the Hollies at their best.
Someone told me that Dave Clark gave out all he had in the 1980's. Clips of the DC5 were added from elsewhere to bulk up the recordings. I was quite surprised when it was hinted that all episodes of RSG survived, given the throwaway nature of TV pop shows in those primitive days. It's more likely that he has next to nothing. I'm still hoping someone has a home recording of King Midas on TOTP!! The Pink Floyd's "See Emily Play" from a similar time emerged recently. It was recorded to one of the first Sony video recorders that worked much like a reel to reel. Terrible quality but still amazing to see.
I loved hearing the story of how the Hollies and the Kinks toured with the DC5 in 1964/5. Dave Clark annoyed everyone by prancing around because they were top of the bill. So much so that the Kinks' Peter Quaife and Hollies' Eric Haydock cut the power to their set as they started "Bits And Pieces" on the last night!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2015 10:23:52 GMT
I have no doubt that the Hollies' popularity was positively impacted by their appearances on the show as it proved they could sing and play just like you heard on their discs. Unlike the DC5... I'm not so sure that this is true. Unfortunately there's very little live DC5 footage and audio to prove otherwise, but judging by the clip below they were more than capable, and I also heard a very poor quality audio of a 1965-1966 US concert where (from what I could hear) they were doing fine... far worse in my opinion were The Beatles, who struggled to recreate the sound of their records even in the early days.
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Post by Stranger on Jan 7, 2015 10:59:27 GMT
I have no doubt that the Hollies' popularity was positively impacted by their appearances on the show as it proved they could sing and play just like you heard on their discs. Unlike the DC5... I'm not so sure that this is true. Unfortunately there's very little live DC5 footage and audio to prove otherwise, but judging by the clip below they were more than capable I think the questions have always been about Dave's abilities rather than the rest of the band. He seems like a very basic drummer to me going by that clip.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 7, 2015 16:04:18 GMT
The accusation was that the DC5 couldn't recreate their sound live; I don't think anyone's denying that Dave Clark was not another Bobby Elliot (and not even another Ringo), not even a fan like me. The drumming on their records (whether played by Dave or a session man) was basic too.
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Post by stuball on Jan 9, 2015 0:55:58 GMT
I find myself in two minds when it comes to the Dave Clark 5. As a kid back in '64-'65, I loved their sound and I wasn't alone: they were second only to The Beatles in terms of popularity on this side of the Atlantic, particularly in 1964. I still listen to their first half-dozen LPS to this day. Yes, the arrangements and playing was very rudimentary whether performed by the group or more likely, by session men, but the production soundwise was fabulous, and still holds up well today.
Talent-wise, I think they were a little bit light. I can recall chatting, back in the '80's, with a very popular merseybeat group from Brit invasion days, contemporaries of the DC5. For fun, I asked them who, in their opinion, was the worst professional group from that period. 'The Dave Clark 5' was their immediate and unanimous reply. They thought the DC5's playing and singing was amateurish, Mike Smith excepted. They apparently weren't tight musically, and struggled through their set.
If this is true, they were very lucky to keep a talent like Mike Smith. And Dave Clark, if not much of a musician, certainly knew how to manage and promote the group. They had some great songs, written in-house, and huge worldwide popularity. This you can't take away from the group. That they managed, with limited musical abilities, to reach the top rank of groups during the mid-60's, is an impressive achievement.
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Post by Gralto on Jan 9, 2015 5:08:10 GMT
I'm not so sure that this is true. Unfortunately there's very little live DC5 footage and audio to prove otherwise, but judging by the clip below they were more than capable I think the questions have always been about Dave's abilities rather than the rest of the band. He seems like a very basic drummer to me going by that clip. Yes fair point Peter and not something I can truly back up given I never saw them live. I've just taken what others who performed with them have said to me at face value. Clearly they could play live adequately and many of their songs were fairly simple anyway. It's interesting how, in that clip you linked to, that for the second song 'Georgia On My Mind', Clark comes out from behind the drums to sing backing vocals, yet you can hear a drummer (from the orchestra) doing the slow beat for the song. As Micky Dolenz of the Monkees once said (I'm paraphrasing here - not his exact quote which comes from an interview of a Monkees anthology CD I have), "drumming's not rocket science - I wasn't a drummer before the Monkees but could play within 6 months"!
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Post by cameron on Jan 11, 2015 19:50:24 GMT
Most musicians who play anything, be it a guitar, piano, orchestral instrument, can play drums. All you need is timing and co-ordination. However, like all things, some people are better at it than others. Take someone like Ginger Baker of Cream who proudly boasts that he doesn't have any influences and does't practice - it shows. Listen to any Cream record and his drumming is messy and he rarely plays the same pattern twice.
Someone like Bobby Elliott on the other hand, he's virtuosic. He can play anything. He spent his youth practicing as much as he could and absorbing as much inspiration as he could. I've always felt it a shame that Ron Richards asked him to "tone it down a bit" from the very early days, because live, he's absolutely fantastic. I think he got used to the idea of toning it down a bit, as his drumming style gets simpler as the Hollies' career goes on, especially in the studio. Take something like Gasoline Alley Bred: the drum track is sadly quite buried in the mix (something Bobby has been vocal about saying he wasn't pleased with the final mix) but when you hear any surviving live recordings of the track, his drumming is absolutely fantastic. It's really involved, lots of fills, interesting beats. It's great. It's a shame that Ron Richards thought he knew better. For me, that track in particular highlights how wrong he was!
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