1980:
The trivia:
- A satirical group known as the Rhinoceros Party, received over 1% of the popular vote in the 1980 Canadian elections, despite campaigning to repeal the laws of gravity and build taller schools to provide 'higher' education.
- Photographer Robert Landsburg spent many weeks photographing the Mount St. Helens volcano in the lead up to it's huge eruption. When the mountain exploded on 18th May, he was only a few miles from the summit and realised that he would never escape the rapidly advancing ash cloud. Winding his camera film back into it's case, he put it into his backpack and then lay on top of it in attempt to protect the contents. Seventeen days later his body was found buried in the ash and the film was later developed.
- In 1980 the first ever 1 GB hard drive weighed an astonishing 226 kilograms and cost nearly £ 18,000
The memory:
Sky 2
No, not the television channel from the Murdoch media empire but the second album from the quintessential classical / progressive "supergroup".
Sky were formed by the coming together of five musicians at the top of their game:
- John Williams - one of the most acclaimed classical guitarists in the world, probably most famous for "Cavatina" - the theme from the movie "The Deer Hunter".
- Herbie Flowers - a former member of "T. Rex" and an incredibly busy session bass player who appeared on albums with Elton John, David Bowie, Cat Stevens and Paul McCartney. He also played the prominent bass line on Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side" *and* worked with Jeff Wayne on his musical version of "War Of The Worlds".
- Tristan Fry - a drummer and percussionist on (amongst many other things) the Beatles "A Day In The Life" and was the timpanist for the "Academy of St Martins in the Fields" chamber orchestra. He also played at the weeding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
- Kevin Peek - an Australian guitarist who for many years was part of Cliff Richard's regular backing band. He also played on many film soundtracks, including, "The Long Good Friday", which was written by:
- Francis Monkman - founder member of pioneering psychedelic band "Curved Air", he was an accomplished harpsichord player and a fan of free-form musical composition techniques.
I knew none of this at the time though. I had a growing interest in pop music, but I also really enjoyed instrumental albums - the disco-style versions of classic film and TV science fiction themes by Geoff Love were some of my favourites. Plus Jeff Wayne's "War of the Worlds" had clearly been my passion and hardly off my turntable in the year or so since it's release. But I had been too young for the peak years of the prog rock explosion - and classical music? Well up til now, 99% of that left me cold as it seemed to be the stuff for ancient granddads who liked listening to the eternally dull BBC Radio 3.
Then on an episode of "Top of the Pops" in May 1980, I saw Sky perform the track that became their most well-known and successful single - "Toccata" - which eventually reached number five in the charts. This was an arrangement of Bach's famous "Toccata and Fugue in D minor", but with the usual organ and orchestra replaced by synthesizers, frantic drums and electric guitars. Now this was classical music I could get into to! They also seemed to be having a lot of fun, perhaps hardly able to believe that they were on the BBC's flagship pop music show. See for yourself:
Intrigued by the performance, I ambled along to my local record store in search of more music by the band, and there, still in the top 10 was their second album "Sky 2" - a double LP no less. Thankfully I had enough pocket money saved up from doing odd jobs around the house that I could afford to buy it. Eagerly I took it home, opened the gatefold sleeve and placed the first vinyl record on the turntable.
The first disc is made up of original Sky compositions - and some lengthy ones at that. Jeff Wayne aside (and that's a special case I think), I was used to the more traditional three or four minute pop / novelty songs of my early childhood. The jaunty "Dance of the Little Fairies" was fairly brief, but two tracks ("Hotta" and the Arabic-influenced "Sahara") were around seven or eight minutes long. What's more, the fourth, "FIFO" - a four movement ode to computer programming no less - took up the entire B side, effectively one seventeen minute prog rock opus. That was my first real exposure to this kind of thing and I immediately fell in love with it.
The second LP began with live novelty favourite "Tuba Smarties", showcasing Herbie Flowers and his brass instrument. I seem to recall seeing Herbie perform this on later occasions dressed as a kind of gnome, his tuba bedecked in multi-coloured fairy lights. Following that were several fairly traditional versions of classical pieces from Praetorius, Rameau and Vivaldi, before Mr. Fry had his own turn with the percussion focused "Tristan's Magic Garden" ( I particularly liked the use of the vibraphone) and John Williams worked his Spanish folk magic on "El Cielo". The final side saw Sky's own take on the Curved Air barnstormer "Vivaldi" before the wonderful twelve minute "Scipio", that allowed everyone to get in on the action. The closing track was of course "Toccata".
Okay, so maybe it's true that the music was not going to set the world alight or create a cultural revolution and maybe it's true the five members (apart from Monkman with his long hair) looked like the kind of respectable people that your grandma might approve of, but for some reason their music really spoke to me. Millions of others obviously agreed because "Sky 2" was immensely popular, topping the charts - and the band made regular appearances on television. I had friends at secondary school who were also into the band, and we regularly talked about our favourite tracks.
The other thing that made the album stand out was the fact that it had liner notes from all the members of the band (another first for me), talking about the pieces and the music they had written. These were written in a jokey style, gentle taking the mickey out of each other and it really felt like Sky were connecting with the audience. On weekends I read these brief notes while I played the two LP's over and over again at as loud a volume as my parents would allow.
Sky's popularity continued to grow and their 1981 tour culminated with the first ever rock concert performed at Westminster Abbey in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Amnesty International. It was recorded and shown later as a special programme on BBC1, and I remember watching the show, as it was the first time I had seen Sky live in proper concert mode, instead of on something like "The Val Doonican Show"
Francis Monkman had left the band by this point and been replaced by Steve Gray. The Westminster Abbey concert was also the first time that many tracks from the new third album were played to the public - and Grays involvement moved them away from the more psychedelic sound of some of the music on the first two albums. I think I bought "Sky 3" as soon as it came out and although there were some great compositions and I did play it regularly, it just didn't feel quite as important to me. My brief passion for the band was beginning to fade. I think part of it might have been that my tastes were expanding and changing and I had discovered the electronic musical genius that is Jean-Michel Jarre when a friend lent me his copy of "Magnetic Fields".
But that's another story...
Honourable mentions:
- The Adventure Game - The immensely popular science fiction game show where celebrities had to solve a series of puzzles to get back to Earth, and clearly the inspiration behind "The Crystal Maze". Although most people now seem to remember it for the "Vortex" game at the end where contestants could be evaporated (which didn't come in til series 2), I personally liked the more cerebral tasks such as figuring out which of the "Drogna" shapes could be stood on based on a scientific mnemonic, the backwards talking alien ("Doog yrev") or using a creaky BBC micro to negotiate a pitch black maze. The fabulous "Den of Geek" website has a lovely look back at the series here. Wonderful stuff which is finally getting a DVD release in 2017.
- Flash Gordon - As much as I adore the black and white Buster Crabbe serials that were endlessly shown on early morning television during school holidays, the 1980 Dino De Laurentiis rightly sits there alongside them. Yes it's tongue in cheek, but pretty much everything is perfect - the casting, the visuals and not forgetting the Queen soundtrack. It's cheesiness it part of the charm. Brian Blessed has spent the rest of his career bellowing two words at the world with great relish and find me a heterosexual teenage boy who didn't have indecent thoughts about Onella Muti as Princess Aura...
- Cosmos - By rights this ground-breaking science series should have run away with my personal memory top spot for 1980. It's thirteen peerless episodes affected me in ways that have reverberated down the decades and I learnt so much from Carl Sagan that I wish I had had the chance to meet him and thank him for all that he did for me. When we talk about personal heroes, Carl Sagan's name is in the top three. The amazing journeys into outer space echoed the wonder I felt the first time I saw "Cosmic Zoom" - and that was without the electronic beauty of the music of Vangelis. I bought the music soundtrack, the accompanying book, the original and "special edition" VHS videos, and the DVD's (twice). I never get tired of watching it and Sagan's opening narration is ingrained on my brain forever. So why isn't it up there instead of "Sky 2"? Well partly that's because I'm trying to pick things that are slightly different instead of the most popular for each year and partly because "Cosmos" is *so* important both personally and culturally that it deserves much more space devoted to it. It'll probably have to wait til much later, but I want to look back at each episode separately and in detail. Something to look forward to then...
No comments:
Post a Comment