Jan 082012
Mod’s excellent SNSI this week caused me to once again investigate the work of a band I just know I need to have more music from: Slade. In so doing, I ran across this — surely the best sports/rock video Venn diagram intersection ever. Can you top it? (First Townsman to ironically post the “Superbowl Shuffle” video gets an RTH Demerit Badge.)
I mean, seriously: the only thing this song lacks is a juicy moment of profanity. Otherwise, it’s got it all: sports footage, sports clapping, scarves, frigid outdoor “live” shoot, a fans-come-first perspective, and bellbottom highwaters. It’s a winner!
That is a strong contender – and a good song by Slade to boot! Of course I’m always partial to this one, in which the band members show off their own footwork AND play a board game of their favorite sport:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5hnCb-93WY
Love the bass sound on Give Us a Goal.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Pop Will Eat Itself’s “Touched by the Hand of Cicciolina.” English football, team jerseys, Italian goddesses in togas all in reference to Hungarian-born Italian member of parliament and porn star La Cicciolina.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PHQ3yGcCmU
And there are lots of sporty-spice songs that don’t have sporty videos (if they made videos at that time): “Fearless” from Pink Floyd, New Order’s “World in Motion, “Colourbox’s “The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme,” and The Lillies “And David Seamen Won’t Be Very Happy About That.”
That “song” drives me bat-shit crazy, but the video is a doozy. Nice offering!
Slade was pretty dumb even by dumb-rock standards. The only song I have of theirs is the odd and vaguely-Gypsy “Coz I Luv You”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cKvpMRQa1U
As for sports-rock videos, the one that sticks in my mind is Dwight Twilley’s “Girls”. Be warned – the version I’m posting is NSFW.
http://knickersonthefloor.com/videos-girls-dwight-twilley-uncensored-%5BZmNPftxXjJU%5D.cfm
I present to you D.O.A.’s version of Takin’ Care Of Business with a little help from Randy Bachman. Certainly the best hockey related video.
http://youtu.be/zXKjLZumm5s
Best moments – The players profiles at the beginning. The band faking out the suits with a fistful of dollars. Talk-Action=0
Sorry if I beat you to it northvancoveman.
I can see why that one sticks in your mind! Still, Twilley gets a bunch of black marks for his role in that video. Come to think of it, what the heck *is* his role, anyway?
Now THAT is a strong contender! I normally wrinkle my nose at videos that show band members as supposed sports team members, but with the help of the Bach-man, DOA pull it off. Still, I have to deduct points for the incredibly shitty guitar and drum sounds. I gotta play fair… they sound like ass!
That’s one of those “only in Europe” videos. VERY funny/stupid – but so stupid it’s funny.
That’s a good one, tonyola – the Slade song, that is. I think I could make a really fun “Best of Slade” ep from all their albums. Don’t cheat HVB out of this “live” version, which may appeal to his love for the legendary “live” video of “Join Together” that he wrote up years ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN2X3_vm52Q&feature=related
Here’s another “live” version, from 6 years later, with Tom Hulce on violin. The German audience is not as animated, but they try.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAOe-g869qA&feature=related
As for that Twilley video, good god, that may be the WORST sports-rock video ever. No wonder power pop guys can’t get laid! It was big of him to throw some skin into the proceedings, but I think #2’s expression says it all at the 43-second mark.
Man, despite proving it possible to completely butcher that simplest of rock songs my vote so far goes to this D.O.A. video. I, too, was a sucker for the player profiles. northvancoveman will be swollen with pride when he sees this.
True about the sound and playing, but on a night when the Denver Tebows have knocked out the Steelers, we should celebrate the notion of “winning ugly.”
Heh, I never claimed “Girls” was good – only memorable and that’s mainly because of the totally-gratuitous tit parade.
Certainly! I didn’t mean to pass judgment on you; I was just sharing my dismay at the unsportsman-like conduct of “Coach Twilley.”
I wonder if the producers of Porky’s had any involvement in the video. If they didn’t, did they object to the obvious borrowing?
I dig that Slade song, which appeared in a Slade DVD that I have.
Here’s a YouTube thingie of the Yellow Balloon performing “Yellow Balloon” @ Anaheim Stadium for the ’67 Angels, w/Casey Kasem in a batboy’s uniform & them doing an a capalla version of the song referencing an upcoming game w/the Washington Senators:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO-8-DjwdNI
Man, Slade sucks in a big way.
By no means is Slade a great band. Their role (intended or not) in the birth of hair metal is rather unforgivable. Yet, I like them. I think their lack of popularity with American audiences makes them kind of niche band.
Perhaps I could sway you with Bangin’ Man. A slab of Stonesy/Foghat”ish” goofiness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvuYrtDzPto
What a fantastic video. I dislike football intensely, but watching that almost made me want to go and stand about for two hours in the freezing cold watching men kicking a ball about. Any other band would have waited for the snow to melt from the pitch, but not Slade!
Unfortunately while watching it I thought of The Matchroom Mob with Chas and Dave’s video for “Snooker Loopy”. I defy anyone to come up with a worse sports video than this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BliAPzEsao0
Slade are practically royalty over here, they are adored and hailed as national treasures. This has always been my favourite Slade song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwLzB5Y1DEQ. I still remember the shock of playing the single for the first time when I got it home, the production was so loud it was like the Phil Spector Wall of Sound with the orchestra replaced by half a dozen great big motorbikes.
I’d never thought of them as a proto-metal band, probably because when I was ten/eleven I wouldn’t have had any idea what metal was.
They came out of Birmingham/ Wolverhampton at the same time as Sabbath and half of Zep, a couple of years after The Move, so geographically were well placed to become the noisy face of Glam.
They barely caused a blip in the US until the age of Hair Metal, but I’d always read about how much the Undertones loved them and other glam lightweights, as they were perceived here. So, for that reason and another, strictly personal one, I’ve always stuck it out and tried to uncover a few gems in their catalog.
I think that the New York Dolls had a lot more to do with Hair Metal than Slade.
Also, I remember reading a story in MOJO in the mid or late 90s about this Brit who hated Slade & dug Steely Dan growing up in the ’70s & meeting up w/Noddy Holder while taking a pitstop @ a Steely Dan concert, w/Noddy saying that they were one of his favorite bands.
I was introduced to Slade at the nadir of their career arc, around 1980 or so. All my British ex-pat friends used to laugh at how hopelessly yobbo/stupid they were — and then laughed at them for their later attempts to style themselves up, on the cover of “In Flame,” for instance. Then again, these were brainy, nerdy dudes who loved Rush. I sort of like them in the same way I like the Troggs, with a dash of Rory Gallagher for their men-of-the-people vibe. I need to buy some. Where do I start?
Yob rock in glam clothing.
Slade’s Greatest Hits (Feel The Noize). All their singles in chronological order, an outstanding compilation. They were never an album band over here, so I’d save those for later. The cover of In Flame was from the film, and needs to be taken in the context of the film (which is a superb movie). (And the Troggs comparison is certainly a valid one).
I own 3 or 4 albums, and honestly, I cannot recommend any one of them as being worth more than a good song or two, the funny band photos, and the somehow oddly appealing/familiar band name. I still hope to come across the one “killer” Slade album. Maybe I need to go back to their first album, when they were still dressing like droogs and may have had a slightly different band name?
If we’re considering billiards/snooker as a sport, how about Pete Townshend’s “Rough Boys” video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT4zAKUTQ-0
To answer the original question, no, there is no greater rock/sports video, and yes, this Slade song is awesome!
My first exposure to Slade was when “Run Run Away” got (inexplicable) heavy MTV airplay, which would have been in 1983, I guess? So they had a distinct “weird old guys” vibe at first. They were probably equally as known to me at the time because of the success Quiet Riot was having with their cover of “Cum On Feel The Noize”.
But the more I’ve looked into them, the more I kind of love them for what they do (did) and I’ve found myself looking to find some kind of solid Slade anthology. I say that because I don’t just want something with the bigger “hits” (Noize, Look Wot You Dun, Mama We’re All Crazee Now, etc. that I enjoy but have in some form or another), but I want something that also has deeper cut winners like:
“Do We Still Do It?” (www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtInG6R4fm4) and (www.youtube.com/watch?v=hknxkRlvfG8)
I think those are great, but I know some Townspeople don’t have much room for either T.Rex or The Ramones in their rock hearts, and Slade seems to clearly fall somewhere in between the two of them, which is probably why they appeal to me.
I wouldn’t recommend it. Stick with the singles, the albums, as you say, are unimpressive.
I’m not sure that you can take many Brit pop bands of that era and dig up album gold. Slade had a run of twelve top five singles (six number ones), bookended either side by a top twenty, between 71 and 74, released five albums, and toured constantly, (with the added challenge of Don Powell being out of action/ considerably slowed down for a while due to the car crash in 1973 which nearly killed him and still suffers major short-term memory loss from it).
Bowie and Bolan are the only exceptions I can think of during this period, but they were so driven that they would have gone to Vegas and become fat Elvis if that’s what it would have taken to get famous.
I think we Brits took a couple of decades longer to get the hang of ‘album bands’. We’ve never had FM music radio stations playing album tracks, and have been fed a diet of only top forty singles and oldies since the pirates were closed down in 1967, so only artists with an insane rush of great songs have been able to do both albums and singles. A fairly safe rule of thumb with Brit singles bands of the 60s/ 70s/ 80s churning out four singles a year is that if the ‘b’ sides are good then the albums are generally worth checking out (i.e. The Who, The Kinks, The Bee Gees, Bowie, Bolan, and later on The Smiths).
Shout! put out 2 Slade comps (which I both have), the 1st w/the hits & the 2nd w/deep cuts such as “Do We Still Do It”, which I also like.
I’ve come across some of your country’s singles-oriented glam bands through the years, and some of it’s a lot of fun: Hello (I think that’s their name) and Mud, for instance. I’m also on the lookout for collections of Australia’s versions of these bands. I stumbled across a treasure trove of YouTube clips a couple of years ago and wrote something up. I’ve yet to find a single record by those bands, though – really obscure bands to us in the States.
Good one – and much better than the scenes from The Color of Money for that bad Clapton song.
Mod, there is a rather enjoyable glam comp out there called, of all things, “Boobs: Junkshop Glam Discotheque.” Some of it is terrific some of it is awful, but it ain’t dull. Highlighted by “Motorboat” by Jimmy Jukebox who, on closer examination, turns out to be Kim Fowley. Check it out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLJnAd4w-0g&feature=related
But getting back to your inexplicable enthusiasm for the inexcusable Slade: aren’t you one of those who bitches about the Jam’s couple of so-called “football anthems” like “Billy Hunt”? I mean, “Billy Hunt” is practically Jackson-Browne-sensitive by comparison.
As I’ve said, there are personal reasons for my tolerance of Slade that go beyond my admiration for Noddy Holders muttonchops. I actually enjoy his firecracker-up-the-ass vocal approach. I can hear similarites to Feargal Sharkey, the master of that style of singing. When the Jam gets into football anthem mode is when Paul Weller’s voice is at its least appealing. He sings those songs like he’s vomiting mud.
“Personal reasons”? What, did Noddy send you a Wolves t-shirt when you were a long lad or something?
It’s that band name. It resonates with me, for some reason.
Incidentally, I meant to write “young lad” and somehow it came out “long lad.” Weird.
I thought you were making a complimentary assumption.
I’ve just found this rather fun history of Glam, which says it better and more accurately than I could. It’s strange to look back and realise that Alice Cooper rode to UK fame on the tails of glam, but there’s little other crossover there. http://www.doremi.co.uk/glam/ I work with an Australian who is of the same vintage, I’ll see if he has any recommendations.
I’m not suggesting that Slade was solely responsible for Hair Metal. The whole glam movement had a bigger influence than the NYDolls ever did. Quiet Riot was the first of those bands to cross over and they did it with a Slade song (and even then, they hated the song at first). The success of that song had a huge impact on those Sunset Strip buffoons.