Category Archives: Blog

Parsley

Steve Thompson Posted on by

This parsley being used in tonights dinner came from our garden. I’m so tempted to go the whole hog: grow my own stuff, police my own property, do my own education, hope for the best with health and form my own little republic. Goodbye UK.

Is Buddypress Any Good?

Steve Thompson Posted on by

Just pondering. WordPress is great but I’ve never seen or developed an effective Buddypress site (a plugin to turn WP in to a social network, forum etc) Possibly WP is best used as a blog/cms and leave social networking and forums to dedicated platforms. http://buddypress.org/

Steve T

Girl in the Lane

Steve Thompson Posted on by

Just release the second track from my Places in Time album. With concept in 2007, first track in 2009 and second track in 2013 this is clearly a slow burner.

Steve T

Steel Town Revisited, Remixed, Remastered.

Steve Thompson Posted on by

I’m remastering the original cast recording of Steel Town. Also there are demos, poems, live cuts & unreleased tracks. http://steeltown.co.uk Apart from the songs featured in the show there is a wealth of related material including oral history recordings. This will take a little while and in order to accommodate the inevitable cast of thousands I’ve set up a web page to accommodate all this info at http://steeltown.co.uk/revisited.html. The production schedule can be seen here

Steve T

Paris By Air

Steve Thompson Posted on by

The Ship, Wardour St (Click to enlarge)

Dateline 1979 (ish) and I was house producer at Impulse Studios, Wallsend, UK and producing for Neat Records. I had set up a sister company, Neat Music Publishing and had done a sub-publishing deal with Bruce Welsh of the Shadows. This took care of the Neat Catalogue but the arrangement also handled my own songs. Bruce’s partner, Brian Oliver became my mentor. On one of my trips to London, Brian and I were sitting in the notorious Ship on Wardour Street. He was giving me tips on  finding inspiration for songs. “Take this pub for instance”, he said, waving his hand around the room and pointing at a poster, “you could write a song called The Duke Of Wellington”. My eyes alighted on another  poster and I replied “No, I’m going to write a song called Paris By Air”, (as the poster declared). I then described what the story would be, a young girl trapped in a council estate living a hum drum life and longing to escape.

At the time I was working with a singer called Toni Haliday (later of CURVE) and I was shopping for a record deal for her. I needed to write stuff that matched her age and attitude. Toni had told me about her life and her dreams and I saw how Paris By Air could be a vehicle to express these things. Back home in Whitley Bay I put together the song.

“I walk down the street with time on my hands,
The signs on the walls show far-off lands,
But I don’t know a soul in this neighbourhood,
Can afford the fare, I’m stuck here for good.”

A week later  I laid the track down with Toni and a bunch of mates acting as session guys, one of whom was Andy Taylor (later of Duran Duran). I played the opening riff on a Rickenbacker 12 string.

Now, at this time I was living in a Whitley Bay house shared with various members of The Tygers of Pan Tang. I returned home one evening and John Sykes asked me what I’d done that day in the studio (as he often did). I played the guys a rough mix of Paris By Air. They all loved it, particularly Rocky. And so it came to pass that the Tygers recorded Paris By Air for their fourth album, “The Cage”. This necessitated some changes of lyrics to suit a male singer. “Paris” also came out as a single and was a hit.  The album was a huge success and went top 20.

 

Johnny Two Phones

Steve Thompson Posted on by

I finally did something sensible (I think) with technology. I bought an expensive state of the art (at the time) HTC Desire. As a Mac user I didn’t want to put all my “apples” in one basket so went Android instead of iPhone. I really do like Android. However, all that desirability of apps is a waste as the internal memory of the HTC Desire is pitiful. I’ve moved as many to the external card as possible but some (Google’s own Gmail, Maps being the chief suspects) will not go to the card.
A friend of mine has a Samsung Galaxy S, which has plenty of internal memory, and I was quite impressed with it. However when I contemplated purchasing one I was struck by its physical size. How could I part with my perfectly formed HTC Desire. But then again, a machine with more power could be more useful as an everyday tool. Looking at what is available I could not find a Desire sized phone with a Galaxy size memory.
So here’s what I did: I purchased second hand off Amazon, last years model Samsung Galaxy. What the hell I have last years model HTC and it’s second hand too. At this price I could afford to walk around with two phones for a while I decided which was best with the loser hitting Ebay.
I have to say the machine likely to hit Ebay is the HTC.  The increase in Physical size is negligible and easy to get used to. I like the design of the HTC and the functionality of the implementation of software is nice. I now realize that different manufactures use Android differently. So I miss some of the HTC Sense approach but then again I think I’ll get used to the Samsung approach reasonably quickly. What I am already loving is it’s power and speed. I have all my audio, multimedia, business and entertainment apps on there including some I had purchased and had to ditch on the HTC.

Occupy Stanhope

Steve Thompson Posted on by

I have been working with Jack Drum Arts of County Durham on a Community Play based on the subject of the 1818 “Battle of Stanhope”. The play will run for 3 days in March 2012 in a barn in Stanhope.

Basically the story goes like this: the Napoleonic wars had ended and there was a lesser need for lead (bullets). Starving lead miners in Weardale turned to poaching to supplement their income. The Prince Bishop sent Gamekeepers on a mission and captured the Siddle brothers. Their friends and family took pursuit and caught up with the Prince Bishops men in Stanhope and an almighty battle took place at the Black Bull.

This all took place 193 years ago but it is still remembered in songs, stories and of course the play “The Bonnie Moorhen”. This coming Weds 7th December is the anniversary of the “Battle of Stanhope” and we plan to re-enact it in the very pub where it happened. We’re planning to stream this and it can be seen here from 3pm GMT on December 7th ­ just click on “watch” in the top menu.

Diverse

Steve Thompson Posted on by

For no apparent reason this thought came to me as I was out driving: “I’ve played guitar with the Jeff Beck group and sung with the Nolan Sisters”. How diverse is that? So. how did these two, poles apart situations come about? Well, firstly producer Wayne Bickerton picked up on one of my songs and wanted to put it out on his label, State Records. He really liked the demo and asked who was playing on it. I informed him it was just two people. My mate Paul Smith on drums and me doing everything else. So Wayne says, “OK, you come and play guitar on the track and I’ll pull in a bunch of session people”. Vocals on the release were to be Mick Whitaker but it also ended up with Chris Farlow singing it (I met him at the studio a few months later) You can hear both these versions by clicking here. So the sessions took place with Waynes session guys and I showed them all the parts – it sounded a lot like the demo only more polished of course. When I returned to the North East Keith Satchfield (of Fist) asked me about the sessions. I said there was some guy called Simon Philips on drums and a bass player with an unusual name. Keith said “was his name  Mo Foster”. Ahah. I said that’s it. Keith looked a little stunned for a moment and then declared “F*** me, you’ve only been playing with the Jeff Beck band (Mo and Simon far right in pic below) So on to the other part of the story. In 1985 I took part in an event to support the Bradford Football Fire Disaster Appeal. The gig took place at St Georges Hall, Bradford and featured the likes of Smokey, Kiki Dee, Motorhead, Colin Blunstone and of course the Nolan Sisters. I played keyboards with John Verity’s band. John had organised the gig. Top of the Bill was Gerry Marsdon (he of the Pacemakers). There was a big jam session towards the end and I distinctly  remember trading keyboard licks with Rod Argent. Jim Rodford and Bob Henrit, respectively bass player and drummer with the Kinks were keen to do a couple of Kinks tunes in the jam so we obliged with “You Really Got Me” – no problem. Next came “All The Day and All of The Night”. The main riff was easy enough to busk but nobody was quite sure of the chords to the bit “The only time I feel all right is by your side” so it kind of fell apart there with just bass and drums really knowing it. The funniest bit for me was when we were doing a blues jam. I looked to the assembled guitarists  on stage and noticed they were playing in the key of G (by the chord shapes their hands were making) and so I joined in, also in the key of G (naturally). A few moments later I glanced at Worzel of Motorhead and spotted he was playing in the key of A, blissfully unaware he was the only person doing so!  Incidentally this was the gig credited with re-uniting Smokie but that was almost short lived when their drummer Pete Spencer fell backwards off the drum podium and injured himself. Luckily, as well as multiple guitarists we were sporting two drummers (Paul Smith) at the time and so the beat went on. And finally; my singing debut with the Nolans. The last act was Gerry Marsden and the last number was the anthem for the appeal “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. Everybody got up and sang this one. There were loads of us so we clustered in groups around several mics. I clustered with the Nolans and that, dear readers is who I got to sing with the Nolans. Sadly there is no picture of this event but I do have the programme (below) strangely the Nolans are not mentioned on it – a strange oversight. ≈ Click to Enlarge

Remembering Charlie Crane

Steve Thompson Posted on by
Charlie Crane

I met Charlie Crane mid to late 80’s through my work as a songwriter. I had just come to the end of a publishing contract with MCA Music and Charlie had just left employment as a publisher (can’t remember – maybe it was ABC Music) I was looking for a new publisher and he was looking for some action. I can’t remember how we met but we hung out for a while. To be honest I had kinda fallen out with MCA as they fired my main man, Pete Waterman leaving me without a mentor.

I stayed at Charlie’s house a couple of times and met his wife and kids. I recall a moment when Charlie caught me dealing from the bottom of the deck in a card game. I was playing with his six-year-old son at the time.

I remember hearing somewhere that Charlie was a one-time member of a band called the “Crying Shames” but I did not pay this much attention as I was more concerned with my own career. Eventually, Charlie got the gig with MCA music which put an end to us working together since I had just left them. I guess I should have stayed in touch and got him to work my back catalogue but I was more concerned with the future. I got a publishing deal with DJM through Gus Dudgeon and concentrated on that, losing touch with Charlie.

Just yesterday evening Charlie came to mind so I thought I would Google him. I vaguely recall hearing he had died so I didn’t expect to find him on Facebook. I did find him though. Made me think how great the web is that I could learn more about his story that I selfishly paid scant attention to. Through YouTube I was able hear him sing and realising that the record was produced by the legendary Joe Meek, I really wished I had got into a conversation about this. This web page – tells the story of the “Crying Shames” very well and in the YouTube below you can hear Charlie sing. He was a nice unassuming guy and I wish that I had kept in touch but our paths crossed briefly and we went our own ways – such is life.