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Post by durango95 on May 15, 2019 18:45:12 GMT
Hmm...I'm not sure if am a proper Quo fan or what anymore. It must have been many years since I played this album from start to finish,but I will give it a go any day now. It is good of course I know that,but I just don't play those old albums much anymore…
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Post by Victor on May 15, 2019 19:25:17 GMT
Hmm...I'm not sure if am a proper Quo fan or what anymore. It must have been many years since I played this album from start to finish,but I will give it a go any day now. It is good of course I know that,but I just don't play those old albums much anymore…
I don't think it has anything to do with being a proper fan or not...I notice the same thing about certain old albums...maybe it's age...the fact that I got to know an enormous amount of music through the years... the disadvantage is of course that you can't always remember how good an album really is or not until you play it again, but the advantage is that albums are also less likely to become boring...
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Post by Mrs Flittersnoop on May 16, 2019 17:30:01 GMT
Happy days! I have finally plugged a gap in my Quo CD set with a no-bonus-track copy of HELLO. You know what I found? As well as having some brilliant tracks on it, and some nice ones ... it has that rare quality that the finest albums have. It's a very listenable album. There are a couple of tracks - It's Better Now and moreso Reason For Living - which are not standout tracks in my view, in their departments, but they just fit into the album beatifully and have many fine Quo features, including that genuine Quo Sound. I can just let the album go on round and it doesn't annoy me or make me reach for the SKIP. And it keeps making me twitch in my chair, and join in. Compare eg Reason for Living with the much less Quoable I Love Rock & Roll on 1982 (sorry Al) and the first is sprightly with interesting guitar sounds, while the second in plonky - at least it has some harmonies - but nothing to make it stand out. The Quo Sound is gone. I always thought they just lost touch with it, lost touch with how to make music with its own inner completeness, but it's sliglhtly more than that, someone in the organisation is just slightly cloth eared not to notice what they were losing. Is it Francis? he seems to be the best candidate. Who argued? Anyone? They seemed to think they needed to "reinvent themselves" to conquer somewhere or other, and yet they were doing well, selling out gigs, selling lots of records, they went on having hits. OK there was America, but they DIDN'T NEED AMERICA - they were doing fine as they were. If they wanted to do a bit of country, do some ballads, what was stopping them? Look at Piledriver, look at Quo. Light and shade was one of their defining characteristics. They still have it in them (or did), it peeks out now and then, but they lost it, worse than that, they kind of threw it away.
And I am one of the ones who usually can think of reasons why it's not all that bad really.
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Post by curiousgirl on May 17, 2019 11:11:51 GMT
Happy days! I have finally plugged a gap in my Quo CD set with a no-bonus-track copy of HELLO. You know what I found? As well as having some brilliant tracks on it, and some nice ones ... it has that rare quality that the finest albums have. It's a very listenable album. There are a couple of tracks - It's Better Now and moreso Reason For Living - which are not standout tracks in my view, in their departments, but they just fit into the album beatifully and have many fine Quo features, including that genuine Quo Sound. I can just let the album go on round and it doesn't annoy me or make me reach for the SKIP. And it keeps making me twitch in my chair, and join in. Compare eg Reason for Living with the much less Quoable I Love Rock & Roll on 1982 (sorry Al) and the first is sprightly with interesting guitar sounds, while the second in plonky - at least it has some harmonies - but nothing to make it stand out. The Quo Sound is gone. I always thought they just lost touch with it, lost touch with how to make music with its own inner completeness, but it's sliglhtly more than that, someone in the organisation is just slightly cloth eared not to notice what they were losing. Is it Francis? he seems to be the best candidate. Who argued? Anyone? They seemed to think they needed to "reinvent themselves" to conquer somewhere or other, and yet they were doing well, selling out gigs, selling lots of records, they went on having hits. OK there was America, but they DIDN'T NEED AMERICA - they were doing fine as they were. If they wanted to do a bit of country, do some ballads, what was stopping them? Look at Piledriver, look at Quo. Light and shade was one of their defining characteristics. They still have it in them (or did), it peeks out now and then, but they lost it, worse than that, they kind of threw it away.
And I am one of the ones who usually can think of reasons why it's not all that bad really.
Brilliant post Mrs F! I had no idea you hadn't listen to this as an album all the way through. Reading your post its like you found gold again, that early excitement of discovering buried treasure. I think the change happens when they bring in producers and stop sitting in the magic circle and listening to one another play. IMHO. And yes, heart breaking that they threw away their unique quality.
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Post by curiousgirl on May 19, 2019 15:48:59 GMT
Really enjoying this month album. I haven't listened to it all the way through in one go for years. Its what I love about Quo. ROLD was their 2nd track I heard via the Top 20 count down. I love all the gentler tracks too.
And I'm reminded of that interview with a lady music teacher who said that Quo reminded her of Bach. And this album reminded of that. Can't find the clip but here's some Bach.
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Post by dontthinkitmatters on May 19, 2019 17:53:12 GMT
Brahms and lizst for me.
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Post by Mrs Flittersnoop on May 19, 2019 23:10:42 GMT
Brilliant post Mrs F! I had no idea you hadn't listen to this as an album all the way through. Reading your post its like you found gold again, that early excitement of discovering buried treasure. I think the change happens when they bring in producers and stop sitting in the magic circle and listening to one another play. IMHO. And yes, heart breaking that they threw away their unique quality.
I would hate anyone to think I hadn't heard the album before! It has graced my vinyl pile and my box of slightly creased car cassettes since 1982 but, like you, I hadn't spun it all the way through for many years. I try not to play stuff when i am not going to pay enough attention to it, and rely on my cassette collection to keep me company in my study, which is why OTL/WYW is now a mess of shiny tape spaghetti, I forgot to clean the spindle and himself can't find his tape splicing kit, it probably fell to dust years ago ... this is why I decided to buy OTL on CD some time ago and have been occasionally reaching out my Ebay and getting another one. Hello is the latest. And no bonus track! Whoopee! it took me a while to find one of those!
So gold indeed, gold re discovered, the best sort in a way.
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Post by dennis on May 28, 2019 22:46:07 GMT
For me this album suffers from sitting between my two favourite Quo albums, chronologically. On the one hand, Hello! is an excellent album & no surprise it reached no 1, building on the momentum of Piledriver. However, on the other hand, to be picky there are three tracks that I find a bit underwhelming :- Claudie, A Reason For Living, And It's Better Now - although this may just be in comparison to the other 5 excellent tracks, all of which are amongst my favourite Quo songs. Of course one of those, Softer Ride, had been released prior to the preceding album as the b-side to Paper Plane - perhaps somebody realised it was a criminal omission from Piledriver & decided to make amends. So that's half the album I've criticised in one way or another!
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Post by Victor on May 31, 2019 17:06:27 GMT
For me it's in my top three of albums, together with Dog of Two Head and Never Too Late. Just the opening alone with Roll over lay down is just fantastic ! As I said before, I have always preferred the studio version of Roll over lay down. The track I had some problems with at first was A reason for living and also And it's better now...but nowadays I appreciate those tracks almost just as much. For me it's one of the most perfct albums they made. Top favorite songs are Roll over lay down, Blue eyed lady, Softer ride and of course Forty five hundred times with Caroline immediatly following. Claudie is a nice little rest point but I would have put Blue eyed lady as the second track and Claudi as the end track of side 1. Great to read all the different opinions and thoughts about the album as always
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jukin
New Rocker Rollin'
Posts: 3
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Post by jukin on Aug 25, 2019 20:56:06 GMT
Late to the party and haven't posted for some years (I enjoy lurking, there's a lot of good stuff to read). With the new album coming next month I'm feeling so stoked that I just wanted to comment on 'Hello'. It's the first Quo album I bought on release and me personally, I love the cover - the embossed image of the band that is lost on the CD is pretty stylish. The album itself is my favourite Quo album, closely followed by Piledriver, Quo and On The Level. I played the shit out of Hello including playing Caroline at top volume about 6am on Christmas morning, 73 - no finer way of getting into the Christmas spirit. The main reason I replied to this thread is because in April of 1973 I saw Quo at Bracknell Sports Center when they were touring the Hello album. In those days you could get just a few feet away from the band and it was magic. Remember what used to be called the 'Piledriver position' when Rossi, Rick and Alan would stand side on and do that up and down move with the guitars? The place went nuts when they did that. After the gig, my mate and I wondered if we could get into backstage to meet the band - the dressing rooms were on the 3rd floor of the Sports Center. We get up to the 2nd floor and go into the bog to try and work out the next stage of our strategy. One of the bouncers was a local Hells Angel that I worked with. He had said that if anyone asks just say that you're roadies with Snow Leopard (the support band). So we're in the bog and in comes Alan Lancaster. We asked him if there was any way we could get up and meet the rest of the band. He was really great and said "sure, come with me". He took us up to the dressing room and we got to meet the rest of the guys and all four of them signed our programmes (mine got nicked a few days later!). Anyhow, when I asked Francis to sign it, I said to him "That was a great concert" and I'll never forget what he said to me in reply: "It was fucking shit!" :-). So what, I got to meet the guys and it is still one of the greatest moments of my life. Oh and Rod Stewart and Ringo Starr were in there too - they were both living in Ascot at the time. We couldn't get near them for an autograph though as they were surrounded by hordes of babes. Anyway, that's my sweetest Quo memory and even if some people say that Alan was not the nicest of guys he was great with us that night which is why I felt a tear when Alan said on stage on the FF tour in 2013, "I have missed this so much". Love the guy. Anyway, just wanted to share that. Still the third greatest band behind The Beatles and Zeppelin, what can I say?
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Post by charles on Aug 26, 2019 16:32:23 GMT
(…) Love the guy. Anyway, just wanted to share that. Still the third greatest band behind The Beatles and Zeppelin, what can I say? You could have said you have problems with ordinal numbers
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Post by MrWaistcoat on Aug 26, 2019 19:47:32 GMT
Late to the party and haven't posted for some years (I enjoy lurking, there's a lot of good stuff to read). With the new album coming next month I'm feeling so stoked that I just wanted to comment on 'Hello'. It's the first Quo album I bought on release and me personally, I love the cover - the embossed image of the band that is lost on the CD is pretty stylish. The album itself is my favourite Quo album, closely followed by Piledriver, Quo and On The Level. I played the shit out of Hello including playing Caroline at top volume about 6am on Christmas morning, 73 - no finer way of getting into the Christmas spirit. The main reason I replied to this thread is because in April of 1973 I saw Quo at Bracknell Sports Center when they were touring the Hello album. In those days you could get just a few feet away from the band and it was magic. Remember what used to be called the 'Piledriver position' when Rossi, Rick and Alan would stand side on and do that up and down move with the guitars? The place went nuts when they did that. After the gig, my mate and I wondered if we could get into backstage to meet the band - the dressing rooms were on the 3rd floor of the Sports Center. We get up to the 2nd floor and go into the bog to try and work out the next stage of our strategy. One of the bouncers was a local Hells Angel that I worked with. He had said that if anyone asks just say that you're roadies with Snow Leopard (the support band). So we're in the bog and in comes Alan Lancaster. We asked him if there was any way we could get up and meet the rest of the band. He was really great and said "sure, come with me". He took us up to the dressing room and we got to meet the rest of the guys and all four of them signed our programmes (mine got nicked a few days later!). Anyhow, when I asked Francis to sign it, I said to him "That was a great concert" and I'll never forget what he said to me in reply: "It was fucking shit!" :-). So what, I got to meet the guys and it is still one of the greatest moments of my life. Oh and Rod Stewart and Ringo Starr were in there too - they were both living in Ascot at the time. We couldn't get near them for an autograph though as they were surrounded by hordes of babes. Anyway, that's my sweetest Quo memory and even if some people say that Alan was not the nicest of guys he was great with us that night which is why I felt a tear when Alan said on stage on the FF tour in 2013, "I have missed this so much". Love the guy. Anyway, just wanted to share that. Still the third greatest band behind The Beatles and Zeppelin, what can I say? Thanks for that and welcome to the board 👍 Love hearing stories like these from the 70's. Sounds like Francis has always been Francis
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