Parade (blast from the past)

[aca]

This is brilliant Nigel! Tho' I like Vann was more in the hairy part of the musical scene in those days, I've grown to enjoy some of the more "80s" music from the 80s too!

This was really good, way up with the best of this genre. Thanx for posting this!

btw ... who wrote the song? and was it ever released ?

[OsCKilO]

FMGWABP!!!!

You are the real deal Nigel!!!!!




This is Amazing!


The Vox is Superb!!!

[Geir]

This is brilliant Nigel! Tho' I like Vann was more in the hairy part of the musical scene in those days, I've grown to enjoy some of the more "80s" music from the 80s too!

This was really good, way up with the best of this genre. Thanx for posting this!

btw ... who wrote the song? and was it ever released ?

Of course one should not use one another's user accounts !! This is me speaking ... and so was that ... tho' it may not appear so ...


clear ?  .... good !

[Ferryman_1957]

Thanks for the additional comments everyone, much appreciated. Vann, we were indeed pretty tight as a band but as for money, we never made a cent. We played a lot of places in London and the South East UK, most of which cost money. The kind of places we used to play (smaller "name" venues where the A&R folks would go, especially in London) used to give you a small cut of the door but you had to pay them to hire their PA system. And after you took van hire and petrol into account, it always cost us to play. All the studio sessions were self financed, so I realised pretty early on in my musical career that it's hard for musicians to make any money. Promoters, venues, managers, sound guys and everyone else came ahead of the musos!

Geir, nice to hear your feedback (and Alice's  ). The song was written by me, the vocalist and the bassist, the three of us were the songwriting team in the band. It was never released, we were talking to a major label and this demo got their interest but we got dropped pretty suddenly, the rumour being that the deal that was on offer went to these guys:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW2hALIqxDw

They were much more commercial and better looking than us!

Mike, thanks for the steer on White Rose Movement, I will check them out. I still love this kind of music, that era is definitely my fave.

Cheers all,

Nigel

[bannybassman]

Great song! Especially love the bass line, very nice!!

[Gritter]

I had to go back and here this one again. I kind of went off in a tangent on my earlier comment. After listening again I think this is a really good recording and song. The singer has a strong voice, a little mellow dramatic but that works with the overall feel of the song. It has an excellent bass part and each instrument and vocal is introduced very tastefully...a well constructed song and very accessable.

[pjd1]

love the bass line !! its from the 80,s alright no mistaken that sound , and looking back there was some great artists playing , some duran in the and simple minds , you must have used all the same pedals and amps and keyboards for that matter .

Love the Track reminds me of a Light blue suit i used to wear at clubs !!!

PJD1

[Oldrottenhead]

on this day bump, you should post more of this somewhere nigel, maybe create a myspace or soundclick account for the band.

listening to this today i'm getting lots of jim kerr vibes from the vocals but overall a wash of everything from that era, also just heard mick karn passed away and im sure he must have had an influence on lots of those bands and sounds.

anyway great post aand i for one want to hear more.

im gonna dig out my scars album author author for a wee bit of nostalgia noo.

[Bluesberry]

Great to listen to this again...how did you get your guitar sound on this Nigel?

[Ferryman_1957]

Just spotted this got bumped! Thanks guys. Jim, our major influences were early Simple Minds, Bauhaus and Killing Joke so a lot of Jim Kerr definitely.

Mick Karn died? How sad. I knew he was ill. Japan was also a huge influence and he was a key muso in the 80s.

Great to listen to this again...how did you get your guitar sound on this Nigel?

It's a Marshall stack with a 1970s valve head giving the natural distortion. The effects are a combination of an Ibanez flanger with a compressor pedal of unremembered manufacture. I used a graphic eq pedal to give a boost for solos, I didn't use an additional distortion pedal in those days. I found the compressor combined with a bit of dirt from the Marshall gave me the smooth sound I was looking for, and the flanger gave that nice 80s feel to it! The flange effect is quite extreme in some places on this. The guitar was an Ibanez to which I added Di Marzio pickups.

Ah happy days. I used to love that Marshall. I guess I also got an inkling of why compressors can be a useful thing.

And here's a PS - my Picasso project song, Blind Minotaur (led by a girl) is based on a song by this band. The core bass riff comes from a song we used to do, as do some of the chord sequences. So you can see the similarity in bass styles, I learned a lot from Steve (the bass player in this band).

Cheers,

Nigel