On This Day 27/04/1973 Alex Harvey

Images may be subject to copyright

On this day, 27 April 1973, iconic Scottish rocker Alex Harvey and The Sensational Alex Harvey Band played Cardiff University.

Although his career spanned almost three decades, he is best remembered as the frontman of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, with whom he built a reputation as an exciting live performer during the era of glam rock in the 1970s.

SAHB produced a succession of highly regarded albums and tours throughout the 1970s. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band had top 40 hits in Britain with the single "Delilah", a cover version of the Tom Jones hit, which reached number seven in 1975, and also with "The Boston Tea Party" in June 1976.

The band never achieved acclaim in the United States the way it did in Great Britain, but it had a cult following in certain US cities, especially Cleveland, where the group first played at the Agora Ballroom in December 1974. Thanks to airplay from WMMS, songs like "Next" and "The Faith Healer" became very popular. Cleveland remained a city where the Sensational Alex Harvey Band had a devoted following. However, they were unable to replicate that popularity in most other US cities.

After Harvey left the group in 1976, the other members continued as SAHB (Without Alex) producing the album Fourplay. Harvey re-joined the group for 1978's Rock Drill. SAHB with Alex toured the UK in Autumn 1981 with the last gig at Workington's Carnegie Theatre on 1 November.

On This Day 26/04/1994 Tori Amos

Images may be subject to copyright

On this day, 26 April 1994, American singer-songwriter and pianist Tori Amos played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall on her Under The Pink tour.

She had recently released her second studio album Under The Pink with the album debuted atop the UK Albums Chart on the back of the hit single "Cornflake Girl", and peaked at number 12 in the US.

The singer-songwriter continued to offer piano-driven rock songs dealing with religion, gender, and sexuality. In addition to featuring more cryptic lyrics and experimental song structures, Amos invited in reggae influences on the single "Cornflake Girl", prepared piano on "Bells for Her" by John Philip Shenale, and Debussy-inspired piano lines on "Yes, Anastasia".

Amos performed the Under the Pink tour from February through November 1994, encompassing many of the same stops as on her previous world tour. A limited edition release of the album commemorating the Australian tour included a second disc entitled More Pink, a collection of rare B-sides like "Little Drummer Boy" and a cover version of Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You", was issued in November 1994. During this period, she also contributed the song "Butterfly" to the soundtrack for the 1994 movie Higher Learning, as well as a cover of the R.E.M. song "Losing My Religion".

The original track listing included the B-side "Honey", which was left off the album at the last minute. Amos has since voiced great regret for this:

"There were certain songs that were supposed to be on the record that got kicked off. 'Honey' was supposed to be on the record and, in retrospect, I wish it had been. I kicked it off for 'The Wrong Band'. Under the Pink wept when 'Honey' wasn't on, and she still is angry with me about it."

The album was recorded in Taos, New Mexico in a hacienda. The album artwork features several Native American and New Mexican references in the photography. The album is also notable as the last Amos album to feature the production of Eric Rosse as they split that year.

Setlist

Precious Things
Pretty Good Year
Crucify
Leather
Icicle
God
Silent All These Years
The Waitress
Happy Phantom
Bells for Her
Me and a Gun
Baker Baker

Encore 1:
Cornflake Girl
A Case of You

Encore 2:
Past the Mission
Smells Like Teen Spirit

Encore 3:
Mother

On This Day 25/04/1987 Julian Cope

Images may be subject to copyright

On this day, 25 April 1987, singer/songwriter Julian Cope played Cardiff University on his Saint Julian tour. Support was provided by The Faith Brothers.

Cope's family resided in Tamworth, Staffordshire, but he was born in Deri, Glamorgan, Wales, where his mother's parents lived, while she was staying there. Cope was staying with his grandmother near Aberfan on his ninth birthday, the day of the Aberfan disaster of 1966, which he has described as a key event of his childhood.

He was the singer and songwriter in Liverpool post-punk band the Teardrop Explodes and has followed a solo career since 1983 in addition to working on musical side projects such as Queen Elizabeth, Brain Donor and Black Sheep.

Cope had just released his third solo album Saint Julian in March 1987 It has a very strong pop sound compared to other Cope releases, and spawned several of his best known tracks (including "World Shut Your Mouth" and "Trampolene", which were both hit singles).

Encouraged by his new manager Cally Callomon, Cope cleaned up and changed his image: cutting his hair, wearing rocker's leathers and embracing a "Rock God" perspective, as well as investing in a bizarre climbable microphone stand with integral steps.

To record and tour the album, Cope put together a new backing group, informally known as the "Two-Car Garage Band". This featured lead guitarist Donald Ross Skinner and former Waterboys drummer Chris Whitten (both of whom had played on Cope's previous album Fried), plus bass player James Eller (who'd played alongside Cope on the second Teardrop Explodes album, Wilder) and Cope himself on vocals and rhythm guitar.

On This Day 24/04/1964 Dave Clark Five

Images may be subject to copyright

On this day, 24 April 1964, sixties legends the Dave Clark Five played Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre headlining a stunning bill that included The Kinks, Mark Wynter, The Mojos, The Hollies, The Treble Tones and Frank Berry.

Formed in Tottenham in 1958. In January 1964 they had their first UK top ten single, "Glad All Over", which knocked the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" off the top of the UK Singles Chart. It peaked at No. 6 in the United States in April 1964.

Although this was their only UK No. 1, they topped the US chart in December 1965, with their cover of Bobby Day's "Over and Over".

The DC5 was promoted as the vanguard of a "Tottenham Sound", a response to Liverpool's Mersey Beat sound. Dave Clark struck business deals that allowed him to produce the band's recordings and gave him control of the master recordings.

They were the second group of the British Invasion to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show in the United States (for two weeks in March 1964 following the Beatles' three weeks the previous month). They would ultimately have 18 appearances on the show.

The group disbanded in early 1970. On 10 March 2008, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

On This Day 23/04/2004 Magenta

Images may be subject to copyright

On this day, 23 April 2004, Welsh progressive rock band Magenta played The Point, Cardiff.

Formed in 1999 by ex-Cyan member Rob Reed. Reed takes his influences from artists such as Renaissance, Genesis, Mike Oldfield, Yes, Eurythmics and Björk.

Although heavily influenced by progressive rock, Reed is a professional songwriter and has done many other projects for both film and television. The most successful of these projects was called Trippa, featuring Christina Booth on vocals and Rob Reed on guitars and keyboards. Reed asked Christina to be lead vocalist for a progressive rock project he had in mind, and the initial ideas for Magenta were born. Booth previously was guest on a number of Cyan albums providing backing vocals.

In late 1999, Reed started writing for what would become Magenta's debut release, Revolutions. Reed wanted to do something new, bigger and more conceptual. "Current prog bands are always scared and shy about admitting the influences of the great bands of the 70's, and I wanted to come clean and admit and celebrate those influences, and hopefully create something as worthwhile as those classic bands" said Reed. "To do this, all I had to do was to give priority to melody rather than technical showmanship, something I have always tried to do with all my work." Revolutions was named "Best New Album" in 2001 by Musical Discoveries, an online resource for female vocalists in the music industry.

Magenta's second album, Seven was released in March 2004 and sold out of its first pressing within four weeks. The band's first single, "Broken" was released in June 2004 – from the EP Broken. While shorter than any of the epic tracks on Seven, Broken retains the classic prog rock sound of Magenta, with a slightly more modern edge.

In 2004, Magenta received the Classic Rock Society Award for "Best Female Vocalist" and "Best Live Band". The Classic Rock Society (CRS) honours groups or artists who are popular with the public, but whose music remains unpublicised by national media and radio station programmers. Other past contributors and recipients have included Pallas, IQ, Spock's Beard, Flower Kings, Mostly Autumn, Karnataka, Pendragon and many others from the progressive rock genre.

On This Day 22/04/1981 Tygers of Pan Tang

Images may be subject to copyright

On this day, 22 Apri 1981, heavy metal band The Tygers Of Pan Tang played Cardiff’s Top Rank. Also playing that night was rock band Magnum.

Part of the new wave of British heavy metal movement. They formed in 1978 in Whitley Bay, England, and were active until 1987. The band reformed in 1999 and continue to record and perform. The name is derived from Pan Tang, a fictional archipelago in Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné fantasy series whose wizards keep tigers as pets.

The Tygers of Pan Tang were formed by guitarist Robb Weir (born Robert Mortimer Weir, 1958), Richard "Rocky" Laws (bass), Jess Cox (vocals) and Brian Dick (drums). They played in working men's clubs and were first signed by local independent label Neat Records before MCA gave them a major record deal. After several singles, they released their first album, Wild Cat, in 1980. The album reached No. 18 in the UK Album Chart in the first week of its release.

Subsequently John Sykes (formerly of Streetfighter, later in Badlands, Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake, and Blue Murder) was added as second guitarist. Jess Cox had a falling out with the others and quit, to be replaced by Persian Risk vocalist Jon Deverill.

This lineup released Spellbound on the 10 April 1981, their second album which peaked at 33 in the UK album charts.

On This Day 21/04/1989 Miles Davis

Images may be subject to copyright

On this day, 21 April 1989, American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer Miles Davis played Cardiff St David’s Hall.

Miles Davis is considered one of the most innovative, influential, and respected figures in the history of music. The Guardian described him as "a pioneer of 20th-century music, leading many of the key developments in the world of jazz." He has been called "one of the great innovators in jazz", and had the titles Prince of Darkness and the Picasso of Jazz bestowed upon him. The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll said, "Miles Davis played a crucial and inevitably controversial role in every major development in jazz since the mid-'40s, and no other jazz musician has had so profound an effect on rock.

Review by Steve Duffy - BBC News - 21 April 2016

It was winter in late 1988 and a fax arrived in my newspaper office in Cardiff. Miles Davis would be playing at St David's Hall.

What, Miles Davis? In Cardiff? Now jazz musicians of any ilk, especially undeniable legends, were not exactly queuing up at the Severn bridge tolls at the best of times.

But in the last two years of his life, he took to the road for a handful of UK shows beyond his near-annual London appearance.

He returned to Manchester Apollo for two nights for the first time since a Free Trade Hall gig in 1960. And then there would be two festival appearances - at Birmingham NEC and for Glasgow in its year as city of culture, a return after 17 years.

The Cardiff show in April 1989 was predictably a sell-out. I had invested a sizeable whack of my junior reporter's disposable salary on a ticket - £15. I didn't dare ask for a review ticket. After all, how do you review Miles Davis? I wanted to enjoy myself.

And then I got into a slight disagreement with the guy who got to do the review who insisted he would be disappointed if Davis didn't play Kind Of Blue, his 1959 epoch-making jazz classic. "But he hasn't played it for 30 years," I said. "That's the point of Miles Davis".

That point was, he did not look back. Unfortunately, Davis's music of the late 1980s - textural funky undertones to sparse melodies, mostly muted trumpet and twists on modern pop standards from the likes of Scritti Politti and Cyndi Lauper - has been overlooked somewhat. Many don't go beyond his critically-lauded, admittedly sublime 1950s and 1960s output.

None of that mattered to the lucky folks of Cardiff and Manchester 27 years ago this week. Now, if you wanted banter with the audience and high fives with the front row, then a Miles Davis concert was not the thing. He was more likely to have his back to the stalls. We should be thankful camera phones had not been invented.

Davis cut quite a small figure and walked off stage after a couple of songs before wandering back on a little while later.

There was an aura though, still some magic and the audience reacted quite wildly before the city of Cardiff, barring rare exceptions, could return to its sleepy default position as far as jazz giants are concerned.

The review, incidentally, was headlined "Off-form Miles is unexciting."

"He has the supreme and essential virtue of pleasing no-one but himself," my colleague wrote. I had to plead journalistic differences.

But what was it like being on stage with him?

Keyboard player John Beasley recalls: "It was my first tour with the band, so I was on cloud nine and I was learning from him like crazy.

"We rehearsed for two weeks in New York before so I'd started to get to know everybody."

He remembers the Cardiff concert.

"My family originally came from Wales so I remember the strange accent! We stayed over, it was a hotel not downtown but in a newer area. My wife was just about to have a baby and I hadn't realised they had Toys R Us in the UK too.

"Miles was on the bus with the rest of us - I was shocked, I thought he'd be flying to gigs or in a limo but he was hanging out with the guys. He could be funny. But it wasn't quite like being with your buddies because he was still Miles Davis."

He had been hired after Davis's nephew Vincent Wilburn, a drummer who had been watching Beasley's band play their weekly club set, suggested he record a cassette.

"He liked what we did and said he'd get a tape to Miles. I decided not to think about it but four months later in Florida my wife said, 'Miles Davis called'. Every musician has a joke about when Miles called but he answered when I called the number back."

Fellow keyboard player on the tour Kei Akagi said: "That was one of my first tours with Miles, and I was very green.

"I was trying very hard to find my place musically within such an incredible band. Miles could at times be a thoroughly intimidating and harsh leader, but he was also a very kind and warm person. He gave me a lot of words of encouragement."

Akagi said his concept of playing jazz piano had been formed by a succession of Davis musicians, from Red Garland to Keith Jarrett.

"To suddenly find myself being in Miles' band and occupying a position of such heavy historical import was very scary at first, and an awesome responsibility. It was humbling, to say the least."

Beasley said Davis would give little notes the next day after concerts.

"He'd call you in individually or the group into his dressing room and say what he liked or what he didn't like."

Akagi said: "He didn't tell me a lot about how to play. He could be rather verbally cryptic. But, what remains with me to this day is when he said 'I don't care what you play as long as you mean it'."

One thing which stuck with Beasley was a lesson on the art of leaving space - and when not to play.

"Early on, Miles came over and grabbed my left hand and put it behind my back. Piano players tend to play a phrase and use the left hand to fill in."

Akagi, still playing with his own trio but also a professor of music at the University of California in Irvine, remembers being part of an almost "tribal" tradition in the band.

"It was a curious tension. I think Miles gave us tremendous latitude to express ourselves, but there were definitely some firm boundaries that defined the 'Miles Davis sound'.

Beasley added: "At times he'd sit at his own keyboard - and play these little riffs, and I'd get to accompany him and he'd look over at me playing from over the top of his sunglasses. Sometimes he'd play something at me on his trumpet."

Setlist

Perfect Way

(Scritti Politti cover)

Star People

The Senate / Me & U

(Foley cover)

Jilli

Tutu

Human Nature

(Michael Jackson cover)

Wrinkle

Mr. Pastorius

Hannibal

Time After Time

(Cyndi Lauper cover)

On The Day 20/04/2004 Tim Booth

Images may be subject to copyright

On this day, 20 April 2004, former James frontman Tim Booth played Cardiff’s Engine Rooms.

He is the lead singer and co-founder of the indie rock band James, and co-wrote several of their hit singles including "Sit Down", "Come Home", and "Laid". As an actor, Booth is also known for portraying Victor Zsasz in the 2005 film Batman Begins.

After a struggle for success and recognition throughout the 1980s, James finally achieved commercial success in the early 1990s with the rise of the Madchester music scene, and their single "Sit Down" reached number 2 in the UK Singles Chart

During 1995, Booth took a break from James and recorded an album with film composer Angelo Badalamenti, entitled Booth and the Bad Angel. He then returned to James to complete the recording of the album Whiplash, and stayed with the band until 2001 when he announced his departure to concentrate on other projects.

After leaving James, Booth spent time concentrating on teaching the dance practice known as the 5Rhythms, a movement meditation practice. In 2004, together with record producer Lee Muddy Baker and songwriter KK (Kevin Kerrigan), he released his first solo album, Bone, to general critical acclaim, though he referred to it as a collaborative effort and preferred to credit the album to 'Tim Booth & the Individuals' as opposed to taking sole credit.