Music…

Simple and evil lyrics. They knew how to make evil songs back then. :)
ROCKIN ’HORSE. (1981)
Let me tell you about the years
Do you remember back in 65
Do you remember back in 66
Do you remember back in 67
Do you remember back in 68
Do you remember back in 69
Do you remember back in 70
Do you remember back in 71
Do you remember back in 72
Do you remember back in 73
Do you remember back in 74
I rocker rocker rocker like a rocking horse
Long live rock n roll
I rock em like a rocker like a rocking horse
Long live rock n roll
Let me tell ya
When I was a kid, when I was a boy
When I was just a little child
You would always see me with my toy
Running on the streets and running wild
Hey I had these mates, they were no good
They would always make sure I was out of it
Causing violence and doing no good
I go down the street to the club we were young
and we have a good time, any way you like it
We would just go and beat up everybody
We would just go and cause trouble just for the hell of it
I rock em like a rocker, like a rocking horse
Long live rock n roll
I rock em like a rocker, like a rocking horse
Long live rock n roll
 
Searching for the spark

I remember seeing them live, for some reason they used to have oscillocopes on stage pointing at the crowd showing sine waves on the screen, I never could figure out what that was for, looked like something out of the physics lab 😁 😁 . Excellent live band! Steve H insisted on top quality sound, everything was top notch. Superb rhythm section in this incarnation. Steve and Miquette are still playing now, I believe. :)

You listen to this stuff now and we are so used to hearing synths and similar instruments that its not so unusual, but at the time (late 70s) seeing these guys playing live was like a band had just come down from outer space and was playing the music from the far future, just mind-blowing stuff. 😁 And Steve brought in the jazz-funk fusion thing in the rhythem section, it was pretty innovative stuff.

Studio version
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZf5Rcn-M0I

And this very nice live version, I actually like this version better.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xCvN7dp0gk

Interesting side note: this hillage album (motivation radio) was produced by electronic music pioneer Malcolm Cecil, creater of the TONTO orchestral synthsizer, which apparantly can be heard on the studio album in places. Cecil himself also collaberated with Stevie Wonder on hits like "Superstition". There was a lot of cross-fertilisation between english musicians like Hillage and US bands like Funkadelic, Todd Rundgren and Frank Zappa around that time too. This was really ground-breaking technical stuff at the time.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAIUX5s7hPs


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flaystdObkQ
 
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