There Is No Reason Why You Shouldn't Own Every Mott The Hoople Album

I hated the Bowie-braying in "All The Young Dudes" so much for so long that I never bothered to give the rest of their catalog any attention. Which was my loss, obv, since I've come to really like 'em, particularly that initial pre-CBS (and pre-Bowie) quartet. Bob Dylan abandons The Hawks in Nashville, goes to England and records Blonde On Blonde with Deep Purple backing him up instead - I never woulda suspected I harbored a need to hear that. But I guess I apparently did. "The Moon Upstairs", what a great song.

I've never bothered with anything beyond "Dudes", "Mott", "The Hoople".

Mott's a great band. The Dion cover on Brain Capers is priceless, nearly brings me to tears.

The Journey is another great song on Brain Capers.

It's all good on Brain Capers, goddamn is that a great album.

Bowie-braying

lol so accurate

Hey don't get me wrong, I own a stack of '70s Bowie that I like a lot. But he tended to damage OTHER people's albums with his backing vocals. (Not to mention what he did to Raw Power!)

I've never bothered with anything beyond "Dudes", "Mott", "The Hoople".

this is all I own, but I want more! haven't had any luck running across Brain Capers & earlier, but I guess I could be looking harder.

Mott is the business, total classic. I'm thinking ...Dudes might be the weak one in this run.

Anybody but me have the newish 2CD Ian Hunter/Mott The Hoople best-of on Shout! Factory? It's a disc of Mott and a disc of Hunter and it's pretty damn rockin'.

Everybody who likes Mott should check out the Live 1970 from Fairfield Halls disc from last year. Great stuff. Two concerts (despite the title, the second concert is in Sweden) from when Mott was still an opening act. Judging from this disc, following them was probably pretty difficult.

Look for some reunion shows in London in the Fall of '09, and possibly a new album. All original members (Hunter, Ralphs, Allen, Overend, Buffin). The Ian Hunter discussion forum is all abuzz.

I was just listening to "Marionette".

Damn, I'd love for them to come to the States if they get back together. Please, guys.

This makes it sound like less than a done deal:

http://www.expressandstar.com/2008/10/06/mott-the-hoople-returning-to-roots/

On the other hand, a supposed insider on the IH forum says:

The tour for IH and the Rant Band is going ahead in April/May 2009 and then an announcement will be made at the end of it for MTH re-union gigs in Oct `09 in London only....(for now).

The folks on the forum are discussing hotel arrangements and stuff.

Damn, I'd love for them to come to the States if they get back together. Please, guys.

I recall from Ian's Diary of a Rock and Roll Star book that Mick Ralphs was deathly afraid of flying, so I wouldn't hold my breath for a US tour if this goes down...

Then how on earth did he ever survive in Bad Company?

lovin "all the young dudes"

this 1971 clip of pre-glam Mott chugging through "Rock & Roll Queen" is chaotic & beautiful, sloppy & smokin' just the best.

embedding disabled by request kiss my muthafuk...

go to youtube it works there/

I got all the young dudes and all the young dudes was really the only song I got into.

I have the live album and Free's Heartbreaker. Where do I go next?

If you watch Roll Away the Stone from the youtube selections available in the failed youtube above, those lipsyncing backup singers are having a great time.

Oh joy, it's happened at last:
http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/42112

(I met that Overend Watts in our village pub over the summer, and he said that something was afoot...)

"Just thought you'd like to know the Mott the Hoople reunion IS going to take place on October 2nd & 3rd, 2009 at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo in London. It will be the original members - Mick, Pete, Phally, Buff and me. They've asked our esteemed webmaster, Justin, to formulate a Mott the Hoople site which should be up and running in the near future. Why are we doing it? I can't speak for the others, but I'm doing it just to see what it's like. Short of war, death, famine etc. ...it's ON." - Ian Hunter

Those original members in full: Ian Hunter, Mick Ralphs, Verden Allen,
Pete "Overend" Watts, Dale "Buffin" Griffin.

this i would definitely pay more than $25 to see, and I haven't done that in over ten years.

Holee fuckin shit.

Free was the best bad evah

So, a big Who/Kinks/Velvets fan at age 15, I kept picking up that LP of Mott in Strawberries, but I always put it down and never brought it to the register. Decades later, I'm finally immersing myself in these guys. While I'd gradually formed the impression that they were the link between Dylan and the Clash, I had no idea they were EQUALS. "All the Good One's are Taken" wasn't good supporting information in 1983.

I still haven't procured Mott, but I'm deep into the debut, ATYD and The Hoople. Short on the Back and Sides showed up in my crate of .25 purchases. I'm thinking they did too many covers in the age of auteur-rock'n'roll, and that why they didn't carry through in America. Such a kick to find a load of gold where I thought I'd panned it all out.

And my head is down and I'm called a clown by comedians that grace
The living stage of every page of worthless meaningless space
But I swear to you before we're though you're gonna feel our every blow
We ain't bleeding you we're feeding you but you're too fucking slow
And to those of you who always laugh
Let this be your epitaph

so fuckin' beautiful...

oh holy shit "Rock and Roll Queen" is so good

you know what I mean

I want to be the singer of a band like Mott on "Sweet Jane" and lay into the last verse and chorus the way Ian Hunter does, wherein he nearly loses his dignity howling "oh my sweet Jane" by the end, but his brother (in rock) is there to protect him with an massive yet elegant solo to close the song.

Ian Hunter turned 70 this summer...(!)

I am going to see them in London in October! Crazy, right? It's a 25th Anniversary gift to ourselves -- my wife & I went to London for our honeymoon in '84, and what could be a better reason to return? I had friends who saw them at the Uris Theater, but I was too chicken. So this will be my first. And second and third. (We have tickets for three shows.) Anyone who's got the low-down on London record stores, please post to the record store thread. Not that I'll have too much time for shopping.

According to the Ian Hunter interview in this month's Word magazine, I am partially responsible for reforming Mott The Hoople. (Overend Watts! Hiking trip! Pub quiz!)

Setlist for the Monmouth show last night:

Hymn for the Dudes
Rock 'n' Roll Queen
Sweet Jane
One Of The Boys
Sucker
Moon Upstairs
Wish I Was Your Mother
Ready For Love
Born Late '58
Ballad of Mott
Angeline
Walking With A Mountain
Journey
Golden Age Of Rock 'n' Roll
Honaloochie Boogie
All The Way From Memphis
Roll Away The Stone
All The Young Dudes
Keep A Knocking
Saturday Gigs

Moon Upstairs
Wish I Was Your Mother

Christ, that's a one-two punch for the ages.

According to the Ian Hunter interview in this month's Word magazine, I am partially responsible for reforming Mott The Hoople. (Overend Watts! Hiking trip! Pub quiz!)

Hahah waht. More info. (Yeah, there's the post you made earlier noting you'd run into him at that but more context needed.)

The first Hammersmith gig will be recorded for distribution at the shows. You can also get it here:

http://www.concertlive.co.uk/tour.php?id=80

Buffin's got heath issues so they've got Martin Chambers to do most of the heavy lifting on drums.

Haha -- Overend's bass is still overdriving everyone's attempts to record it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m74fTgb-8tE

Two months later, and I'm still listening to these guys every day. Brain Capers might be my favorite now. "The Journey" is such a master class in making a ballad hard hitting. A forerunner to Springsteen. Also, "Alice" is becoming one of my favorite lyrics ever. As per their mention on the "Exahaustion in 70s Rock" thread, these guys are a meta-rock band, aren't they? Nearly every song is about being in a band or the hangers-on around the band. The first record is about how they're gonna be huge, and by Brain Capers they're pissed off that they aren't huge and then "All the Young Dudes" comes along and Mott and The Hoople is all "hey we're rockstars and this is crazy shit!"

xpost to Ned: The way that Hunter told it in the Word interview (which I no longer have to hand), Overend's moment of clarity re. doing the reunion came on the night he fetched up in our village pub - because basically we were all egging him on to do it, saying how great it would be, etc. He seemed surprised when old song titles and names of band members were quoted back at him (admittedly that was mostly me, showing off). Hunter said something along the lines of: it made him realise that Mott hadn't been forgotten and that was an appetite out there for a reunion.

Well, I have everything from Brain Capers through The Hoople and the double disc version of the live album now, so I guess I'll give them a fuller shot. Until now, only a few of their most rockin' songs have really caught my ear, but maybe I'll be into the ballads this time around.

Also, on "Raspberry Beret" Prince is channeling large chunks of "Honaloochie Boogie" and sticking Beatlesesque flourishes on top.

Here's a nice clip of "The Moon Upstairs" from Saturday's show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtfkXPUz7zs

According to the Ian Hunter interview in this month's Word magazine, I am partially responsible for reforming Mott The Hoople. (Overend Watts! Hiking trip! Pub quiz!)

Mad Shadows - has a British rock n roll band ever sounded so dark, sloppy, out of control?
When My Mind's Gone is simply heartbreaking, Thunderbuck Ram is ferocious, and what about the beautiful chaos that is Threads of Irons?

Such a great great band.

That's a good way of putting it! I just spun through the album again; the highlights are the ones you mention plus "Walkin' With A Mountain" of course. The album sounds like it's recorded in an empty arena, huge & cavernous & kinda hazy at the edges, as though the punch of the sound leaks into the surrounding empty space. When that works, it's really really great; but the other cuts on the album sound too murky.

Quite probably it is not the best Mott album, but there's something truly urgent and devastating about it and in this case muddy production and shambolic playing are okay with me. (And "Walking with a Mountain" is another highlight indeed).

I'm in a big Mott/Ian Hunter phase these days, lots of good songs and scorching performances.

I only own three albums and a two-CD compilation: Brain Capers, All the Young Dudes and Mott + The Ballad of Mott: A Retrospective.

The Mental Train box set is worth owning for the bonus disc of unreleased ballads, all from the Island years. Man, they could really do a ballad.

Mick sang and maybe wrote "I'm a Cadillac, " right? Good stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynMI_rpLCTA

And speaking of ballads, this is one of the first MTH tracks I ever heard: was frustrated with Dylan, and the Dylaness of this hit me so hard---I think I thought it was a band original too, not knowing it was by Sir Doug: "At The Crossroads"!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53_4f2I4weg

Not meaning to imply that Doug was just imitating Dylan---it was very much his own POV, judging by other originals, and also what I was still looking for in Dylan, not finding just then.

In the liner notes for The Ballad of Mott: A Retrospective, Ian says he "recently" spoke with Mick and he told him he never would've left Mott the Hoople if he had known people were talking about them the way they did now. Not sure how that could've happened, punk hadn't crystallized yet and the Clash were still a few years away so it's not like he would've caught Mick Jones showing off all the tricks he learned from them.

I only own three albums and a two-CD compilation: Brain Capers, All the Young Dudes and Mott + The Ballad of Mott: A Retrospective.

You should pick up The Hoople, which is a pretty solid, no-skips album in its own right. And bar picking up the other Atlantic albums individually or in a box, you might want to track down the Backsliding Fearlessly comp on Rhino, which has a generous selection of tracks from said albums alongside some good rarities.

The Hoople is worth it for the cover art alone. A framed copy has been on one of my walls for 25 years.

Even xgau's more right than wrong about these (while somehow, though praising several tracks, undervaluing Brain Capers as a whole):

Rock and Roll Queen [Atlantic, 1974]
Mick Ralphs's title tune--which is to "Starfucker" as Bad Company is to the Rolling Stones--defines the virtues and limitations of this raucous compilation. Rescuing serviceable rockers from all of their Atlantic albums and utilizing only the most simple-minded covers ("You Really Got Me" and "Keep a Knockin'"), it presents pre-Bowie Mott as an endearingly crude touring band, with enough hooks to keep things going. And it draws on only five minutes of Brain Capers. B+

Greatest Hits [Columbia, 1976]
Hits my ass. Never heard "Foxy Foxy" on the radio, and never want to. But the other new one, "Saturday Gigs," recapitulates quite movingly a banal theme this collection fleshes out with real wallop: a band and its fans. Four songs is too much overlap with Mott, but this is the essence of Mott the Hoople as a group, which always needed Ian Hunter and always did more than back him up. A-

The Ballad of Mott: A Retrospective [Columbia/Legacy, 1993]
I could cavil about omissions, "Death May Be Your Santa Claus" especially. But 20 years after the fact, you remember great bands for their sound as much as their songs, and these guys had one. They were prepunk, everybody knows that, but too often the "pre" is given short shrift. So remember this: committed to sarcasm, dystopia, and noise, they never took refuge in punk's inspired-amateur minimalism. On the contrary, their expansive mess was pure '60s, as was their penchant for the elegiac and the lyrical. It's a synthesis 10,000 garage bands have fucked up since. The 10,001st was Nirvana. A

He led me to this fine comp too:

Shades of Ian Hunter: The Ballad of Ian Hunter and Mott the Hoople [Columbia, 1979]
Exemplary discophilia. The Mott 45s on side one are all the young stiffs--great album tracks edited down for an AM exposure that was rarely forthcoming, they race along with an almost punky punch on LP. The B sides and miscellaneous on side two are uneven, natch, but worth getting to know (as owners of Greatest Hits have already learned with two of them). Those circumspect enough to have passed up Ian's two solo albums are now rewarded with side three's best-of. And side four excerpts the solo Ian that was never released here to impressive effect. A genuinely obsessive compilation. A-

I took that first review to mean, "they didn't have to rely too much on Brain Capers to fill this compilation, unlike the later compilation which draws too much from Mott".

R&R Queen was kind of a doofy comp, although for a long time it was the easiest place to score "Midnight Lady", their single with Shadow Morton (really wished they did a whole album with him, but it might have been too much too soon).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR7-lGwsOL8