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

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.

Yeah, "Thunderbuck Ram" left me raw this morning: it's a tender & vulnerable scorcher. Something about the album strikes me as gospel-y, maybe it's the pianos? It makes for weird juxtapositions: one the one hand they're roaring, but on the other hand the singing & lyrics are sad. And somehow the songs end up joyous; this is consistent through the end of the band. I don't really get how they pull it off.

Also: I get the Dylan comparisons wrt Hunter's vocal tone & "wordy" lyrics, but Dylan's rarely a tender lyricist. Whereas Hunter doesn't have that confidence or that desire to scorn. He cares!

Ha, I just pulled back out a bunch of Mott LPs yesterday, to be added to the too-be-played pile. Played Mott (my favorite, probably) for the first time in a while; had somehow forgotten how much I love "Whizz Kid" and "Drivin' Sister." Also always catches me by surprise when Mick Ralphs takes the lead vocal, in "I'm A Cadillac." (How many Mott songs does somebody other than Ian sing any? Well, not counting the later albums after he left, where they're just called Mott, I mean -- I actually like Drive On, from 1975!) Bizarrely, don't think I've ever actually heard Mad Shadows or Wildlife all the way through, though. Have always been a huge Brain Capers fan, and like the debut a lot, but for some reason I've always taken people's word that the 2nd and 3rd weren't worth checking out. Guess I'll keep an eye out for them now, though I'm never been big on "murk," so I dunno.)

First time I've seen this thread. That clip of "Moon Upstairs' is WAY better than I would have any reason to think a 70 year old Ian Hunter could be sounding in 2010!

xpost
maybe I'm completely wrong here, but Hunter always seemed to me very un-British in his open vulnerability.

Mad Shadows is definitely murky and even a failure in terms of "well constructed records", but at least it is a glorious failure.

Yeah, and it's from a very murky time, many of the best, worst and most mediocre from that year are a bit murky. Soon after, you get the normalization of post-Woodstock/Altamont mass bohemia-aimed product, then Exile On Main Street and There's A Riot Going On provided the affront of delib and deft, in-your-face murk. But back to Mott: "Crossroads" was a revelation to me: I didn't know who it was (or what it was; didn't yet know much about Sir Doug), except that it wasn't Dylan, yet provided so much of the Dylan-ness--the feel, the vibe, not just the literal sonic similarities--so absent on Nashville Skyline (which was still pretty good not to mention Self-Portrait (not so good). They weren't just doing a nice re-run either, the performance and the song had distinctive qualities. Otherwise, I'd agree that Brain Capers is prob the one to start with. But yeah, Live (from their Broadway sojurn, right?) and Rock 'n' Roll Queen (superbly slimmed-down singles and focus tracks) are also must-hears. Plus, the recent comp Dirty Water: The Birth of Punk Attitude, topping my P&J, makes great use of "The Moon Upstairs", with ambitious-to-voraci=ious vengefulness/idealism rec. to metal spirits as well. Hunter's mad laughter goes well w roller coaster into next track by Zoltan X, who say: "Humans are funnnn--ahhhh hah hah hah!"

I bought that comp - extra kudos to Kris Needs for the inclusion of the Silhouettes's song!

"don't think I've ever actually heard Mad Shadows or Wildlife all the way through"

you crazy! get on that! it's all good if you ask me.

really been digging the first two ian solo records (and the production on those! hoo boy).

AND i've been digging the two british lions albums too. which are quirky cool. was really happy to get a copy of the unreleased-at-the-time second album that cherry red was kind enough to put out a few years after the fact. cool stuff!

and i've been playing the two widowmaker albums (ariel bender's band) as well. like the first one and not so sure i need the second one.

I have a soft spot for Mick Ronson's Slaughter on 10th Avenue and Play Don't Worry: bizarrely, they contain two covers of Italian mainstream pop songs (his take of Lucio Battisti's I Giardini di Marzo aka Music Is Lethal is astounding).

Joe Elliott has formed a band to cover post-Mott-the-Hoople output from Ian & the boys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-lrlcmNxLY

They've received the rock doc treatment:

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/the-ballad-of-mott-the-hoople

I found a DJ promo copy of Brain Capers yesterday!

Not much to say really, but just enjoyed the BBC4 doc on Mott, Britishes might want to watch on iplayer if they missed it. (or stay up till 2.55 this morning, when it's repeated. I guess that's an option)

I need to find out which of their lps I rate, don't think I've listened to them anywhere near enough.
Enjoyed the documentary when i saw it a couple of weeks back.

Have had a couple of their lps on disc for a few years, including the 2fer of the 1st 2 which I don't think has the best sound. THink i need to pick up The Hoople and Brain Capers on disc too.

I've seen Brain Capers refered to as protopunk or similar on a couple of occasions. Not sure if that's down to Clash connections, not hearing it on the FLAC files I have of it that I noticed anyway. May just be taht they're too quiet sounding.

I think the protopunk content of Capers is maybe down to "Death May Be Your Santa Claus" being on it? I don't really hear much protopunk going on, thought they seemed to have an influence on Slaughter and the Dogs...

All The Young Dudes is turning out to be my favorite of theirs. Most consistent - down to some of the songs being kind of samey - but really good material and production throughout.

They're back! Five November gigs in the UK, all original members but Buffin, who's in poor health. They're playing the O2 of all things. Is this their first arena gig?

I am really pleased they are back together again. I saw one of their warn up shows before their 2009 reunion and it was a lovely experience - the band were enjoying being together as much as the audience loved seeing them together.