All purpose UFO thread...ask anything

Too Hot To Handle:The Best Of UFO on Music Club sounds great for an earlier compilation (a revised 2cd version is currently available also retitled To Hot To Handle:The Very Best Of UFO! )

 

Ok...so the plot thickens...I have seen this before but assumed it was some weird reissue...

 

No, absolutely not a re-issue. I just don't recall all of those little figures in front of the flying saucer. But I guess that could have been there. Damn, I wish I still had that. Lost all my albums when I moved back to Japan in '01.

 

I'll direct this question to any of the UFO fans in general.... Does anyone know any details on Sir George Martin producing UFO first record in the post-Schenker period? I know most of the stories/rumors/myths of Moog & Co. and I just have heard nil on this subject.

As a thanks, here's a link to some lovely Ross Halfin photos from back in the day. Enjoy.

http://www.rosshalfin.com/ufo/ufo04.php

 

According to Paul Raymond getting george Martin to produce was Chrysalis' idea. Apparently they got on well with him but they were excited to get some strings and certain other Martin-isms onto No Place To Run but the label told Martin they wanted a rock record which threw a little confusion into the works!!!

 

Can anybody explain to me what's the deal with the beginning of Too Hot To Handle? During the beginning of the song the drums are hard panned on the left speaker with only a guitar track and vocals on the right one. On the 45 seconds mark or so, it "widens" and there's drums on the right speaker too. I've never liked it, it has always sounded "unbalanced" for lack of a better word.
Was it deliberate? It always bothers me.
(I only have the most recent remaster of Lights Out, so I don't know if it's a reported issue of this edition).

 

A brilliant band - I'm not sure I have anything more to add to the discussion though! Random thoughts:

The UK Obsession LP came with a giant poster as previously reported.

None of the other UK Schenker albums had inner sleeves or inserts of any kind.

IMO the UK Chrysalis pressings are the best.

The original UK Only You Can Rock Me EP (red vinyl) came with a 'free UFO Frisbee offer' - I wonder if anyone here sent off for it and, if so, do they still have it? I've never seen one and I didn't send off for it because, i) it wasn't 'free' at all - quite considerable (for the time) 'postage' charges and, ii) you had to clip off part of the picture sleeve - and I wasn't doing that...

I was at the 'reunion' concert at Woverhampton Civic Hall - later released as the 'Werewolves From London' CD - though I've never heard it...

 

Thanks Jimmy. I like the strings that Paul Buckmaster brought to The Wild The Willing and The Innocent, which UFO self-produced.

'Profession Of' was a great example of those strings. Cool story behind the song. Phil explains below that they finally paid off the debt on the production of that album in 2002.

https://classicrock.teamrock.com/fe...behind-the-song-profession-of-violence-by-ufo


It's a UFO tradition for the hard rockers to feature a ballad on each album. So for 1981's The Wild, The Willing And The Innocent, Phil Mogg turned to the murderous Kray twins for inspiration.

In October 1967, the professional criminal Jack "The Hat" McVitie attended a party in the East End of London where they murdered him; his body was never found. McVitie was the uncle of Vince Riordan, bass player with Cockney Rejects. When the bands met up at the Hammersmith Odeon, Riordan told his tale to UFO.

From Reggie Kray’s botched and bloody execution of Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie in a North London club to a ballad on a rock album might seem like a giant leap, but it’s just one small step for a band like UFO. The song takes its name from John Pearson’s legendary 1972 biography of the 1960s East End gangster twins Ron and Reggie Kray, The Profession Of Violence. The Krays’ criminal lifestyle has inspired a countless stream of dramatisations on TV and the silver screen – and they all began with this book. It remains in print today and was a best-seller on release. At that time it circulated the UFO tour bus and planted a seed in the fertile mind of the band’s singer and lyricist Phil Mogg.

Although best known for high-energy rockers such as Let It Roll, Too Hot To Handle and Lights Out, UFO have always had a softer side. Their albums typically include at least one song in a mellower vein, of which Profession Of Violence from 1981’s The Wild, The Willing And The Innocent album is a prime example.

UFO message boards have long urged the band to revisit songs in this style, and from this era. Indeed, singer Phil Mogg tells Classic Rock that the band have considered adding it to the current set list: “We’ve done Try Me (from Lights Out, 1977) recently and have thought about Belladonna (No Heavy Petting, 1976) and Profession Of Violence, too – just to mix the set up a bit.”

Good news, then. The story of Profession Of Violence starts with then guitarist Paul Chapman explaining that he wrote the incredible guitar solo (that forms the second half of the track) paddling in the warm Caribbean waters lapping the island paradise of Montserrat while recording UFO’s 1980 album No Place To Run...

“That’s the only solo that I’ve ever written before I had a backing track. I used to go down to the beach with an Ovation acoustic and just stand knee-deep in this beautiful crystal clear water, just jamming away. There were no waves, I’d stand there for hours, while my feet shrivelled up. I came up with this melody there, recorded it later on my Revox.

“I discovered that part of it is in a harmonic minor scale which I didn’t even know about at the time. All I knew was that this thing sounded good. When I showed the chords to Phil he came up with the vocal and then I brought back the solo. We did it totally backwards.”

But Chapman’s description of the writing process definitely jogs a memory with Mogg: “Yeah... That’s what we used to do with a lot of Michael’s stuff, too. He’d put solos down and if it sounded really cool, we’d work out a chord sequence to go with it and put a song around the solo.”

The title and lyric came later, both inspired by the 1972 book The Profession Of Violence: The Rise And Fall Of The Kray Twins. Drummer Andy Parker reckons: “That was a book that I had, originally. I’m not sure if I leant it to Phil or he bought his own, but he’s always had this thing where he reads stories and gets idea for songs.”

Mogg: “I’d read the book and liked the title – although I preferred Profession Of Violence without the The – and sometimes I write down different titles for later use. But I often forget things and they only come back to me years later and I think: ‘Oh, that’ll work!’

“The lyric was more of a sad affair than the subject matter of the book – which was more of a ****ed-up thing. Being banged up isn’t very pleasant. If you’re a big-time gangster maybe you get used to it, but for the average Joe it’s not very pleasant and Profession Of Violence was more of a sympathetic ear for those left behind.”

The poignancy of Mogg’s lyrics are superbly emphasised by a string section arranged by one Paul Buckmaster – a cellist best known for his 1970s work with Elton John, but who also worked with the Rolling Stones on Sticky Fingers, David Bowie’s _Space Oddity _and, more recently, Axl and co’s Chinese Democracy. But it was the Elton John track Sixty Years On (on his breakthrough eponymous second album) which led Mogg to choose him.

“I think he was supposed to have been working on the Flash Gordon soundtrack, but then they got Queen to do it so he had time to work with us.

“We were never very good with money so I didn’t think to ask how expensive he might be. The album saw us run up a huge debt. We were just shown into Studio One and left to get on with it. It was near Oxford Circus and dead expensive...”

Neither Mogg or Parker can recall how they ended up recording without a producer. Parker: “Steve Churchyard was the engineer but he ended up producing it with us. I’m wondering how the hell we ended up doing that – did Chrysalis just not give us a producer?! Why we would have been in Air London, good studios, where we’d have been running around like a chicken with no head? We needed producers to tell us what to do, otherwise we’d have just gone down the pub, drinking and not really getting much done!”

Mogg: “Leaving us to our own devices was never a very good idea. The debt just built up. It was only around 2002 that it finally got paid off.”

Mogg: “We did have a great time doing that album. There was none of that studio tension you sometimes get. Air was right in town and it felt like a real English rock’n’roll album.”

Last word, then, to the man who started it all, on recording the solo that ends it...

Chapman: “The day we recorded it, my red BC Rich 10-string arrived from America. We’d just been on tour with Aerosmith, and Joe Perry was playing one of these – a wicked space machine with all the bells and whistles on. I took one look at his and said: ‘I want one of those!’ So I got in a cab to my mate Kevin’s in Denmark Street, picked it up, came back to the studio, tuned it up, plugged it in, and the first thing I recorded was that solo!

“Steve Churchyard and I worked on it again later at Air Studios. At the end of the solo – which you don’t hear now – I held that note, swooped it round, put this echo on it and it sounded like the end of World War III. It was amazing. I said something to Steve like: ‘It would be really, really dreadful if that got wiped,’ and I found out later that that’s exactly what he did. He just misheard me. We got our wires crossed or something. I think there was Special Brew involved. That’s the only thing I regret about that album.”

 

One more curiosity about the ballad mentioned above. Here in the States, it is called 'Profession Of' on my original LP and my cassette version.
I've always loved that ambiguity of that title. Easily my favorite UFO song title, ever.

 

Phenomenon rules! I love Too Young to Know.

 

Thanks for the info on the inserts etc. That recording of the Wolverhampton show is great - well worth tracking down

 

Reputedly minus the word violence owing to Chrysalis having reservations over it's suitability for the U.S. market. And this was pre PMRC America, too. Similarly, Columbia/CBS jettisoned Priest's 'Killing Machine' in favour of the less murderous 'Hell Bent for Leather' for the US release.

 

I picked up an early (poss 1st) press of Lights Out the other week, and thought at first that you were wrong cos there was a poster inside - which surprised me, cos when I bought it in 77 it didn't have one. Turns out it's from a later album or 12" cos Mad Mickey ain't on it. Live onstage, landscape 30" x 20", gtrist on left has big white Ted Nugent gtr, right side has pointy-looking red one. UFO logo top right, Chrysalis bottom centre...anyone know where it's from? Mechanix??

 

Yes, I agree. That live album has several songs from Walk on Water which makes it extra-special IMO. I need to listen to it again, been awhile, will put it in the car changer!

I do recall that it is a bit "rough" sounding, but still very enjoyable. There is a dropout of some kind in the middle of one song but I can't recall for sure what/where, but might be either vocals or guitar cutting out. Anyone remember for sure?

Was that recorded at the Robin 2 (small club) in Wolverhampton? I've actually been there - kind of across the street from a police station, right?

 

Sounds like you've got the poster that came with 'Mechanix' (or 12" Let it Rain) as you're pretty much describing Carter on the left and Chapman on the right with his red BC Rich.

 

^ That's the one!

 

(Anyone want it, for the cost of the postage?)

 

I have a question: apparently there's an eighties Japanese cd in the Metal Maniacs series of the first 2 (pre-schenker) albums, on the Teichiku label...this is the same label the did Landed in Japan and the the 1st 2 Priest albums....does anyone know anything about this? I've been searching for this for along time to no avail...

 

Phenomenon is my favorite with No Heavy Petting and Force It right behind. Both have several great deep cuts that aren't on Strangers In The Night or most best ofs.

 

Anyone?

 

Well, it's not like that on the vinyl. Can't comment on any CD version, never owned one.

 

This is the guy to ask. Whilst you're there can you ask him if he's got a spare copy of the Louisville tape used for the recording of SITN?

http://www.ronnevison.com/

 

I'm going back to the thread title:

All purpose UFO thread...ask anything

Anyone ever completely list all the various live releases they've had, along with each particular show (and differences), to see how much overlap there is? Well, I'm more interested in having them all, but with the least amount of overlap. I've tried to do this off and on, but I always give up because I started with a jumbled spreadsheet, and it just becomes more jumbled. I really need to start over from scratch, but I never have ...

 

I have never seen the first 2 UFO albums on the Metalmania series. I do have Landed. Teichiku Metalmania also have the Uriah Heep albums under their label.

 

That would be a great thing to do! I have a ton of individual live sets, plus their live boxset things, including those on Zoomclub (I forget now how many they have there - or if I am confusing the UFO Zooms with the MSGs) and I bet there is overlap as you say. I would not be surprised if Jimmy has done this already (?).