Great story on UFO

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Murph, Dec 12, 2014.

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  1. Murph

    Murph Enjoy every sandwich! Thread Starter

  2. kanakaris

    kanakaris Forum Resident

    Location:
    Belgium
    I believe in UFO's
     
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  3. shinedaddy

    shinedaddy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Valley Village, Ca
    thanks. it was great
     
  4. spaulding

    spaulding Hoi Polloi

    Location:
    The Windy City
    thanks for this - a great read.
    I've been a big UFO fan since '77 and hadn't read all of these stories in one place. I don't consider their fate tragic. They put out some great LP's, and those will always stand as a testament.
     
    Murph likes this.
  5. DJ LX

    DJ LX Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madison WI
    Regarding the article, I agree: "Love to Love" ˃ "Stairway to Heaven"
     
    Jimmy Agates, jeffgt14 and Carserguev like this.
  6. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    Wow, good article! A little too editorial in parts, but it filled in some gaps in the story.
     
  7. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    "a hedonistic, polka-dot-pants-wearing bass player who made Keith Richards look like Debby Boone"

    That sentence alone makes it worth reading the article!
     
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  8. four sticks

    four sticks Senior Member

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Nice article, thanks for sharing.

    I was pretty late to the UFO party; only acquired Strangers a little over ten years ago and many years later picked up the Schenker era albums. Strangers, along with Phenomenon, Force It and No Heavy Petting are essential albums for any hard rock fan. Quite an underrated band not only for their output but also for their influence on NWOBHM and beyond.
     
    Jimmy Agates, Murph and Opeth like this.
  9. Opeth

    Opeth Forum Resident

    Location:
    NH
    great read thanks
     
  10. Andersoncouncil

    Andersoncouncil Forum Resident

    Location:
    upstate NY
    Very good read! UFO are underrated, as is Michael Schenker. However, let's be real. They are NOWHERE in the same league as Zeppelin, nor Rush or even Rainbow for that matter. A good hard rock band, nothing more, nothing less.
     
  11. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
    Oh, they were just as good as Rainbow. Easily so. Better in fact.

    Dig up the UFO album by album thread here. It's got some good info it (I did some of the reviews ;)).

    Here's a good companion piece: http://www.daveling.co.uk/doc-ufo.htm
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2014
  12. Kossoff is God

    Kossoff is God Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicagoland
    I can't believe the writer dissed "Space Child and Crystal Light" from Phenomenon. Beautiful songs with amazing melodic guitar craftsmanship.
     
  13. Scooter59

    Scooter59 Forum Resident

    Location:
    North Shore, MA
    Thank you - a good read. Strangers in the Night will get some play over the weekend.
     
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  14. four sticks

    four sticks Senior Member

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Agreed. Crystal Light is a superb tune. Space Child is good too.
     
  15. Slick Willie

    Slick Willie Decisively Indecisive

    Location:
    sweet VA.
    Spinning this as I ran across this thread, always enjoyed the band, especially the MS years, just good solid albums. IMO.
    [​IMG]
     
  16. pscreed

    pscreed Upstanding Member

    Location:
    Land of the Free
    Thanks OP for posting, great read. Saw them back in the day, they were incredible.

    ... So I put on LOIL at the top of the thread. Right now "Alone Again Or" is playing and my wife is singing along in the kitchen. I guarantee she doesn't know the original...

    Life is good.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2014
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  17. ArpMoog

    ArpMoog Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit
    My favorite UFO album
     
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  18. Murph

    Murph Enjoy every sandwich! Thread Starter

    Same here!
     
  19. ClassicRockTragic

    ClassicRockTragic Forum Resident

    Location:
    Australia
    Great read. I have been obsessed with UFO the last 6 months or so.

    I play their records at the shop I work, and often get dudes stop and listen and say who the **** is that. I write it down for them and they shuffle off with new hard rock hope in their eyes.

    And I agree... Love to Love > Stairway to Heaven
     
  20. redfloatboat

    redfloatboat Forum Resident

    what a pair of immature twats mogg and way sound. going on about who won the war.
    mind you the same thing happened when schenker auditioned for aerosmith apparently.
     
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  21. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    Thanks! I actually saw them at the Rock On The Fox event, first and only time ever. Not a huge setup, lo how the mighty have fallen, but after all my wondering if they would play "Lights Out" (my huge have but generally snubbed by "Doctor Doctor") they LED OFF with it! Yay!
     
    Murph likes this.
  22. vamborules

    vamborules Forum Resident

    Location:
    CT
    "Since then, he has teamed up with an increasingly lame parade of poodle-headed characters."

    "Whereas Michael is this super-genius guitarist, but he disappears for years at a time, makes records that are iffy at best, and plays with some really random bands."

    These parts about Schenker are so true. After his first few albums things went way downhill and stayed there, and a lot of it is because he doesn't seem to care who he plays with.
     
    Murph likes this.
  23. old school

    old school Senior Member

    UFO put out some of the best albums of the 70s! ' Lights Out ' stunning masterpiece.
     
    Jimmy Agates, jon9091 and Murph like this.
  24. My first exposure to UFO came whilst watching a kid's TV programme back in 1975. Anybody remember Magpie with Jenny Hanley and Mick Robertson? They used to have a little feature each week showing some new album covers and Mick showed Force It (yep, on kid's TV). When I started buying albums for real in late 1976 I chanced upon No Heavy Petting and thought the cover was a bit strange and behind it was Force It which I remembered from the TV the previous year. A little while later, certainly before school finished for Xmas hols in Dec '76, I'd heard Highway Lady, I'm A Loser and Natural Thing on the radio so I went back to our little Virgin store with enough cash to buy a couple of albums, supposedly for my birthday presents. I'd intended to buy Deep Purple's Burn and Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow but neither were in stock so took what was a giant step for me, purchasing 2 albums unheard all bar those three tracks. I wasn't disappointed!

    So, yeah I ended up a huge UFO fan - I have everything from that point on as first pressings, day of release copies etc. I love the Mick Bolton stuff, the live album in particular. Tonka, Atomic Tommy, Laurence Archer, Vinnie Moore and a host of others never really let the band down and all offered something but it is that period from when I first 'discovered' them up to WWI/Mechanix that is/will forever be special to me.

    Regarding the Schenker solo career, loved the Barden era stuff, hated the Bonnet stuff and haven't been able to enjoy much/anything since. Why he (and it applies to Uli Roth as well) has to have such dreadful vocalists on his albums/tours is beyond me, the talent shines through in his (their) playing but the vocals destroy it all.

    For me, Phil Mogg is perhaps the finest UK singer/lyricist this side of Paul Rodgers.

    Martin Popoff's book is an interesting read and explains a lot as to why UFO didn't quite attain the staus they deserved.
     
  25. Trillmeister

    Trillmeister Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    Lovely little piece.

    For those in the new world who are familiar with the game of snooker, the tales of (M.) Schenker's mercurial greatness remind me of an Irish player called Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins who in the 70s and 80s could easily have been the UFO of 'the green beize.'

    He won the World Championship twice but in the game's heyday in the UK (the 80s) he was perennially lagging behind the oh-so ironically nicknamed Steve 'interesting' Davies who was a pretty much a machine at the table.

    Davies was by far the better player: consistency, results and technique versus Higgins's perpetual litany of self-destructive antics causing near invariable failure at the final hurdle, as it were but nobody cared: the Irishman was the game's most exciting exponent and the emotionally crazed, unpredictable maelstrom made the magic.

    Of course, I appreciate the genius of Zep and constantly find myself purring o'er their magnificence but here's the thing: I play UFO all the time and like the man say, 'Love To Love' rarely fails to persuade me of their pedigree: if this was 'mere' bandola Hard Rock, then all I can summise is that there's some very selective analysis going down because by any standard, their best outpourings (which are several per album until 1982) rival, well, anything.

    Not in the same league as..? Pass me the crack pipe.
     
    Arthur Mulllard, cjmiller and Murph like this.
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