April Wine

...and cassette, which had PLAY LOUD printed on it.

 

Yep, one of my favorites. I think it's even stronger than Stand Back, which is also great.

 

To some of us Canadians of a certain vintage, the essential four April Wine albums are the ones with Jim Clench: On Record, Electric Jewels, Live and Stand Back. IMHO the band lost their edge and got a bit sappier with Myles Goodwyn running the show by himself.

 

Lost their edge definitely, but they also cashed in. Maybe the Clench era albums would not appeal to fans of the three guitar version but they definitely had more variety and I think the songwriting was stronger.

 

All the AW live albums ("April Wine LIVE", "Live At The El Mocambo" and "One For The Road") all have been reissued on CD by Aquarius/Unidisc here in Canada.
I only have the CD of the 1974 Live and its done well, but has a couple minor edits, but nothing affecting the actual music. (One minor edit was a feedback squeal after Miles says "Thank you, goodnight" at the end of "Just Like That". I made my own remaster of the CD and re-edited the missing bits back into it, dubbed from my cassette copy.)

Tried getting some info from Unidisc (who now owns Aquarius records and the back catalog) about their reissues, whether or not they are straight knock offs of the early 1990's CD's, but can't get any answers.

 

Another little tidbit is that early (first pressing) Canadian copies of "On Record" has a bit of studio talk before "Farkus" starts. You hear an engineer saying "tape's rolling" and then Myles counting in. Not sure if it was trimmed off on the US Big Tree edition or not

 

Nice to know about those live discs, I will look for the Live and El Mocambo discs.

Couple other bits of info:
One caveat for fans is for some reason the Aquarius Unidisc Nature of The Beast sounds awful (all treble, little bass), get a Capitol version instead.

The Repertoire CD versions of Electric Jewels and On Record are better sounding than the Canadian versions if you can find them.

 

I wasn't aware that LIVE was on CD. Good to know. I couldn't find any evidence of it 10 or 15 years ago.

 

CD is on Amazon. iTunes has it too and just I downloaded it for $8.

 

Speaking of Live at The El Mocambo, the blurb on the back cover from some DJ never fails to crack me up. He basically puts this show (April Wine opening for a Rolling Stones comeback) on a par with, or perhaps even exceeding the importace of Woodstock and the Beatles' North American Tour... so precious.

Actually, I found a picture I took of it. Witness ye, April Wine Live

 

I love Myles Goodwin's voice. I got into them in the late 70's and listened to One For the Road until the tape stretched.

 

Being the hard rock loving teenager I was, April Wine was one of those bands you'd collect if when you were a hard rock freak and vinyl collector. I remember that Harder ... Faster was pretty popular due to "I Like to Rock". I bought it and was like, "uhhh"; just not a lot of good material on it, otherwise (except the Crimson cover and maybe one other tune). Then I bought Nature of the Beast and liked that pretty well, but the bad songs were, like, really bad. Like embarrassingly so. Still some good material there. Then comes Power Play and that was not good. That was the end for me for April Wine.

I always liked their melody lines, though, and the twin leads they'd do were good. Steve Lang (the bass player for a time) put down some interesting lines on the stuff he played on. I learned a few things from him and admired his tuneful bass playing. He was kind of like the Canadian (bacon) Paul McCartney with the melody lines he'd play working off the guitars and the bald guy drummer (Jerry Mercer).

 

2nd band i ever saw , A Canadian instituition

 

Jim Henman, AW's original bass player is still out there recording and touring. He's on Facebook. He sometimes posts some cool pics from time to time.

 

I wore out Stand Back. I finally found it on CD. I like it just as much today.

 

Gotta love that bare-chested Canadian AOR!

April Wine was a staple of my teenage radio life, since the "local" rock station in Vermont was CHOM-FM Montreal. I was only aware of them from First Glance onward. "Roller" is a titanic rocker that always turned my head - a real breathtaking performance. I also liked the rather stupid "Hot On The Wheels Of Love."

Nature Of The Beast was a massive album that dominated the radio when it was released. "All Over Town" remains a favorite with its tricky rhythm and comical attitude. "Crash And Burn" is another crazy rock storm that almost rivals "Roller."

I actually bought a copy of Power Play and regretted it - they had kinda lost it at that point.

All in all, they were one of the better examples of AOR, adding some personality and energy to a genre that gave us Styx, Loverboy and REO.

 

Harder Faster is one of my favorite albums. Great guitar work on this song. Kind of unique sounding.

 

Anyone know if Myles Goodwin is still with the band for their 2015 tour?

 

Man, I would hope so. He the only constant member, right?

 

Well, certainly the singing voice I remember. They're here in May, like to go if he's still with them...

 

Oh Yeah, Myles and the boys used to play at our high school in the early 1970's before relocating to Montreal. They were from the Waverley/Lower Sackville area (outside Halifax N.S.) and consisted of the Henman brothers and Myles Goodwin.

Great song writing - Fast Train, Bad Side Of The Moon, Weeping Widow, You Could Have Been A Lady were staples in my early stage days.

If you haven't heard it check out April Wine covering the Beatles Tell Me Why - one of my favorites.

 

Yeah, Myles is still the man. Him and Brian Greenway...not sure about anyone else. Actually, if you follow the band on Facebook, they post fairly often about shows and misc pictures and stuff.

 

http://i.imgur.com/xqU2S7x.jpg
I'm definitely an April Wine fan.
My list of concerts says I saw them in 1982, but I have a recollection of seeing them in the mid-1970s at Winterland, where the drummer had spotlights under the cymbals, and when he played his solo, there were cool wavering lights all across the rink. (I suppose it could have been a different band.)

 

first song i heard by them on the radio outside Philadephia was "Roller" in, what was it, 1979? thought that was a great song, and liked the "First Glance" lp, but kept reading in magazines like Bomp! about earlier, poppier songs like "Tonight Is A Wonderful Time To Fall In Love", and "Wouldn't Want Your Love (Any Other Way)" which, when i finally found them on "Stand Back, " i was quite surprised how 'pop' they were, but not in a bad way! Not much else of theirs later on I liked much, but "If You See Kay" was certainly a memorable title!!!!

 

The main problem I have with April Wine (besides being sick of them due to over-exposure on the radio) is the lack of a definitive single-disc "best of" collection. Here's a post I made in another thread: