Actually, both Take the Long Way Home (Roger's live DVD from 2006) and Supertramp's 70-10 tour come chronologically before this... I'm sorry I haven't finished my Slow Motion review yet, the ZZ Top thread is taking a lot of my energy.
A complete audience recording from the World Migration tour just surfaced: This includes, for the first time, a live version of "I'm Beggin' You"!
There is also a live version of "I'm beggin' you" (plus some comedic footage ) on this one below at 1 hour, 16 minutes in.
I totally agree . There have been a few released here but the video quality is poor and it was only one or three songs. It's such a shame 'It was the best of times' wasn't recorded too. I really like the CD (well I only have the 1 CD 'Live, 1997') a videod release of that concert would have been fantastic.
Wow, thanks for that. Agree about that. But I'd even be happy to get the Montreux performance, which we know was filmed. In that interview with an Italian fan from a few years ago, Rick said they had some footage from one of the more recent tours that they could turn into a DVD, I wonder what tour that would be from.
So, Slow Motion. I wasn't too systematic with my Supertramp buying... I completed the classic albums relatively early (except Paris, which I have on a cassette taped from the radio!), and then started filling in things here and there. Since I had Retrospectacle, I knew one song from this album that definitely didn't motivate me to hear any more. In the early days of YouTube, entire albums were hard to come by, and the only song I discovered online - I think it must have been in the 2010/2011 period - was "Tenth Avenue Breakdown". Now that I really liked, so much that I downloaded it from YouTube (in awful quality) and started regularly playing it on the piano. Still, the album's bad reputation put me off exploring any further, even as I had started liking and eventually growing to love Some Things Never Change. Hearing some more songs online didn't improve matters, I know I was put off by "Goldrush" and wasn't too enamored with the title track as it felt like Supertramp by numbers. "Dead Man's Blues" impressed me more but by that point, the album had started disappearing off the market, and I never really looked seriously for it. Only when I started using my Discogs account more frequently and also with a view towards buying CDs, did I get more interested in finding the album to complete my collection (and to listen to "Tenth Avenue Breakdown" in proper quality). Then I took my trip to Berlin last September... and in the second week, I went back to the CD store where I had already bought Live '88, and asked the guys (because the owner had told me that he actually had more CDs in storage than in the accessible area of the store, and that I should ask if he had something in his portfolio) about Supertramp. I nearly fell over when the dude told me he had Slow Motion too! Could it be true?! He went into the cellar and came back without it. Turns out the CD was not packed away yet and in fact, I had been standing right in front of it! The shop owner looked at the disc and actually cleaned it because he was concerned it might be unplayable, so we put it on the shop's system and I got to hear some great Supertramp at full blast while I looked at a few more CDs... also had a nice chat with the two guys. Anyway, that's enough for my personal background. Let's dive into the historical background. I found this on John Helliwell’s website (old version): In 2001, Rick Davies regrouped John and the others to record their first album of the new millennium, “Slow Motion”. This time John and his colleagues were presented with pretty much the finished article. Rick in an almost “solo album” venture had conceived the album on his own and now handed each musician detailed demos for each to work from. Most of it hit the spot but in a radio interval John had a little chuckle over a mysteriously ditched track called “Flight 29”. This, quite apart from having an unfortunate title given the tragedy of September 11 th, got a rather lukewarm response from the various musicians when they heard it. When Rick told an interviewer “I don’t think they liked it very much” John quipped back with, “It was just when were stamping up and down on the [demo] CD that he realized.” Slow Motion hit the shops early in 2002. John flew to Paris to reunite with the others in rehearsals for several weeks before they commenced touring in Spain the next month. It was in Barcelona’s Olympic Stadium on the 28 th April that John announced proudly in Spanish to the assembled 15000 throng that he’d just become a grandfather ("Hoy he sido abuelo"). His first grandchild, Edgar Helliwell, was born in New Zealand. Obviously delighted, he mugged around on stage pretending to wobble about on a walking stick. Mark Hart joined in his celebrations by substituting “Grandpa John Helliwell” at the point where he would normally sing “Mr. John Helliwell” during The Logical Song. Poor Rick Davies was so overwhelmed that when introducing the band he referred to John as "a grandma... no wait.. grandad...grandad...” Somehow, the description already hints at what was wrong with the album. While Some Things Never Change sounds like a band working it out together (also with Jack Douglas guiding the direction as a producer), Slow Motion is the Rick Davies show. While it still has some of what made the predecessor great, it feels like a diluted version of that album to me. The line-up is the same as on the preceding tour and live album - the last time that happened was Paris/Famous Last Words! The artwork is OK and gets its meaning across, but a bit flat and boring - and I think that could also be said about the album. Although it’s hardly an acceptable criticism, I also noticed that many of these songs have pretty generic titles - “Slow Motion” exists by Saga (ironically a song that sounds a bit Supertramp-ish), “Little by Little” is a blues classic by Junior Wells that Rick must’ve been aware of, same goes for Jelly Roll Morton’s “Dead Man Blues” and a few others. Slow Motion: A very different kind of opening - no long soundscape, but an ascending scale played on a Wurlitzer. Instantly recognizable as Supertramp, also once Rick’s voice and Bob’s drums crash in. Mark Hart has a few lines, which keep the idea of two different singers alive to a degree, even if Mark’s presence is limited to such little additions. This is quite a good song but not really such a good opener, as that melancholic chord sequence takes the steam out of the album way too early. It recalls “Live to Love You” quite a lot in its rhythm and overall feel, and just like that song it utilizes the electronic sound heard in “The Logical Song”. Using a call-back like that once is fine, but repeating it once again on the next album smacks of desperation. As this was apparently the first and most promoted single from the album, it feels like an attempt to recapture lightning in a bottle. Uh-uh, doesn’t work. It also brings back an unfortunate tendency from the Famous Last Words era, namely to fill a song with synths. John’s sax solo is spectacular, though. The lyrics are quite prescient as they talk about life getting more and more frantic and hectic (especially with the internet), while Rick is trying to present a different approach to life. In that sense, it shows some age-related wisdom. Little by Little: My heart sinks hearing that intro. Haven’t we left these sounds behind? It might be a Fender Rhodes but it sounds like those tinkly synths that ruined Free as a Bird. Worse, the intro sounds so goddamn tired. The song actually improves afterwards when it gets funkier, but even if it is stylistically similar to Some Things Never Change, it never comes even close to capture the spark that album had. The horn riffs especially sound almost robotic and the song never really takes off, no matter how passionate Rick sings (and he really tries his best to sell this song). I don’t care for the bridge with its oddly out of place delay. Carl has a guitar solo that leaves little impression with me. Rick is a better singer than Donald Fagen but this is not a patch on any Steely Dan song. John’s sax solo is better. I don’t hate this song but I think it’s kinda limp. Broken Hearted: Finally, something uptempo! A bit “Cannonball”-esque, as it basically hinges on a simple but extremely effective keyboard riff, over which everything else naturally develops, including a good, catchy vocal melody. I like the sense of unease (again carried over from “Cannonball” and “Some Things Never Change”) and how much the song drives forward. Mark Hart also has a few nice counterpoint vocal lines, which is about as much as we’re getting from him here. Yes, he’s definitely underused. My one complaint is that the song feels a bit underwritten - the crash after each verse doesn't really lead anywhere, while the "wrote a letter" part (which reminds me of the 70s Supertramp) isn't too connected to the rest of the song. John has a great baritone sax solo and Carl’s guitar sounds OK, but I really wish he’d been allowed to let loose on this album like he proved being able to lots of times. What’s not so great - two songs in a row that are also in the same key. Over You: Now we hit the bottom. The opening promises a solid blues-rocker, but instead it quickly goes into elevator territory. Perhaps not only my least favourite song on this album, but of the entire Supertramp discography. It's like “My Kind of Lady” with none of that song's energy and charm. So much annoys me about this track - that boring guitar arpeggio, the bland sound of the saxophone choir, that dentist electric piano again… To think that this would be the song chosen from this record for the Retrospectacle compilation? Maybe it's the catchiest thing on here but also the most uninspired. To add insult to injury, the only interesting part of the song (the bluesy playout) was edited off for said compilation… but that part almost saves the track, even the lyric gets ironic at that point. In general, those post Roger Supertramp albums are not well represented on compilations. (The same goes for post Roger Pink Floyd, by the way.) Still, I should share this live version, where John is supplemented by four additional sax players: Tenth Avenue Breakdown: Following the worst with the best song is… interesting, but this album has a messed up track sequence. Well, I guess I already hinted at how much I love this one. It starts out with almost the same two piano notes as “C’est What?” and the overall development is somewhat similar, though the tempo is not. A percolating piano motif sets everything in motion and Rick starts talk-singing. The ominous verses are punctuated by an edgier bridge part. The second verse is assisted by some xylophone (when was the last time we heard that?), wailing guitars and low sax riffs. The tension builds up to a fantastic chorus, which in the hands of lesser artists would be the high point, but Supertramp do the absolutely crazy thing of doing a full somersault into jazz territory. That post-chorus bit is one of my favourite things ever, because it jars so wonderfully with everything that comes before. This is followed by a long (mostly one-chord) journey that one needs to have some patience for, including a police voiceover (by Eddie Lynch) and lots of solos. I enjoy it - perhaps it’s more like “Cannonball” in the way that different motifs segue into each other over a pretty constant groove. Rick gets some great opportunity to show off his piano playing, perhaps inspired by the live versions of “Another Man’s Woman”. Mark adds great Hammond, the band is locked in. And finally Carl gets to shine with a guitar solo that’s all his (no more holding back, no tame sound). That leads us back to the chorus and the jerky jazz part again, before dissolving into an effects-laden reprise of the opening piano motif. Again, not unlike “C’est What”. I find the lyrics very, very intriguing here, as it’s one of the few later Supertramp songs that actually tells a story. It is “kind of vague” (to quote the lyric itself) but paints vivid images of a world built around the unholy alliance of music, sex work and drugs. And what makes it extra interesting is that the track could equally apply to the world of jazz in the 1940s and 1950s (after all, this album was recorded in New York, and this is probably the song where you can feel it) as well as to the hip-hop scene of the 1990s, with a lot of highly-publicized violence. All in all, the definite highpoint of this album; maybe even my favourite post-Roger Supertramp song. A Sting in the Tail: Odd song. It starts out like a reinterpretation of the famous harmonica intro from “School”, but then it takes some different twists and turns. None of those developments are *bad* per se, but I just don’t understand how the whole thing is supposed to hang together. The lyric is really nice though, as it’s an appreciation of the darker sides of life, and an affirmation that it’s all part of the bigger whole - represented by the honey bee that has a sting, by the summer rain, the leaves falling in autumn. Although the message gets muddled a bit by the fact that Rick works a relationship into it that the narrator can’t deal with. John’s sax solo and Blue Mitchell… er, I mean Lee Thornburg’s flugelhorn reply are very laid back - maybe too laid back for me. They’re nice but not really a standout moment. So when the “School” harmonica pipes up again I’m always a bit bewildered as to how much it all adds up to. Bee in Your Bonnet: This song shares most of its problems with the previous one, right down to the very similar titles! That guitar intro sounds so horribly disinterested, so plain, so boring… if it weren’t Supertramp, I’d have stopped listening after a few seconds. What follows (in a not organic way at all) is another mid-tempo jazz-inflected pop song - this time with some particularly strong bass and a nice edge to Rick’s vocal. Again, lots of strong moments like the really cutting horn parts, but the development leaves me bewildered. After the second chorus, it suddenly turns into a classic Supertramp song, ca. 1977 or 1983… each of those parts could and should have been part of several great songs but they were all stuck together, minimizing the impact. The tension really threatens to tear the track apart at a couple of moments. I don't know. Maybe I'll have to hear it ten more times to make it make sense… it is more “prog” than anything on the previous two albums. Not really sure what to make of the lyrics either. Goldrush: Who was it that fished out an old song for what would turn out to be their last album, I think they came from Liverpool? Just like The Beatles couldn’t get “One after 909” right at one of their early sessions for EMI, Supertramp apparently tried recording “Goldrush” numerous times but it wasn’t until 2002 that they were satisfied with it. And just like The Beatles, Supertramp managed to wrap up a loose end just in time before their recording career petered out. I have an irrational dislike for songs that start right away with the vocals. (Do you notice something with this album? I dislike several of these intros. Not a good sign.) But other than that, this isn’t a bad song… I find the chorus still kind of lame (“rock and roll the boat”... man, that would’ve already sounded dated in the 70s) but the verse chugs along nicely. This album is, after all, in need of some uptempo songs. The production finally also does away with the reverb that makes this album sound so distanced from the listener, and Rick’s Wurlitzer playing here is very reminiscent of “Bloody Well Right”. Carl plays some of his best licks. In case you were wondering about the credits: Yes, Roger Hodgson co-wrote this one alongside Rick and Richard Palmer-James; he even played it at a few of his gigs. Leaving his name out was sneaky and not such a good look for Rick. Dead Man’s Blues: Opening with a distant guitar growl that reminds me of Marillion’s “Bridge” (the start to their dark concept album Brave), some flutter of organ… the scene is set for a simple left hand piano riff and Rick starting to go all deep and philosophical. His voice sounds great here, as his passion is echoed in Carl’s emotive blues guitar. I love the sax/string motif that runs through the chorus (if you can call it that) - very majestic. I’m not sure if the guitar solo might be by Mark - it sounds less virtuosic than Carl normally does. A slightly weird, percussive part follows - with Rick and John interacting a bit like they did on “Brother Where You Bound”, backed with some string synths. John really shines with his best solo on the album - it’s got everything one can expect from a great jazz solo: Tone, technique, emotion, and a musical arc. The baton gets passed to Lee, and did I mention similarities between “C’est What?” and “Tenth Avenue Breakdown”? Well, the second epic also has parallels to the other epic from Some Things Never Change - it’s mostly a one-chord affair and it features Thornburg playing muted trumpet. His playing, culminating in an instrumental reprise of the chorus, provides another great moment. Rick returns with the title line and the song winds down with jamming that gets looser and looser. It does feel like an ending statement. Slow Motion repeats many of the mistakes of Free As a Bird. It follows up a well-rounded, flowing album with an inconsistent collection of songs, constrained by the modern recording process, unfortunate sonic choices and the misguided attempt to write more commercial tunes. In this case, you can add the rather manifold and sometimes desperate self-quotes. Of course, this being Supertramp, it still has some good moments which are satisfying is you like Rick's tunes (like I do), but it's not really surprising that the band's recording career ends here. One gets the feeling that Rick didn't have much more to say. (A pity though that he wouldn't continue the writing collaboration with Mark Hart, who was totally left out of that process this time and could've helped to steer the band into some new directions. As @Left Hand mentioned, Mark was more than willing to offer songs.) The high points are really good - “Broken Hearted”, “Tenth Avenue Breakdown” and “Dead Man’s Blues” are IMHO on a par with anything Supertramp have ever done, and the title track, although badly placed, isn't too far behind, but the album as a whole doesn’t convince me. The fact that it was recorded on ProTools doesn’t help; the sound is too clean, almost clinical, with none of the predecessor’s warmth and intimacy. Although Rick was certainly capable of producing an album, I think an outsider like Jack Douglas could’ve helped to turn this into a more coherent and timeless statement. This is also the first time the loudness war starts to creep in... while the DR numbers are still OK at 8/9, it's noticeably less dynamic than all earlier Supertramp albums. Oddly enough there seems to be a better mastering "out there": Supertramp "Slow Motion", different masterings? There is an interview with Rick from around the release that hints at him starting to get bored with the album/tour cycle, and I guess you can hear him getting disinterested on this album. However, he also mentions wanting to continue writing albums and making two albums (a solo piano/vocal record and a collection of blues covers), and nothing was ever heard about that since except for another interview a few years later. Similarly, Bob Siebenberg hinted at more than we ever got: "I know there are some things in the works down the line to do some kind of boxed thing with bonus tracks," Siebenberg said. "We've got such a legacy of great material that we think really hasn't been explored properly yet. We're looking at several projects to get out there to the people. There's also some old video that we've got laying around, like of the Paris concert and us in 1974 at Hammersmith." Only Paris ever materialized, and the audio version of the Hammersmith gig. But enough off-topic. Just like Open the Door, the track order really seems to work against Slow Motion. Thinking of how to improve the flow, I came up with this: Tenth Avenue Breakdown Over You Goldrush Slow Motion Bee in Your Bonnet Broken Hearted Not Givin’ Up (Mark Hart) Little by Little A Sting in the Tail Dead Man's Blues If you wanna try it out (I haven't! Just running things over in my head…): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9w6vWbs3u9Id7syChv_KjYSbNu5z-LYV The tour was called One More For The Road, which also hints at a desire to pack it in. A couple of songs from Slow Motion made the setlist, namely “Slow Motion”, “Little by Little” (dropped quickly), “Broken Hearted”, “Over You” and “Tenth Avenue Breakdown”. Here’s a couple of live recordings from the tour: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9w6vWbs3u9LOoVz-Dt7zjyZo7ys_LolA The only song surviving from the previous album was "Sooner or Later", which makes it all the more odd that Rick wouldn't accept any of Mark's songs for the new album. I wonder why “You Win, I Lose”, which was a hit in Europe, didn’t stay in the set! “Asylum” returned to the set after a long break, while “Just Another Nervous Wreck” and “Ain’t Nobody But Me” only got a few outings, as did once again “I Had a Beautiful Dream” (is this a Supertramp song?). The amount of Roger songs in the set remained at four, but there was a change: “Breakfast in America” was taken out and replaced by perhaps the most Roger of all Hodgson songs, “Give a Little Bit”. Although Mark Hart initially sang it, they decided to let Jesse Siebenberg do it instead, which was important in getting him into a more leading role later. An oddity worth mentioning is that there’s apparently a live recording of a warm-up show where they did mostly old blues covers: Supertramp Setlist at Unknown Venue, Paris Other than this, though, the blues covers were mostly gone, “Don’t You Lie to Me” was only done a handful of times. So, we’ve reached the final studio album by Supertramp. Now all that’s left for this thread is a few more live releases - Roger’s Montreal DVD, Supertramp’s 70-10 tour & Roger’s Classics Live. (I think we basically covered Is Everybody Listening? and the Live in Paris DVD earlier, right?)
Yeah it’s a good album. Lovers In The Wind and Only Because of You are sublime, two of his best ever songs. Hooked on a Problem, In Jeopardy, title song, all solid. Just as good as Supertramp.
Is it me or these promotional pieces on Roger's merchandise are just plain annoying because of how egocentric they are? I remember a post on the early pages of the thread about the Roger Hodgson turntables that sounded similar. "Listen to the BEST sound on this TURNTABLE from he MAIN SONGWRITER of some random band called Supertramp, but pay no heed to that because ROGER HODGSON is the GENIUS behind ALL their HITS." Nevertheless, I've been away from the thread and the forums but I'm listening to Live '97 now and will be back here soon.
That is partially why I posted that pic - historically it seems to be the beginning of this promo tone (which would then be taken to absurd proportions, also with those "fans" who flood forums or comment zones with saying they only ever cared for Roger's songs). Of course, Supertramp weren't really doing themselves too much favors either - around this time Roger would start doing solo gigs under the heading "Solo Tramp", and apparently the remaining band (probably the management more than anyone else) didn't take too kindly to that. I know about this because Dougie Thomson reacts to that in this interview: Breakfast In Spain - Roger Hodgson and Supertramp website - DOUGIE THOMSON Interview, June 1998 Trying to look for that disclaimer, I actually found that the band had a really nice website in those early internet days. You can find several gig reports from the 1997 tour here: http://web.archive.org/web/19990209020949/http://supertramp.com/road/index.shtml And earlier fan reviews/memories: http://web.archive.org/web/19990209000811/http://supertramp.com/memories/index.shtml Another interesting point about the 1997 tour is that they also participated in Rock am Ring (after some horrific rain had interrupted Chris Rea's set), so there might also be footage from that concert...
My trawl through the archives has yielded this find (even the first two of the audio clips are still downloadable if you use a workaround, I might put them up on my own site or my YouTube so you don't have to jump through so many hoops): Supertramp - Interview - Rick Davies - January 2002 - 1 Supertramp - Interview - Rick Davies - January 2002 - 2 Supertramp - Interview - Rick Davies - January 2002 - 3 Supertramp - Interview - Rick Davies - January 2002 - 4 Supertramp - Interview - Rick Davies - January 2002 - 5 Rick, we're in the basement of a house on Long Island - not exactly the most common location for a recording studio. Tell us about this place. RD: Actually, it's my mother-in-law's basement. She died, I don't know, five years ago? It's in a town called Hampton Bays, in the Hamptons. You know, we've utilized the basement to put a studio in, and it's worked perfectly well. No problem with the acoustics, it doesn't really leak too much out to the neighbors and everything's done with headphones these days, really. It's just worked perfectly. We've just recently moved from Los Angeles, after being out there for about 23, 24 years, and we have a very small house in East Hampton. So, basically it didn't have a place for a studio and so we decided to utilize this. I kind of commute every day in the week, usually, to do my writing and stuff, and its fine, it's been very good. It's very simple, very simple set-up. I am not a "techno guy," I just press "on" and we go and, you know, build up tracks and get songs together. Has this personal studio changed the way you create music? RD: Well, it has because I'm by myself here right now. I don't have a guy who does all the engineering, working things for me like I did in Los Angeles. So I just have to have it that simple that I can build up arrangements of songs and get it to a certain point where I can present it to the other guys in the band, and to the engineers, and they can start to figure out how to really upgrade it a bit. Has it changed the way in which you approach songwriting? RD: It's changed the fact that I can really hone in on what I want to do, as far as the form of it, the length of it. I can come back and keep changing and changing until I am really happy with it. Where as before, I felt a little bit like I would leave things up in the air sometimes, where I wasn't really sure if it should be that long or that short, or should do this or that with the arrangements, so this time I can keep playing with it until I am happier with it. Has the overall result been good for these new songs? RD: Yeah, I do feel a little bit better about the forms of the songs - have reached pretty much their full potential, more than most things I've done. I'd say that's true. Did the personal studio give you more freedom when it came to writing the lyrics? RD: Yeah, I suppose it has. I mean, when you are doing lyrics for example, sometimes I'll do lyrics without really knowing what I'm writing about. Just basing it on if the line works, and then - it's almost like a subconscious thing - and then you sort of build it up from that, and then you try to find lines that would match something you'd liked but you weren't sure what it meant. It's kind of...so there's a few kind of slightly abstract things on this record, that are just done around lines that seem to work, as opposed to any deep meaning to them. It seems what you're describing is actually riffing with yourself, yet you usually riff and write with other people. RD: Lately, I suppose for a while, I have basically been the writer and then I throw it around guys like Mark, who is working with us, and other guys in the band, but these days everybody is so scattered. That has been a little hard because from time to time you need that reaction from other people. Have you been able to find a way to collaborate with the guys, even though you spend a fair amount of time writing and recording alone? RD: I can get a fairly decent sounding thing by myself now, where as before, I needed the guy sound-checking things. I use electric drums, because I used to be a drummer, which helps me - so instead of trying to program drum machines and having a rather stiff sort of rhythm to work with, I can come along and actually put a real person drumming - being me - and it gives me a better chance to explain to Bob, our drummer, how I would like it to go, and then he takes it from there. How do you actually get the new material out to the other guys, before you all end up in the studio? RD: With a Kurzweil, which has all sort of samples of real instruments - trumpets, saxophones. You build up an entire arrangement, and then we make our own CDs and they're flown out to the guys and they listen. I mean, occasionally we do things for the sax and trumpet, maybe, but basically they listen to it. In fact, we didn't really rehearse this album. We went straight to the studio in Los Angeles for backing tracks and so we did it there. Do you start from scratch once the band goes into the studio or do you use some of the tracks you've laid down here in Hampton Bays? RD: The guys really don't like to work like that. They'd sooner we'd just played fresh tracks, and they're probably right, you know. There were just a couple, that I felt the tempo was so right on and everything, that I felt that we should just build it up again with the real rhythm sections and stuff. Which songs were those? RD: There is a song called "Slow Motion," which is the title track. There is another one called "Broken Hearted." They were both done to original tapes here, and then we built them up again. You've been recording with non-linear equipment this time, as opposed to the past, with digital or analog tape. How do you feel about this new technology? RD: Well, thanks to my guys - I mean this guy Jason who has his own gear and is just like a whiz, a real whiz kid with the computer, and so fast and painless to work with. It's been absolutely great, and I think with everybody being so far away from each other, I'm not sure we could have done it any other way and so it worked out perfectly. Then again, of course, if there are any problems you can nudge things one way or another and you can get things where you want them. You've got to be careful not to overdo it, I guess, and then it starts to become too mechanical. There are two recording studios on the album credits; one in Los Angeles and this one on Long Island. What did you record in each place? RD: We went to Los Angeles to record basically the rhythm section - bass, drums, maybe guitar, some keyboards - but not much. Any keyboards that were done there will probably be replaced. The main reason, because the guys were all there and we could get studios for reasonable rates [laughs] and a pretty good sounding studio. That was the main reason to go to LA and then bring it back here to finish it off, because overdubbing is usually a long, long process. I mean, you can take a lot of time trying different ideas, which when you have a studio time clock running it puts a lot of pressure on. Whereas, when you are at home, you can just mess around when you feel like it. How do you incorporate music into your everyday life? RD: I'm one CD away from the studio. [laughs] I have a fairly big collection of stuff, and when I drive over, it's - I usually - I'm a pretty big jazz fan, I usually put something like that on and it gets me over here. Does that journey help you out, give you some clear time for yourself? RD: Yeah, I suppose it does. It can be a little tedious. If you want to just suddenly "pop down" and jot something down, it's not so easy, so from that point of view, I'm looking forward to getting a situation where I'm close to my work, as it were. Give us a quick snapshot of what this album feels like to you. Is there a theme that holds it all together? RD: Well, I don't know, sometimes these themes sort of find themselves. I mean, the title seems to be "Slow Motion," and the lyrics on that one, sort of, are really about - these days, everything is sound bites. It's five-second shots, and especially visual things, you're going from two seconds, scared that people can't hold their attention for any more than that and I don't...I'm getting a bit tired of that. The song, sort of, is egging people to just take a little bit more time, because you're not going to get any further if you run around like a nut case, I guess, and a lot of the songs are a little bit slower. They're grooves and there's nothing really frantic on it, so it has a more mellow feeling, I think. Are there any other influences we'll hear when we listen to the new material? RD: There are some things, which are a little more adult sounding - in terms of jazz, I guess. There's one thing on there called Dead Man's Blues, which is a long kind of thing with improvisations and it's pretty "down," and for a Supertramp record, it's pretty bluesy and earthy. Are you going on tour with this album? RD: Yeah, we are going in April, to Europe especially, doing a lot in Europe. How long we keep going, we're not quite sure. Are you looking forward to that? RD: You know, I am. Believe it or not, touring is the easy part for me, because once you have your show you're pretty much set. You don't have to think so much about "should this lyric work" or "does this sound work" or "do I keep this song in..." It's always decisions. Once you get that show good, and it feels right, you can kind of ride it for a long time. So touring, actually, is going to be a bit of a relief. Are your bandmates pretty good about expressing themselves in the creative process? RD: Well, they'll certainly let me know what they think about something. [laughs] I mean, I had one thing voted off the record, which was quite annoying, but I did this song, which was an instrumental, which I don't usually do. It was actually called "Flight 29," and...about two weeks after I came up with that title, then the September 11th abomination happened, and of course, "Oh, you can't have this on there." But I think it was more they didn't really like the music, than the thing, but we'll forget that. You're forgiven. [laughs] It will surface again one day. Earlier you told us that you and Sue moved out here after 24 years in LA. How do you like it out here, on the east end of Long Island? RD: Well, I love the atmosphere of being out in this part of the world, because it has seasons. The old cliché where people in LA miss the seasons, and all that - that's true. There is much more atmosphere. All the time, the weather is changing. Do you like it better than LA? RD: I prefer living here now. I think we lived there for a long time, and I think we kind of "did our stint," and I feel much more relaxed out here. Do you think you'll continue to write songs this way, with the band being all the way around the world? RD: Well I don't have much choice on that, because everybody is grown up with families and they want to live where they want to live. So, as I say, I think it'll be nicer once we're in our new situation at home, where I have things closer to hand - It'll save me a lot of time. But I'll always do this sort of thing, even if it's just for me as opposed to the band. I'll always love to write songs and just see what I can create. If there were something about where the band is now, how would you want to convey that to people? What is the most important thing about this band that's different or the same? RD: Well, obviously maturity. I mean, we've been around a long, long time. Whole fads come and go between our albums, you know. [laughs] I think punk came and went between "Breakfast in America" and "Paris," our live album after that, you know. We tend to do things at a kind of slow pace, but maybe that's why we've lasted so long. But...nothing lasts forever, so I'm not sure how many more tours and stuff we're going to be able to do. How has technology helped bring out this album? RD: Well, without technology, as you call it, obviously I couldn't really work isolated out here. I mean, things have gotten much more easy to manage for somebody like me, who is a novice as far as being able to work all this stuff. But it's been made very simple for me. So, I press a button and I'm on this track, and I want to put a bass on and then I'm on another track - and then I mix it all together. So it's like a real artist's studio. All the colors are there. It's like a canvas and you actually do...like an artist you're just like yourself, with the colors and the brush, and you build this whole sketch up - and then when you've done that, you present your sketch to the band and then to the engineers and then you really go to work on the big canvas. I guess that's the best way to put it. So technology not only helps you write, but also communicate? RD: It does, and well. For example, I used to be a drummer and so I have the Roland electronic drums, which I love, and you don't have to mess with microphones trying to get drum sounds and all the rest of it. You turn them on, you play them and you have a selection of hundreds of different kit sounds and stuff like that. I drum along to it. It gives it a much more band feeling than drum machines. Present it to the guys, and it's the best way to express what I'm trying to get. Tell us about your early experiences with music? Was playing music a big part of your life growing up? RD: Personally, I was always attracted to drums. Drums is my love - still is my number one love. As a kid, I used to hear the drums marching along the street in England, in my home town, when there was some kind of parade, and it was the most fantastic sound to me. Then, eventually, I got some drums and I took lessons. I was very serious about it. That's all I wanted to be, to be honest. I didn't want any complications of arrangements and learning all those scales and all that stuff. I just wanted to be a great drummer. I figured if I could do that - I mean a real drummer, read music and play with big bands, rock bands, classical, Latin, know what I was going to do - I would be in demand and my life was set. Be kinda like Tiger Woods. He learned how to hit a golf ball when he was six, and that was it. But of course, it didn't work out that way. [laughs] Eventually I started fiddling with the keyboards, and that seemed to go over better than my drumming, for some reason. So, you've gotta go with what people react to. I was wondering if you could tell us what it's like to work with Mark Hart? RD: Mark Hart is one of the great guys - I mean he really is. He's been with us a long time...when was it...actually '88. He's just a guy who can do it all, but he's not overbearing about it. He's very cool about it. He's almost too talented actually, 'cause he keeps going into things. Like if he sees somebody playing the bagpipes he'll - "I gotta learn to play the bagpipes." Doesn't matter what it is, you know - and I try to steer him clear of bagpipes and stuff like that, but he's a very talented guy. What kind of role does Mark play in the studio? Is this his first time collaborating with you in the recording process? RD: Well, we've worked together now for quite a few albums. Our last project was the live record we did in Europe and Mark helped me out. It was the same team actually. It was Jay the engineer, and Mark and me. I think we did a really good job on that album. It's just - he picks up little bits that I don't see and vice versa. As a team it's just very, very complimentary. What is it like working with Jay Messina? What kind of a producer is he? RD: That's the great thing about Jay. He's not just an engineer in the old sense - "Well, I want this" and he gets it. If he thinks something isn't right, he'll put a little smirk on his face that tells you you're going in the wrong direction and he's right ninety-nine percent of the time, which is great. Everybody is very valuable in this set up. We set up the track. Usually Jay comes in with Jason. We decide what song we're going to do. They come in and they figure out where they're going to have everything, what comes up on what track and all that, and then we'll come in a bit later and see where he's got the thing to, and then we'll tweak it, if we have to do a little bit of extra recording or come up with a few ideas to just push it over to a finished thing. That's the way we work. What would you say is the Supertramp sound, in relation to the engineering part? Does Jay help you get that out or does Mark help you get that out? RD: We always go for clarity. Make sure that...we like to be able to hear everything. A lot of that is arrangement, but then again the way it's mixed and all the rest of it - it's important to bring that out as well. So, I guess if you have to sum it up in one word, its "clarity." # # #
Thank you @JulesRules for sharing the links from the 1997 tour and Rick's 2002 interview. The reviews from the fans were indeed positive and glowing. I found this archived 1998 interview with Mark Hart on The Logical Web promoting It was the best of times. It's an interesting read about performing live. I've attached the full interview here in case your web browser doesn't translate the link from Spanish to English. Mark Hart en "EMI Records" (Noviembre 1998) Mark Hart on 'EMI Records' (November 1998) Interview with Mark Hart distributed to radio stations by EMI Records to promote Supertramp's live album "It was the best of times." QUESTION: Tell us about the new album. MARK: Well, it's a live album and we're mixing it right now. It contains a lot of songs, about twenty-three, and it was recorded last year during our tour. Hope that sounds good ... QUESTION: What are the differences between recording live and recording in a studio? MARK: The failures, for example. If we have bugs and we can't do anything to fix them, it's a problem. And there is also the energy level. You are playing and you know that it is the only opportunity you have to do it well, that you will not have a chance to repeat it. This is live music and it is impossible for everything to be accurate or to be seen through a microscope. You're just acting, so it's a very different thing than working in the studio. QUESTION: Is there a different type of energy? MARK: Yes, when you are playing in front of an audience it is always very different than when you are playing in a studio in front of anyone. QUESTION: Are you relatively new to Supertramp? MARK: Yes, I've only been in the group for about thirteen years (LAUGHS). I started playing with them in 1985 and it was about three years until they stopped playing and took a long break. So I started doing other things and when they got back together I was lucky that I had just finished what I was doing, and I was able to join them. So thirteen years may seem like a long time, but in reality it has only been five or six years that we have been working together. QUESTION: How did it feel to go back on tour with Supertramp? MARK: Well, I felt very comfortable and I had a feeling like coming home, because everything was very familiar to me. I know the songs very well and I know all the members of the group, so it was not traumatic at all, but fun. QUESTION: What was the highlight of the tour, musically speaking? MARK: John's baritone solos always stand out ... I also like Rick's piano solo on 'Another man's woman', he does a very long and free performance ... And there are many other things, like the trumpet solo on end of 'Sooner or later', which I also like a lot ... I don't know, it's a difficult question. QUESTION: Tell us about the audience of the concerts. What was there more, old fans or new converts? MARK: It really was a mix of everything. I was surprised that there were so many young people in the audience. In Europe they don't care if a group is from the 70s, in that sense they have a very open mind. But there were also a lot of old fans, so it was a very nice and enthusiastic mix. QUESTION: What was it like going on tour with a team that includes a father and son? MARK: It was great. During the tour Bob never acted like a father, he always let the rest of us do it for him (LAUGHS). So we all end up being parents, giving advice to Jesse and all that ... Jesse is not that young, I think he is 22 years old, but we all were forced to act as his parents and therefore Bob did not have to do nothing (LAUGHS). It was fun! QUESTION: What songs received the best response from the public? MARK: Well, logically people enjoyed the old hits more. Those were the songs they responded the best to, and I think that's normal. And the old songs have a certain added value in terms of production themes, like the train ride in the case of 'Rudy'. That was always a highlight at concerts. QUESTION: Do you find something new in those songs after having played them for so long? MARK: Yes, after having played a song hundreds of times, sometimes you realize that you should have recorded it differently, but it is too late. The songs always keep growing, and that is part of the whole process. And another good reason to record a record like this is that there are small changes to the arrangements that are made to make the songs work well live. QUESTION: Does that mean that on this album the fans are going to have a deeper interpretation of the music? MARK: It's basically our deepest interpretation of how each song should be, because when you record it in the studio, you've only been rehearsing it for a week or two, and in such a short time you can't capture the best of it. You end up recording something that becomes that song, but after a while it grows and transforms. QUESTION: How did you decide to do the recordings at the Royal Albert Hall? MARK: I found out that we were going to record a live album, but I don't know why the decision was made to do it there ... I guess it was because we were playing five consecutive nights and it was better to have the whole assembly in one place than to take it along from side to side. So we played the first two nights, which were amazing, and then they set up the mics and everything else for the recordings. It is impressive how some performances were much better than others. Almost all the songs on the album were drawn from a single performance, which turned out to be the best. QUESTION: Any other thoughts? MARK: About the band? I don't know, I can't think of anything else ... I've thought about it enough!
@Left Hand Thanks for that. I've actually discovered that website because of this thread but didn't dig deep enough to find that interview. One highlight from the 1997 tour reports (man, why is the current official Supertramp website so much worse?!) was this... maybe a bit hyperbolic, but still! Another interesting comment about the Sheffield, September 26, 1997, show: The show was recorded by BBC Radio 2 (yeah we must be getting old, bloody radio 2!!) and according to John it will be broadcast on 15th November 1997. He joked about getting your tape recorders out and making a few bootlegs. I should imagine that most of the people there last night will be ready when the show goes out. I've found a tracklisting, unfortunately it's a pretty heavily edited recording: 01 - It's A Hard World 02 - You Win, I Lose 03 - Listen To Me Please 04 - Sooner Or Later 05 - Rudy 06 - Another Man's Woman 07 - Take The Long Way Home 08 - The Logical Song 09 - Crime Of The Century Finally, I think I understand now why John announced "Breakfast in America" as "For the first time in a decade", since they did not play it on the early parts of the 1997 tour, maybe not even up until that evening. I was also surprised at how little "Give Me a Chance" was played (well, it was a bonus track on the studio album), while "Where There's a Will" and "Live to Love You" got aired more often but not on the recorded night(s). Even "Get Your Act Together" and apparently "C'est What" (in a medley with "Where There's a Will" - however that is possible) were played at least once. In other words, the only songs from Some Things Never Change that probably never got played live are the title track (what a shame) and "Help Me Down That Road". Edit: This looks interesting: Supertramp – Interview CD (1999, CD)
I found another site with some interviews but sadly, several of those links don't work anymore. Interviews
Just purchased a first pressing CD of Supertramp - Brother where you Bound and listened to it for the first time......this album is so underrated it's disgusting. The sonic quality competes with Crime of the Century in my opinion. Personal fav is Cannonball and Better days. Better days has this epic sax solo outro where Democrat politicians pop into the left channel and give their one liners while Republican politicians pop into the right channel and give their one liners.... very cool.
70-10 70-10 Tour - Wikipedia I listened to the Madrid concert. This is the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPE2a7w30yilXSEnXb_mWf1A5HX86qTW4 The Good: Gone Hollywood, Crime Of The Century, Cannonball The Bad: Poor Boy, Put On Your Old Brown Shoes The Ugly: Another Man's Woman My take: Ten minutes long and I can't find the climax transition. That's what I love about it! Goodbye Stranger My take: The rest of it's fine but the "Goodbye Mary, Goodbye Jane" part... Ahhh! Doesn't sound good at all! I do like the outro. My take as a whole: Meh... Not really on par with the standards set by Paris or even Live, 1997. I don't think I even prefer it to Live '88.
John Helliwell said in 2002: “Gone Hollywood” is the one we have never done live… and we have not played “Lover Boy” either. Maybe it's just we have not the right sounds for it … maybe there was a lot of overdubs at the studio... and it’s the same with “Gone Hollywood” . I always say “We must play Gone Hollywood”. In 1979 , for the tour, we tried and rehearsed it and it wasn’t right. But every tour that we do I always say “Let’s do Gone Hollywood”…. Here's another full concert from the 70-10 tour:
It was the Best of Times below... After listening to the Madrid tracklist and hearing a song like Take the long way home, I can now get @JulesRules observation that Mark doesn't play the piano with really as much insistence. Actually, from listening to recorded performances in his time with Crowded House, Mark wasn't a real 'killer' on the piano/ keyboard on those songs either. He was more known for his subtle style so the guitar, drums and bass were more proficient. I do thoroughly enjoy musicians different playing 'styles' as much as the singer's different voice. Mentioning singers, that was also the first time I heard Jesse and Gabe Dixon singing Roger's songs. I thought they sounded more like Roger than Mark did. I wonder what other Supertramp fans think or do fans generally don't like Roger's songs being played, full stop. In my opinion, I think this shows that Mark was not trying to sing like Roger and that was just his normal singing voice when he sings at a higher note. Overall, the Madrid 2010 tracklist, I can't pin it down why I enjoyed the Live, 1997 CD I've got. The performances are still high grade... I think the 1997 performance the band perhaps sounded more tight. The Madrid 2010 tracklist is pretty good but I don't feel inspired to listen to the list again.
I've not heard a lot of Mark's work outside of Supertramp, so I couldn't possibly comment (I've got a couple of Crowded House videos on my "watch later" list). In case anyone wonders, I didn't mean to insinuate he's a bad keyboard player. He does some great things on "Sooner or Later". It's just that Roger has a uniquely hard attack on the keys, no matter whether it's a grand piano or the Wurlitzer. It carries through to some of his solo work, like the live versions of "In Jeopardy" and "Showdown", um... show. Gabe Dixon did come slightly closer to "sounding like Roger" both on keys and vocals. I'll be writing something more extensive about the 2010 tour, which will touch on some of the aspects you mentioned (and I agree with what you said), but first, I want to watch Roger's 2006 Montreal video, which thankfully is on YouTube in complete.
Well, Dougie seems to be cool with the Solo Tramp thing, but apparently, he's Team Roger all the way. About the album itself, it's better than I expected. Live versions sound a lot better than the studio versions without all the cheesy 80s production. But what about those Mikail Graham songs? "Smelly Feat" is the biggest surprise and the best song of the album by far. Such a cool groove and so unlike 1990s music, really enjoyed it. "No Colours:" is pretty good too! By the way, I took the time to see what Roger's website was about and found this: Well, that website seems straight from 1996.
I've downloaded a show from the 2002 tour and am now listening to it. It's the concert from Mannheim, June 7, 2002. For an audience recording it's marvelous. I guess we can thank the band for having an excellent PA sound, but also the taper. A few comments on the songs: School: Mark sounds a bit disinterested. Really not the best song to open a show, especially since it's still as slow as it was in 1997. Slow Motion / Over You: The best thing about those two is the full endings. The live sound makes them a bit warmer, but I'm still not a big fan of "Over You". John attempts to speak German but quickly gives up. Bloody Well Right: A good energy boost after the rather lukewarm new songs. Rick sings "anyway" after the first chorus, similar to how he does it on Live '88. There is no trumpet dialogue, just John soloing as on the original version - and a rather abrupt ending, quite disappointing actually. Tenth Avenue Breakdown: I'm realizing now that Lee Thornburg must have been absent from this show, and probably from the whole tour. So we got John filling in his solo parts with his sax. Other than that, it's a fine version of a great song. The ending is a bit more interesting than on the album. Cannonball: Some unexpected breaks in the big riff. They manage to compensate for the lack of trombone rather well. The closing synth solo has been moved to Hammond organ. John Helliwell suggests that Bob Siebenberg, not James Brown, is the hardest working man in showbiz! In response, Carl throws in some funk licks over the intro to "Sooner or Later". As before, a keyboard player (Rick? Jesse?) has to do Lee's trumpet parts. Carl fills in with some neat jazzy octave guitar licks. According to a review I've read, this time Rick didn't do the percussion but Jesse did. John doing the coda on sax works but doesn't have the same magic, no matter how long he stretches that end part. Another funny announcement - about Carl's new German shoes. And Mark has "the voice of an angel". Free As a Bird: Timeless sounding, as in 1997. Downstream: Pretty much comparable to 1997 too. Asylum: This was the big surprise number, a track that hadn't been played since the 1980s. As in 1985, John, not Mark, took on Roger's vocal parts, this time apparently holding a telephone (and sounding like he's singing into one too). Unlike the Paris version, this rendition has the gravitas of the original recording. Although Rick can't quite reproduce the madness of the ending (even in 1979 he couldn't), this version is still appropriately menacing and clearly a high point of the performance. The playout gets extended with a bit of clarinet fun turning into... I don't know, a Dixieland version of "Coming Home to See You"? Quite funny and really fast. Give a Little Bit: This was Jesse's first spotlight moment, singing and playing acoustic 12-string guitar. He gets pretty close to Roger at times. From Now On: Better than the 1997 version, as it's not quite as lethargic. Take the Long Way Home: No announcement! Boo! Another Man's Woman: A similar extravaganza as in 1997, with a loooong, spectacular piano solo that has the audience erupting in spontaneous cheers. The ending is enhanced by some Hendrix-inflected blues playing from Carl. The Logical Song: Mark sounds pretty damn good here. And Rick makes an announcement - I don't think he's ever done that before this tour. According to several sources, he's almost painfully shy, which is why he always left announcements to John. Goodbye Stranger: A fine rendition, with Carl going off the usual rails of the solo and throwing in his patented CV licks. John still does his horn riffs but without Lee to double them, they don't have as much impact. The ending has gotten even more slow than in 1997. After the encore shouts, the last new song follows - "Broken Hearted", which works really well in its position. You can hear the audience clapping along. John's baritone honks impressively. Rudy: A bit slow again. Crime of the Century: The low intro, and I can hear some audience members sing along. I love how the organ slinks into the song once the big coda begins - not sure I've noticed it as much on other live versions. At the end, the drone drops down and we finally get the pre-recorded harmonica intro, just as on Paris. The swing outro tape seems to be the same as can be faintly heard on It Was the Best of Times... I wouldn't put the 2002 performance above the 1997 one. The album supported here isn't as strong, and it shows in the fact that there are less new songs in the setlist. And I definitely miss Lee's contributions. That said, with only John as a horn player and Jesse doing a fine "Give a Little Bit" it has a bit more of the classic 70s sound. So, Supertramp were still a very good live band in 2002, still I found a pretty bad but rather hilarious live review from the 2002 tour: Supertramp oder eine Erfolgsstory mit Lebenslüge - WELT Oh, I don't know. Other than the banner, his website looks pretty OK to me. There's certainly more happening than on the site of his ex-band. Agree that "Smelly Feat" is a great song, but I'm already struggling to remember "No Colours" again...
thanks guys for pointing these out. i went ahead and ordered them a couple of weeks ago, and am enjoying them now. note, they went for a different cover for the 12 inch of i'm begging you. the i'm begging you mixes are classic PWL, and even use the same samples as they did for ABC. later -1
Just came across this Roger vs Supertramp on a Supertramp Facebook page. (Just click onto YouTube and it will come up) Could anyone help to give a year on that performance by Supertramp (switches over at 2 minute)? Possibly 1999? Mark sounded good here.
