Currently on the Moonbase You Tube turntable is a classic from my rockin' youth, the soft riffs of Stillwater and their eponymous album from 1977: yep, the same year of Star Wars: A New Hope!
Stillwater: Clean, crisp American guitar work, boogie woogie and a further lesson, in Mind Bender, on how to use the Talk Box in rock, an effect made famous in '76 by one Pete Frampton.
I so remember listening to Stillwater as a 16 year old, my head a meadow of goblins and rock gods and being inspired to form an imaginary band called Slowmeander, a name inspired by Stillwater.
Slowmeander never made any record deals but I did write probably my first song under that title, one Dark They Were and Golden Eyed.
This was inspired by a paper bag my big brother brought back from London from a shop called ..... Dark They Were and Golden Eyed, the original Sci-Fi geek HQ, later to become Forbidden Planet
[anyone ever go to Dark They Were ..?]
A band also called Stillwater appeared in a relatively modern flick called Almost Famous, but alas I've never seen it and don't know if its the band I listened to back in '77. If they were they must have been actors!
I went to Dark they were... I bought a Star Trek sciences division uniform badge which I had sewn onto jeans!
ReplyDeleteYou were a fizzicist even then Kev! What was the shop like?
DeleteI seem to recall it looked a lot smarter than the Denmark st. Forbidden Planet. In those days gems impossible to find elsewhere could be had. Now FP seems like a supermarket and contains nothing I'd want. The future ain't what it used to be!
DeleteI too went to 'Dark They Were...', but it did not become 'Forbidden Planet'.
ReplyDeleteThat was a separate shop in Denmark St, which I also went to, on the same day, on a trip to London in about 1978 or 79. Think I bought a Starlog magazine special there about Sci Fi Movie Special Effects.
Mish.
My apologies Mish. I mis-read the Wiki entry for Dark They Were. I remember that magazine. I have the Starlog book on Sci Fi Models and also their book on Horror. I would have loved to have gone to Dark and Forbidden Planet in the Seventies/ early Eighties.
DeleteNever got there myself, being trapped in Bonnie Scotland back then but I recall an advert for the shop in Science Fiction Monthly magazine and I'mm almost certain it was drawn by Brian Bolland or Dave Gibbons in their pre2000AD days.
ReplyDeleteI seem to remember those cool magazine adverts too Mike. Somewhere in my stack there'll be one but I'll never find it when I want it!
DeleteI gave the album a listen.Thumbs Up!To my ear, Stillwater sounds like a mash up of Todd Rundgren's Utopia and maybe Boston.That song at the 24 minute mark was a breakaway for me,with that funky Fender Rhodes Piano.Excellent!
ReplyDeletehey that's great that you gave it a spin Brian! Glad you enjoyed it. I can see the link with Boston, that crisp clean rock sound. Utopia I don't know. I shall have to have a listen to them.
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