On This Day 21/02/1978 XTC

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On this day, 21 February 1978, new wave band XTC played Cardiff’s Top Rank. The band had just released their debut album White Music.

Released on 20 January 1978. It was the follow-up to their debut, 3D EP, released three months earlier. White Music reached No. 38 in the UK Albums Chart and spawned the single "Statue of Liberty", which was banned by BBC Radio 1 for the lyric "In my fantasy I sail beneath your skirt". In April 1978, the group rerecorded "This Is Pop" as their third single.

Originally titled Black Music, referring to black comedy, the title was changed at the suggestion of both Virgin Records and the band's manager. The resultant title, White Music, refers to white noise.

White Music achieved modest success, charting in the Top 40 on the UK album charts, although its singles failed to chart. The band performed "Radios in Motion", "I'll Set Myself on Fire" and "Statue of Liberty" on BBC Two's The Old Grey Whistle Test on 14 February 1978.

XTC

Andy Partridge – guitar, harmonica, vocals

Colin Moulding – bass guitar, vocals

Barry Andrews – piano, organ

Terry Chambers – drums

Setlist

Radios in Motion;

Cross Wires;

Statue Of Liberty;

I'll Set Myself On Fire;

I'm Bugged;

New Town Animal In A Furnished Cage;

Into The Atom Age;

All Along the Watchtower;

She's So Square;

Do What You Do;

Dance Band;

Science Friction;

Neon Shuffle;

Hang On To The Night.

On This Day 14/02/1979 Stiff Little Fingers

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On this day, 14 February 1979, Irish punk band Stiff Little Fingers played Cardiff’s Grannies Night Club.

Prior to becoming Stiff Little Fingers, Jake Burns, vocals and guitar, Henry Cluney, guitar, Gordon Blair, bass, and Brian Faloon, drums, were playing in a rock music cover band, Highway Star, in Belfast. Upon the departure of Blair (who went on to play with another Belfast group, Rudi), Ali McMordie took over on bass.

Cluney had by this time discovered punk, and introduced the rest of the band to it. They decided that Highway Star was not a punk enough name, and after a brief flirtation with the name "The Fast", decided to call themselves Stiff Little Fingers, after The Vibrators' song, which appears on the album Pure Mania.

Stiff Little Fingers, especially the frontman and main songwriter Jake Burns, were heavily influenced by The Clash and Elvis Costello. According to Burns, "what [The Clash] did more than anything else was give me the confidence, through its lyrical subject matter, to realise it was OK to write about my own life and experiences."

The group started to write songs about growing up in the Troubles in late 1970s Northern Ireland. Among the first Stiff Little Fingers songs were "State of Emergency" and "Breakout".

SLF's decision to write songs about the experiences of young people growing up in The Troubles proved controversial. Some Northern Ireland punk bands felt songs about the Troubles were exploiting the sectarian conflict. There was also criticism and suspicion over the involvement and influence the management team, especially Gordon Ogilivie, was having on the band. The political differences were reinforced by musical differences as SLF's rockier punk sound contrasted with the more melodic pop punk of The Undertones and Rudi. Some of the criticism was simply down to band rivalries and jealousy.

There were a number of well-publicised arguments; The Undertones accused Stiff Little Fingers of sensationalising the Northern Ireland conflict, while they retorted that The Undertones ignored it. Michael Bradley, The Undertones bassist, tells of a confrontation in 1979 between The Undertones’ John O’Neill and SLF's Jake Burns: "He launched into Jake, not physically but verbally. Slagging his records, slagging the journalist writing the songs and slagging the band." Michael Bradley now describes ‘Suspect Device’ as "a great record, although at the time we weren't impressed, probably because they'd made a record before us".

On This Day 13/02/1974 Thin Lizzy

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On this day, 13 February 1974, Irish rockers Thin Lizzy played Cardiff’s Top Rank on their Vagabonds of the Western World tour.

The band's third album, Vagabonds of the Western World, was released in September 1973 following strong airplay in the UK, but again failed to chart.

The accompanying single "The Rocker" also found little success outside Ireland, and the momentum gained from their hit single "Whiskey in the Jar" was lost.

Eric Bell suddenly left the band on New Year's Eve 1973 after a gig at Queen's University Belfast, due to increasing ill-health and disillusion with the music industry, and young ex-Skid Row guitarist Gary Moore was recruited to help finish the tour.

Moore stayed until April 1974; the band recorded three songs with him in that time, including the version of "Still in Love with You" that was included on the fourth album Nightlife.

The band’s record label Decca had released Thin Lizzy's version of a traditional Irish ballad, "Whiskey in the Jar", as a single.

The band was angry at the release, feeling that the song did not represent their sound or their image, but the single topped the Irish chart, and reached No. 6 in the UK in February 1973, resulting in an appearance on Top of the Pops.

It also charted in many countries across Europe. However, the follow-up single, "Randolph's Tango", was a return to Lynott's more obscure work, and it did not chart outside Ireland.

On This Day 07/02/1979 Radio Stars

On this day, 7 February 1979 punk rock Radio Stars played Newport’s Stowaway Club.

Radio Stars were formed by Sparks exile Martin Gordon[2] (bass, songwriter) and also included ex-John's Children vocalist Andy Ellison and Ian MacLeod (guitar) in 1977, following the end of their under-achieving glam supergroup, Jet, the previous year.

The band signed to Chiswick Records and released their debut single, "Dirty Pictures", in April 1977..

In January 1978, the band entered the Top 40 of the UK Singles Chart, with "Nervous Wreck", backed with "Horrible Breath". The single charted for three weeks and peaked at No. 39 on 4 February.

The band performed the song on BBC's Top of the Pops on 19 January 1978, with newsreader Kelly St John. The B-side, "Horrible Breath", was a song written by Marc Bolan from his time with John's Children.[

The debut album, Songs for Swinging Lovers, named in reference to the Frank Sinatra album, appeared in December 1977. The band toured with Eddie and the Hot Rods and Squeeze, and played the Reading Festival in 1978. The Radio Stars released their second album in 1978, entitled Holiday Album.

The album included their live favourite "Sex in Chains Blues", about the exploits of the so-called 'Mormon kidnapper' Joyce McKinney. The band undertook an extensive UK tour in 1978, which also featured Trevor White (a former member of Sparks) and Chris Gent (saxophone/backing vocals), but Gordon left soon after. The second album flopped, effectively ending the band,

On This Day 06/02/1975 Barclay James Harvest

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On this day, 6 February 1975, prog rock band Barclay James Harvest played Cardiff University.

After signing with EMI's Parlophone label in the UK for one single in early 1968 (entitled "Early Morning / Mr. Sunshine"), they moved to the more progressively inclined Harvest label.

The name of the band, according to The International Barclay James Harvest Fan Club, signifies nothing specifically. Having exhausted other possibilities, each of the band members wrote single words on pieces of paper which were drawn out of a hat one by one.

All were rejected until only three were left: James, a man who used to sing with the band, Harvest because they were living in a farmhouse, and Barclay after Barclays bank, because they aspired to make money. These were then rearranged to get the best-sounding name of Barclay James Harvest

On This Day 27/01/1977 Be Bop Deluxe

On this day, 27 January 1977, rock band Be Dop Deluxe played Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre on their Live In The Air Age Tour, supported by Steve Gibbons Band.

Be-Bop Deluxe was founded in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, by singer, guitarist and principal songwriter Bill Nelson in 1972.

The tour provided the recordings for their soon to be released Live! In The Air Age album featuring songs recording during the tour.

The band had a few months before released their fourth studio album Modern Music, which was to be the band’s highest studio album chart placing, peaking at No 12 in the UK charts.

Stylistically, the songs took elements from progressive rock, glam rock (the band had flirted with make-up in the early days) and hard guitar rock. "Ships in the Night", taken from the band's third album Sunburst Finish, was their most successful single in both the UK and the US. The single features an alto saxophone solo by Ian Nelson.

The album was notably the first to be produced by EMI employee John Leckie, who had hitherto worked for the company as a recording engineer, in which capacity he had served on Axe Victim, which he also in effect produced. It was clearly a happy relationship: Leckie would go on to produce all the subsequent Be-Bop Deluxe and Bill Nelson's Red Noise albums for Harvest, including the proposed Red Noise album Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam that Harvest refused to release. Nelson shared producing credits with Leckie from Drastic Plastic onward.

The first three Be-Bop Deluxe albums are all, in one way or another, named after guitars. "Axe" is slang for a guitar, "Futurama" is a particular make of guitar, while "Sunburst Finish" refers to a style of finishing for the instrument.

The title track of the fourth album, Modern Music, was a ten-minute suite of songs inspired by the experience of the band's touring the US.

Setlist

Life in the Air Age

Fair Exchange

Piece of Mine

Sister Seagull

Mill Street Junction

Ships in the Night

Swan Song

Maid in Heaven

Shine

Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape

Twilight Capers

The Modern Music Suite

Forbidden Lovers

Down on Terminal Street

Encore:

Blazing Apostles

On This Day 08/02/1977 Gallagher & Lyle

On his day, 8 January 1977, Scottish musical duo Gallagher and Lyle played Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre on their Love On The Airwaves tour in support of their sixth studio album Love On The Airwaves which peaked at #19 on the UK album charts.

Their first recognition came in 1968, when they were signed by the Beatles to write for Apple Records' artists. They were founding members of the band McGuinness Flint and wrote the 1970 UK chart hit "When I'm Dead and Gone".

In 1972, they formed the duo Gallagher and Lyle, whose fifth album Breakaway charted well, the title track being a cover hit for Art Garfunkel in 1975, and it included the hit songs "Heart on My Sleeve" and "I Wanna Stay with You". Don Williams took their song "Stay Young" to No. 1 on the US Country charts.

The duo split in 1980, but re-formed in 2010 and worked together on an intermittent basis, mainly as a live act, until 2018.

Gallagher and Lyle have worked, jointly and individually, on records with, among others, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Ronnie Lane, Ronnie Wood, Joan Armatrading, Ralph McTell, Sandy Denny, Fairport Convention and Jim Diamond. Artists who have released Gallagher and Lyle songs include Bryan Ferry, Ringo Starr, Elkie Brooks, Fairport Convention, Art Garfunkel and Joe Brown.

On This Day 04/01/1976 Procol Harum

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On this day, 4 Jan 1976, progressive rock band Procol Harum played Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre, supported by Viv Stanshall's Vivarium.
Best-known for their recording "A Whiter Shade of Pale" is was the 1967 hit single and one of the few singles to have sold over 10 million copies.

Touring to support Procol's Ninth (their eighth studio album, ninth including Live) that was released in September 1975.

Procol's Ninth was the first release from the band to feature non-original songs: a remake of The Beatles' "Eight Days a Week" and Leiber & Stoller's own "I Keep Forgetting". "Eight Days a Week" was put on the album by the producers, initially against the band's wishes. The album also featured "Pandora's Box", a track that had been composed by Gary Brooker and Keith Reid early in the band's career.

Cash Box said of "Pandora's Box" that "we guarantee you’ll be humming this Procol heavy night and day by the time Halloween rears its head a few weeks from now." As included on Ninth, it differed substantially from the more psychedelic unfinished version of the song that was ultimately released as a bonus track on the 2009 reissue of the band's first album.

Produced by renowned songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Procol's Ninth featured a slightly different direction with a much more stark sound than previous more elaborate productions. According to an interview with guitarist Mick Grabham, conducted by Roland Clare for the 2009 reissue, Leiber and Stoller focused less on the production sound and more on "the structure of the songs".