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Sweet


dmccombe7
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My first record was "Ballroom Blitz"....still blows me away.
I've got a greatest hits-cd which is just great...so many good songs and so well played and sung..
Teenage Rampage, Hellraiser, Action, The Sixteens, The Lies in your eyes, Love is like oxygen.
Sort of band which inspired me to be a musician myself one day..
So magical : "Are you ready, Steve ? Andy ? Mick ? Allright fellas, lets gooooooooooooooo !"

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Having worked, in the late 80s, with many bands from the [i]Glam[/i] era, I came across BC's Sweet many times and got to know the lads a little.
I have to be honest and say that watching BC on stage was not a pleasant experience. He was clearly not well.
To the normal ticket buying punter he would look drunk, I had even heard that gig reviews would often refer to a 'drunk Brian Connolly'. He wasn't drunk, the fact was, he had been very ill and was on serious medication.

During one of these shows Dave Dee (sadly also, no longer with us) and I were in the wings discussing BC and his performance, I remember saying, 'Jeez, he looks and sounds awful, he should knock it on the head...why does he still do it?' To which Dave Dee replied, 'It's that or the dole!'
hmm, not too much to argue with there.

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[quote name='SteveK' timestamp='1323127974' post='1459734']
...why does he still do it?' To which Dave Dee replied, 'It's that or the dole!'
hmm, not too much to argue with there.
[/quote]
It's a common theme on the nostalgia circuit; most of those you see are the ones who didn't write the hits - or if so - very few of them. The track "Action" was written about the music-business (no names mentioned) all wanting their cut from the band.

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Pure class, with or without Chinn & Chapman, with or without Connolly (RIP), oh to be a young teenager in the early 70's.

Their vocal harmonies were credited as the model for Queen's vocal harmonies, and if I remember right AS got himself an
Ivor Novello award for 'Love is Like Oxygen', still one of my all time favourites.
I may be wrong, but last I heard It's not over, DP was (is) pushing his version of the band west of the atlantic and AS in Europe....

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THE first band I ever stole the singles off my big brother to play..., over and over and over again. I must've been about 5 or 6.

Fox On The Run, Hellraiser, Blockbuster and Teenage Rampage filled my head and started me off with my love of rock music. Great stuff!

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I loved The Sweet as a kid...great singles/b-sides band and in my opinion peaked with Sweet Fanny Adams and Desolation Boulevard. Sadly the only time I saw 'them' live was on a horrific double-bill of Les Gray's Mud and Brian Connoly's Sweet at Guildford Civic Hall about twenty years ago.

Connolly was a gibbering wreck at that time and barely moved two feet from his mic-stand; he had to be led on and off stage. His voice had gone and the drink had obviously wrecked his system. He was being heckled horribly by some blokes in the audience (someone shouted, 'You fat bastard!' and he stammered through response of, 'I've lost forty pounds actually.'). Awful. It's an image I just can't shake, even after all these years.

P

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In the late 80s I did a gig, and the guy doing the PA regularly worked with Brian Connolly. Apparently, at the end of the shows, when the curtains closed he would just fall backwards onto the stage. He would have to be picked up, and held in place til the curtains opened for the encore - the "hands" then running with the curtains, til the end, when the same thing would happen again.

Such a shame. I`m glad I remember The Sweet from Top of The Pops in the early 70s - such good fun, and to me, the best songs from the bands of that era - tho Marc Bolan was a definate contender.

Edit - just listening to my Best Of The Sweet cd - superb!

Edited by Lozz196
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So many sad stories of Brian. Kinda beginning to wish i hadn't opened this thread.
I've always had great memories of sweet.
Always seems a shame to hear these things about a guy who was a great inspiration to so many kids at that time.

Still i have the albums and the memories and that'll do for me.

Good times as they say.

Dave

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  • 4 years later...

I know this thread is about five years old, but the restored version of the Live/Studio double 'Strung Up' dropped through my letterbox at the weekend and I've been playing that along with Sweet Fanny Adams and Desolution Boulevard almost exclusively for the last few days.

Some 40 years on, I'm still knocked out by how good they were, or more to the point, what a great product they bought to the market. I can still remember the excitement I felt when, as a ten year old kid, I read in Disco 45 that the next single would be called Ballroom Blitz (whatever that actually meant). These three albums (along with a handful of Sparks and Mott The Hoople albums), formed the backbone of what consituted my record collection as a pre-teenage kid and I've come to accept that it was probably Steve Priest who initially made me want to play the bass in the first place.

Great stuff.

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A greatly underrated and overlooked band imo. I was lucky enough to see them at the then Hammersmith Odeon after they returned from touring the States. A fantastic concert. They used to rehearse at Ram Studios in Hayes Middlesex and my Mum would often tell me they'd been in the bank where she used to work. Surprisingly, a very hard rocking band.

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[quote name='NancyJohnson' timestamp='1464792072' post='3062598']
I read in Disco 45 that the next single would be called Ballroom Blitz (whatever that actually meant).[/quote]
'Disco 45'.. Blimey, that's a blast from the past.

It felt like rough book paper and was in an odd/vibrant colour each month!

My overriding memory of that publication is seeing the lyrics to Ride a White Swan in print and it nearly blowing my tiny head off - what could it all mean, it sounds amazing but makes no sense?!

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Some old 'lost' live footage from a show on German TV in '74 has recently appeared. Quality stuff.

[media]http://youtu.be/Ndnidos5HRU[/media]

http://youtu.be/8rGYtfC0R_U

Edited by Paul S
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[quote name='ColinB' timestamp='1464850344' post='3063060']
Sweet Fanny Adams was the first album I ever bought...... I still listen occasionally. Fantastic band.
[/quote]

Think this was my first proper band album too (after the usual TOTP's compilation albums)

Also the Strung Up album is a fantastic remix of the old songs. New singer does a great job as a replacement for Brian.

Dave

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