NWOBHM

[Killed_by_Death]

 

Everyone knows about Venom & Grim Reaper, how about the more obscure?

 

[petebassist]

That's a blast from the past. I never saw the Tygers but in the early 80s Fred Purser the guitarist used to hang out in the King Arms in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, where I used to drink every weekend. He went on to be a successful music producer. Thanks for sharing 🙂

[Shaggy]

3 minutes ago, petebassist said:

That's a blast from the past. I never saw the Tygers but in the early 80s Fred Purser the guitarist used to hang out in the King Arms in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, where I used to drink every weekend. He went on to be a successful music producer. Thanks for sharing 🙂

I hadn’t realised Fred had gone on to join Tygers - he was in Penetration who were one of my favourite New Wave bands in the late ‘70’s.   His solos were always a bit more “metal” than most of the Punk rockers.......

[petebassist]

5 minutes ago, Shaggy said:

I hadn’t realised Fred had gone on to join Tygers - he was in Penetration who were one of my favourite New Wave bands in the late ‘70’s.   His solos were always a bit more “metal” than most of the Punk rockers.......

Yes mate Penetration were from Ferryhill, a little town a couple of miles from Bishop Auckland. Great band, still going strong I believe. 

[nilebodgers]

14 minutes ago, petebassist said:

That's a blast from the past. I never saw the Tygers but in the early 80s Fred Purser the guitarist used to hang out in the King Arms in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, where I used to drink every weekend. He went on to be a successful music producer. Thanks for sharing 🙂

Small world, I’m from Bishop although I had left to go to college by the early 80s and didn’t go back to live. We always used to drink in the Sportsman at the edge of the market place.

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

Wow! Different from the  lineup I saw back in '79/'80

No disrespect , but when I saw them they were not my  cup of tea at all.

I saw them on one occasion ( probabky supporting Saxon ) when John Sykes was the new guy . He stood out . 
I think it was Jess cox that I couldn't get on with . 
One time back in the mid '80s I was going past hammy odeon and I saw the outside of the venue  and T OPT headlining . Never thought that possible .

Then on a Saturday morning , I saw a video for love potion no 5 on some kids tv programme . 
The video here is good , and far better than what I remember of this band ..

[skankdelvar]

At one time Iron Maiden, Def Leppard and the Tygers of Pan-Tang were spoken of in the same breath, particularly if it were Geoff Barton doing the breathing.

[Killed_by_Death]

 

I can't find the TisWas clip of MH, but there's this:

 

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

4 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

At one time Iron Maiden, Def Leppard and the Tygers of Pan-Tang were spoken of in the same breath, particularly if it were Geoff Barton doing the breathing.

True skank 

From what I remember , Angelwitch and diamond head also . 
so many bands from that era . 
some of the best gigs were from sledgehammer . They were odd at the marquee, where the fans ended up sitting on the stage .

As for Angelwitch , Kevin Riddles was the man who kept it altogether imho , with Kevin heyboirne not really saying much ..

[petebassist]

2 minutes ago, nilebodgers said:

Small world, I’m from Bishop although I had left to go to college by the early 80s and didn’t go back to live. We always used to drink in the Sportsman at the edge of the market place.

Yes small world, I'm from Coundon, I used to drink in the Sportsman a lot as well - I left the NE in the late 80s. 

I should put a vid on here for Prefab Sprout, another local band, but they weren't very metal...

[Paul S]

Speaking of Def Leppard, last night I stumbled upon a fairly recent live performance of theirs.  Embedded below.

Now I put on the table immediately that I believe Joe Elliot to be a twonk of the first order.  I've always struggled to bond with the image he portrays and recently he seems to have morphed into a bag lady.  But this video I thought was amazing, almost breathtaking in it's power.  How much is really live, I wonder?  And the guitarist with no shirt.  I looked him up - he is the same age as me - 63.  If I had a torso like that I'd never wear a shirt either.

 

 

[Old Man Riva]

45 minutes ago, RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE said:

True skank 

From what I remember , Angelwitch and diamond head also . 
 

I once auditioned for Diamond Head in Birmingham (in the early 80s) - they were after a bass player and drummer at the time and my mate (a drummer) wouldn’t go by himself so I said I’d go with him. I didn’t know anything about them beforehand and on hearing their stuff it really wasn’t my kind of thing at all, but my mate was desperate for the gig so I said I’d go.

Needless to say it wasn’t a crushing blow when they ventured I/we were “too funky”, and, most importantly, I do recall them being both really nice guys, despite everything being delivered in that wonderful monotone Brummie way!

36 minutes ago, Paul S said:

Speaking of Def Leppard, last night I stumbled upon a fairly recent live performance of theirs.  Embedded below.

And the guitarist with no shirt.  I looked him up - he is the same age as me - 63.  If I had a torso like that I'd never wear a shirt either.

His previous band, Girl, are worth a listen. They were lumped in with the NWOBHM bands of the time but were so far away from them in terms of sounds and style they may as well have been from a different planet.

They did a good cover of Do You Love Me, by Kiss, that Geoff Barton championed at the time.

They supported UFO on their No Place to Run, and were excellent...

[Killed_by_Death]

 

Ha, I like to throw up a photo of Phil Collen whenever there's a thread about Phil Collins.

 

[rushbo]

I was a huge fan of the NWOBHM back in the day, and I saw most of the heavy hitters at the Odeon in Brum (generally supporting a more well established band) or at a few dinky club venues that I was just about old enough to frequent. It was a really great time to be a metalhead.

A couple of years back, I got to review a pretty decent, three CD NWOBHM retrospective called "Winds of Time" for PopMatters. I liked it: https://www.popmatters.com/new-wave-british-heavy-metal-2580612788.html

[Old Man Riva]

1 minute ago, rushbo said:

I was a huge fan of the NWOBHM back in the day, and I saw most of the heavy hitters at the Odeon in Brum (generally supporting a more well established band) or at a few dinky club venues that I was just about old enough to frequent. It was a really great time to be a metalhead.

A couple of years back, I got to review a pretty decent, three CD NWOBHM retrospective called "Winds of Time" for PopMatters. I liked it: https://www.popmatters.com/new-wave-british-heavy-metal-2580612788.html

Didn’t Def Leppard support Sammy Hagar there?

[rushbo]

Just now, Old Man Riva said:

Didn’t Def Leppard support Sammy Hagar there?

Yup. First time I saw them.

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

My very first gig : Nov 1979 Quartz , girl , praying mantis at music machine .

Mantis were really good . Girl didn't seem to be onstage for long but were very loud for me and in truth I didn't like them . Quartz were entertaining but the material wasn't there tbh . 

[Old Man Riva]

18 minutes ago, rushbo said:

Yup. First time I saw them.

Saw that too! I was a fan of the first Montrose album so that was reason enough to go.

I remember Def Leppard being okay, but Sammy Hagar and his band put on a brilliant rock ‘n’ roll show. His voice was amazing. He also had a bassist who did a solo on a Precision Bass - being very impressionable I was very impressed!

4 minutes ago, RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE said:

My very first gig : Nov 1979 Quartz , girl , praying mantis at music machine .

Mantis were really good . Girl didn't seem to be onstage for long but were very loud for me and in truth I didn't like them . Quartz were entertaining but the material wasn't there tbh . 

I think Quartz were another Brummie band. They did a cover of Nantucket Sleighride, which I remember buying from a place in Brum called Reddington’s Rare Records - spent many a happy Saturday in there going through all the records! It was signed, due, I think, to them having a connection to the shop...

Good times...

[police squad]

isn't that John Sykes in the video?

[Noisyjon]

Oh wow, loving this thread everyone. Thanks for your memories and knowledge.

I am just a bit too young to have seen the NWOBHM bands BUT one of my favourite bands always site the genre as a big influence (it's very apparent in their early sound) and the drummer even helped curate this great compilation which helped me get a flavour:

 

[Noisyjon]

Saxon's Motorcycle Man jumped out at me from this.

Oh yeah, the band I mentioned - Metallica!

[4000]

4 hours ago, Killed_by_Death said:

 

Everyone knows about Venom & Grim Reaper, how about the more obscure?

 

John Sykes comes from my neck of the woods and my old band used to rehearse and record at his step dad’s studio, where I’ve met him a couple of times. So Tygers aren’t obscure to me.. NWOBHM happened about the time I started playing and a couple of my early (not very good) bands were roped in with it, in the utterly, utterly obscure category. 😂

[4000]

2 hours ago, RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE said:

True skank 

From what I remember , Angelwitch and diamond head also . 
so many bands from that era . 
some of the best gigs were from sledgehammer . They were odd at the marquee, where the fans ended up sitting on the stage .

As for Angelwitch , Kevin Riddles was the man who kept it altogether imho , with Kevin heyboirne not really saying much ..

Apparently I beat out Kevin Riddles to get the bass chair in one of my early bands. So I was told, anyway.

[Ed_S]

1 hour ago, Old Man Riva said:

I once auditioned for Diamond Head in Birmingham (in the early 80s) - they were after a bass player and drummer at the time and my mate (a drummer) wouldn’t go by himself so I said I’d go with him. I didn’t know anything about them beforehand and on hearing their stuff it really wasn’t my kind of thing at all, but my mate was desperate for the gig so I said I’d go.

Needless to say it wasn’t a crushing blow when they ventured I/we were “too funky”, and, most importantly, I do recall them being both really nice guys, despite everything being delivered in that wonderful monotone Brummie way!

That's epic!

I was just really pleased to be able to go and see as close to the original Diamond Head as I'd ever get, back in 2002 at the Boardwalk in Sheffield when Sean and Brian briefly got back together. Was an absolutely great show but I was seriously scratching round for anybody who'd heard of them and might be interested in going along.

Saw them again supporting Megadeth in 2005 and didn't enjoy that line-up at all - they just reminded me of a pub band covering Metallica covering DH.

[4000]

5 minutes ago, Noisyjon said:

Oh wow, loving this thread everyone. Thanks for your memories and knowledge.

I am just a bit too young to have seen the NWOBHM bands BUT one of my favourite bands always site the genre as a big influence (it's very apparent in their early sound) and the drummer even helped curate this great compilation which helped me get a flavour:

 

That’s the first time I’ve seen a recording featuring Dragster. They played at the Motorheadbangers party (Iron Fist release?) at the Ritz in Manchester - anyone remember the date? Loudest band I ever saw, and that includes Motorhead (several times). Bass player played a TBird - ‘60s IIRC - fingerstyle I think through I think an Orange head. He sounded immense. 

A lot of the other bands used to play at the Norbreck Nightspot back in the day.