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These are 2 concerts you should book. What I love about the Enid, is that they were among the few groups to embrace free downloads. When people were using Napster or Pirate Bay etc, Enid put everything on their website for free for people to download. For about £20 for each concert, it's a bargain.
The Enid, now there's a name I once heard long ago and haven't heard in years. I must confess to knowing nothing about them at all other than the name, so as you've mentioned them I will do some checking out.
I've just remembered you asked me on another thread quite some days ago what music I was into. Well I'm hard to pigeon hole, but I like most things to some extent other than rap music, I loathe that with a passion, rather ironic when one of my favourite Blondie hits is Rapture! I have no time for any of these modern type of busker style dullard singers with limited stripped down production values. I like music with good production values that has a bit of excitement about it. Nothing generic.
I'm probably quite mainstream in most of my tastes. David Bowie to Cliff, Kate Bush to Randy Crawford. Secret Combination was the first album I bought on CD a handful of years after it came out.
I do like early 80's synth pop and new wave, I love Trevor Horn's 80's stuff too and Jean Michel Jarre, dance/disco music, the sound of Philly and soul music. One of the more interesting records I bought as a 14 year old was Robert Plant's Big Log which I think was a pretty classy track to buy for a boy that age actually and rather pleases me looking back.
Here's a random shuffle selection of about 60 tracks off my ipod that I actually downloaded and paid for to give just a dip into my listening. Plenty missing here, not as much rock music in this lot I noticed. That's a random 60 from nearly 2,000.
Any you really like here or don't know and are keen to discover GM?
Frida - I Know What's Going On.
Mobiles - Drowning In Berlin.
Al Jarreau - Mornin'.
David Bowie - Where Are We Now?
Alan Parsons Project - Sirius.
Barbra Streisand - Woman In Love.
Cars - Heaartbeat City.
Godley & Creme - Under Your Thumb.
Lindsay Buckingham - Trouble.
Pink Floyd - Learning To Fly.
Sister Sledge - Thinking Of You.
Sparks - This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us.
Susan Fassbender - Twilight Cafe.
Dollar - Hand Held In Black & White
Bryan Ferry - The 'In' Crowd.
Who - Won't Get Fooled Again.
Amii Stewart - Friends.
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On.
PhD - I Won't Let You Down.
Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway - Back Together Again.
Orson - No Tomorrow.
Commodores - Machine Gun.
Jon & Vangelis - I'll Find My Way Home.
Ian Dury & The Blockheads - What A Waste.
Hozier - Take Me To Church.
Hazel O'Connor - Will You?
Gordon Giltrap - Heartsong.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Two Tribes (Annihilation).
Abba - Head Over Heels.
Beatles - A Day In The Life.
Olivia Newton-John - Landslide.
Slade - How Does It Feel?
Friendly Fires - Silhouettes.
Imagination - Just An Illusion.
Jona Lewie - You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties.
You have an interesting playlist Rich. In the 80s it was either you liked pop or metal, It was very separate. It's hard to believe Exile are pretty much a country rock band by they released a mainstream song like Kiss You All Over.
I am impressed you have Rick Wakeman, Alan Parsons Project (Eye In The Sky is a good song but very overplayed), Gordon Giltrap (who I still want to see live) and Jean-Michel Jarre who is like Marmite.
People keep suggesting to me Enter Shikari, I think they are shit.
Focus has postponed some dates until 2026 Rich, but this is the next best thing. Jan was on some of their best albums. stables.org/event/jan-akkerman
If you like folk Police Dog Hogan is another worth seeing, It was the first band I saw after the lockdown. I had never heard of them before but wanted to go and see something live for my sanity. The downside to their gig was that the concessions stand was a rip-off. 20 odd pounds for Police Dog Hogan...it's a bargain.
You're determined to get me fully focussed on Focus aren't you!
Dollar are more interesting than first seems. Only a couple of weeks ago ABC's Martin Fry was on a segment on Sounds Of The 80's on Radio 2 about tracks certain pop stars like a lot and he actually picked Hand Held In Black & White by Dollar, one of Trevor Horn's productions. Before I was able to get hold of it through the internet about 15 years ago I had been obsessed about certain tracks I long remembered as hits in the early 80's that had never been played on radio again that I had ever heard and that was one of them.
I think it's pathetic how limited radio is when it comes to playing music from the 1980's. They ignore so much that were actually huge hits in the day and not even that obscure. A good example is a couple of weeks ago Pick Of The Pops played O Superman by Laurie Anderson which was a No2 single in autumn 1981 yet you'll never hear it played for the sheer sake of it, it only got a radio play because it was in the top three.
There is one song on my shuffled 60 there that I heard a while back is meant to be the favourite single of King Charles III and when I heard this I was mighty surprised. Can you guess what one it is? I'll give you a chance to answer before saying. An educated guess may get it right.
What were your own faves out of that list, and even more interesting are there any that you really disliked? We can't have too much agreement can we!
I was disturbed when I saw the Laurie Anderson - O Superman music video for the first time. Only you can get into Focus but where you are, you should take advantage of any live music that is going on, especially if it's £20 or so.
King Charlie likes Three Degrees. He probably danced to them while talking to plants and imagining himself as a bloody tampon.
I appreciate the talent but I never got into Soul or Funk (Unless it's Sly and The Family Stone and Funkadelic). I hate Disco with a passion but I did like the late 70s and early 1980s Jacksons.
Now, from your list Rich, I like War of the Worlds, Pink Floyd, PhD, Alan Parsons, Ferry, Wakeman, Godley & Creme and Exile.
If you like Exile, you should listen to Southern Pacific.
Yes, you are correct GM, apparently one of the King's favourite songs is actually that high energy Givin' Up Givin' In disco number by the Three Degrees. Clearly a dark horse with his music tastes, it seems so removed from how he comes over.
A bit like the late Queen Mum, whose favourite single was meant to have been Driver 67 with Car 67, the one about a taxi pick up at 83 Royal Gardens sung with a Brummie accent. Who'd have thought it!
Why do you hate disco with a passion? I think you can be into vastly different and opposite genres with equal enthusiasm.
I'll give the Exile stuff a listen. Shame about the lead singer on that big hit track I listed, the long haired Jimmy Stokley, gone nearly 40 years! Just a few days ago on December 1st another member of Exile from the early days also passed;
It's a shame that Exile is only considered a one-hit-wonder. Soft country rock never made it into the UK until a few years ago. I went into a record shop to see if I could buy a replacement copy of Heroes by Cash and Jennings.
The record dealer said that Johnny Cash is now selling like hotcakes among students. I think his music is used in a few Netflix movies and TV shows. C2C is very popular but I am not travelling to London or up North to see it.
I find Disco lyrics very cringy and I hate high-pitched wailing.
True story, my uncle was at the Disco Demolition Night at the baseball ground. He was a nutter and rebel, he never worked nor did drugs but always had money to go over the America.
Knowing him he probably hitched a ride to Chicago from New York, which was like a second home to him. Disco ruined prog rock, yacht rock and AOR. Punk also never did anything for me, I found it very tribal. If you liked Buzzcocks you were ridiculed, if you were into Oi you were seen as a yob, to be fair most punks fans were for the sake of it. Sex Pistols were pretty much created in a factory like Monkees but their fans wouldn't accept it, nor did Monkees fans.
The KISS Army were pretty much an action group to get radio stations to play heavy rock on the radio again.
When you wrote about your dislike of disco I instantly thought of that disco sucks protest, about 1980 wasn't it, so it doesn't surprise me that you've left the link to that as I was almost going to mention that last time myself. When I think of rap music I have often thought back to the disco sucks protest and wondered why we haven't had a rap sucks equivalent yet.
To be fair I'm not sure people listen to disco tracks for the lyrics.
Could you give me a good example of something you consider to be "yacht rock". I know it's not Marti Webb's Always There, the vocal track she did to the theme from Howard's Way - I used to love that show. My late father had his own boat, self made.
I would put Bread, Gary (Dreamweaver) Wright, Eric Carmen, Chicago, Orleans, some America, Jimmy Buffett (of course), Looking Glass, early Kenny Loggins, Steely Dan, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Gap Band, Ace, Air Supply, Toto, AWB, Starbuck and Robbie Dupree ( I am not sure what success he had on this side of the Atlantic)
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