frankie goes to hollywood audition for new singer

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3943915.stm

well i knew holly wasn't going to do it,
trevor horn doesn't come out of his biography too well.

hey remember that band who were masqurading as fgth despite having no original members about 3 years ago? why dont they just get one of them in?

the pr*nce of wales will be watching!

― piscesboy, Friday, 29 October 2004 07:56 (twenty-one years ago)

saw advert in nme yesterday

- meant to mention it here .. tis unbelievable stuff ..

― mark e (mark e), Friday, 29 October 2004 09:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Never mind about finding a replacement for the vocalist: have they managed to find replacements for the various members of The Blockheads, who played on some if not all of their records and actually used to go on tour with them and stand in the wings playing the various parts that the members of the band weren't actually sufficiently proficient on their instruments to be able to play properly?

Also, is my memory playing cruel tricks on me again or didn't one of these guys (Mark O'Toole?) actually throw himself repeatedly down a flight of stairs, trying to break his own arm so that he didn't have to be in the band any more?

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 29 October 2004 09:34 (twenty-one years ago)

you're over-estimating the blockheads input to the records. live shows maybe, but the actual tunes never had them on. they were on one of trevor horn's original versions of RELAX, but nothing on the album is credited to them.

― piscesboy, Friday, 29 October 2004 13:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Did anyone catch that comment from Morley in this month's OMM about "veteran Scottish funk musicians" who apparently play on Franz Ferdinand and McFly records?

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 29 October 2004 13:19 (twenty-one years ago)

So it really IS Josef K!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 29 October 2004 13:30 (twenty-one years ago)

or AWB ?

― mark e (mark e), Friday, 29 October 2004 13:37 (twenty-one years ago)

According to the Blockheads Management: "We have a recording in our archives of The Blockheads - late drummer Charlie Charles, Noman Watt-Roy, John Turnbull and Mick Gallagher alone (all 4 were also the band Loving Awareness before joining Chaz Jankel and Davey Payne to become The Blockheads) in a session for Trevor Horn with Holly singing. It is undoubtedly what we all know as Relax. Trevor took the ideas that the guys came up with and fashioned them through a synclavier so that it would become less like 'real' instruments playing and adopt the more synthesised sound that Horn was so famous for then. I don't think that we would ever be able to release this due to copyright but it is a great shame. Not to take anything away from Frankie but it is painfully obvious upon hearing this session that The Blockheads, by jamming around a chord sequence, actually wrote the song that was to become a massive hit. On the other hand they got paid for a days session and got home by 6 (Norman's words). It wasn't only the musicians in Frankie who got screwed!"

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 29 October 2004 14:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I believe Relax was written before FGTH joined up with Horn, also Steve Lipson, Horn's engineer played a lot of the guitar on the singles and the album.

― mzui, Friday, 29 October 2004 14:04 (twenty-one years ago)

RELAX was written already; bassline, drum beat, chorus, verses, same harmony + melodies way before trevor horn got involved. he saw fgth doing it on tv ('the tube' in fact) and thought 'that's a hit'.
the blockheads contributed to a version once trevor horn got involved as session men, but that version was junked and that was why they got no money. if the song was already written, and the versions on the records are essentially played by the ztt/lipson/horn/dudley backing gang i think it's hard as heck 2 see how the blockheads could claim any £££ was owed. understandable that they want 2 claim a bit of history though for their involvement. and who can blame them or the management?

"come.....HOOOAARRGGHH!"

― piscesboy, Friday, 29 October 2004 14:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I wonder if that camp scouser Lance from Brookside can sing?

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Friday, 29 October 2004 14:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I've absolutely no idea how true this is (and, lets' be honest, it's a pretty sad, useless bit of trivia even if it is true) but I was once told that the bass line for Relax had been sampled from someone playing a bass but that the samples had then been arranged with the individual up-stokes and down-strokes of the original bassist's right hand sequenced in such a way that it would be impossible for a flesh-and-blood bassist to actually replicate them.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 29 October 2004 14:27 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah that sounds like classic trevor horn to be honest. when MOJO asked him 'what's your favourite saturday night record' he said 'i've worked every saturday night since i was 13'. painstaking is the word for his work.

― piscesboy, Friday, 29 October 2004 14:45 (twenty-one years ago)

As a bass player, that sounds more like the bassline to Two Tribes, Relax is pretty standard stuff.

― mzui, Friday, 29 October 2004 14:58 (twenty-one years ago)

D'Oh! When I said "Relax" I actually meant "Two Tribes", obv.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 29 October 2004 15:01 (twenty-one years ago)

What's with the "25 years in the biz". Wasn't he Tina Charles' bass player and manager during the Dance, Lady, Dance - Dr Love - Love Me Like A Lover days? ie. 1976.

By the way, I heard him explain once that he originally heard "Relax" on a Radio 1 session (Peel? Long?) while driving his car. I think I remember hearing that version a long, long time ago. He claimed at that point that he had to simplify the bass line 'cos the original one was way too fancy.

― everything, Friday, 29 October 2004 15:05 (twenty-one years ago)

The bassline to Welcome To The Pleasuredome is great, and there's a cool little mini bass solo in the middle of their cover of Born To Run. So yay for whoever played those.

― mzui, Friday, 29 October 2004 16:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Clay Aiken!!

― cs1, Sunday, 31 October 2004 22:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the bass part of "Relax" was built around a one-beat sample from Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer." But I may be hallucinating that.

― Douglas (Douglas), Sunday, 31 October 2004 23:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Apparently Dan from Big Brother 5 auditioned...

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 1 November 2004 10:52 (twenty-one years ago)

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