40 Year Itch : KISS Plays First Gig

[Purchase the Kiss debut album]

On January 30th, 1973, just weeks after Ace Frehley answered an ad in Village Voice from a band called Wicked Lester seeking a lead guitarist, the newly christened Kiss played their first gig at the Popcorn Club.Three people showed up.

Inspired by Alice Cooper and the New York Dolls, the boys took to the stage wearing makeup in March of 1973. By 1974, they were Hotter Than Hell. 

40 Year Itch : The Caped Composer

[Purchase]

Released in January of 1973, and written on Yes's tour of the United States, Rick Wakeman's Six Wives of Henry VII is an album of instrumentals. Each track is devoted to one of Henry VII's wives, about whom Wakeman read on long plane trips between gigs.  The album was recorded in London with members of Yes and The Strawbs and was debuted in a BBC performance on The Old Grey Whistle Test ( seen below)

The album sold 15 million copies and stands up better than most of the albums from the progressive rock era. That's despite mostly dreadful reviews that met the album.

inside cover of Six Wives

40 Year Itch: A Star in the Face of the Sky

[Purchase]

Released on January 26, 1973 , Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player --the #1 album that secured Elton John's rise to superstardom--also carries a whiff of mediocrity about it. Even Elton has dismissed it. "I really like some of the things on Don't Shoot Me but as far as continuous flow, it doesn't hold up. It's really a bubblegum album."

      Elton and the band knocked out the album just weeks after Honky Chateau came out. His contract called for two albums a year and the pressure was getting to Elton. "I made Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player really on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I was so ill. I didn't know it, but I had glandular fever and was very slow."

   

The album contains two big singles. The first was the cheesy early 60's tribute "Crocodile Rock" that, in its "la la las" quotes Pat Boone's "Speedy Gonzales".



The better hit was the enigmatic but beautiful "Daniel". In its final verse Daniel is revealed to be a Vietnam vet trying to get back home to the life he led. But without that reveal, plenty of people guessed Elton was singing about a boyfriend he missed.



  Our favorite deep cut is "Elderberry Wine" which could have been an A-side single despite its rhyming "You aimed to please me/ Cooked black-eyed peas me." In all, 1973's Don't Shoot Me was just a slight hiccup. Elton's greatest album was ten months away.

 

40 Year Itch : The Kinks Play the BBC

The Kinks played an amazing 30 minute set at the BBC Television Centre on January 24, 1973 for the program "In Concert".
 The set list:
1. Counter
2. Victoria
3. Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues
4. Dedicated Follower of Fashion
5. Lola



6. Holiday
7. Good Golly Miss Molly
8. You Really Got Me
9. All Day and All of the Night



10. Waterloo Sunset



11. Village Green Preservation Society
12. Ending

40 Year Itch : Lost and Found

[Purchase Out of Print Album]

While The Kinks busied themselves with concept albums like Everybody's In Show-Biz and Preservation Acts 1 and 2 for RCA, their former label Reprise put out The Great Lost Kinks Album , a contractual obligation album of extra songs, B sides, singles ("I'm Not Like Everybody Else", "Plastic Man"), soundtrack songs and tunes originally cut for a 1968 Dave Davies solo album ("Lincoln County", "Groovy Movies"). 

      Some of the sound quality is abhorrent . Lawsuits were filed. In 1975 RCA discontinued the album. 

     Still, the album has enough to recommend it that Robert Christgau gave the album an A- , writing "Fragile, unkempt, whimsical, sometimes thrown away, with brother Dave left room for a cinematic fantasy of his own, it sticks close to the harmless eccentrics who comprise the only socially significant subculture about which Ray has ever had anything interesting to say ."

40 Year Itch: The Stones Play Hawaii

Big O's Roio website [for entire show]

One week after Elvis performed his worldwide concert from Hawaii via satellite, The Rolling Stones formally kicked off their Pacific Tour with three shows in the Aloha islands on January 21-22, 1973. Ben Fong-Torres and photographer Annie Leibowitz followed the band for a Rolling Stone magazine cover story. But I prefer the way local columnist Wayne Harada describes the first night:

Jagger at the beginning of  "Sweet Virginia"

Jagger made his entrance in pure stardust -- with glitter flowing from his hair, the lights reflecting his rhinestoned headband and matching bracelet, his eyelids painted a decadent silver, his clinging white bodysuit revealing a trim, feline frame.
  And it was a screeeeammm when he burst into "Brown Sugar"...

(Jagger) is both clown and adagio dancer, in a myriad of expressions. Sometimes he smiles a gentle smile: another moment, he is vulgar and even sexual in his caresses with his microphone...It was indeed the greatest show on earth.

The next stop was supposed to be Japan but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to let the band enter because of drug charges. The Pacific Tour resumed February 11th in New Zealand. The Hawaii shows were the last Rolling Stones concerts to feature Mick Taylor.

Trevor Horn's All Time Top Ten

Nicknamed "The Man Who Invented The Eighties" thanks to his interest in synthesizers, future CBE  and former Buggle  ("Video Killed The Radio Star") Trevor Horn had left Yes ( for whom he played bass on Drama) to produce albums for Dollar, ABC and Spandau Ballet when he presented Smash Hits this Top Ten for its May 13, 1982 issue. He would return to Yes as a producer on the comeback 90125 which makes that #6 comment very telling. The list comes courtesy of Brian at Like Punk Never Happened.



Tom Dolby Airwaves




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