70s KnockOut Cup- QF 4 *Trans Chigley Express advances*

[never/ever]

A

Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells (opening)





B

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Faith Healer

[sloopjohnc]

A

[Diamond Dog]

For me the tie of the round by quite some.

I love the Tubular Bells intro - I remember hearing it originally and thinking how it was so remarkably unlike anything else I knew (at the time). It's a classic.

The TSAHB is a 'sensational' tune though - the intro sucks you in and then everything builds to the mighty crescendo(s). Marvelous tune.

So tough but it has to be B if only for that wonderful Hammond Organ solo.

[trans-chigley express]

That opening section to Tubular Bells has been so often copied and reinvented but never bettered, Oldfield absolutely nailed it and its use in The Exorcist gave it a welcome touch of spookiness that was never initially intended.

The SAHB tune is a great pick too, it pulls you in from the start and has a slightly menacing feel as it builds nicely to its big finish.

Like match 3 this is another excellent match but as in the previous match I'm going with the instrumental

A

[Count Machuki]

B

[Loki]

A has been used SO many times in the reg Cup.

[The Modernist]

Probably my least favourite of the four ties.
The 'Exorcist' section of Tubular Bells is so overplayed and I'm quite bored of it. The rest of TB is still quite fresh for me, but the version posted fades just as it's getting interesting.
B is, on the face of it, the more interesting selection. A moody and dramatic opening had me anticipating something pretty good, but it soon descended into lumpen 70s metal and boy did it go on. Not for me.

A

[Neige]

most difficult tie for me, but A is closer to my life

[naughty boy]

SAHB are one of those big-but-not-huge 70s acts (like, I dunno, Graham Parker or Uriah Heep or something) with a half-dozen cool tunes but whose output really was 95% dreck. If they'd gone for 'Midnight Moses' or 'Hammer Song' then I wouldn't hesitate. This one is an almighty bore.

Mike Oldfield is a tosser

oh, I'll give it to B - 'cos it's not Thin Lizzy

[Osgood]

For some reason I have never 'got' SAHB. I don't think I have ever heard a full album from them, but the tracks I've heard have not made me feel I should try harder. This is no exception.

A is of course a classic that could have been beaten because of its ubiquity. But not here.

A

[Purgatory Brite]

A difficult choice for me, but A nevertheless.

[toomanyhatz]

Don't really think much of either, but B prattled on and on. A so's not to abstain.

[Polishgirl]

I've always been keen on

A

[Darkness_Fish]

I've never been interested in Tubular Bells outside of The Exorcist, which is one of my all-time favourite films, so it's strange to have to listen to it without that context. It's obviously a quite playful, experimental thing with the chimes rotating off that floatier, cheesier folk melody. It really doesn't need the guitar wankery to come in late, and vomit pea soup onto it's icy sound-stage.

I can't think of many worse tracks in the history of history than Alex Harvey's Delilah, so I'm not giving B much leeway here. It has some confidence to stick with that first intriguing, then tedious opening throb. When the song starts though, they just sound like Queensryche when they got all serious rock. It's as if they think there's something clever about promising a chorus, but never delivering the goods. Because that's only clever when you have a verse, or a tune, or something other than an occasional riff and a weak vocal.

A

[Jumper K]

Fuck me. Even worse than QF1. That Bells shit is dismal. Come to think of it so is Alex's sub-par band.
B. Fuck the bells.

[trans-chigley express]

Fuck the bells.

I believe that's the title of the latest sequel.

[fange]

B is ok, but it doesn't really grab me as much i had hoped over the 7 mins. length. A is a hoary classic, but it still retains a special something that is hard to deny.


A

[Samoan]

A

[Ranking Ted]

Abstain

[Rayge]

Two tracks from albums I bought when they came out
a - I was one of the first in the queue for TB when it came out in 1973, partly because it featured St Viv, but mainly because the reviews suggested it was a studio tour de force, which was definitely my bag. And indeed, side one was great trip music, and the first bong on the titular bells, well, that remains one of the all-time great moments in recorded sound. That said, it's yet another thing I stopped listening to when punk saved music (thanks, yomp), and I don't recall ever hearing it since. Of course, I studiously avoided The Exorcist, so there's none of that shit baggage around it. This 'intro' (as I remember, perhaps imperfectly, side one was one long crescendo) sells it short a bit, just as it starts to get going. It's literally inconsequential. And of course its use in the film kick-started the sales and thus played a large part in the raising of that hippy breadhead and major Tory tit to fortune, so for that alone should be condemned, but just for the music, 4 / 10
b - Alex's theatricality and Brechtian affectations never sat particularly well with me, but I liked the band, who made a roiling, interestingly textured and different sound, without the wilful muso-isms of the Architectural Tendency or the platform boot bubblegum stomp of the Brickies in Lipgloss Brigade. This track is a case in point, with the band concocting a slow build with some baroque touches, then Alex coming in with a gurn and a warble that changes the whole tone of the track, before Hugh and Zal take it over again and ramp up the sleaze. The 'hands on you' refrain coming from a dodgy chancer with a well-used face folded around a gappy grin/leer, a French onion-seller T-shirt, and strident braces (suspenders, Murrikans) carried a bit of a frisson back in the day. 4.5 / 10

B