Destiny (Saxon album)
Destiny is the ninth studio album by heavy metal band Saxon released in 1988. It is the only studio album to feature the rhythm section of drummer Nigel Durham and bassist Paul Johnson on it. Biff Byford - vocals Graham Oliver - guitar Paul Quinn - guitar Paul Johnson - bass guitar Nigel Durham - drumsAdditional musiciansStephen Laws Clifford - keyboards Dave Taggart - backing vocals George Lamb - backing vocals Phil Caffrey - backing vocals Steve Mann - backing vocalsProductionStephan Galfas - producer Spencer Henderson - engineer James Allen-Jones - engineer Hook and Manor, Berkshire, UK - recording location Swanyard Studios, London - mixing location Sterling Sound, New York - mastering location
Power & the Glory
Power & the Glory is the fifth studio album by heavy metal band Saxon released in 1983. The album sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide. This is the first Saxon studio album with new drummer Nigel Glockler and was recorded in Atlanta, Georgia in the fall of 1982; the album peaked at #15 in the UK Albums Chart. It reached No.1 in the Metal charts in Sweden, Norway and Germany selling over 1.5 million copies worldwide. It was their first album to enter the Billboard 200 in the US, peaking at #155. A retrospective AllMusic review by Eduardo Rivadavia gave the album three out of five stars. Rivadavia criticised the mixing, saying that the album "sounds as though it was recorded in a tin can, albeit a very large tin can" eliminating the "big, in-your-face, gritty" sound heard on the band's past albums, he criticised the material itself, saying that "despite a few sparks generated by "Redline," "Warrior," and the proto-thrashing "This Town Rocks," only the anthemic title track showed enough staying power to earn a frequent slot in Saxon's live repertoire".
Canadian journalist Martin Popoff writes quite the opposite and considers Power & the Glory Saxon's best album, praising the production and the contribution of "new ass-kicking drummer Nigel Glockler" to "working a metal magic, the embodiment of the NWOBHM's ideals now made real."In 2005, Power & the Glory was ranked number 376 in Rock Hard magazine's book of The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time. All tracks written by Paul Quinn, Graham Oliver, Steve Dawson and Nigel Glockler. "Power and the Glory" was released as a single in April 1983. It reached number 32 on the UK Singles Chart; the song is lyrics relating to war and battles. A music video was made for the song with band members running through a castle with dead dolls. Biff Byford - vocals Graham Oliver - guitar Paul Quinn - guitar Steve Dawson - bass guitar Nigel Glockler - drumsProductionJeff Glixman - producer Jeff Glixman - engineer Cheryl Bordagary - engineer Les Horn - engineer Axis Sound Studio, Atlanta - recording and mixing location
Music video
A music video is a short film that integrates a song with imagery, is produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. There are cases where songs are used in tie-in marketing campaigns that allow them to become more than just a song. Tie-ins and merchandising can be used for food or other products. Although the origins of the music video date back to musical short films that first appeared in the 1920s, they again came into prominence in the 1980s when the channel MTV based their format around the medium. Prior to the 1980s, these kinds of videos were described by various terms including "illustrated song", "filmed insert", "promotional film", "promotional clip", "promotional video", "song video", "song clip" or "film clip". Music videos use a wide range of styles and contemporary video-making techniques, including animation, live action and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film.
Some music videos combine different styles with the music, such as animation and live action. Combining these styles and techniques has become more popular because of the variety for the audience. Many music videos interpret images and scenes from the song's lyrics, while others take a more thematic approach. Other music videos may not have any concept, being a filmed version of the song's live concert performance. In 1894, sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks Joe Stern hired electrician George Thomas and various performers to promote sales of their song "The Little Lost Child". Using a magic lantern, Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneous to live performances; this would become a popular form of entertainment known as the illustrated song, the first step toward music video. In 1926, with the arrival of "talkies" many musical short films were produced. Vitaphone shorts featured many bands and dancers. Animation artist Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called Screen Songs, which invited audiences to sing along to popular songs by "following the bouncing ball", similar to a modern karaoke machine.
Early 1930s cartoons featured popular musicians performing their hit songs on-camera in live-action segments during the cartoons. The early animated films by Walt Disney, such as the Silly Symphonies shorts and Fantasia, which featured several interpretations of classical pieces, were built around music; the Warner Bros. cartoons today billed as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, were fashioned around specific songs from upcoming Warner Bros. musical films. Live action musical shorts, featuring such popular performers as Cab Calloway, were distributed to theaters. Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called St. Louis Blues featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. Numerous other musicians appeared in short musical subjects during this period. Soundies and released from 1940 to 1947, were musical films that included short dance sequences, similar to music videos. In the mid-1940s, musician Louis Jordan made short films for his songs, some of which were spliced together into a feature film, Lookout Sister.
These films were, according to music historian Donald Clarke, the "ancestors" of music video. Musical films were another important precursor to music video, several well-known music videos have imitated the style of classic Hollywood musicals from the 1930s to the 1950s. One of the best-known examples is Madonna's 1985 video for "Material Girl", modelled on Jack Cole's staging of "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Several of Michael Jackson's videos show the unmistakable influence of the dance sequences in classic Hollywood musicals, including the landmark "Thriller" and the Martin Scorsese-directed "Bad", influenced by the stylised dance "fights" in the film version of West Side Story. According to the Internet Accuracy Project, disc jockey–singer J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson was the first to coin the phrase "music video", in 1959. In his autobiography, Tony Bennett claims to have created "...the first music video" when he was filmed walking along the Serpentine in Hyde Park, London in 1956, with the resulting clip being set to his recording of the song "Stranger in Paradise".
The clip was sent to UK and US television stations and aired on shows including Dick Clark's American Bandstand. The oldest example of a promotional music video with similarities to more abstract, modern videos seems to be the Czech "Dáme si do bytu" created in 1958 and directed by Ladislav Rychman. In the late 1950s the Scopitone, a visual jukebox, was invented in France and short films were produced by many French artists, such as Serge Gainsbourg, Françoise Hardy, Jacques Dutronc, the Belgian Jacques Brel to accompany their songs, its use spread to other countries, similar machines such as the Cinebox in Italy and Color-Sonic in the USA were patented. In 1961, for the Canadian show Singalong Jubilee, Manny Pittson began pre-recording the music audio, went on-location and taped various visuals with the musicians lip-synching edited the audio and video together. Most music numbers were taped in-studio on stage, the location shoot "videos" were to add variety. In 1964, Kenneth Anger's experimental short film, Scorpio Rising used popular songs instead of dialog.
In 1964, The Moody Blues producer, Alex Murray, wanted to promote his version of "Go Now". The short film clip he produced and directed to promote the single has a striking visual style that predates Queen's similar "Bohemian Rhapsody" vid
King's Meadow Campus
King's Meadow Campus is a university campus, part of the University of Nottingham, is located in Nottingham. From 1983 until 2005, the complex was an ITV studio complex called East Midlands Television Centre and Carlton Studios; as part of the agreement of the 1982 franchise being awarded to the broadcaster, Associated Television agreed to restructure itself as Central Independent Television and provide separate television studios and news programme for the East Midlands region, a 17-acre site was bought in March 1981. While the complex was under construction, a temporary studio was used in Giltbrook although this was never used because of industrial action at the time; the cost of the build. The foundation stone was laid by Lord Thomson, the chair of the Independent Broadcasting Authority, on 23 February 1982. Central Independent Television began operation in the complex in September 1983, but was opened by the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip in March 1984, it was designed to be spacious and provide the facility to extend if so required – and provide adequate floor-space for the major production work, once carried out at Elstree Centre, as well as provide additional small presentation studios, plus a new permanent base for Central News East.
There were three studios. The first one to be completed was first used on 4 November 1983; the other two were completed by 1 January 1984, just over two months before the official opening by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh on 2 March 1984. Although the site covered 17 acres, the actual studio buildings only covered five acres. At its peak, the studio employed 600 staff, it was decided to maintain continuity with its operations in Birmingham, which resulted in the Nottingham Studios being numbered 5–10. Studio Five, used for local news bulletins and in-vision continuity when that still existed. Studio Seven and Eight were the two biggest studios, dramas etc.. They each had an audience capacity of 500; these two studios covered 10,000 square feet each. Studio Nine, was used for Central News Studio Ten Studios Seven and Eight were used for programmes such as Family Fortunes, The Price Is Right and Shine on Harvey Moon. Family Fortunes was the first programme to be made there, on 4 November 1983; the studio complex was equipped with a music recording studio, a small continuity announcement studio, four electronic-news-gathering suites.
A post-production area, the first in the country to contain computer-based video editing suites. A sound department with 24-track recording and multiple cartridge machine. In 1994, Central Independent Television, along with the studios were taken over by Carlton Television. From 1996, a section of the prop store was converted to make way for the programme library, which had moved from over from Birmingham; this area took up a total of three floors – one section dedicated to News material and the two remaining spaces allocated to network programme material. By 2000, yet more alterations at the Studios were made to accommodate what was to be the final ITV major production from the studios: the revived version of Crossroads, which went on air in March 2001 and ran until May 2003; the show used the exterior of the Carlton Studios, by having a purpose-built canopy constructed, a pond and extra landscaping which doubled as motel exteriors. Inside, the music studio was the first to go, along with a small portion of the props store – that in the end was converted into extra studio space for additional bedrooms and suites for the show.
By 2003, all production work at the studios was dwindling. Some floor space was hired out to the BBC on odd occasions, but ITV had decided to wind down operations and sell the complex, which created controversy amongst the 200 strong workforce at the studio, the Journalists Union the NUJ, 27 local MPs who signed a petition to keep the studios open. The idea was to relocate the Central News – East operation to a new purpose-built office and studio in Chilwell, on the outskirts of Nottingham; this new office opened in February 2005 – named Terry Lloyd House after the ATV/Central/ITN Reporter, killed while covering events in Iraq in 2003. This is only a regional office and Central News – East is broadcast from Birmingham. In February 2004, ITV plc announced plans to close and sell the Lenton Lane production centre in Nottingham with over 350 jobs being axed in the process. Following the closure of the studios, a new news-gathering centre was established in the city, but production and transmission of Central News East moved to the Birmingham studio in spring 2005.
It still maintains one studio, this is rented out to television and film companies, generating income for the University. Production and broadcasting of the East Midlands edition of Central News was moved to Gas Street Studios in Birmingham; the complex was renamed "King's Meadow Campus" in 2005, now houses the University of Nottingham's Manuscripts and Special Collections, in which the University has been collecting since the early 1930s. The original staff canteen and most of the floor-space in the studios has been converted to office and lecture space. In 2007, the campus opened a fitness centre called "King's Meadow Campus Fitness Centre". In June 2018 Heart Church began using Studio 7 for their Sunday services. List of programmes that were produced at the Lenton Lane Studios
Denim and Leather
Denim and Leather is the fourth studio album by English heavy metal band Saxon released in 1981. The album was certified Gold status in the U. K; this was the last album with the classic line up of Saxon, as drummer Pete Gill would leave the band due to a hand injury joining Motörhead. The album spawned two of their most successful singles, "And the Bands Played On" and "Princess of the Night". There are nine songs on this album. "Princess of the Night" is a song about a powerful steam locomotive and "And the Bands Played On" is about 1980 Monsters of Rock Festival - name checking several of the other acts on the bill including Rainbow and Touch. Other themes for the songs include: partying, the spirit of the music, and, like many of their songs, motorcycles. "Midnight Rider" is a song about Saxon's 1980 North American tour. The name of the album and song was inspired by the popular attire of metalheads in the early 1980s, defined by either denim jeans and jackets or a leather biker jacket; the song is seen as a tribute from the band to their fans while describing the history of the sub-culture and the rise of the new wave of British heavy metal.
The album peaked at #9 in the UK Albums Chart. The album is regarded as a classic in the band's discography, has been received positively by critics and fans. Eduardo Rivadavia of AllMusic called the opening track "Princess of the Night" an "infectiously anthemic opening statement", whilst praising the title track for being an "unqualified classic", he considered "Out of Control" and "Rough and Ready" to be strong tracks, whilst regarding "Fire in the Sky", "Midnight Rider", "And The Bands Played On" as "spectacular". Canadian journalist Martin Popoff had mixed feelings about Denim and Leather, which he considered "Saxon's stadium rock album... boppier and sillier than Wheels of Steel, but still catchy", denouncing "the band's progressively feeble song skills while gaining points for conviction." All tracks written by Saxon. Bonus tracks 12-18 recorded live on the Denim and Leather Tour, 1981. Biff Byford - vocals Graham Oliver - guitar Paul Quinn - guitar Steve Dawson - bass guitar Pete Gill - drumsProductionNigel Thomas - producer Andy Lydon - engineer Aquarius Studios, Geneva - recording location Polar Studios, Stockholm - additional recording location, mixing location
The Inner Sanctum
The Inner Sanctum is the seventeenth studio album by British heavy metal band Saxon, released on 5 March 2007. It is the first album by the band to feature drummer Nigel Glockler since 1997's Unleash the Beast. A limited edition with DVD is available too. "Red Star Falling" is about the end of communism in Soviet Union. "Atila the Hun" is about Attila the Hun, who destroyed the Roman Empire. "If I Was You" is about gun culture. "Let Me Feel Your Power" is about festivals like Wacken. "I've Got to Rock" is about rock n' roll and life. The single version features guest appearances by heavy metal musicians Lemmy Kilmister, Angry Anderson and Andi Deris; the Inner Sanctum has received positive reviews from critics. Eduardo Rivadavia of AllMusic gave the album three and a half out of five stars, commented that Saxon continued "to do their legacy proud as they move through their third decade of recording activity." He described the album's first three tracks as "frantic" and the third, "Let Me Feel Your Power" as "jaw-dropping", praised the "majestic" "Red Star Falling", comparing it to the band's earlier songs "Dallas 1PM" and "Broken Heroes", although he was critical towards the single version of "If I Was You", advising the listener to "make sure your CD contains the album version".
Rivadavia concluded his review by saying "although it's not perfect by any stretch, The Inner Sanctum is welcome addition to this band's sizeable discography, pound for pound, might just take the crown as Saxon's best album of the early 2000s." The album was awarded an 8/10 in the UK's Metal Hammer magazine. However, Andy Lye of Jukebox:Metal was more critical in his review of the album, giving it three out of five stars, criticising its opening track "State of Grace", calling it "derivative and boring", "Let Me Feel Your Power" commenting that "a great, grooving mid-section can't quite save it from its appalling lyrics and tired riffs." He went on to call "I've Got to Rock" "as bad as you'd expect" and criticised "If I Was You" for sounding "exactly like all metal singles sound". He concluded by stating that "Against the wider metal market this is an average album, but against recent Saxon output it is comfortably below average." Only in the standard edition "To Hell and Back Again" "A Night Out with the Boys – The Idea" "A Night Out with the Boys – Not Really" "See the Light Shining" "A Night Out with the Boys – Now It Started" "Redline" "Suzie Hold On" "Stand Up and Be Counted" "Frozen Rainbow" "Never Surrender" Biff Byford - vocals Paul Quinn - guitar Doug Scarratt - guitar Nibbs Carter - bass guitar Nigel Glockler - drums Matthias Ulmer - keyboards
Graham Oliver
Graham Oliver is an English guitarist, born in Mexborough, South Yorkshire. He was a founder member and main songwriter in the heavy metal band Saxon from 1976 to 1995. Oliver was a budding guitarist while working in a factory in the mid-1970s, but gave up after losing the tip of his index finger in an accident with a door, sold his prized 1962/63 Fender Stratocaster, he was, encouraged by future bandmate Paul Quinn to learn to play again. Oliver was a member of the band Son of a Bitch, formed in 1975, along with future Saxon bassist Steve Dawson, Steve Firth on vocals and drummers David Bradley, John Hart and John Walker; the band merged with another local band to become Saxon, with whom Oliver played from 1976 to 1995, acting as the band's main songwriter as well as guitarist during a period in which the band had five top 20 albums in the UK. After leaving Saxon in 1995, he reformed his old band Son of a Bitch with former Saxon bassist Steve Dawson and drummer Pete Gill. Son of a Bitch released.
Bullet and Gill left the band after the release of the album. They were replaced by the vocalist John Ward, another former member of Saxon, Nigel Durham on drums. In 1999, Oliver and Dawson trademarked the name'Saxon', claiming they had exclusive rights to it, attempted to stop Saxon singer Biff Byford from using the name; the trademark claim was overturned after it was ruled to be in bad faith, setting a legal precedent for ownership of a band name. Oliver and Dawson changed the name of the band to Oliver/Dawson Saxon, undertook a British tour with Ronnie James Dio. Graham duetted with Doug Aldrich on "Rainbow in the Dark" on the last gig at Plymouth. Oliver has released the solo album End of an Era in 2001. Five of the tracks were written and performed by the rock indie band Bullrush, with whom Graham Oliver's son Paul played drums, along Steve Tudberry and Scott Howitt. Appearing on the album were Pete Gill, Steve Dawson, Kev Moore, Paul Johnson, Phil Hendriks, Richard Spencer and Chris Archer.
Since 2002, Oliver has played with former Marc Bolan session musician Paul Fenton, touring under the banner "Mickey Finn's T-Rex" and "T. Rex"; this opportunity materialised after Oliver played "Get It On" with Rolan Bolan at a show in Bradford. Oliver suffered a stroke in January 2010. In 2011, Oliver joined pupils at Mexborough School in their production of the Ben Elton musical We Will Rock You. In 2012 guitar manufacturer "Vintage" collaborated with Graham to produce two signature guitars based on his famous Gibson SG and Flying-V guitars. The'SG' model Vintage VS6GO and the'V' model Vintage V60GO. Oliver and Steve Dawson wrote the book Saxon Drugs and Rock and Roll - The Real Spinal Tap, published by Tomahawk Press in 2012, with a foreword by Harry Shearer; as of 2017, Oliver was still playing in Oliver/Dawson Saxon. He is an authority on Yorkshire ceramics. Studio albums Saxon Wheels of Steel Strong Arm of the Law Denim and Leather Power & the Glory Crusader Innocence Is No Excuse Rock the Nations Destiny Solid Ball of Rock Forever Free Dogs of WarLive albums The Eagle Has Landed Rock'n' Roll Gypsies Greatest Hits Live!
BBC Sessions Live at Buxted Lodge 1980 Victim You Re://Landed It's Alive The Second Wave: 25 Years of NWOBHM Motorbiker End of an Era Graham has made a handful of guest appearances with Barnsley comedy band The Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican Strong Arm Of The Law Jump Ararnd The Devil Went Darn To Barnsley Crosstarn Traffic Wheels Of Steel Official website
