Slade: May 2006

A nice surprise

Birthday greetings

Last week I turned 44 and in my letterbox I found a 15 years old photo of Don and Dave. On the backside Hanne, Don and the rest of Slade had written their birthday greetings. Thanks guys, and also a big thank you to Wilf for orchestrating this surprise for me.

Fab208 cover

Fab208, too!

Speaking about Fab208 I actually prefer this cover to the one from the Flame-tour. Notice skinhead Jim in red vest and skinhead Don on the far right behind Jimmy Cliff. Thanks to Chris from Rocking The Boat! for sending me this!

Front cover

Flame

Fab 208

In connection with Slade's Flame-tour in 1975 there was an on sale "souvenir" edition of Fab 208 and I have a copy of that.
The poorly researched text of the magazine was written by Judith Wills. It's a 7 pages biography taking the reader from the childhood of the guys and up until the making of Flame. Sometimes the story of the band is altered in order to cater to a teen audience, omitting things like Dave's marriage and the real ages of the boyz. The magazine is, however, spiced with interviews with the boyz and many nice photos. Furthermore it includes a discography complete with release dates and chart positions. So it's a nice little item after all.

Jim and Uwe (c) Uwe Friedrich

Jim (c) Martin Kitz

New pics of Jim

German Slade-fan Uwe Friedrich had a short meeting with Jim the day after the Slade Convention in Bilston last month. This pic of Jim and Uwe was made at Jim's Staffordshire home. Thank you very much, Uwe, for letting me use the photo and thanks also to Monika Kahle of Poprock News for her help on this.
You can see more photos of Jim, Uwe and other Slade-fans at The Slade Gallery.

This is your life, Nod!

Noddy and wife Suzan

Jim, Don and Dave

This Is Your Life

The Christmas edition of "This Is Your Life", 1996, on BBC was dedicated to Noddy. Noddy thought that he was to appear on "Mrs Merton's Christmas Show" and had no idea of what he was getting himself into. The guests included Roy Wood, Suzy Quatro, Toyah, Gary Glitter, Brian May, Reeves & Mortimer among others as well as Nod's mum, wife and children and of course Don, Jim and Dave.
I must admit that the programme was a bit disappointing, as I hadn't expected it to be that short. The Danish version of "This Is Your Life" seemed to run for hours and hours so the guests could get really deep into their stories about the "victim", but on BBC the programmes lasted for a short 30 minutes. That meant that the guests could only talk for 20-30 seconds each, which really isn't enough.
Of course it was great seeing Nod, Jim, Don and Dave in one room, but the guys hardly got to say anything. Dave talked a bit about their experiences in the Bahamas in the 1960's. Don gave a hilarious account of Nod not wanting to pay for going to the toilet in Torquay. And Jim commented on their somewhat troublesome arrival at the Reading festival. That was it. The rest of the time they just sat there while other guests gave their 20 second speeches. I just thought, what a waste! Here you finally have the guys together in the same room and then you just let them sit there, doing nothing!
It was, however, funny to watch their reactions when a short clip of Reeves & Mortimer's spoof on Slade was shown. Where Don and Dave were rolling with laughter, Jim looked rather anguished and the smile that he came up with afterwards was very strained.
All in all the programme was much too short, though, and afterwards you hadn't really learned anything new about Noddy at all!