Trollheart

Track eight: “Chevy” by Chevy

For once, it’s nice to see that someone has compiled a decent amount of information on a band I hitherto knew nothing about, so I can tell you that Chevy began life as 4 Wheel Drive in the sixties and played pop songs until they caught the metal bug in the wake of the NWOBHM and decided to change their playing style. They released one album but were another band to fall prey to a clueless label who had no idea how to market them, and possibly no interest in doing so. They did play with some giants, Hawkwind and Gary Moore to name two, but split in 1983 after their first album “Taker”.

A big screeching guitar leads in a real three-chord boogie that just has your head moving right away, and with a lot of Springsteen in the feel. Odd that they would change their name to Chevy, a recognised symbol of American motor power, when they came from the metropolis of … Leamington Spa. But I suppose Transit or Vauxhall wouldn’t have had quite the same ring to it! I hear traces of Lizzy here, and again ZZ, even if the song is a little repetitive. I could see this having been very popular onstage though.

So where are they now?

Well again there’s a lot of information and I’m not going to bore you by telling you the separate path each band member followed, but suffice to say one still plays with Dr. Feelgood, one is a guitar teacher and the others all went on to play with well-established bands including Badfinger, Atomic Rooster and the Steve Marriott Band. Humorous aside: their record label, Avatar, who caused them so much trouble and possibly cost them a chance at fame and success, went bankrupt and apparently formed a company producing porn videos! Ah, revenge is sweet!

Track nine: “Hard lines” by The Raid

Actually called Jameson Raid (sounds like a heist at an off-licence!) the band had been around since 1973 and were annoyed that EMI remixed their song, without their permission, and according to them it was ruined. Apathy seems to have been the big killer of this band, and they began to fragment shortly afterwards, with two of the founders leaving. By 1983 the band was effectively dead.

The song opens on a thick bass line, and runs almost like a Metal version of bluegrass for a moment before it takes shape. I don’t really like the singer’s style, but if I had to compare him to anyone it might be Bowie? It’s a pretty intense number, almost claustrophobic with the heavy guitar riffs pounding down and the vocalist almost seeming like his voice is coming through a phaser or some effect. Seems to be based on an accident taking place in deep space, from what I can gather. A very dark, bleak song which belies its mostly uptempo style. Certain touches of the Clash or a slower, more restrained Tank about it.

So where are they now?

After the two founders quit the band in 1980, the remaining two members, Phil Kimberley and the man whose name should have been synonymous with Metal, Terry Dark, continued on the band. Although all four original members have now left, Jameson Raid continues with an entirely new lineup and is the only band on this compilation to be able to say they are still active.

Track nine: “Stormchild” by Trespass

They saved the best till last. This song will forever be in my top ten metal tracks, even though most people would look at it and say “Stormwhat? Who the hell are Trespass?” Despite that I’ll always love them and this remains one of the best Metal tracks I’ve ever heard. It opens with a lone guitar riffing, then another, harder single chord joins it, so two guitars are now riffing separately but in the same melody. Drums cuts in after a short moment and the song takes off, rising on a completely infectious guitar line. Vocals come in, though only after over a minute of guitar riffing, and just complete the song: strong, powerful, clear. Not a hint of rawness or roughness in the voice. A superb, fluid solo bisects the song and it ends in a storm of guitar riffs with a final fluttering cymbal and a vocal that sort of echoes out, leaving you wanting more, even though the song is easily the longest on the album, at just over five minutes. Shouuld have been an NWOBHM classic and a Metal standard. Life’s cruel, y’know?

So where are they now?

Already told you. Please check the writeup on the first track.

TRACKLISTING

1. One of these days --- Trespass
2. Telephone man --- Eazy Money
3. Cutting loose --- Xero
4. High upon high --- White Spirit
5. Lady of Mars --- Dark Star
6. You give me candy --- Horsepower
7. Open heart --- Red Alert
8. Chevy --- Chevy
9. Hard lines --- The Raid
10. Stormchild --- Trespass

When I bought this album as an impressionable teenager/passing over into twenties all I saw it as was a collection of Heavy Metal songs. I didn’t even know, probably, despite being in the middle of it, about the NWOBHM. But looking back on it now, thirty-some years later, I can see it for what it is: a partial encapsulation of that era, a showcase of some of the bands who never made it, and a repository of examples of how naive bands were back then, how greedy and often incompetent record labels were, and how unprincipled managers can be. If the labels and management teams behind some of these bands had been better, or cared more, or knew how to do their job, some of these artistes could have been huge, or at least survived.

Instead, we have a vinyl graveyard littered with the musical skeletons of those who were thrown in the deep end and found they either could not swim or were forcibly dragged down under the water by the incredible pressures put on them by those around them, fans, managers, labels and indeed the climate itself. To survive and make your mark in the NWOBHM you had to have something special, you had to be able to work hard (no problem there mostly) and you needed a good team around you, a team that could support, market and sell you.

Without these crucial elements, most of these bands were doomed to failure, and to be remembered only as a track or two on a compilation album that most people have forgotten about, or like me, remember with fondness. But ultimately, fame was never to be theirs and in the case of just about every band here, that really is the world of Heavy Metal’s loss.

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