Billy Sloan reminisces on the first time he saw The Sensational Alex Harvey Band play in Glasgow, the musician’s early activism and why they’re one of his favourite acts.
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00:00 Good evening, good evening boys and girls.
00:05 Hello America.
00:07 I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to my band.
00:14 The sensational Alex Harvey band.
00:17 So you've quite the man to steal my guitar.
00:22 Out of all the Alex Hardell, I was, you know, since Alex Hardell is the one that I'm next,
00:28 I was a bit of a elsewhere.
00:29 Why this album?
00:30 This was another really tough choice because as you say I was kind of spoiled for choice
00:36 with the sensational Alex Harvey band.
00:38 And they kind of came onto my radar in that period of time when I worked as a steward
00:44 in the old Greens Playhouse.
00:47 Because I was on duty one night in 1972, what was the date?
00:51 I was on duty on the 31st of May 1973 at Greens Playhouse in Glasgow.
00:58 The tickets were £1.25 to see Slade.
01:01 They were top of the bill.
01:02 And Slade always had great support acts.
01:05 So in those days nobody wanted to see the support band.
01:11 You could have had the Rolling Stones as a support band.
01:14 You could have had Led Zeppelin as a support band.
01:16 Nobody was interested.
01:17 They just wanted to see the headline act.
01:19 So support bands did a real tough job winning over such a staunch audience.
01:25 And the Slade audience were real diehards, right?
01:27 So I was up in the balcony and the lights went down and there was a kind of muffled
01:32 roar from the audience.
01:35 It was full, absolutely full.
01:37 And this guy walked on and you could see right away that he was a bit older than your actual
01:42 rock star of the day.
01:43 He was a man as opposed to a youth.
01:45 He was a wee bit older than your average rock star.
01:49 And he walked on stage with this kind of red velvet smoking jacket on, tied at the waist.
01:56 And he went up to the front microphone and he put his foot up in the monitor and he glared
02:01 at the audience.
02:02 So that was like the proverbial red rag to a bull.
02:05 Three and a half thousand people as one started shouting the most unmentionable abuse that
02:12 we could not repeat in a family, a good family program like this.
02:17 And it was hatred.
02:18 I mean I've never heard such abuse in all my life, right?
02:24 And he just stared at them, right?
02:27 So then he went and he took the smoking jacket off and I always remember he folded it and
02:30 laid it down.
02:31 He didn't just throw it down.
02:33 I was impressed by that.
02:35 And then he got a can of, you'll be too young to know what I'm talking about, he got a can
02:38 of McCune's pale ale which came in this green can, this beer or something.
02:43 And there wasn't any ring pills, he got this metal sort of thing where you pierced a triangular
02:48 shaped hole in it and then turned it around and pierced another hole in it.
02:51 And he didn't drink it.
02:53 He poured it onto his hands and he slicked his hair back and he got a comb out and he
02:57 combed his hair back like a teddy boy.
02:59 And then he put a black leather jacket on and he had a black and white striped t-shirt
03:03 on and then he walked up and he put his foot up on the monitor again and glared at the
03:08 audience.
03:09 Now by this time you could have heard the hatred and collided with them and they were
03:13 shouting and screaming.
03:14 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:15 Unfortunately I can't use any of the swear words, it would be even more authentic if
03:20 I could, right?
03:21 Now from the moment he walked on stage to that moment was probably about 60, 90 seconds.
03:27 And that's a lot of time to be doing nothing and to be doing nothing when you're getting
03:31 abused by three and a half thousand people.
03:33 And he just looked straight at them and went, "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I'd
03:39 like to introduce you to my band, the sensational Alex Harvey Band."
03:45 And somebody somewhere pressed a button, I don't know what they do, and it went, "Doo,
03:48 doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo."
03:52 And that was the opening to the Fae Theatre.
03:54 Sal Cleminson came on with the green kind of clown costume and the white face.
03:59 Chris Glenn came on with a sort of blue body stocking with a big, you know, leather, you
04:04 know, cord piece, jock strap thing.
04:07 Ted McKenna came on with a big floppy hat and a big kind of silk dressing gown.
04:12 You know, Ted McKenna went behind the drum kit.
04:14 Did I ask you, Hugh McKenna, the keyboard, Ted McKenna went behind the drum kit and he
04:20 went into the Fae Theatre, "Let me put my hands on you."
04:23 And I thought, "What is this?"
04:25 This is absolutely one of the best things I've ever seen in my life.
04:30 And they're the only band I can ever remember that booed on and cheered off.
04:36 I mean, they were doing such a storm that they could have got an encore.
04:39 Had there been time for them to play an encore, they could have got an encore.
04:42 And the next day, I went straight up to Listening Cambridge Street and I bought Next, which
04:47 was the album that was out at that time, you know, with the silver and the black stripy
04:51 front and a picture of Alex Hargiew on the back.
04:55 And then I saw them in the Old Grey Whistle Test, you know, when they did the string section
04:59 with the animal masks on and stuff.
05:02 And I just, I've been in love with them ever since.
05:06 And they are and remain my all-time favourite Scottish rock band.
05:10 I just absolutely, you know, there's a bit of vaudeville, there's a bit of Marvel Comics
05:14 superhero, there's a bit of, you know, 1950s rock and roll.
05:19 There's a huge slice of punk rock.
05:20 I mean, Alex Harvey in 1972, 1973 was a forerunner of Johnny Rotten.
05:27 I mean, John Wyden interviewed him recently and he still talks about Alex Harvey.
05:30 Nick Cave is a huge fan of Alex Harvey.
05:33 So all those guys were looking at Alex Harvey and being influenced.
05:37 And as I say, they're my all-time favourite Scottish band.
05:40 But I have not picked one of their albums.
05:43 No?
05:44 No.
05:45 You've picked an Alex Harvey solo album?
05:46 I picked an Alex Harvey solo album because at the end of, you know, a run of albums,
05:52 which I'm just looking at my notes here.
05:56 They had a run, I can't remember the number, they had a run of great albums.
05:59 They had Framed, they had Next, they had The Impossible Dream, they had Tomorrow Belongs
06:04 to Me.
06:05 I mean, I defy any band to come up with four such strong albums for their first four records.
06:11 Brilliant.
06:12 But then Alex wanted to go and do his own thing and relationships within the band had
06:17 got a bit fractured.
06:19 So he decided he was going to quit and be Alex Harvey, which he'd been in the '60s,
06:25 you know, Alex Harvey's big soul band and stuff.
06:27 So he made this great record called The Mafia Stole My Guitar, which relates to two, the
06:36 title of the album and the song relate to two different things.
06:40 One is that when the Alex Harvey band, the sensational Alex Harvey band, were on tour
06:45 once upon a time in America, their van with all their gear in it got stolen, all their
06:52 equipment, all their amplifiers and that.
06:54 And it was said that it was some guys that worked for the mafia and they'd taken it away
06:58 and sold it or something, right?
07:00 But the wider implication of the title The Mafia Stole My Guitar is that Alex Harvey,
07:06 when he went solo, had a few kind of legal issues, you know, with record companies and
07:11 all that kind of stuff.
07:12 And there was a short period in his life where he wasn't able to play live or release records
07:20 because of the legal situation.
07:22 So this was him writing a song, The Mafia, the record industry, stole my guitar.
07:26 I can't play my guitar.
07:29 And it's one of his greatest songs, you know, the opening line is "The Mafia stole my guitar.
07:35 Aha, aha, my old time telecaster.
07:38 Aha, aha."
07:39 I mean, just absolute genius.
07:42 It's a really strong album.
07:43 I mean, I always think what kind of record it would have been if it had been made by
07:47 the sensational Alex Harvey band themselves.
07:50 He had a band called, quite simply, The New Band, with this young guitar player, a guy
07:56 called Matthew Sang.
07:57 He looked a bit like Mark Boland with the sort of, you know, the corkscrew hair.
08:02 And he kind of needed a young guy in the band to kind of give him a kick up the backside.
08:06 He had an old jazzer, a guy called Don Weller, on saxophone.
08:09 He had a guy called Gordon Seller, who used to be in a band called Beggar's Opera, on
08:15 bass.
08:16 So they were kind of old timers, but Matthew Sang was the only one.
08:18 I can't remember who the drummer was.
08:19 But the band were very uninspiringly called The New Band.
08:24 I'm sure they could have come up with a better name than that, but it was just Alex Harvey
08:27 and The New Band.
08:28 And I was lucky enough to see them.
08:30 They played the Apollo.
08:31 It wasn't that busy, actually, which was a shame.
08:34 Then they played the Glasgow University Men's Union, and it went down an absolute storm.
08:41 And I just love this album.
08:42 I mean, for anybody who's not familiar with it, you should check it out.
08:46 It really is a great record.
08:48 It's a great record.
08:49 We'll move on to the next track.
08:50 No, I want to tell you something else about that.
08:53 There's also a track in this album, and the thing I love about Alex Harvey was that there's
08:57 a track on this album which I've talked about in a sentence called The Whalers, The Earth
09:01 She Blows.
09:04 Alex Harvey was the first guy, the first rock star I ever remember who tried to tell me
09:10 anything about conservation, about saving the planet and looking after the world in
09:16 which we live in.
09:17 And it wasn't Sting, and it wasn't Peter Gabriel, and it wasn't Bono or people like
09:22 that, much as they do a great job.
09:24 It was actually Alex Harvey in the early '70s.
09:27 And when you used to go and see the Sensational Alex Harvey band, he would say, don't piss
09:33 in the water supply.
09:34 We've got to drink this stuff.
09:35 Don't piss in the water supply.
09:37 Where is it?
09:38 "Vambo never vandal be.
09:40 Vambo never cut down tree.
09:42 Vambo from the future borrow.
09:44 He lead children off to borrow.
09:46 Vambo come into the rescue."
09:47 So what he was basically saying was, don't mess the place up.
09:51 Just use a bit of common sense.
09:53 And there's a song which is the epitome of that on this album called The Whalers, which
09:59 is about people going out in boats and harpooning whales.
10:03 Why would you want to do that?
10:05 It just doesn't make any sense.
10:06 And there's a line in it which says, "Give me the spear.
10:09 Give me it quick.
10:10 I'll kill the son of Moby Dick.
10:14 Slaughter cubs and mummy too.
10:16 Here's a perfume just for you."
10:18 So he's saying, why are we slaughtering these magnificent creatures just so some male or
10:24 female can spray perfume and make themselves?
10:26 We've got enough perfumes to last us a lifetime.
10:29 We don't need any more.
10:30 We don't need to be animal testing or killing whales or anything like that.
10:34 And that's how fat ahead he was as a lyricist and as a social commentator.
10:41 He was great.
10:42 And I can't even recommend this album enough.
10:46 It's just such a fantastic record.
10:48 It's definitely one of my desert island discs.
10:51 And it's interesting as well that you say about Nick Cave and John Lydon, obviously.
10:55 I think people always see John Lydon in later years with the pistols anyway, that kind of
11:00 villainous character.
11:01 Yeah.
11:02 That was the thing with the Sensational Alex Harvey band.
11:04 When you saw them, they looked like the kind of band that you didn't want to meet at four
11:08 o'clock in the morning in some dark alley in the city center of Glasgow.
11:13 You thought, oh my God, I've copped it here.
11:16 But the reality is that if you had met them at four o'clock in the morning in some dark
11:19 alley just off Renfield Street, instead of beating you up, they'd probably have put a
11:24 collective armor on your shoulder and made sure you were all right and put you in a taxi
11:28 and made sure you had the money and got you safely up the road.
11:30 That was the difference.
11:31 And they were just the perfect band for me.
11:34 And he died on the 4th of February, 1982.
11:37 He was on tour in Europe and they were waiting on a ferry coming back from Belgium.
11:41 And it was one day before his 47th birthday.
11:43 But you can only hazard to guess what Alex Harvey would have been doing in 2023.
11:49 I guarantee he would still have been writing.
11:51 He would still have been making great records.
11:53 He would still have been a fantastic performer.
11:57 You know, well in his 80s or whatever he was.
12:00 You know, if guys like Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson
12:05 were doing it, there wasn't any reason why he shouldn't have been doing it as well.
12:09 My favourite band and my favourite artist from Scotland.