40 Year Itch : Bomb Strikes The Stones Tour

Just over six weeks after the Rolling Stones began their STP tour of North America with a full blown riot in Vancouver , a bomb placed under a ramp at the Montreal Forum explodes in one of the Rolling Stones' equipment trucks. Thirty speakers are destroyed. Replacement gear is flown in from Los Angeles.

Montreal radio stations receive no fewer than fifty calls from would-be bombers claiming responsibility, but it's never determined just who planted the dynamite, or why. History suggests its the paramilitary Quebec Liberation Front but there are also some concerns that The Hells Angels want to send Jagger a message after he blamed them for the tragedy at Altamont.

 Mick Jagger's only comment: "Why didn't that cat leave a note?"

There's another problem: more than 500 counterfeit tickets were sold to the show. It is oppressively hot for the 20,000 fans who show up at the Forum. The Montreal Gazette reporter writes "In the top galleries of The Forum the temperature must have reached 120 degrees though outside it was a cool 75." In the video below you see Jagger tossing buckets of water on the crowd. Firecrackers go off and at one point a 40 ounce bottle is tossed at the stage:

Weekend Magazine  reports:

Ninety seconds later, a bottle sailed out of the crowd and hit him on the leg. He winced...Jagger didn’t know it wasn’t aimed at him. His truck had been bombed. People were shouting. The firecrackers sounded like shots. A bottle had just hit him. He wound up the song, giving Richards his end-it look.

Later, there was a party in Jagger’s room. He looked tired and washed out. ‘Not good, man,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t good.'

 

40 Year Itch : When Smokey Sings ...Solo

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On July 16, 1972 Smokey Robinson and the Miracle performed their last concert together in Washington DC. Robinson said  he was retiring from the Miracles to concentrate on his job as a Motown vice president.
Robinson had first told the band  that he wanted to leave in 1969 to help his wife Claudette with the kids but after the four year old song "Tears of A Clown" hit #1 in 1970, he reconsidered.

Robinson and The Miracles charted about 50 hit singles including Motown's first million selling record "Shop Around", "You've Really Got a Hold On Me", "The Tracks of My Tears", "Tears of a Clown " and "I Second That Emotion".

For the final show Smokey's wife Claudette Robinson rejoined the Miracles onstage for the first time since 1964. Waiting in the wings was Billy Griffin, a Baltimore singer who traveled with the Miracles as Smokey's understudy during the farewell tour. At the end of the concert Robinson introduced Griffin to the crowd. After the show Robinson told reporters most of all he'll miss "the fellows. Just being with them, man. We've had a gas of a time."

 The last Smokey Robinson and The Miracles studio album, Flying High Together, was also released in July of 1972. It featured the R and B top ten "We've Come Too Far To End It All" and a large number of covers that were hits for others like "Oh Girl" ( The Chi Lites), "Got To Be There" ( Michael Jackson) and "Betcha By Golly Wow" ( The Stylistics).



In 1973 Robinson was back on the radio as a solo artist. His singles "Baby That's Backatcha" hit #1 on the R and B charts in 1975. 1981's "Being With You" was an even bigger monster hit .
With Griffin, The Miracles would endure and score a #1 hit in 1976 with the synthesizer driven disco hit  "Love Machine".

40 Year Itch: 5 Big Hits That Peaked in July 1972

1. Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose: Too Late To Turn Back Now



When I was living in Charleston, South Carolina the rumor was that a Sister Rose lived in the projects there. That might help explain why a group that scored two big hits ( The #2 "Too Late To Turn Back Now" and 1971's #3 "Treat Her Like A Lady") has a multi million lawsuit filed against Capitol Records. What isn't in dispute is how great both records sound.


2. Frederick Knight: I've Been Lonely For So Long
  

Although he appeared in the concert film Wattstax, Frederick Knight goes down as a one hit wonder. But what a hit. "I've Been Lonely For So Long " reached #22 on the Billboard charts and was covered by both Paul Young and Mick Jagger ( on Jagger's only "must have" solo album Wandering Spirit). Knight also produced Anita Ward's disco hit "Ring My Bell".

3. Mouth and MacNeal : How Do You Do



#1 on the Dutch charts and a gold selling single in the US (which peaked at #8), Mouth and MacNeal's "How Do You Do" is the kind of ear worm that delights the kids and eventually drives parents up the wall. Mouth was a fomer construction worker who died of a heart attack in 2004. MacNeal has taken back her real name: Sjoukje Van't Spijker.

4 Godspell Cast : Day By Day




 With Robin Lamont singing lead, this Godspell cast recording peaked at #13 on July 29, 1972. Some of the lyrics closely match a 13th Century prayer:
 May I know Thee more clearly,
Love Thee more dearly,
Follow Thee more nearly

 5 Wayne Newton: Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast


Wayne Newton was already a Las Vegas entertainer when  "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast" peaked at #4 in July of 1972. Between 1970 and 1975 the divorce rate in the United States increased to almost 40%. Not a few of those divorces happened in Newton's adopted home state of Nevada.
Three songs hit #1 in July of 1972: Neil Diamond's "Song Sung Blue", Bill Withers's "Lean On Me" and Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again (Naturally)"

Captain Sensible's Top Ten Fave Songs

I thought I'd break out of the "40 Year Itch" cycle and do something really revolutionary. A 30 year itch post.

Damned founder and solo artist Captain Sensible made this list for the July 8, 1982 issue of Smash Hits at about the same time his cover of the South Pacific tune "Happy Talk" topped the UK charts with the help of backing vocals by Dolly Mixture.



The list comes courtesy of Brian at Like Punk Never Happened

 1.The Electric Prunes : Get Me To The World On Time -'Cos it's cosmic. It gets me there, gov'nor.
2. Small Faces: Tin Soldier - Great pop song. Saw them at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon once; the PA went off and I could still hear Steve Marriot's voice from the back.
 3. The Damned : Love Song - Best group since The Beatles




 4. Auntie Pus : Halfway to Venezuela - Auntie is a famous pilferer. He stole me an electric kettle once.
5. Dolly Mixture : Everything And More - Love 'em. So different from the other girl groups.



6. Wire : Outdoor Miner - Thought the production was brilliant. It was non-production; they left the veneer off. Total pop.
7. Jimi Hendrix Experience : Purple Haze - Whacky wonderful chap. He really made his guitar "talk ", as they say. No-one else will ever be as good.
8. The Anti-Nowhere League: So What - Disgusting bunch of animals. They sing something abysmal. The best band The Damned ever toured with.
9. The Supremes; Reflections : Don't like the group ('Cos they're Yanks), just the noises. Showed what you could do with a bit of imagination and no synthesizers.



 10. Pink Floyd: Arnold Layne - Syd Barrett shows you don't have to sing Americanisms. He's my hero. He did exactly what he wanted.

40 Year Itch : It Flies Out Of A Dream

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On July 13, 1972 UK space rockers Hawkwind were shown on the BBC's "Top of the Pops" program performing their #3 hit "Silver Machine". The band felt ill at ease with idea of miming the song on a sound stage so the BBC recorded their July 7 concert at Dunstable Civic Hall.

 As you might imagine from just watching the first few seconds of the clip, the band had a difficult time not being upstaged by their six foot tall "happily bisexual" sometimes quite nude dancer "Stacia" whose measurements according to Penthouse Magazine were 42-28-39.

 This performance would haunt her in a way: "When we made Silver Machine we attracted a Top 20 audience of filthy little boys who came along to stare at me " she told Record Mirror in 1974.

Stacia wasn't sure at the time where her dancing would lead. She told Penthouse:

 "I want to try everything. You know, if I got an acting role, I'd take it...but it could only be in a horror movie. One guy in the States said I looked like Dracula's Aunt Trixie. We all invited him to dinner and he thought we were going to beat him up."

 Stacia stayed with Hawkwind until 1975. Today she is an artist living in Ireland.

Hawkwind is still going strong. Their 27th studio album was released in April of 2012.

We'll be revisiting Hawkwind in November.

40 Year Itch : No More Crying

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 With their home becoming a hippie commune, the members of Os Novos Baianos live in a perpetual haze of marijuana smoke. Three times they had taken a shot at recording their second album --something electric, something mutant, something inspired by Jimi Hendrix. Three times it had fallen apart. 

 And then one night...

There is a knock at the door.

Band members assume it's the police.

But instead it's...

...the legendary Joao Gilberto, the father of the bossa nova.

Gilberto jams all night with the band and returns the next night for more jamming.
He becomes their mentor.

Gilberto convinces the band to take the bossa nova lessons he's given them and try recording that second album again.

Oh, and while they're in the studio, Gilberto says they should cut a version of "Brasil Pandeiro" by Assis Valente.

The album Acabou Chorare ("No More Crying"), released in 1972, will be called the greatest album of Brazilian music EVER by Rolling Stone Magazine. It is certainly one of that nation's most influential albums. Buy your copy today. Listen to the entire album here:



 By the way, this story is a gross simplification of an article I found on the Sounds And Colours website

40 Year Itch: Just A Sea Of Air

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After singing on the first three Deep Purple albums, including the hits "Hush" and "Kentucky Woman", Rod Evans was dismissed from Deep Purple who went on to record heavier, more popular ( and more plodding)  albums. After recording a solo album he founded Captain Beyond with Edgar Winter Band drummer Bobby Caldwell and two former members of Iron Buttefly: bassist Lee Dorman and guitarist Larry "Rhino" Reinhardt. Reinhardt has played with future Allman Brothers Bandmates Dickey Betts and Berry Oakley and it was Duane Allman who convinced Capricorn Records to sign the band.

Captain Beyond performing "I Can't Feel Nothin'(Part One)", "As The Moon Speaks (To The Waves of The Sea)" and "I Can't Feel Nothin' (Part Two)"


Captain Beyond's debut, released in July of 1972, offers listeners thirty five minutes of hard rock at its most powerful and precise. Like The Moody Blues albums of the time, songs effortlessly merge into each other.

 In an interview with Classic Rock Revisited, the late "Rhino" Reinhardt ( He passed away in January) talks about the time changes in the lead off track "Dancing Madly Backwards":


“Dancing Madly Backwards” is basically a blues song if you play it in 4/4. I switched it around to 5/4. It is a twelve bar but it has an odd meter to it. I had this riff and Bobby came up with that beat and when we played it together, the song was born.

Captain Beyond is also a blueprint for all the hard rock bands that followed. Some of the apparent Captain Beyond rules I've copped from listening to the album:

1. Don't worry about the lyrics; just sing them like a man.
2. Mix up the meters.
3. Mix up the guitar hooks. No fewer than three a song.
4. Give the guitarist some room!

I don't listen to a lot of hard rock but I hear Screaming Trees in some tracks. Unfortunately Capricorn Records heard a band that could boogie like label mates The Allman Brothers. But as "Rhino" said, that's not what Captain Beyond wanted to do:

We had a big problem with the record company. We put out the first album and they were calling us a ‘Super Group.’ It was just a term being thrown around. We were like “What Super Group? What are they talking about?” After the Allman’s came out with the Fillmore Phil (Walden) came to us and said, “I want you guys to start playing that kind of music.” A year before he thought we were the best thing since sliced bread and we were one of the best things that he had ever heard. I said, “That is not what Captain Beyond is all about. We can’t change from our first album to a second album where we sound just like the Allman Brothers. You’ve already got one of those.” But that is what happened; southern rock was taking over. We had a running battle with Capricorn. We have heard from people who worked at Capricorn over the years that Phil was under reporting how many albums we were actually selling so he could make it look like we were not doing anything, thus, he wouldn’t have to spend any money to pay us. We never even got the gold album that we should have. A lot of things went wrong. After the second album, it was over.


Too bad. But Captain Beyond left us with at least one classic album. Perhaps the best hard rock album of 1972.

Captain Beyond performs "Dancing Madly (On A Sea Of Air), "Armworth" and "Myopic Void"