h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

YouTube is telling me that video might send me into a swoon and need smelling salts to bring me around again

Queen opened for Sparks? Goodness. I suppose everyone starts somewhere. Queen at the time though were thought of as heavy rock, but I guess with enough flamboyance that the Sparks audience could have found something to get a handle on.

I'll come back with something after breakfast.

I don't think queen were that heavy
and how can Queen II be anything but Prog?

They were both, and a straight up pop band too.

EMI seem to have blocked all the old Queen stuff, the only ones available on Youtube over here are the later ones and "official" videos

I would say B******* but since the CD's are next to the computer I cant be bothered.

Okay, I'm sticking with the support band angle, but acts that supported Queen rather than the other way round. According to this page http://www.queenconcerts.com/support-bands.html (bookmark it - it might come in handy for future links), Al Stewart supported them on at least one gig in 1975, and Al is definitely a heads' artiste. From the right period too. This is one of my favourite Al Stewart songs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-cniSeytR4

And since almost everyone has appeared on an Al Stewart album or in one of his shows at one time or another, links should be a piece of

I must try and work Stewart in again at some point, particularly anything from the Bedsitter Images album

Spoilt for choice

However I'm going to wander in this direction...

Al Stewart was on the bill at the first Glastonbury, not to mention a few other times as well.

The band that opened and closed that first show were Stackridge.
So from 1975 a BBC in Concert performance
No one's more important than the earthworm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbEcadHJrpk
From their 1974 album extravaganza

Supplementary
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/may/31/glastonbury.popandrock

Where I'd really like to go from Stackridge is The Pigsty Hill Light Orchestra, having mentioned them both in post 1 of this conversation, but it might leave you in something of a cul de sac. And I'm not having anything to do with The Korgis. So I'll pick another artist from Rocket Records - Colin Blunstone. I've always loved the string arrangement on this song. In fact any pop song with nothing but a string quartet/trio/ensemble, like Eleanor Rigby, has my undivided attention, and I particularly like this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnmSKPU1zf8

The pigsty hill light orchestra are more Scrumpy and Western.

http://www.somersetmade.co.uk/scrumpyandwestern/bands.php

There are plenty of ways to go from there but I'm not sure I want to take them.

Besides which proper scrumpy dissolves yer knee caps

So many choices, Where hasn't Colin been...
Now I've got a bit of time to think my way through it.
I think I fancy a bit of Alan Parsons Project.
1978's Pyramid "The Eagle Will Rise Again" with Colin on lead Vocals

Well it will be three for the price of one, as that's whats on the video.
Voyager / What goes up / The Eagle will rise again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI8NDA_-zOo

And today's bonus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQs9PTrbmJY&feature=kp

More APP
But picked purely for the singer.

I must listen to more Alan Parsons. His music is not something I got into at the time. But it leaves me spoilt for choice in terms of finding links.

Despite thinking Steve Harley a pillock of the first water*, and I'm not the only one, I always liked this Cockney Rebel song. Judy Teen too. Not your standard pop song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOdNAUd_440

*Apparently we're not allowed to conflate the word 'knob' and the word 'head' to refer to someone with a certain well-known discourtesy.

A lot of my mates were Cockney Rebel fans (more fool them).
I saw them once and thought it was a crap evening.

I have to admit to serious transgressions at the time as well...
Attending Folk Clubs, my excuse remains that you go where your girlfriend tells ya and that's that.
However the beer & cider were a lot better

I think you meant this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYo55YzwAfE
Rather than Mr Soft.

Now I have to think about where to go next...
I may be some time, contemplating through the back of my eyelids.

..
PS we seem to have lost our student (leggsy).

No, I definitely meant Mr Soft - note the "Judy Teen too" addendum.

He'll be back - students can never resist cheap

Before I keel over and die for the night zzzz.

before Jim Cregan was in Cockney rebel, he was for a while part of Family at the time they recorded their final Album "It's only a movie"

So here is Buffet Tea For Two from that Album
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i_WvzF8k74

Man, I could listen to Roger Chapman's vibrato until I fall off the chair I loved Family's version of bluesy, soul-oriented prog, and then the stuff he and Charlie went on to do in Chapman Whitney. I think I might still have a cassette of Streetwalkers in a box somewhere.

The members of Family offer up all kinds of links to other bands and artistes, so I'll go with the drummer, Rob Townsend, and bear with me.

Rob Townsend has worked with Peter Skellern, who played Carter Brandon in a Radio 4 production of Peter Tinniswood's 'Uncle Mort's North Country', which was produced by Pete Atkin, who, as singer and composer, has made some really rather good albums with Clive James (yes, that Clive James), who once appeared on an episode of Parkinson with...

David Bowie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DanDvAfCcs

And a Pete Atkin bonus song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_oVPSoT7XY

Pete Atkin wrote a lyric that I'll always remember, in a song called The Man Walked Towards the Music, which isn't on YouTube as far as I can make out: "He didn't know a Stratocaster from a nuclear disaster".

Well I was wondering which direction you would jump in, but I never thought of that one.

I had Wandered from Family > John Wetton > Asia as one route
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcYffRqW9LQ&list=ALGLx1orRGw4WcZImcaYPA6v3oHnC_xrsH&index=8

And now you have posted that here's a more recent piece by the Shrinks which appears to be the current band Pete Atkin is in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzlS205Dc9Y#t=79


Now I need to think of my next move... Back Later

Actually, it was probably Clive James who wrote the lyric, not Pete.

Well Both Robert Fripp and Brian Eno have worked with David Bowie
So I could go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REkbY-eEuus
Frip & Eno Evening Star

But instead I will go to Brian's brother, Roger Eno
and Channel Light Vessel with Train Travelling North
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4SebnWVb10

As Shipping Forecast link is the first thing that comes to mind, but that could be Mull of Kintyre (dear Bob no ) and The Hair of the Widow of Bridlington by Jake Thackray which might leave you in something of a dead end, so I'm going with Be Bop Deluxe and Bill Nelson, someone Peely was very much in awe of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3HEg50pOOI

And as bonus, a band whose session Peel played on an evening when he had Bill Nelson in the studio, and they both thought this was fantastic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fksKHVwImk

So did I. It still gives me goose pimples when I listen to it