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Richard Chadwick
Below you will find info on:
| Richard's history | a summary (written by Rich?) | |
| Star Nation | a recent project | |
| The Demented Stoats / Smartpils | Richard's previous bands, including some audio clips |
Taken from an older version of the Mission Control website (it's not there anymore afaik) and reproduced here for conservation purposes:
Richard Chadwick:
First band The Demented Stoats formed out of a squat in the forever summer of Bath, playing benefits and free festivals.The music is perhaps best inspired, to my mind, by the picture in the children's book Wind in the Willows, which shows the heroes of the story (Ratty,Mole, Badger e.t.c.) sailing their boat beneath an arched stone bridge from which they are about to be bombed by large rocks hurled by malignant stoats and weasels.
Next The Smart Pils more of the same psychedelic punk. Gothic - dark lyrics - about Naked Nuns and states of No Good No Evil. Elements of a positive nature too: Rythmn and Joy and Gorgeous.
In various formats continued to play free festivals and benefits - a tour of England and Holland and a couple of tunes recorded.
Tape - Beelzeebub's Tales to his Grandaughter
L.P. - No Good No Evil (Blurry Records).A Few other projects, then joined Hawkwind.
Richard Chadwick's own band which he describes as "furry metal for the silver age". Richard does the biz on vocals, drums and sequencers while Jerry Richards really stands out with some excellent guitar work, all complemented by sterling keyboards from Steve Hayes and contributions from various other folk including Ron Tree. [Note that two of them (Steve Taylor and Steve Hayes) deputised for Dave Brock and Ron Tree at Strange Daze 98. ] This is not your average drummer's album, by any means.
Here's a quick review:
The Everlasting Blim: rocky rave/dance. There is a taster for this on Richard's website.
Hey! That's My Blanket: laid back, evocative guitar/keyboard focussed.
Is This Your Tent?: unusually long intro with rhythms and stuttery/trippy commentaries from unknown sources leading into a tight dance oriented riff with spoken vocals and a sung chorus which doesn't do the rest of the track justice imho.
Snarl: starts off as a good, solid rock track, merging into a jazzy sax-led section, ending with a spacy link into the original rock riff
Star Rats: Sounds like something from the Fun Lovin Criminals with mellow vocals and glissando guitar.
Chrononaut: My personal favourite. Grinding guitar intro, relentless rhythm and fantastic played LOUD. Chant-like vocals remind me of Daevid Allen.
Invisible Girl: Starts off sounding like it's going to be a love song, but the the main part of this song is pure space rock in my opinion: steady rhythm, spacy guitar and sax.
The Silver Age: A punky sound with an "X-Men rule the world" theme to the lyrics moving into a mellow phase before returning to the thrash.
Links
http://starnation.info/ - is Star Nation's own website and contains a fuller biog for Richard and for the other members of this band. It's not always obvious where the navigation buttons are, but move your mouse around and you'll find them.
Sound Files
If you only have a dialup modem, don't forget to right click then Save Target As .... to get the files. If you've got a broadband connection, you should be able to play them directly from here by left clicking on them.
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In the spring of 2004 I exchanged a few mails with Steve Bemand and trawled the net for what I could find on these bands. Steve has loads of great photos on his site. Worthy of note is the fact that it was Steve who persuaded Rich to play drums in the first place. I don't know enough about the UK underground punk scene to write a coherent review, but here is some info from Steve. There is more info on Steve and Richard's sites.
Links
Sound Files
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