Slade News Issue 1

SLADE NEWS
ISSUE 1 JAN / FEB 1979

JOINT' EDITORS:-
Kevin Massey, 41 Cleves Rd, East Ham, London, E6.
Alison Hillmen, L Block, Shearbridge Green, Bradford, W.Yorks.
Dave Kemp, 24 Ingham Rd, West Hampstead, London, NW6.


Hello, and welcome, to the first issue of SLADE NEWS. We all thank you for writing in and showing such an interest in Slade, We hope that you enjoy reading our mag - don't forget we're here to keep you up to date with the latest Slade information,
We plan to publish issue number 2 soon, It will probably consist of 5 pages, including two sheets with photos on, and it will still remain, at the same price, 25p. You will be informed when it comes on sale by a classified advert being placed in Record Mirror. Or of course you could send in a stamped addressed envelope, so we can write and tell you. Don't forget, make all cheques or postal orders payable to David Kemp.

PEN PALS
In our next issue we intend to have a list of Slade pen pals. If you would like to be included please send y-our name, age, address and hobbies to Alison, who is arranging this section. She will try to include as many of you as possible.

SLADE MAIL
Do you want to write to Slade, but you don't have an address to label your letters to? Well we suggest you post your Slade mail to the group’s record company, who will ensure that it is passed on to them. The address is :- Barn Group of Companies, 35 Portland Place, London, WI.

CONGRATULATIONS
We'd all like to give our best wishes to Jimmy, and his wife Louise on the birth of their baby girl Bonny. She was born on. 14 December 1978, and is their first child. Also, as you no doubt know, Noddy and Leeandra had another baby in September last year - who they have called Jessica,

RARE RECORDS
We recently heard that a copy of You Better Run by The In-Betweens was sold for £50. If you know of any place where old, rare, Slade releases can be obtained from at reasonable prices, could you please let us know so that we can pass the information on to other Sladists so that they won't be conned like that.

SLADE GOSSIP
Slade's roadie Johnny Jones got married in December, all Slade members were present. But we hear that the Stag Night was 2 days before the wedding though - so that everyone could sober-up in time we bet! …. Did you notice the Boomtown Rats joining in with the Slade mania at the recent Music Machine gig? … Has anyone noticed how much Dave Hill's, hair has grown recently - it won't be long before he gets those flowing locks back like he had in 1973!

THANKS - Special thanks to John Bright and everyone at Barn, for the help they've given us. Also thanks to Slade for the motivation!
Don Powell, thank you for letting us interview you, it was great.

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SLADE 1979 Tour Dates

Feb 15-17 Blackburn Baileys
Feb 18 Cleethorpes Bunnies
Feb 19-24 Leicester Baileys
Feb 25-March 3 Watford Baileys
March 7 Bradford University

The tour dates printed above are the ones confirmed so far. Don't forget to check with the halls involved about the dress restrictions that may exist in the night-club dates.
Concerts may be added to the agenda, so be on the look-out in the music papers.

SLADE PHOTOS



Nod & Jim are seen on stage at Watford Baileys.




The Jim and Don pictures show them returning from Poland at Reathrow.



Dave is pictured outside his old Solihull home.

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THE SLADE INTERVIEW - this month DON POWELL

It was a cold Saturday afternoon when we arrived at Don's plush London flat. After we had defrosted, by sitting front of the fire and watching American football on the television, we moved to Don's dining room, and the interview commenced.

S. N. : Don, what do you think about playing the night-club dates, rather than the concert halls, when you go on the road again?

Don. : Well it's the best thing really. Because we were away for so long in the states, we couldn't really expect to go back to the big concert halls, because we wouldn't fill them. So we went back to doing small places - we knew we could fill those, and thus start to build ourselves up again.

S. N. : Have you made a lot of fans through the night-club dates?

Don: Well what has happened really is that certain nights there have been much older crowds, and people have come up and said they used to follow us five years ago. They even mention certain places we played, and I don't remember half of them: Then they have to rush off, to get back home to look after their kids:

S.N. : Which audiences would you say were the best, the Southern ones, or the Northern ones?

Don : It's hard to say really, as far as I'm concerned it's all the same. Obviously in certain areas there are different songs the audiences like, but as far as saying which one is the best, say South or North, I don’t see how you can really answer that.

S.N. : Are you aware though of what the audience reaction is like when you are playing?

Don: Personally myself, not really. I can't see much, and I can't hear a lot, because the guitars are so loud - but I can maybe see a few things when the lights go up, and I can see out to the audience, otherwise I can't see anything.

S.N. : At Reading University on the last tour there was a crash barrier, and it started to collapse, and nobody seemed to notice.

Don ; You'll find that those crash barriers cause, more problems than what they are made to stop. Even when you get bouncers down the front, if they weren't there I'm sure that there would be no problems, it's when they are there that the problems are caused, There is no particular need for them, because Nod can handle the crowd anyway:

S.N. : What happened at Porthcawl though was when Noddy told the bouncers to get lost, the fans weren't sensible enough to stand back, and they all got on stage.

Don; That wasn't really the kids fault. Even the particular bouncer that hopped Nod one wasn't employed by the club that night, he just took it on his own back to go down there and stand in line with the rest of them. So when Nod cleared the bouncers out of the Wa1, he took offence, which is stupid, and he waited for Nod afterwards, and bopped him.

S. N. : How did you feel about that yourself when it happened?

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Don: That was weird. We were walking round backstage and this guy" came up shouting, we took no notice of him and the next minute Nod was laying on the floor!

S.,N. : Has Nod taken any legal action at all?

Don : The bloke has been prosecuted, Nod and Chas travelled down to Porthcawl last week to press charges. He was on line anyway for another case to be put against him.

S.N. : Have you got any plans for the next tour, any new songs?

Don : We will be doing some new ones, we started rehearsing this week, but it's mainly for new recording material. We go into the studio next day, I think, obviously though we will be adding new material to the live show. As far as the show goes as yet we don't know, we haven't really planned it.

S. N. : What sort of songs will be on the new album and when will it be released?

Don. : Then again I can't really say. We've got a lot of stuff recorded but I can't really say. l don't even know myself yet!

S. N. : Have you seen Jim and Louise's baby yet?

Don : No, I haven’t seen it - I bought it some liquorice-allsorts, but I just gave them to Jim, I haven't seen the nipper yet. Oh, but on Boxing Night I went to a party at Charlie, our sound-mixer's, house, and they brought the baby along there. It was in a carry-cot, all covered up, all I could see was two eyes, a nose and a mouth!

S. N. : Do you have any plans to have any kids then?

Don : No, not as far as I know!

S. N. : Do you plan to go abroad again soon?

Don: Believe it or not, there are some plans to go back to Poland in February. Can you imagine February in Poland, it'll be about six foot deep in snow! I think there are some European dates planned - we've had dates in Germany and Scandinavia offered to us but they are just offers, we haven't gone into them yet and had a look to see what's what.

S. N. : What was it like in Poland when you went there last year?

Don : Great. The concerts were amazing, we did 18 shows in 21 day’s. It was really funny because a lot of them were open-air, like in big parks. I used to stand backstage watching the kids coming in - you'd see lots of mums and dads coming and sitting with their kids. They'd have shopping bags with them, and they'd bring out their sandwiches!

S. N. : Are you going back to America?

Don : There's no plans at the moment because we'd rather work in England and Europe.

With that relieving news in mind for all English and European fans, we decided to call the interview to a close. We made arrangements to return to Don later in the week to take photos for the next issue.

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With thanks, as always, to Chris Selby for providing the hard copy.

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