Armed and Ready 7
Issue 7
Not for the first time, we have an outstanding Armed & Ready in Issue 7, with some lost gems, some breaking news, and some links to the present day… Geoff Banks introduces us to EF Band, Tytan and Sapphire!
E F Band
It’s odd to see EF Band in A&R, as they’d been around since 1978, moving to Britain from Sweden and becoming a part of the NWOBHM, even contributing Fighting For Rock n Roll to the seminal Metal For Muthas compilation, and then signing with Redball Records off the back of that. It’s now 1982 and they are having trouble getting their 1981 debut LP The Last Laugh Is On You released in the UK… And that’s how they come to appear in A&R, with Geoff Banks pleading with Mercury records to release the album in the UK, an LP that is ‘head and shoulders above a lot of the dross currently masquerading as heavy metal… a powerful blend of early seventies blues metal and more recent speed riffing’. And EF Band’s criminally underrated / totally forgotten musical magic is brilliantly captured in the b-side to their first Redball release – Self Made Suicide… Flip the 7” over and you have Sister Syne – an incredible track that should by rights be up there with the great anthems of NWOBHM, but instead is almost completely forgotten. Follow the link below, fast-forward to 3.09, crank up the volume and enjoy!
After releasing three studio albums, touring with Rainbow and Saxon, and introducing the world to King Diamond’s future guitarist Andy LaRoque, the band broke-up in 1986.
An interesting EF Band fact is that despite being Swedish (and they basically moved from their home country due to the stigma of singing in English… An exception only really given to Abba), their line-up included Girlschool’s Denise Dufort’s brother Dave on the drums for a time. And Dave Dufort also played with Angel Witch – titans of the NWOBHM, and where A&R takes us next!
Tytan
And it’s not good news! Angel Witch have split-up! Kerrang! appear to have failed to mention this fact anywhere else in issues of the magazine so far (a half-page colour poster in Issue 3… nothing since), and it’s left to Geoff Banks and A&R to break the news… And two of the afore-mentioned titans (Dufort and bass-player Kevin Riddles) have wasted no time in forming er,… Tytan. (The history books tell us that Angel Witch had split in 1981 after releasing their debut LP, but were back together in 1982, but coming and going for a few years in this period…) In the meantime, Dave and Kevin have recruited an extra guitarist for their new venture to give them ‘more emphasis on vocal and guitar harmonies… while retaining the old delivery and energy’. And they also intend to keep a few of the old AW tracks in the set list, but they have loads of new material too that they wrote while AW were still going, but weren’t allowed to play! At the time of writing, they are about to release their first single, the anti-nuclear Blind Men And Fools – follow the link below – and would split in 1983, before reforming again in 2012.
Sapphire
The third band to feature in Issue 7’s A&R gets a full page all to themselves and is, by a stroke of luck, led by the Kerrang! writer and rock author Steve Gett! His new band – Sapphire – have only been around 3 months, but have been working hard getting as many support slots as possible and recording their demo tape which includes future single Jealousy. While Jealousy is actually a rather fine proto-sleaze rocker – follow the link below – Sapphire is notable as an early band of guitarist Rudi Riviere. The article clumsily celebrates the inclusion of a black heavy metal player in a band, comparing his style to that of Eddie Van Halen. An extremely talented guitarist, formerly of Dragonfly and good mates with Phil Collen, Rudi would go on to play with pop rockers Terraplane, three members of which would themselves go on to form Thunder (including frontman and Planet Rock DJ Danny Bowes).