According to the website Ultimate Classic Rock, April 13th 2014 marks the 30th Anniversary of the album Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply by the British band Slade. As I read the brief little history of this album on the website, I was transported back 30 years to a time right before my Senior year of High School and College and reminded me how much I loved this album.
In the Spring of 1984, I was approaching my 17th birthday(in July) and I was a full blown record store fanatic. I didn’t have my own car yet. So, I would drive the family station wagon or my Dad’s 1970 VW Beetle to my destinations. As one would imagine, most of my destinations were 2 or 3 record stores. I was buying copies of Hit Parader and Circus magazine every month and catching whatever music video programming I could find. So, I remember catching the first video for the song Run Runaway and something struck the proverbial chord in me. I loved the Celtic feel and yet rocking jig. Looking back, I think it may have something to do with my Irish heritage and ancestry.
The song stuck with me and soon thereafter they started playing videos for the second track My Oh My. This was a slower ballad. But, it was very memorable and stuck with me as well. The song had a bit of tenderness to it and I really enjoyed the vocals of singer Noddy Holder. If I remember right, the video seemed like a sequel of sorts to the first video. At least that’s how I remember it.
From my monthly reading of Circus and Hit Parader magazines, I learned that this band Slade was the band that had originally recorded the song Cum On Feel The Noize. In 1983, that song was everywhere made popular by LA Heavy Metal band Quiet Riot. Suddenly, there was a buzz on this band that had been on the British scene for many years.
Then, they made their debut on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand and performed/lip synched both of these songs. At that point, I was sold on this and I bought a cassette copy of the album.
Soon, I had this cassette copy all the time. Since the band was now in the US public eye, I became obsessed with finding more from this British import. Many of the bands I followed were trumpeting these guys from across the pond. I remember reading a liner note from one band’s album for thanking the American recording company for (finally) signing Slade. I even remember that Spring when I was looking to buy my first car, I test drove a car and I knew it had a tape deck in it. So, I made sure I had the “Power Supply” cassette with me for that test drive. My parents made jokes that I only wanted the car because of the tape deck. I’m a music fanatic. What other reason is there?
I’d been to Kearney and Dustys Records in the Spring of 1984 for KSC District Music Contest and eventually KSC High School Music Camp in August of 1984. This cemented my desire to be in Kearney for my college education. I was excited to be in school and be around musicians and a cool record store like Dustys. So, right before my Senior year of High School, my friend Mick and I loaded in my car and drove to Kearney for the day. We wanted to drop by the college and Dustys’ and Yanda’s music to look at drums and sticks and drum hardware. We stopped in at Dustys on 23rd street and I went through a bunch of the records and found an album called Slayed – The Best of Slade(I think) and a t-shirt of the album cover of Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply. I loved that shirt and the band. I wore that shirt so much. It was comfortable and even later I cut off the sleeves and made it into a muscle shirt.
My senior year of high school was a big year of transition for me. My parents had moved from North Platte Nebraska to the town of Hastings which is about 150 miles away. I’ve written before that I found a way to stay at the school for the year and live with my older sister, her husband and my infant niece. They moved into the family house and I stayed in my downstairs bedroom. Since my niece was an infant at the time, there were many nights of the baby waking up crying and I could hear it coming from the room above my own. So, I found a way to soothe myself back to sleep by putting on headphones to my walkman cassette deck and listen to music and drifting back to sleep. I tried to pick albums that weren’t that heavy and may have been more vocal oriented. For some reason, this Slade album was one of them. I have distinct memories of hearing the songs Ready to Explode and C’est La Vie ringing through my ears as I would drift off to sleep. Ready to Explode has the set up of a great car race as the drivers are introduced and the band members are the ones set up as the drivers. The vocal harmonies rang through my head. I just couldn’t get enough of them.
At the tail end of my senior year(1985), the band released their album Rogue’s Gallery. I was slightly excited about it. But, after graduation I would be heading to Hastings and start a new life in a new town the summer before I entered college. On that day after graduation, I loaded up my car and made a couple of stops on the way out of town and purchased Rogue’s Gallery at the store I had frequented the past two years. Although, I enjoyed that album. It didn’t stick with me like “Power Supply” did.
When I entered college, my tastes continued to grow. But, I held onto that cassette copy. Then, when I started working at Dustys, I decided I would sell my cassettes and replace them with a vinyl LP copy. A lot of times, I would sell old cassette copies for weekend beer money. I think I had played that Slade cassette so many times that eventually the pads fell off or the tape itself ripped, tore or got stuck in a couple of cassette decks along the way. But, it wouldn’t be until I worked at the Grand Island Dustys store that I found that there was a vinyl copy behind the counter. We didn’t listen to it very often because there may have been some issues with the turntable. Eventually, we divided up the store LP’s among Doug, Jayson and myself. I was low man on the totem pole and I think Jayson took the vinyl copy for himself. It wouldn’t be until the summer of 95 when the Kearney store closed altogether and I took some of the LP shelves that Dusty had in the back room back to my apartment. Jayson had bunch of LPs himself and the Power Supply was in that bunch. So, I took it with me and added it to my now growing collection.
Through the years, I would occasionally pull out my LP copy and drop the needle on it. I always liken the experience of listening to old favorites like that to putting on an old comfortable sweatshirt. I eventually sold my LP collection and figured I would find a CD copy or a digital download of this old favorite. I eventually found a way to download it. It was through the search of a download that I found out that the band had originally released this album in the UK as The Amazing Kamikaze Syndrome. I guess I had probably seen the album cover throughout my travels in different record stores. But, I don’t think I knew there was a difference.
Through my renewed excitement about this band, I’ve discovered a lot of stuff. They were big as part of the British “Glam” movement of the 70’s with bands like Sweet, T-Rex, Mott the Hoople and David Bowie. They had high heel boots around the same time (maybe even before) that KISS was doing their thing. Cheap Trick bassist Tom Petersson has even said that (after seeing Slade live) they said, “Wow, they’re using every CHEAP TRICK in the book!” and that’s where the name of that band came from. Ozzy Osbourne has even said that Noddy Holder’s voice was one of his favorite Rock voices. My brother that now lives in Dublin Ireland has said that Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody is played non-stop during the holiday season in the shops. I even found this 1999 BBC documentary on the band. I find myself watching it quite often.
But, today when I read that this was the 30th Anniversary of the American release of this album. I felt compelled to write something about this album that loomed large in my own personal playlists and rotations. It takes me back to a time and place in the summer of 1984 and right before I would step into a whole new world and new experiences.
