FM and Nash the Slash

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Massed Gadgets
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FM and Nash the Slash

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olzen wrote:FM - One O'Clock Tomorrow...This has to rank as one of the best prog rock songs ever written!
2066 wrote:I was just listening to their album Surveillance today! They played at my high school here and I got them to autograph my copy. I also know two people who know "Nash". One I just met this week! I even talked to Cameron Hawkins on the subway one day. I have a live broadcast recording by CFNY here in Toronto that has them playing songs from Black Noise and Suveillance. Cool band.
Massed Gadgets wrote:I love Nash and FM...I got to meet Nash (without his bandages--I actually have the bandages he wore for that legendary show) back when I was 16, after the 1981 Nash the Slash Halloween Bash...it was an awesome night. I've seen him live half a dozen times since then. I only got to see FM live once though. It was the period after Ben Mink had left and Nash had rejoined, but before they started recording again and doing really commercial Top 40 stuff, so it was an awesome show full of all the classics. I caught one of Nash's picks at that one. I love Headroom, it was certainly their most progressive work. Even though Nash had left, Ben Mink did a superb job. Do you have it on vinyl (quite rare!) or some other medium? I played my vinyl copy once and recorded it to cassette, then left it untouched to preserve it (the way it has remained for 29 years now <.8.> ), but I lost that cassette a long time ago, so now I've been thinking of playing it again to rip it to mp3, since I haven't heard it in awhile.
olzen wrote:Bandages? That's what you call a souvenir! I envy you for being able to see him alone. I don't think there are a lot of Nash fans in Denmark! Heck, I'd even go to a "pop-FM" gig. Just Like You is a great song, in my opinion, if only because it's fun and catchy. And Nash gets some brilliant moments in the video!

Headroom is a great album indeed. A very bold way to make an album and introduce a new member to the group. Unfortunately, I don't own the vinyl, no. I wish I did. I have seen it on eBay, though, so it may not be totally difficult to get. There are tons of the Black Noise LP on eBay as well, so I have to get that at some point. And then we'll just see whether the collection grows!

Right now, I have mp3s of all the FM studio albums (most are obviously vinyl rips), as well as (legal) mp3s of a lot of Nash's stuff. When it comes to FM, you can't beat Black Noise. That album is brilliant. As for Nash's stuff, the Blind Windows compilation is jawdropping. Thrash - the first album of his that I ever heard - deserves an honorary mention as well. The song We Will Be the Leaders is as good as anything Gary Numan ever made! Hmm, FM and Nash deserve their own thread on here!
So here they have their own thread! <ii>

I was a big collector back in the day of FM/Nash stuff. Mind you, it was when all of that was new and just coming out so it wasn't difficult to get then. I have all the original FM LP's (except for the two Top 40 ones, because I wasn't crazy about them and sold them, and City of Fear, because my copy of it seems to have disappeared, sadly, over successive moves). I have all the original Nash albums and most of the singles on vinyl too, including a very rare single put out by the DJ's of the radio station Terry mentioned, CFNY-FM, sort of their musical manifesto on which Nash played a solo, and an 80's album by Michael Waite and Eyes which Nash guested on (Waite and Nash were in a band together in the late 60's). I'm missing some though. My holy grail is an original vinyl copy of the 1976 experimental album Nocturnal Earthworm Stew by David Pritchard on which Nash played on a couple of tracks. And of course I'd like to replace my long lost copy of City of Fear.

It's a pity Cameron Hawkins hasn't seen fit to release any of the other classic FM albums on CD other than Black Noise, but we didn't even have a Black Noise CD for many, many years either. I remember the title track of that being one awesome piece when done live when I saw them.

Btw, Terry, I think I taped that same FM show off CFNY as you did. Is that the one where Who's Gonna Win the War by Hawkwind gets played directly after the end of it?
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Re: FM and Nash the Slash

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Massed Gadgets wrote:It's a pity Cameron Hawkins hasn't seen fit to release any of the other classic FM albums on CD other than Black Noise, but we didn't even have a Black Noise CD for many, many years either. I remember the title track of that being one awesome piece when done live when I saw them.
Apparently, quite a few of the master tapes are lost. Even the Black Noise CD is sourced from an LP, which makes me wonder why people are even willing to pay $100+ for it when the LPs are way easier to get. And of course, there's Headroom, for which no tapes ever existed in the first place! But yeah, it's a damn shame most of this music isn't available in remastered form.

Speaking of Black Noise, the TVO version of that song is absolutely brilliant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zose15iYVM
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Re: FM and Nash the Slash

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olzen wrote:Apparently, quite a few of the master tapes are lost. Even the Black Noise CD is sourced from an LP, which makes me wonder why people are even willing to pay $100+ for it when the LPs are way easier to get. And of course, there's Headroom, for which no tapes ever existed in the first place! But yeah, it's a damn shame most of this music isn't available in remastered form.
I guess some people are willing to pay that much because they don't have a turntable to play the LP on. I still have the original CBC LP, but got the CD when it first came out because I didn't have a turntable to play my LP's on for a little while there during that period. I didn't realize the CD was already out of print! I guess I'm glad I got that one when I did.

At least Nash has preserved most of his masters, the original Bedside Companion EP being one of the exceptions however (which was remastered from the vinyl for the Bedside companion CD). I don't know about the Decomposing master, though, he's never released that to CD. Plus I think it's an issue of rights as well. Cameron didn't own the rights to most of FM's albums, whereas, with the exception of Children of the Night (which came out on Virgin), the rest of his early releases were on his own Cutthroat Records. I don't have some of Nash's newer ones like In-A-Gadda-Da-Nash. I've heard that one though and really should get it one of these days. Nash's version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida was awesome!

Thanks for posting that early FM video, I'd never seen that before. That's back in the real early days before Martin Deller joined! Interesting too to see Nash in his pre-bandage days. Never thought to look them up on Youtube, but I've been watching some of the others now as well. Cool stuff!
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Re: FM and Nash the Slash

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Still, these days, a decent USB turntable is cheaper than what some people are selling that CD for!

I have to admit I'm not that interested in In-A-Gadda-Da-Nash. I like his original material more than his covers, though they are always highly unique! And it does indeed sound like you have an awesome collection there!

You're welcome about the YouTube link. That was actually the video that got me into FM in the first place. And speaking of Nash... he does bear a striking resemblance to his part-namesake from Guns 'N Roses in those videos, doesn't he? I wonder if Slash ever knew about him, or if it's just a strange coincidence...
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Re: FM and Nash the Slash

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Yeah, I must admit, I was never much into his covers either and much preferred his original stuff. I went into In-A-Gadda-Da-Nash with some skepticism, but was pleasantly surprised, even a bit blown away by some of the stuff on it. But my favourite album by him still remains Dreams and Nightmares for all it's creepy weirdness and strange beauty.

I hadn't noticed the resemblance you mentioned, but I can say he sure doesn't look like the Nash the Slash I know, in those early videos. :lol: Cameron Hawkins, sandwiched there between his Moog and his Elka Rhapsody makes for an off-kilter rock star presence though.
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Re: FM and Nash the Slash

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Dreams and Nightmares is indeed great, as is Bedside Companion in my opinion. Blind Windows is a great compilation!

Yeah, I've seen a picture of Nash (or Jeff) without bandages, and he doesn't look like a guy who's ever been a member of Guns 'N Roses. Both him and Hawkins are unbeatable in those videos - the musicianship is totally amazing. It's a shame these guys are so underrated compared to, say, Rush.
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Re: FM and Nash the Slash

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Saw FM in 1980 or 1981 at Ontario Place!!! I was just a wee kid too...

Oh, and in the mid-1990's I accidentally slagged FM while talking to Martin Deller...I forgot he was in the band, until the words left my mouth, then I kinda saved myself...the slag was more that my interests in music in the early 80's really didn't include their kind of music...still, something like Black Noise does sound a little too Rush-like actually, that drummer guy from Rush was there to witness the conversation
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Re: FM and Nash the Slash

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nosaj wrote:...still, something like Black Noise does sound a little too Rush-like
Really? I don't hear that at all. Rush were such a guitar oriented band, and FM were so synth oriented, with Nash's mandolin and violin adding texture and flourish. They didn't even use any guitars. Perhaps in the 80's, when Rush adopted much more synthesizers into their sound it was a little similar, but that was after Black Noise, so in that case you would have to say that Rush was a little too FM-like. :lol:
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Re: FM and Nash the Slash

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Good point. I believe my copy of Black Noise has an earliy 80's date on it...but, I just realized that it came out in 1977 (because, I just googled it)...hmmmm...I'm a knob then. <ii> But, seriously, I think of Rush's use of synthesizer as starting in 1977, with A Farewell to Kings...so, they were contemporaries...
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Re: FM and Nash the Slash

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Actually, if you watch those videos Olzen posted, you'd see that FM were playing those songs live as early as 1976. :smt110

Seriously though, you are right, they were contemporaries, both in the same city and part of the same scene...I'm sure they had some influence on each other.
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Re: FM and Nash the Slash

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Yeah, it's also worth noting that Martin Deller didn't even join till the recording of "Black Noise". As you can see in those TV Ontario videos, they were using a drum machine until then. They didn't really sound like any other band till they got the drummer on-board. Ironically, Nash originally left the band because he thought the addition of a drummer made the band sound too commercial!

Speaking of Martin Deller and Rush, would you mind posting the full story of the incident you described earlier, nosaj? That sounds very... umm, interesting! :lol:
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Re: FM and Nash the Slash

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I think Martin Deller is a vastly underrated drummer. I would not hesitate to put him in the same league as Neil Peart.
olzen wrote:Ironically, Nash originally left the band because he thought the addition of a drummer made the band sound too commercial!
That is ironic! I interviewed Nash in 1981, and he told me then that he wanted to push his music in a more commercial direction. I remember him defending commercialism, saying he didn't think there was anything wrong with it. Over the next few years his own music did take a slightly more commercial direction, away from instrumentals and more into his own style of electro-punk mutant pop music, but the work he did with FM on Con-Test and Tonight was certainly the apex of his commercial phase.
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Re: FM and Nash the Slash

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Well, I'm only paraphrasing Wikipedia. There are no citations either, but the paragraph itself states:
In late 1977, Nash the Slash left the group for a solo career, stating that the addition of a drummer gave the band a sound which was too commercial for his liking. This comment would be frequently quoted in articles and reviews years later for irony, as some his later work, with and without FM, is viewed as being much more commercial and pop-oriented than the first FM album.
His statement in your interview kind of makes that implausible, though.
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Re: FM and Nash the Slash

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Well, a lot can change in four years. He had already recorded Bedside Companion, Dreams & Nightmares, and Children of the Night, when I interviewed him. Children of the Night was a step towards something more commercial, at least more so than his all instrumental works. Perhaps he got that out of his system with BC and D&N.

It is kind of ironic, though, that after he left and Ben Mink was recruited, FM recorded their least commercial album Headroom.
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Re: FM and Nash the Slash

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I can't view Youtube at work, it is blocked.

My confusion is that my Black Noise cassette tape I have says 1980 on it and the vinyl says 1982, so I thought it was an 80's album - the cassette was a gift in 1980 and I saw them in 1980 or 1981, so I thought it was a new album back then...I hate when original release dates are not on albums...

Indeed, Martin and Neil are friends...