Hatfield and the North

[daven]

OK guys, you're all pretty much on the ball, so I apologise if you've seen this before, but I hadn't so I thought I'd share. 1970s HatN footage is pretty rare, so it was great to see this; decent picture and sound AND it's synced up.

[calyx]

A fairly average performance by the best band that ever existed.

(Thread ends here - I can't see how anyone could possibly disagree with the above statement - at least the second part)

[Scrotum Scissor]

A fairly average performance by the best band that ever existed.

(Thread ends here - I can't see how anyone could possibly disagree with the above statement - at least the second part)

I'm at least inclined to agree that on a day when you want to hear the Hatfields, there's absolutely no substitute for it whatsoever. They were that special and extraordinary, yet so inexplainably familiar and "humane" in everything they embarked on. I caught a tape of them playing once in a bar in Lisbon, and I swear it was like discovering your own nursery thousands of miles from home and just wanting to lock yourself in there to be safe.

And they are among my fave 10 bands of all time - no matter what "genre". You never tire of them, their melodies, atmospheres and funny ways.

[undergroundrailroad]

I'm at least inclined to agree that on a day when you want to hear the Hatfields, there's absolutely no substitute for it whatsoever. They were that special and extraordinary, yet so inexplainably familiar and "humane" in everything they embarked on. I caught a tape of them playing once in a bar in Lisbon, and I swear it was like discovering your own nursery thousands of miles from home and just wanting to lock yourself in there to be safe.

And they are among my fave 10 bands of all time - no matter what "genre". You never tire of them, their melodies, atmospheres and funny ways.

Hatfield and the North and Genesis are both great mysteries to me. I understand why I like them. I just can't understand why I love them SO MUCH WITH ALL MY SOUL.

[Blah_Blah_Woof_Woof]

Hatfield & the North's Rotter's Club is in my Top 3 albums of all time!

I find it so attractive and it is such a personal favorite of mine.

[Paulrus]

This was the band where the whole Canterbury scene suddenly made total sense to me.

[Trane]

hadn't seen this yet, thanks for sharing...

[Zeuhlmate]

Everything Stewart did before Stewart & Gaskin is so intelligent and subtle that I never get tired of it. Absolute highlights are of course Hatfield and NH (with a little help from his friends).

[zravkapt]

I'm glad Hatfield even existed at all; they made the two best 'Canterbury' albums (IMO although I'm sure I'm not alone in that opinion). In an alternate universe: Khan recorded a second album and Wyatt never had his accident, thus Matching Mole continued; thus, no Hatfield (and probably no National Health either).

[calyx]

I'm glad Hatfield even existed at all; they made the two best 'Canterbury' albums (IMO although I'm sure I'm not alone in that opinion). In an alternate universe: Khan recorded a second album and Wyatt never had his accident, thus Matching Mole continued; thus, no Hatfield (and probably no National Health either).

The new Matching Mole that Wyatt was about to start when he had his accent didn't involve Phil Miller, precisely because Hatfield was already going. If Khan had kept going, you're right that Dave Stewart probably wouldn't have joined Hatfield, so maybe without the alternative option of him, when Dave Sinclair left Hatfield they would have gone for Alan Gowen (who did audition). So the end result would have been no Gilgamesh (that is, the line-ups with Phil Lee on guitar). And, with no disrespect to Gowen (who hadn't yet matured to becoming the great player he would later be), an inferior Hatfield. And indeed, no National Health. A great, great loss overall. After all we did get half a second Khan album with "Fish Rising" and the material Wyatt was writing for the new Mole became "Rock Bottom" and it's hard to imagine that material done better than it was on "RoBo" !!

[Udi Koomran]

I recently found an old diary I wrote in the summer of 75 were I dedicate a few lines to my new discovery The Rotter's Club
It was my initiation to a wonderful world - it was hard at first cause it wasn't as "rock" as the other stuff I was listening to but I guess that "humane" factor Scrotum Scissor so well observed made the whole difference
Skip forward 30 years I was at last able to see some footage of this wonderful band (thanks Aymeric ) was another major revelation
all in all there is a total of about 30 min of prime Hatfield footage
too bad they were not able to include them with the 2 archive releases from a few years back

[Udi Koomran]

OK guys, you're all pretty much on the ball, so I apologise if you've seen this before, but I hadn't so I thought I'd share. 1970s HatN footage is pretty rare, so it was great to see this; decent picture and sound AND it's synced up.

Curious to know what made you think the audio was "re synced "

[Enid]

I remember purchasing their debut and Rotters Club from Jem Imports in North/South Plainfield N.J. during the madtimes. I was blown away by the melodic compositions and shocked by the amazing harmony vocals of the Northettes. ....only later to slightly resurface in the music of National Health. I was a fanatic and hunted down LP copies of Virgin-Various Artists and Live At the Rainbow just to hear different material that wasn't easy to obtain until the digital age when it was featured as bonus tracks.

[daven]

Curious to know what made you think the audio was "re synced "

"Re synced"? I never said that. What I meant was that many youtube videos' sound is out of time to the picture. This one seems to match pretty well. I'm not suggesting that the sound and picture are from different sources.

[daven]

A fairly average performance by the best band that ever existed.

(Thread ends here - I can't see how anyone could possibly disagree with the above statement - at least the second part)

I agree with both parts of that statement. I think the Rainbow didn't really suit them. Better in a smaller venue. No wonder the were always skint.

[Dave (in MA)]

"Re synced"? I never said that. What I meant was that many youtube videos' sound is out of time to the picture. This one seems to match pretty well. I'm not suggesting that the sound and picture are from different sources.

Sometimes the upload & conversion process screws up the sound and it looks as though the picture and sound came from separate sources when they didn't. I've had it happen to my own videos.

[bill g]

I'm at least inclined to agree that on a day when you want to hear the Hatfields, there's absolutely no substitute for it whatsoever. They were that special and extraordinary, yet so inexplainably familiar and "humane" in everything they embarked on. I caught a tape of them playing once in a bar in Lisbon, and I swear it was like discovering your own nursery thousands of miles from home and just wanting to lock yourself in there to be safe.

And they are among my fave 10 bands of all time - no matter what "genre". You never tire of them, their melodies, atmospheres and funny ways.

Very well said.

[bill g]

Hatfield and the North and Genesis are both great mysteries to me. I understand why I like them. I just can't understand why I love them SO MUCH WITH ALL MY SOUL.

Also very well said.

[Watanabe]

A great band indeed, though they would have been even better for me had Dave stuck more to his great distinctive organ playing.As an electric piano stylist he wasn't anywhere near the same class.

[rcarlberg]

I wonder how much footage of this concert exists? I have a bootleg CD of this performance and it's like 40 minutes long. It would be SWEET if someday the video to the whole thing appeared in public. Aymeric, do you know?

[GuitarGeek]

I wonder how much footage of this concert exists? I have a bootleg CD of this performance and it's like 40 minutes long. It would be SWEET if someday the video to the whole thing appeared in public. Aymeric, do you know?

That's actually a really good question. The abrupt ending suggests that there might be more, but how much more?

What I'd like to know is what this was done for? Presumably for television, but by whom and/or for which show? Or was this just a general purpose promo film, probably financed by Virgin, tossed together as something that could be sent to any given television production that may wish to have the band appear on their program.

If it's the latter, I doubt there's much more than this in existence. Things weren't archived back then the way they are now. If the idea was to make a promo film for television, I doubt they would have filmed the entire performance, unless whichever broadcaster decided to devote 30 minutes or whatever it was to a given group or performer. And it was so expensive to film a concert back then, I doubt they would filmed the entire concert "just so we can have it on film", unless it was, let's say The Rolling Stones, for instance (ie a band that how money coming out of their ears and therefore could afford to film or videotape something, then put it on the shelf).

[calyx]

I wonder how much footage of this concert exists? I have a bootleg CD of this performance and it's like 40 minutes long. It would be SWEET if someday the video to the whole thing appeared in public. Aymeric, do you know?

Can't really answer the first part (sorry to disappoint - and for ruining my reputation !). None of the Hatfields I've asked over the years seemed to know. I have also come across several testimonies of people who swear they saw a Virgin film of Hatfield *with the Northettes in it* (so, different to either the "Rockenstock" 1972 and 1973 footage, and the Rainbow 1975 footage), but Dave Stewart couldn't remember anything about it.

The full performance, available in bootleg form, is more like 70-75 minutes long iirc. The band had a partial soundboard recording of it, which began with "The Yes No Interlude" - this has since been released on "Hatwise Choice". This was followed by "Halfway Between And Earth", which was used to create the "Over The Rainbow" version, since included on "Afters" and the "Rotters' Club" CD reissues, with added lead vocals plus guitar and bass overdubs (only the keys and drums were left fully intact). The remainder of the medley (beginning with the "Halfway" organ solo) is in this clip. The encore with Al Clark guesting is also on "Hatwise Choice", I think.

[Udi Koomran]

could be worth while to try and trace the source
this version seems to be vastly improved on the previous one and it does make sense that there is more...

[calyx]

Interestingly, in his 1990 "autobiography" for the UK zine Ptolemaic Terrascope, Dave Stewart mentioned that he'd seen this footage on a trip to Japan. What's interesting is that he mentioned seeing "Halfway Between Heaven And Earth" with Richard Sinclair's vocals (re-recorded in the studio later - he hadn't written lyrics yet when the Rainbow gig was filmed) synced to images of him singing "la-la-la". This is intriguing since all known versions of this footage begin with the organ solo at the end of the song. So, did he mis-remember, or is there a longer edit somewhere that includes the song ? The plot thickens...

[Scrotum Scissor]

[QUOTE=calyx;198910]Interestingly, in his 1990 "autobiography" for the UK zine Ptolemaic Terrascope, Dave Stewart mentioned that he'd seen this footage on a trip to Japan. QUOTE]

Ah, those good ol' days. Was this in the same series that had the extensive Richard Sinclair interview? I surely remember learning A LOT about the Canterbury scene and the UK underground in general from reading those lines. Of particular note was a long coverage of the "rural" scene encompassing bands like Help Yourself and Cochise et al.