reck'n'roll: MONARCHY ROCK...its Queen

QUEEN...one of the most amazing bands in hard rock history...and now I finally got around to doing the homage to the guys....SO, HERE WE GO.

I only saw Queen in person twice once in '74 and when they Radio ga-ga'd us in Sydney rocking gigs indeed...got a couple of dvds as well...always good veiwing.

A lot of front men can control a crowd, it is part of the job description after all, But Freddie was far and away the best frontman Ive ever seen...he had the Syd Ent Cent standing, singing and clapping on command..awesome.

Brian and Roger were already playing together in a group called SMILE, when they got themselves a super fan...one Farouk Bulsara, he hung around and helped them load in and stuff like that , then he got the opportunity to get the gig as the singer and he grabbed it with both hands, the first thing he did is he changed the name of the band to queen and because Freddie always gigged like he was at Wembley, he needed a more rock star nom-de-plume, thus Freddie Mercury was born...and into the stratosphere they began to
climb.

The boys had a dodgy deal to start with, they were writing all the songs BUT there managers were the ones buying the rolls royces...something was afoot, so they flicked those bandits and hooked up with Reggie Dwights manager John Reid, matters fiscal improved forthwith and just in time cause they were about to do, potentially, there two greatest albums, A NIGHT AT THE OPERA & A DAY AT THE RACES...disagree if you want, I dont mind...and on Opera was BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY,

Roy Thomas Baker says that every time Freddie walked into the studio of a morning he let everyone know that he had more falalalala's to add to the track.....must of been a headache all that bloody overdubbing.

.John Reid played it for Reggie, who agreed with Reid that it was too friggin long, no bugger would play it....UNTIL...Kenny Everett, yes he of the Kenny Everett Video show, nicked a copy and played it 14 times in two day ( in 2 minute increments) and she shot straight into the charts and also caused the creation of the first proper music video...or so they say, I'm sure I saw some on GTK when I was a kidlet....

it was around this time that Punk erupted in the UK and the band was in wessex studios at the same time as those dickheads from the Pistols, one day Sid Vicious stuck his head in the door and asked freddie if he had brought ballet to the masses yet ?, Fred grabbed him by the leather jacket, called him Simon Ferocious and tossed the junkie fucker out the door..NICE ONE ....Monarchy met Anarchy..Monarchy WON !!

As is known, Queen had a phenomenal string of product, some good, some great and then there was HOT SPACE which no sane human ever talks about,cause it was the drizzling shits...it was even worse than Freddies solo album MR BAD GUY, and thats saying something indeed...Queen even did some movie stuff, FLASH was one and the theme song to Highlander "Princes of the universe"...might I just add that the music was the best bit of Flash..fark moi what a load of cobblers....BUT "princes" lives on my mp3 gizmo to this very day...awesome tune and a great video too just quietly....where was I....

....oh yeah...Queen debunked to Munich Germany to do a string of albums with the man called Mack and they were doing alright until that HOT SPACE shit got spewed out...and I thinks its fair to suggest that a good percentage of blame can be landed square on the shoulders of Freddie s P.A , some gormless little maggot by the name of Paul Prenter, who it is said had way too much of Mercurys ear, he almost succeded in convincing fred that Brian and Roger wanted Freddie gone...luckily it didnt kill the band, the last act by the slimy bastard was to sell Freddie out to the british press for a measly amount of money i might....add...his dead now...GOOD RIDDANCE.

The band carried on touring and stuff, releasing albums then came The Works and with it Hammer to Fall and Radio GA GA...the tour was a rousing success and the next time we saw the Band was on Live Aid ...And they ruled the stage, mind you it helped that their regular sound guy was working the desk for Geldof and when Freddie gave him the thumbs up he turned off the limiters and cranked the volume up for his boys.

After Live Aid the band released A kind of Magic, little did we know that this would be freds llast tour...the last gig was at Knebworth and drew 120,000 punters, the boys could draw that for sure, at the beginning of their career they drew 170,000 to Hyde park to Freddies Picnic by the Serpentine

ANYWAY, this was freds last tour, he went on to do the Barcelona album with Montserrat Caballe and the band also released THE MIRACLE as well then came INNUENDO...this album produced the video that was freddies last time on film , he looked very gaunt and Brians says it took a fair while to do the video because Freddie had to keep stopping to have rests....

It was also around this time that he said to the boys to write him lyrics and put a click track on a drum machine and he would record them so they could
release them after he was gone...those click tracks turned out to be MADE IN HEAVEN...A great album, and not just because of the incidents surrounding its creation.

Lets stop for a second and pay homage to a great man who flys very much under the Queen radar although he shouldnt, the man in question bulit Brian Mays red special in 1963..that man is Brians dad..and the man needs a knighthood just for building that axe in my humble opinion.

Freddie passed away in Novenber 91 and had a hell of a time from those bastards in the british press, prior to his passing...frigging vultures should all be shot

a while later the remaining members booked a quit little gig AT WEMBLEY STADIUM to send Freddie off with a loud bang...and what a night that was, Def lep, Robert Plant, Roger Daltry, George Michaels, Metallica and Guns n Roses were just some of the bands that showed up to jam on Queen tunes and have a good time doing it.

Since Freddies passing and John Deacon retiring form public view, Roger and Brian have gone out to further the Queen name with a couple of tours with Bad Company belter Paul Rodgers on the mic ...and what rockin gigs they were Paul done good....of course people always chucked out hypotheticals for guys to step into Freddies shoes and who am I not to join in..

.if I have to picked a couple of guys I have to say Gary Cherone ,formerly of Extreme and Van Halen OR George Michael could also pull off the vocals that Queen songs demand...I did see a gigi with Brian and Roger and Spike with Adam Lambert on vocals, Lambert looks the part BUT he aint got the chops in my opinion...then there is also Glenn Hughes from Deep Purple, he could do it PLUS he plays a mean bass as well...just a thought.

just a quick random thought, I was watching the Queen documentary "day of our lives"and on it there was this rampaging numbnut dickhead from Melody Maker L.A called Harvey Kubernick, if you get a chance watch the video and listen to this dribbler, you will lose your faith in humanity, the blokes a tosser of massive proportions....