THE SLADE BOOKS

Chris Charlesworth - Slade - Feel the Noize!

This authorised book is generally regarded by all who have seen a copy as 'The Slade Bible'. The four members of Slade and their late manager Chas Chandler co-operated fully with it. You get the full story up to 1985, pretty much in their own words, as Chris Charlesworth got the stories from them. 

It is thought / said that they later looked back on the book as possibly revealing too much, but there's nothing at all in there that does them any discredit. It is lavishly illustrated and practically every question you could have asked about Slade's career up to then is answered honestly and endearingly. An update of this book would be a wonderful thing, but the rights to re-publish passed away with Chas Chandler and so it is not possible to put the book out again. It can fetch a decent price on the internet auction sites, but is really very well worth tracking down.

Daryl Easlea Whatever Happened To Slade - When The Whole World Went Crazee Omnibus - October 2023. Years after his own major triumph of a Slade Bible, Chris Charlesworth commissioned a New Slade Bible to be written for Omnibus. They initially announced a book - 'Nobody's Fools' by Dick Porter, which sadly fell by the wayside, so we waited for something to happen. It has been a long wait. Happily, Daryl Easlea was commissioned to write this big, thick and fantastic book. There's 462 pages of Slade information. It's been a long time coming, but books as detailed as this simply don't write themselves. It has been more than worth the wait. I've read Daryl's books on Sparks and Peter Gabriel and Daryl takes the Slade story forward in his usual logical, forensic and detailed fashion from the band's humble origins in the Black Country (and Scottish) pubs and clubs, through Earls Court, the big halls around the country and back to the bars. There's huge amounts of triumph and far too much tragedy in Slade's story and Daryl gives us the lowdown on the where and when of Slade. He unearths stories of the band's exploits from their closest friends, associates and from die-hard fans, as well as a wealth of interesting and revealing band interviews from a variety of sources. The inter-band schism that caused Noddy Holder to up sticks and leave, effectively ending the band in the early 1990's is touched on, but none of the band members want to talk about their end very much and why should they? Daryl doesn't at any point resort to filling in gaps with supposition and second-guessing. There's very very little minutae that I can struggle to think of that has been missed out. That's an achievement. The photographs in the book have been sourced with a good degree of thought. If you can't put masses of photos in, you go for what fits with a good cross-section of illustrations of their career. An easy, ripping read that gallops along at exactly the right pace. You're in for a treat. Order it here.

Noddy Holder - Who's Crazee Now?

Lise Lyng Falkenberg / Don Powell - Look Wot I Dun: My Life In Slade.

If any book is ever going to top Noddy Holder's 'Who's Crazee Now?' then it is this one. Lise Lyng Falkenburg did an exemplary job of getting Don Powell's life story from him and he tells it with bewildering honesty and candour. His life in Slade has seen ups and downs and the downs were absolutely catastrophic. Several myths about the band are blown apart by this book. While he doesn't analyse their split in painstaking detail, the truth is in there and he has no problem telling it. Don Powell for a very long time had the reputation of being the nicest man in rock. This book tells you why. It is now the Slade book to try to beat.

Noddy Holder - The World According To Noddy.

Noddy talks about anything and everything. He seems to get some pet peeves off his chest and despite taking a slightly scattergun approach to topics, this book is well-written and it is an engaging read. You can just about hear a Black Country accent as you sit reading.

Dave Hill - So Here It Is.

Slade: Did You See Us?
A collection of fan reminiscences about their introductions to Slade and their music,
Nice for those who took part. Published by Chris Selby for the Jim Lea Music Facebook Page.
Not priced for profit and out now via Amazon. Limited to 500 print copies.

Christopher Selby - The Train Kept A-Rollin'

This was a strictly limited-edition keepsake photo book for members of the 'N Betweens who took part in the re-recording of the classic blues track, The Train Kept A-Rollin'. It was done as a keepsake - just for those involved and it was never put on general sale. A couple of extra copies were offered as competition prizes and one was sold for charity. Only 20 copies and 4 proof copies exist. No more will ever be printed.

Ian Edmundson - Slade: Six Years On The Road.

Malcolm Wyatt - Wild Wild wild, A People's History Of Slade

It's very very hard to fault a people's history of Slade that quotes the people who were there for most of the key events and major gigs in a group's history. This well-illustrated new hardback book has approaching 400 pages of wonderful testimony for the defence from ardent and verbose fans, some rock luminaries and the odd snippet of expert testimony from the band members themselves. Not every milestone date is in there (obviously) and it has to be said that the author does really well with what he has been given. It's a great cross-section cum history of their career.

The notion that a 50 year old line from 'Skweeze me pleeze me' was a 'right to rape' lyric (posited by one respondent) should maybe not have been included in the book, though that is obviously one person's opinion. Some things were what they were at the time. Otherwise, this book is one of the very best about Slade.

The Collected Slade Fan Club Newsletters Vol 1: 1979 - 1981.
The Collected Slade Fan Club Newsletters Vol 2: 1984 - 1987
The Collected Slade Fan Club Newsletters Vol 3: 1987 - 1989
The Collected Slade Fan Club Newsletters Vol 4: 1990 - 1992

Issued with the relevant permissions and a foreword graciously provided by Barbara Kemp, the first book collects together absolutely all of the excellent Dave Kemp newsletters (and the enclosures) into one 332 page volume. Issued on a totally NOT-FOR-PROFIT basis with the books priced sensibly and the entire book royalty goes to www.kidneyresearchuk.org.

Fans asked if we could do this and eventually, we thought it might be an idea, so we approached the editorial teams who gave us permission to do it with the donations going to the charity.

The Slade Newsletter books raised a total of £1230.59p for kidneyresearchuk.org on their first issue.
and also for Kidney Cancer Care. More donation information is here.

George Tremlett - Slade.

Bravo Scrapbook - Slade.

Alan G Parker and Steve Grantley - Cum On Feel the Noize.

Alan confirmed to me that the text of this book was severely edited down by management and the publisher, which is a great pity. The authors had access to some great photographs that hadn't been seen since the early 70's. Alan is one of the better writers to deal with the story of Slade and it's a shame his work was effectively cut in half.

Tony Charles
Slade In 1969, Slade In 1970, Slade In 1971, Slade In 1972, Slade In 1973, Slade In 1974
Slade In 1975/76, Slade In 1977/78, Slade In 1979/80, Slade In 1981 - 1992.

The 1969 book did initially seem to lean heavily on Chris Selby's research into Slade gigs from painstaking trawls of various newspaper archives. It does admit that the 'Slade 1969 and all that' page was a big source of information and inspiration. Apparently the page owner (Chris Selby) couldn't commit to joining in on the book when it was in preparation.

The content? Day by day gig adverts where found, some interviews, record releases with brief detail. 128 pages. The gig advert illustrations are really very well restored, and look wonderful, compared to the originals that can be seen on the net. There is an amount of info in the book that is not on the 1969 page or readily available on the internet and the book was indeed the first of a series, as promised.

The story goes on into 1970 and following years and these books provide quite a wealth of previously unearthed Slade historical material that I hadn't seen, or thought that I would see. There are a lot of gig adverts sourced from newspaper archives and the book details the record releases from the years, without going into too much detail and doing the work of a discography book. Again, there are some interviews from the time, venue photos for those who want them.

The later period when the group were in the clubs and Universities, with the occasional concert hall gig thrown in. You could see them close up and their show was an uncompromising spectacle with the full PA hauled into smaller venues. They didn't spare the crowd a single decibel. Their performances were tighter than before. They rehearsed themselves to a frazzle and made themselves a much tighter band. Their records bizarrely stopped charting. Is a single that fails to chart a bad record? No. It's just the failure of radio and the press to generate interest in it. We see how radio and TV started to treat Slade as lepers. Their shows remained mighty. And as for nightclub bouncers.... well, a few of those didn't like Slade much. Their time would come again...  The final book does tell the back end of the Slade story quite well. I rated the book on the book content, not how the Slade story went. There are large gaps and that seems to because the group were effectively no more. Summing up 1992 in one page shows just what the real state of play was. It baffles me how some good records simply slipped through the cracks. I don't think that the press and radio ever let Slade back in like they could have, even after their Reading triumph. A nice, thick book to round off the collection, but a sort of tapering off and fading away at the end of their story was inevitable. The group sort of petered out and faded away in the latter years and it is just sad, but it is exactly what happened to Slade.

Tony Charles - Slade In Their Own Words
Very much what it says on the tin - a collection of roughly chronological quotes and reminiscences from the members of Slade, covering their childhoods, their career, a lot of their releases and the end of the band.

Slade! - Music Sales Brochure / biog and sheet music versions.

There are two versions available and the best version to get is the one with the sheet music included.
A mainly pictorial potted history of Slade. Slightly more content than a tour programme.

The Slade Papers
(Music Sales Ltd)

Collected fan club magazine newletters from 1971 to 1976. Indispensible. Follow Slade's progress through the newsletters.

Essential.

Darren Johnson - Slade in the 1970s (Decades)

This is one of a long series of 'Decades' books, written to a basic template. A slim workman-like volume which gives a reasonable chronology of the band in the 1970's, though there are a couple of errors I spotted, which I would have thought the team of 'fan' proof readers would have noticed. Things like incomplete song names definitely jar slightly with me. Descriptions of some songs on albums seem very similar to others that I have read. Some of the song descriptions are odd.

His assertion that the song All The World Is A Stage, that many rate as the outstanding radical change during the mid-point of Slade's career, is 'pretentious'.... is just mind-boggling: "This is one of the album's most experimental songs. The lyric invokes Shakespeare's famous monologue from As You Like It, to celebrate the art of performance and communion with one's audience. It all comes across as rather pretentious, a little overblown and curiously out of step with the album. Holder turning from Shakespeare to showbiz schmaltz at the end - 'You've been very wonderful tonight. Thank you. Goodnight' - does nothing to rescue it."

I don't know how he missed mentioning Slade's final live performance on a stage in 1991. A very generic photo section in the centre of the book. Mainly album covers. It does highlight a couple of differences in band member accounts of how the odd song came together - Far Far Away, for example. Bearing in mind that this is his third book for them (he's also done Suzi Quatro and Sweet), he should have got his format and approach right by now.

Having said that though, I read Slade books differently to a lot of people and that's probably my problem. Any new book on Slade is a good thing and you can buy it here.

Craig Halstead - Slade: All The Top 40 Hits

An overview of most of Slade's chart output with week-by-week singles positions. Cheap as chips and a decent reference book.  here

Currently in the planning stages for 2024 release.

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Arthur Miller - Slade

It's just a cut and paste from a Wkipedia entry (which is now far more up to date on the Wikipedia site) and a collection of random images from a Google search. Completists only. Now out of print. Not a bad state of affairs.

0 STARS

Remarkable life of Noddy Holder
James A Gilson

"It's just comical. There needs to be a golden garbage award for this piece of utter hogwash. If there is such a person as James A Gilson, well, It's a cheek for him to call it a book.

It's been put together using AI - there's actually a burst of random German on one page where the text generator breaks down - and there's little doubt about that as soon as you start reading it. The writing is stilted and awkward and AI using lazy platitudes to write essays for the opening blurb and conclusion to pad it out, is nothing new. The inclusion of a band photo that doesn't include any member of Slade on the title page (I think it's the Grateful Dead) is the funniest thing I've seen in ages.

Slade's career is dealt with by page 12. A chapter on their songs actually names 7 of them.

A chapter on Nod's wife Suzan is unbelievably revealing.
The year of their marriage, the name of heir son and the anecdote that he wakes her up on December 25th by bellowing 'It's Christmas' at her. An unexpected bonus is the revelation that she finds hearing his voice in the supermarket 'strange'. We all needed to know that? We've seen it in the press.

A chapter on Nod's bank balance is a total waste of paper. It speculates (with no conclusion) on his earnings from the Christmas hit. He's done alright from it. That saves you buying the book.

The highpoint of the book is an nterview which takes up chapters 4 and 5. It's online.
So is the interview in chapter 6.
Chapter 7 is a brief interview about how Noddy Holder dealt with his money conducted by one of the papers.

The inaccuracies are staggering.
The Memphis Cutouts recorded 4 singles for Columbia. No they didn't.
He suggest Merry Xmas Everybody was their 3rd UK #1. It was their 6th.
Slade drummer Don Powell gets killed in 1973 on page 21 of the book, but fortunately makes a good enough recovery to tour again later that year. His girlfriend was murdered that same year.

It's fairly obvious that this book was thrown together in a mad panic to sell a few copies after Suzan Holder's feature for Cheshire Life magazine. That is reproduced word for word, uncredited here, along wit the editor's comments, which an author would have cut out of the book.

I collect Slade stuff but am working out whether to return it or not.
It's so bad it's good in a comedy way.
It reads like someone in a call centre abroad has put it together in their lunch hour.
They really shouldn't have wasted our time.

0 STARS