Slade Scrapbook Website

NODDY HOLDER. DAVE HILL. JIM LEA. DON POWELL. SLADE.

I was a twelve year old kid born in Paddington and living in West Hampstead when I found Slade.

Noddy Holder, Dave Hill, Jim Lea and Don Powell made it big on the music scene in 1971. They had a minor hit with "Get Down and Get With It" before "Coz I Luv You" hit No1 in October.

They had follow-up No4 hit with "Look Wot You Dun" in the Spring of 1972.

I liked "Coz I Luv You" and "Look Wot You Dun" but I never purchased them initially. The first single I bought was "Take Me Bak Ome". I had seen the band perform on a tv programme called "2Gs and the Pop People" (a series hosted by the 2nd Generation dance troupe - which had featured guests every week) and was I was hooked.

I then bought "Mama Weer All Crazee Now" and all the Slade singles right up until their last release "Universe" in 1991.

I joined the Slade Fan Club in 1973 and eventually became such a fan that I actually ran the club myself between 1979 and 1983.

I met the band numerous times and became good pals with Don and Jim especially.

Over the years I collected loads of Slade souvenirs.

This website is dedicated to the magazines I bought. I spent hundreds (if not thousands) of pounds on buying the weekly teen mags. I remember occasionally buying the Disco 45 magazine in 1971 - which included the songwords to all the hit singles. It was ok. But I really liked Popswap which was first printed in September 1972.

Popswap had music features and pop pin-ups. It's issue coincided with me becoming a Slade fan. The band were featured often (along with Marc Bolan, Donny Osmonds and David Cassidy). It had a series of pages whereby fans placed small ads to swap (not sell) pop records and souvenirs.

Other pop mags soon followed in publication:- Fan, Superstar, Music Star, It's Here and Now and many others. I used to trawl through these mags at my local W H Smith newsagents in Swiss Cottage and buy every issue that featured Slade. I would eventually throw the magazines away - but have still kept to this day all the Slade features and pin-ups.

All these magazines ran for about 3 years between 1972 and 1975 when the glam rock and teeny bop bands were big. They all declined in about 1975 when disco music became more popular and were killed off completely in 1976 and 1977 when Punk was in fashion.

Also, Slade featured in many of the girls mags (such as Jackie, Diana, Fab 208, Mirabelle, Mates, etc). I was always too shy to buy these - as they were girls mags! However, I used to bribe my two mates David Davensac and Chris Dancy to buy them for me if Slade were featured. I would offer them free Black Jacks or Fruit Salad sweets - if they suffered the embaressment of buying these mags!

I eventually moved on to buy more "serious" music papers. I really liked Disc, which eventually merged with Record Mirror. I also bought Melody Maker, NME, Sounds and Superpop whenever they featured Slade.

In my loft I have boxes of Slade pin-ups, posters, interviews and clippings. They are going yellow with age and I thought that I should do something with them. I therefore decided to scan a load of them and put them on this website. In that way I can keep the memories and share the history with any fans that want to check this site. All the major Slade events are covered here:- The Lincoln Festival in 1972, Slade's London Palladium concert 1973, The NME Music Awards show 1973, the Earls Court gig , Don's accident, The filming of Flame, Slade emigrating to the USA in 1975, Jim and Nod's marriages, The Reading Festival, Nod getting beaten up in 1978 etc.

I was suprised when I re-read many of these articles. I have realised that much of Slade's press was never quite as bad as I imagined. (I seemed to remember that the band received loads of bad press when they fell from grace with the public - but this really isn't so). Many album and concert reviews were quite balanced - it was just that the writers were never so hooked on Slade as I was! Also, I was shocked at how many times Slade were featured in Jackie. I seem to have built up a big collection of Jackie features - probably inheirited from girl fans when they moved on to other bands. Some of the Jackie articles are very trivial - but it does seem that most of them were based on fact and they give a good insight into the private lives of the band.

The one famous article that I have found and included is the Popswap article about Nod owning a pet tarantula called Sooty. Apparantly, at the time in 1973, Nod was bored doing press and one day decided to make out he had a pet tarantula. The article was published, and then copied in many other magazines. Nod's tarantula story went global. For years later he was quizzed by press and fans about Sooty. However he eventually decided enough was enough - and from 1978 onwards if anyone asked about Sooty he would announce that Sooty had sadly passed away.....Click this link

Also, I have included the famous photo shoot the band did for the 100th issue of Music Star. Jim told me that he got totally fed up with these shoots. He hated being made to wear wacky party gear and put on false smiles. He really didn't believe that the band should be doing tacky photo shoots for teeny mags. The Music Star 100th Issue stuck out in Jim's memory as he, very reluctantly, managed to smile for one of the photos - but looked completely pissed off in all the other shots and these couldn't be used! To see the "Celebratin' with Slade" feature Click this link

This website will not have any real written text by me. It is all about Slade cuttings. I think that it will be a light weight, mainly pictorial, "coffee table" site for fans to look through. So here it is - a selection of fan mag pics, trivial teen mag cuttings and in depth band interviews in the serious music press - it's the Slade Scrapbook.

I hope that you enjoy.

Regards

Dave Kemp, 27 January 2010

www.sladescrapbook.com is copyright David John Kemp 2010

CONTACT DETAILS

email:- noizefeeler@aol.com

Don't forget to check out my other website www.davekempandslade.com that gives details of my life living with Slade.

LINKS

Dave Kemp and Slade Website

Slayed Website

Crazeeworld Forum

Slade Archive