Jump to content
Hamer Fan Club Message Center

UFO Strangers in the Night


Recommended Posts

Every year, when tax season ends, the ritual is to listen to UFO Strangers in the Night from beginning to end.  This year was no different.  Still my favorite live album of all time.  Heck, one of the best albums of all time no matter what.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I missed out on UFO completely growing up.  I discovered them after Schenker had left and I think because of that, I prefer the Paul Chapman era.  I bought and have listened to Strangers... several times but it makes no impact on me at all.  Thin Lizzy is one of my favorite bands, and Live and Dangerous is the same for me.  I guess you had to be a fan AT THE TIME to fully appreciate those live albums.

I love that you have that ritual though!  Every year when the weather warms up, the first time I go for a drive to nowhere I always play Van Halen's Diver Down.  I graduated in '82 and that was the soundtrack to my summer.  I was not quite a metalhead yet, but that year I also bought Scorpions - Blackout, Krokus - One Vice at a Time, and Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast on the same day.  I had never even heard a Scorpions or Krokus song before, but on the way home listening to that stuff in the car I think my head exploded!  What a year for music that was.  That was also the first time I heard UFO.  The only UFO albums I had until a few years ago were Mechanix and Making Contact.  When they release those two big Chrysalis Years collections, I bought both of them so now I have a shload of UFO.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, Dave Scepter said:

This is my desert album... Side 3 or C with Lights Out and Rock Bottom just give me chills every freaking time I listen to it~

Agreed about Side 3 - Quite possibly one of the most intense sides of vinyl ever recorded.  And the solo in Rock Bottom can still make the hair on my arm stand up from time to time (the part after the drum break, specifically).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I discovered Deep Purple and Rainbow (in 1980/81, at that point I also wanted to make music, so this was some kind of turning point), I followed what else the musicians did. I always did that and still do. So, Ronnie James Dio made me listen to Black Sabbath, Cozy Powell led me to listen to Jeff Beck and Michael Schenker. I admit, at that time I haven't heard about Schenker. But I learned that he was a german who played twice with the Scorpions and with an english band called UFO, I haven't heard of them before. So I went out and bought an album of them, Strangers In the Night. Wow, what a fantastic album. It is still my favorite of their albums, a real classic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Remember listening to this under headphones at work while doing some heavy head's down programming. A co-worker came into my cube and tapped me on the shoulder and laughed at me because my head was bopping up and down as I was coding. I gave him my headphones to listen to what was playing and dam if his head didn't start bopping up and down too! 😁

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One of Hangmans favorite bands.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Snuck into a club back in 74 to see them. Saw them about 2 years later where they had the great misfortune of having Bon Scott era AC/DC open for them.  They got out rocked and they knew it. Saw the Strangers in the Nights tour too with Chapmen. Fantastic. Great band. Always thought Phil Moog was a underrated singer.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I discovered UFO via their "Lights Out" album when it came out in 1977...picking up "Strangers in the Night" was a no brainer when it was released !!  Great album !!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh man, what a great album.

I first heard UFO when I first started listening to FM radio in 1975 -  “Doctor Doctor,” "Rock Bottom" and my personal favorite, “Let It Roll.”

A friend loaned me Strangers in the Night and I had it so long I thought (hoped?) he had forgotten about it, but he eventually asked about it and I (reluctantly) gave it back.

 

On May 31, 1982, my band was scheduled to open for UFO (Schenker-less, of course), along with a partially re-united Grand Funk Railroad and Jim Dandy Mangrum from Black Oak Arkansas. Lake Charles Civic Center, Lake Charles, LA. They even had our name on the scrolling marquee outside. I was ecstatic.

When we showed up that afternoon for load-in, though, we were told that because it was a holiday, if the show ran overtime they would have to pay the union crew triple overtime and they needed to cut one of the bands.

I don’t have to tell you which band got cut.

They said we could stay and watch the show if we wanted, but I was so depressed I just went home. In hindsight, I kinda wish I had stayed – it was probably a great show.

Side note: We did get to meet Jim Dandy and he was a really nice guy. He had a dip about the size of a golf ball between his cheek and gum, and when he grinned the tobacco juice filled up all the little crevices between his teeth.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cool article about the album.     A lot of stuff going on.  Seems crazy how such an amazing album (one of slash’s favorite albums I’ve heard). done by guys who wanted to kill each other           

           https://www.loudersound.com/features/ufo-making-of-strangers-in-the-night-live-album

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

“Strangers in the Night” was the first UFO album I ever listened to.

Sadly, it also spoiled for me all the previous UFO catalog, because when I finally listened to the studio versions of all those songs, I found them “liveless” —no pun intended; Michael Schenker has always been a live musician anyway, no matter how much he had suffered from stage fright in the past.

There’s by the way another UFO album I did listen to in the nineties, titled “High Stakes and Dangerous Men”. Their guitarist on that album was a guy whose name was Laurence Archer. I got that album because I saw a live video of the band featuring that player. They sounded great, and that Archer guy could certainly play. In addition, he played a Hamer —a Diablo or a Chaparral.

That lineup ruled on the stage... which makes me think the band is also a live act —not only Schenker. 😉

PS/ETA : I tried to find Archer’s Hamer on the net. I stumbled upon a post I had posted myself on this forum. His guitar might have been a Centaura. Here’s a link to my (archived) post: 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It’s funny...my fave UFO song of all is the studio version of Too Hot To Handle from Ligjts Out. I do love the live version on SITN, but the outtro solo is just wrong. He steps on what sounds like a fuzz face or a Colorsound Overdriver fully cranked into fuzz.. I do not like that part of the song. It’s a cool tone but not compared to the pure cranked Plexi outtro on the studio version.

To this day, every time I listen to it, I think “why did he do that?” Lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, zorrow said:

“Strangers in the Night” was the first UFO album I ever listened to.

Sadly, it also spoiled for me all the previous UFO catalog, because when I finally listened to the studio versions of all those songs, I found them “liveless” —no pun intended; Michael Schenker has always been a live musician anyway, no matter how much he had suffered from stage fright in the past.

There’s by the way another UFO album I did listen to in the nineties, titled “High Stakes and Dangerous Men”. Their guitarist on that album was a guy whose name was Laurence Archer. I got that album because I saw a live video of the band featuring that player. They sounded great, and that Archer guy could certainly play. In addition, he played a Hamer —a Diablo or a Chaparral.

That lineup ruled on the stage... which makes me think the band is also a live act —not only Schenker. 😉

PS/ETA : I tried to find Archer’s Hamer on the net. I stumbled upon a post I had posted myself on this forum. His guitar might have been a Centaura. Here’s a link to my (archived) post: 

 

Great!  I'll have to read that.  Laurence Archer also played in Grand Slam, Phil Lynott's post-Lizzy band, and a band called Stampede.  I've got some boots of Grand Slam and one of the Stampede albums and the guy is a really good guitarist.  I would have loved for Grand Slam to have completed an album.  I bet it would have been great.

 

ETA: I guess I already had read that, because I had commented in that post too!  I talked about having the Grand Slam bootlegs and having heard the Stampede stuff and wanting to track some down, which I did!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I first heard Schenker on the debut MSG album - damn near wore the grooves off that record.

Like many here, I worked backwards - in 1982, I put up my allowance cash and brought home Strangers in the Night. 

I'm still knocked out every time I listen to SITN -  it's truly a master's class in how to play rock guitar.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, DaveL said:

Cool article about the album.     A lot of stuff going on.  Seems crazy how such an amazing album (one of slash’s favorite albums I’ve heard). done by guys who wanted to kill each other           

           https://www.loudersound.com/features/ufo-making-of-strangers-in-the-night-live-album

 

Two of the songs that appear on the album – Mother Mary and This Kid’s– were also re-recorded in the studio afterwards and overdubbed with crowd noise from the tour. “Some people will say: ‘Oh, then it’s not a real live album,’” says Andy Parker. “But we set up the gear like we’d have done at a gig and played the damned songs. It really was as live as you could get.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/19/2019 at 9:32 AM, Brooks said:

Two of the songs that appear on the album – Mother Mary and This Kid’s– were also re-recorded in the studio afterwards and overdubbed with crowd noise from the tour. “Some people will say: ‘Oh, then it’s not a real live album,’” says Andy Parker. “But we set up the gear like we’d have done at a gig and played the damned songs. It really was as live as you could get.”

That was a cool article. I love hearing details about how albums were recorded.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...