abstract
| - Psychedelic rock band best known for their hit All the Young Dudes.
- Mott The Hoople was one of the bands Peel championed in the late 60s - early 70s. They were one of the first "progressive" bands to record for Island Records, and were publicised by articles in the underground press when their first album was released in 1969. It showed the influence of musical styles Peel liked, both the country-rock of its period (the notes to their BBC audition tape described them as a "Dylan influenced group") and the rock and roll of the late 1950s. They were booked to do a session for Top Gear in 1970, but as he told Melody Maker's Michael Watts, it didn't quite live up to his hopes: "You tend to get carried away by atmospheres in the studio which don’t come across on the radio. The classic example of that were Mott the Hoople, who came down and did very much the same thing they’d do in a club, which was ‘Clap your hands, come on everybody,’ which is nice in a club and went all right in the studio, but when it went out on the radio it sounded silly, really. It’s trying to put out a three-dimensional thing over a two-dimensional transmitter. You’re just bound to lose part of it."[1] Yet Mott, and frontman Ian Hunter in particular, were more extroverted on stage than the typical bands of their time, which contributed to their later chart success in the glam rock years. As with many bands of the era, Peel's interests moved on to other grounds after they dissolved, but some later comments lead one to believe that he remembered them with fondness. Their drummer Dale Griffin was the producer of numerous Peel sessions from 1981 to 1994, including ones by Pulp, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Carcass and Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark.
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