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| Danny Kustow and Tom Robinson onstage at The Brecknock, London, in 1977 |
Sad news from Tom Robinson´s facebook page: Danny Kustow died in the early hours of 11 March 2019 in Bath, Somerset.
"I’m devastated to have to tell you that my dear friend and former guitarist Danny Kustow died in the Critical Care ward at Bath Royal United Hospital on Monday. He’d been in a coma on life support all weekend with double pneumonia and a liver infection. But when my wife and I visited him on Sunday morning he seemed peaceful and pain-free thanks to the very best state of the art NHS care. Everyone hoped he had a chance of pulling through – but shortly after midnight on Sunday he went into a decline and quickly slipped away in the small hours of Monday morning.
Danny was mentored by the blues legend and broadcaster Alexis Korner and joined the early Tom Robinson Band in December 1976. Danny’s unique, fiery guitar playing was at the very heart of the TRB sound, and during the 70s and he played on every record of mine that ever troubled the Top 40. After TRB Danny also played in Jimmy Norton’s Explosion with Glenn Matlock, and later formed the band Time UK with Rick Buckler of The Jam. He made a guest appearance with my current band at the 100 Club in November 2017 and can be heard on the live version of 2-4-6-8 Motorway.
Danny was widely loved and fondly remembered by many and I’ll be making a formal announcement about his passing on BBC 6 Music around 1.20pm this afternoon. There is to be a private family funeral tomorrow and plans are currently under discussion for a public memorial event and tribute concert in early June."
This is the album by which Tom Robinson's works have been measured; its consistency is all the more remarkable, since he'd written several keynote tracks while toiling in the go-nowhere folk trio "Café Society" (such as Robinson's defining anthem, "Glad to Be Gay").
So does the nearly five-minute title track and funk-rock tour de force, while Chris Thomas' production is as razor sharp as the band itself. Guitarist Danny Kustow's go-for-the-throat style is the driving force; it's storming on the rockers yet suitably restrained on quieter fare like "Too Good to Be True," Robinson's lament for oft-delayed social change. Keyboardist Mark Ambler is equally assertive on colorful Hammond organ swashes, while Robinson plunks down simple, legato basslines, and Brian "Dolpin" Taylor keeps the beat pouncing, where others might let it loiter.
Tom Robinson Band - Power In The Darkness (Deluxe Edition)
(320 kbps, cover art included)
"I’m devastated to have to tell you that my dear friend and former guitarist Danny Kustow died in the Critical Care ward at Bath Royal United Hospital on Monday. He’d been in a coma on life support all weekend with double pneumonia and a liver infection. But when my wife and I visited him on Sunday morning he seemed peaceful and pain-free thanks to the very best state of the art NHS care. Everyone hoped he had a chance of pulling through – but shortly after midnight on Sunday he went into a decline and quickly slipped away in the small hours of Monday morning.
Danny was mentored by the blues legend and broadcaster Alexis Korner and joined the early Tom Robinson Band in December 1976. Danny’s unique, fiery guitar playing was at the very heart of the TRB sound, and during the 70s and he played on every record of mine that ever troubled the Top 40. After TRB Danny also played in Jimmy Norton’s Explosion with Glenn Matlock, and later formed the band Time UK with Rick Buckler of The Jam. He made a guest appearance with my current band at the 100 Club in November 2017 and can be heard on the live version of 2-4-6-8 Motorway.
Danny was widely loved and fondly remembered by many and I’ll be making a formal announcement about his passing on BBC 6 Music around 1.20pm this afternoon. There is to be a private family funeral tomorrow and plans are currently under discussion for a public memorial event and tribute concert in early June."
This is the album by which Tom Robinson's works have been measured; its consistency is all the more remarkable, since he'd written several keynote tracks while toiling in the go-nowhere folk trio "Café Society" (such as Robinson's defining anthem, "Glad to Be Gay").
"Power in the Darkness" is proudly defiant as the era that inspired "Up Against the Wall," "Ain't Gonna Take It," "Long Hot Summer," or "The Winter of '79," which level fierce disdain for social hypocrisy.
So does the nearly five-minute title track and funk-rock tour de force, while Chris Thomas' production is as razor sharp as the band itself. Guitarist Danny Kustow's go-for-the-throat style is the driving force; it's storming on the rockers yet suitably restrained on quieter fare like "Too Good to Be True," Robinson's lament for oft-delayed social change. Keyboardist Mark Ambler is equally assertive on colorful Hammond organ swashes, while Robinson plunks down simple, legato basslines, and Brian "Dolpin" Taylor keeps the beat pouncing, where others might let it loiter.
The live/studio bonus EP, "Rising Free", demonstrates the band's explosive nature. The Ambler-Kustow interplay works to thunderous effect on "Don't Take No for an Answer," Robinson's bittersweet account of a soured publishing deal with the Kinks' Ray Davies; the hit "2-4-6-8 Motorway," one of rock's great drive-all-night numbers; and a searing rearrangement of Bob Dylan's plea for a wrongly accused inmate, "I Shall Be Released." The forceful tone is sometimes undermined by a strident sloganeering streak, as typified by "Right On Sister" or "Better Decide Which Side You're On," but that's a minor complaint amid the music's unflagging strength. Think music and politics don't mix? Listen to this album, and then decide. The record was reissued in 2004 with the addition of two bonus tracks: a cover of the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for My Man" and a remix of "Power in the Darkness."
Tracklist:
Side One
"Up Against the Wall" - (Robinson, Roy Butterfield aka Anton Mauve) 3:35
"Grey Cortina" - 2:10
"Too Good to Be True" - (Robinson, Dolphin Taylor) 3:35
"Ain't Gonna Take It" (Robinson, Danny Kustow) - 2:53
"Long Hot Summer" - 4:44
Side Two
"The Winter of '79" (Robinson, Mark Ambler, Taylor, Kustow) - 4:31
"Man You Never Saw" (Robinson, Ambler) - 2:44
"Better Decide Which Side You're On" - 2:50
"You Gotta Survive" (Robinson, Ambler) - 3:15
"Power in the Darkness" (Robinson, Ambler) - 4:55
Bonus tracks
"Don't Take No for an Answer"
"Martin"
"(Sing If You're) Glad to Be Gay"
"Right On Sister" (Robinson, Taylor)
"2-4-6-8 Motorway"
"I Shall Be Released" (Bob Dylan)
"I'm All Right Jack"
"I'm Waiting for My Man" (Live at the London Lyceum, 1977) (Lou Reed)
"Power in the Darkness" (2004 Remix)
Tracklist:
Side One
"Up Against the Wall" - (Robinson, Roy Butterfield aka Anton Mauve) 3:35
"Grey Cortina" - 2:10
"Too Good to Be True" - (Robinson, Dolphin Taylor) 3:35
"Ain't Gonna Take It" (Robinson, Danny Kustow) - 2:53
"Long Hot Summer" - 4:44
Side Two
"The Winter of '79" (Robinson, Mark Ambler, Taylor, Kustow) - 4:31
"Man You Never Saw" (Robinson, Ambler) - 2:44
"Better Decide Which Side You're On" - 2:50
"You Gotta Survive" (Robinson, Ambler) - 3:15
"Power in the Darkness" (Robinson, Ambler) - 4:55
Bonus tracks
"Don't Take No for an Answer"
"Martin"
"(Sing If You're) Glad to Be Gay"
"Right On Sister" (Robinson, Taylor)
"2-4-6-8 Motorway"
"I Shall Be Released" (Bob Dylan)
"I'm All Right Jack"
"I'm Waiting for My Man" (Live at the London Lyceum, 1977) (Lou Reed)
"Power in the Darkness" (2004 Remix)
Tom Robinson Band - Power In The Darkness (Deluxe Edition)
(320 kbps, cover art included)
6 Kommentare:
That was a must have album back then. Thanks, zero!
...and it is still a great album. Greetings!
It is almost as sad as the death of Danny Kustow that people like Tom Robinson think that being able to successfully sedate people to the point of coma is 'State Of The Art' medical treatment. Personally I think that finding a cure or preventing the illnesses in the first place might have been more 'state of the art'.
Robinson's not the first. No less than Ed Miliband former Leader of the British Labour Party paraded some poor old codger around on stage at a party conference a few years back because the old boy celebrated the NHS because it dished out lots of morphene to terminal cancer patients these days when back before the war they didn't. Its some indictment of the NHS if its most noticeable feature is its ability to dish out Class 1 drugs to save people suffering after they have given up trying to cure them.....
Urban liberals in the UK have an extremely perverse distorted defeatist worldview especially when it comes to sacred cows such as the NHS and perhaps its true to say that they (not the rest of the UK population) would be better off if they were permanently sedated.......
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about that with us. All the best!
The link is now dead. Can you please re-upload this? Thanks in advance!!
Now there´s a fresh link. Hope you enjoy the TRB!
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