String Driven Thing

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String Driven Thing
Origin	Scotland
Genres	folk rock
Years active	1967-
Labels	Concord Charisma Records Ozit Records
Website	www.stringdriven.com

String Driven Thing were a 1970s folk-rock band from Scotland,^[1] led by husband and wife Chris Adams and Pauline Adams and featuring the electric violin of Graham Smith.^[2]

Contents 1 History 1.1 Formation 1.2 Record deal and tour 1.3 Late career and breakup 1.4 Refounding 2 Discography 3 References 4 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Formation

String Driven Thing formed as a three part harmony folk band in 1967 with the Adamses and guitarist John Mannion and put out a self-titled album on the small independent Concord label (copies of which are collectable and difficult to find) although some way from their later Charisma label output which was much more folk-rock. The group moved from Scotland to London and Chris Adams decided to try and take the band away from its folk roots into the folk-rock genre where his song writing abilities, which often feature hard-bitten bitter observations capturing the harsher side of life, would be seen to better effect. He met up with classically-trained violinist Graham Smith and folk guitarist Colin Wilson, who moved to bass, but soon afterwards lost John Mannion who did not think the new direction suited him.

[edit] Record deal and tour

They secured a deal with Tony Stratton-Smith's famous Charisma label^[3] and another self-titled album came out, produced by Shel Talmy, with the songs "Circus", "Jack Diamond" and "Easy To Be Free" amongst the standout tracks. With Graham Smith's violin and Chris Adams' Bob Dylan-like vocal style the band toured with other Charisma artists such as Genesis. This helped them raise their profile and included some TV appearances, an American tour and a second album, The Machine That Cried, which was recorded with the addition of a drummer, Billy 'The Kid' Fairley, which was a much bleaker and rockier offering and a forgotten classic. Standout tracks include "Heartfeeder", "The Machine That Cried" and "Sold Down The River". The song "Night Club" was inspired by the cover of their first Charisma album. Recorded while Chris Adams was suffering health problems, including a collapsed lung and depression, the album did not sell particularly well.

After Wilson was replaced by Bill Hatje on bass the Adamses became disillusioned and left around end 1973 and the band disintegrated with Graham Smith taking over and recruiting several studio musicians to continue touring. Two further Charisma albums followed, Keep Yer (H)And On It (featuring the only known song with the footballer Stan Bowles in the title ("Chains (I want to be just like Stan Bowles")) and Please Mind Your Head featuring only Smith from the original Charisma line-up, both solid rock albums but not in the same class as the Chris Adams era material. Lead singer Kim Beacon, guitarist Alun Roberts and drummer Colin Fairley (ex-Beggars Opera) were all part of the new line-up with new bass guitarist James Exell and Alun Roberts doing much of the writing and composing. The group finally split up around 1976.

String Driven Thing put out quite a few singles on the Charisma label, some tracks of which are not on any of the vinyl albums but do appear as bonus tracks on the Ozit Records cds. Two of the best are the Chris Adams compositions "It's a Game" and "Eddie". "It's A Game" was covered by the Bay City Rollers in 1977 and became a chart hit in England and Germany. Chris and Pauline Adams later put out a few singles again on the Charisma label both as 'Chris and Pauline Adams' and just 'Adams'. The b-side of their first single "The City at Night" features Graham Smith and is worth a listen but most are more for the folk market. Colin Wilson went on to put out a solo folk album called Cloudburst on the Tabitha label which is also hard to find and has recently been reissued. The Chris Adams/Graham Smith String Driven Thing line up has reconvened on several occasions most notably in 1991, 2001 and in 2004 which also saw an appearance from Pauline Adams.

[edit] Late career and breakup

An unfortunate appearance at the end of their career highlighted issues that the band had with categorising their music and finding an appropriate audience. In October 1975 String Driven Thing opened for Lou Reed at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, New Jersey. The raucous crowd was there for Reed and had little tolerance for the violin-led folk-rock music. String Driven Thing was booed off the stage.

String Driven Thing's violinist, Graham Smith, later joined his Charisma labelmates Van der Graaf in 1977 and also featured on some Peter Hammill albums and put out three solo albums in Iceland later reissued on CD by String Driven Thing specialist label Ozit Morpheus Records. Vocalist Kim Beacon sang lead on Tony Banks' solo debut, A Curious Feeling, in 1979 and also had some solo material issued. Chris Adams recorded some solo material in the 1990s and subsequently reformed String Driven Thing with a largely different line-up, although his wife and Graham Smith have sporadically appeared live. A new album was recorded and toured in 2008.

All String Driven Thing, Chris Adams and Graham Smith albums are available on CD (Ozit Morpheus Records) as are some live material and some hard to find tracks and outtakes on a CD called Dischotomy with some alternate takes and rare material not found anywhere else. There are several BBC transcription discs of String Driven Thing live performances featuring both line-ups and two of these sets are on a German live bootleg CD called It's a Game.

[edit] Refounding

In April 2009 String Driven Thing refounded as String Driven. With an Americana-inspired sound and still led by Chris Adams a new album, Songs from Another Country, was released in the United Kingdom on Backshop Records.

The new sound was first heard publicly at Fifestock in March 2009. A new website was launched at the same time as the album release to help promote it.

[edit] Discography

Albums

• String Driven Thing (1968) (Concord)
• String Driven Thing (1972) (Charisma)
• The Machine That Cried (1973) (Charisma)
• The Machine that Cried (band's official version) (Ozit)
• Please Mind Your Head (1974) (Charisma)
• Keep yer 'and on it (1975) (Charisma)
• Dischotomy
• Suicide (Live in Berlin) (Ozit)
• In the Studio '72 (first Charisma album plus) (Ozit)
• The Early Years (all of the Concord first album plus)(Ozit)
• It's a Game (German bootleg of two BBC concerts London 1973 and 1974, originally on BBC transcription discs with Solid Gold Cadillac and Blodwyn Pig)

Singles

• "Another night in this old city / Say what you like"
• "Eddie / Hooked on the road"
• "Are you a rocknroller demo only"
• "Circus / My real hero"
• "I'll sing one for you / To see you"
• "It's a Game / Are you a rocknroller"
• "Overdrive / Timpani for the devil"
• "Mrs O'Reilly / Keep on moving"
• "Stand back in amazement / But I do"
• "Cruel to fool / Josephine"

Solo releases

• The Damage (Chris Adams)
• The Damage II (Chris Adams) (Ozit)
• Touch of Magic (Graham Smith) (Ozit)
• Arrival of Spring (Graham Smith) (Ozit)
• Cloudburst (Colin Wilson)
• Kalinka (Graham Smith) (Ozit)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• StringDrivenThing.com - official website
• Chris Adams and String Driven Thing on MySpace