Wednesday, October 13, 2010

GMT - 1985- War Games

Tracklist

01. Angel
02. One By One
03. War Games
04. Fall In Line
05. Secret Bites


Line Up

Chris Glen - Bass
Robin McCauley - Vocals
Phil Taylor - Drums
Marcus Schleicher - Guitar

Musically this German band plays a good hard rock, a little in the NWOBHM vein but not so much. But the reason for this post is one other: i don't know how, but in some way Mister Phil Lanzon was a member of this band, probably only as song writer (in the back cover of this mini cd, you can read: "Music and lyrics:
Robin McCauley, Phil Lanzon & Mike Dounoughue except FALL IN LINE: Robin McCauley, Phil Lanzon, Mike Dounoughue & Ralph Hood").
So, even if Phil doesn't play on this work, all songs are co-written by him. Maybe someone out there knows something about the role of Phil in this album: if so, please make a comment...
The year is another problem: for some, this album is issued in 1985 (Wikipedia), for some other this is a 1991 album... Come on people, let me know some thing about this album...
PS: For more informations about this record, see comments, in particular Lasse and Marwood contribuitions. A big thank you to them!!!

11 comments:

  1. Well, looking at the names involved, 1985 makes sense. Robin McAuley, who before that replaced Bernie in Grand Prix, joined MSG after that. Chris Glen was a previous member of MSG as well as Alex Harvey Band. After reading this McAuley interview, http://www.robinmcauley.com/discography.html, I guess the drumming Phil Taylor is the one of Motörhead-fame since Brian Robertson is mentioned in the interview.

    The german guy I know nothing about at this stage...

    ReplyDelete
  2. After having another look around, I found this page, http://www.mf-b.ru/line_up/m-taylor-eng.htm, about Phil Taylor it says "Together with the past participant Motorhead Brian Robertson they create group Operator. Having taken vocalist Robin McAuley (ex-Grand Prix) and the bass player Chris Glenn the group during one year tries to issue own disk unsuccessfully. Brian Robertson leaves group, and on place comes Mark Shleyher. The command changes the name on GMT (Glenn-McAuley-Taylor) and in the end of 1985 issues pass album One By One. In the beginning 1986 group breaks up".

    According to http://www.uriah-heep.com/newa/biophillanzon.php, it's clear that Phil was a member of Operator, "O'DONOGHUE, GLEN and TAYLOR started GMT the same month, and recorded the mini LP 'WAR GAMES' at 'MAUSOLEUM' with a new guitarist MARCUS SCHLEICHER . This record was released on CD in 1991. All 5 songs are co-compositions of Lanzon. The song 'FALL IN LINE' was played by Lanzon. In November 1985 GMT ended up. ROBIN McAULEY joined MSG, PHIL TAYLOR went to FRANKIE MILLER before he rejoined MOTORHEAD again."

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you very much, Lasse, for the esaustive informations about this cd and about the members of GMT band. Your contribuition to this post is very precious.

    Cheers- Robi

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for this Roby

    Have not had anytime for the blog recently so i am catching up with some of your posts and hopefully i will be able to post a few more of my own soon

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hello Colin, i'm glad to see that you're back to the blog, and i'm looking for your next posts

    Robi

    ReplyDelete
  6. Going by the credits I think it's pretty safe to assume that these tracks would have made up part of the follow-up to Grand Prix's 'Samurai'. As this was released in 1983 an original release date of 1985 (as another contributor has stated) is probably spot on. I believe Mausoleum were bust by 1991/1992 so that may provide further evidence! Great blog by the way!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thank you very much Marwood, also for more informations about this record. I'm glad to know that you like the good old Mr Abominogjnr's blog

    ReplyDelete
  8. -Marwood-
    a special mention for you: yesterday, searching in the old post, i see that you have posted a comment when this blog was born: in the second post of all, Baby faced killer of David Byron-
    http://abominogjnr.blogspot.com/2009/01/baby-faced-killer-is-2nd-solo-album-of.html

    ReplyDelete
  9. Naturally that post was made by the creator of this fine blog, Mr Abominogjnr, because at time i didn't know that a Blog dedicated to Heep and relates was born...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thanks. The song "Angel" was used in the Troma movie "Class of nuke'em High" that never had any soundtrack released.

    ReplyDelete
  11. These are certainly the tracks written by then Grand Prix main songwriters Mick O'Donoghue (guitar) & Phil Lanzon (keys) with lyrics by Robin McAuley for the follow-up to the 3rd LP "Samurai". Surely from what I hear, the tracks were written towards a 4th LP but they aren't what I would call "finished" tracks. Grand Prix were a quality, under appreciated band I still wish would do another full album. McAuley still sounds great and Phil's solo disc was a gem and Mick O. is still kicking so... Maybe...maybe. Robin M, said he would be up for it if the others would have interest. So I haven't given up that could happen still when Heep is in a lull...

    Mr. Lanzon...make my day! There is great interest in melodic rock circles for Grand Prix to put something together again so...???

    ReplyDelete

Please feel free to leave any comments about this blog