Piledriver

Product Information

Funny enough, the hole family was sitting in the living room with the band includes their old grandmother. Without any privacy the band was too upset and made a dicision to leave the club only 3 hours before the start of the regular gig in the evening. With a Pop 30 [sic] hit and a current chart album under their belts, they hit the road last week for a sensational British tour.

On the whole Piledriver is still an enjoyable listen, one that has aged much better than later albums by the same band or much other hard rock from this period. In Melbourne, the outdoor concert was marred by heavy rain, which began at midday and continued until evening, despite the fact that Melbourne was in the grip of a drought at the time. The 1st press has "O Baby" on label (later pressings have "Oh Baby), The 1st press has NO sleeve printers mentioned on back sleeve (later pressings have also nothing or "Howards Printers (Slough) Ltd. They’d joined the UK singles landscape with the 1968 top tenners “Pictures Of Matchstick Men” and “Ice In The Sun,” then after a quiet-ish spell, there were further hits in 1970 including “Down The Dustpipe.The two albums that preceded Piledriver, Ma Kelly’s Greasy Spoon and Dog Of Two Head, showed the glimmers of the band’s now-famous style, but Piledriver would be the first time that Status Quo boogied and shuffled their way into a trademark.

While not feeling inclined to take on the respective indulgences of the glam and prog movements gaining ground around them, Status Quo began to cement their position as denim-clad boogie rockers. A lot of drummers don’t play four-on-the-floor, they do two to the bar, it doesn’t work, you have to play four to the bar, for the shuffle, which I’m pleased to say I’m good at. The song, written by Rossi and Bob Young, became Quo’s third Top 10 hit, as Quo’s new army of fans latched onto this harder alternative to the glam-pop that was rising to power.Coming overnight from England the band rehearsed their new full set in front of "some curious guests" around midday because the band was so loud and the neighbourhood of the tiny village Muffendorf went to the club to Quo's surprise and checked their Rehearsals. Despite the pressure, by 1972 Status Quo had gone through a massive change in music and style, so much so that their record label Pye was happy to see the back of them.

The band had dabbled in blues rock on their previous two offerings Ma Kelly and Dog of Two Head but with this they found the perfect marriage of blues rock and heavy rock. RP: I think Piledriver holds up because it was of its time and there is some beautiful songs on there. Though Status Quo is best known for fast and undistinguished boogie rock, they were quite capable of subtlety when it suited them. After the initial success, the band were no longer successful and we decided we didn’t want to wear that kind of clothing anymore and we wanted to go back to something similar to what we’d done before the success.As we were travelling around all you ever heard on the radio was us - much to the disdain of the other bands on the tour - who kept on saying ”Oh no, not you lot again! This was certainly not the case in Sydney as the announcer can clearly be heard telling the audience that Status Quo will be on soon. The second acoustic album suffers because the strongest songs were chosen for the first acoustic album. Not sure what the background was but there appears to be a picture of said hand on the inside sleeve of “On The Level”. The single took its place on Piledriver alongside the Rossi/Young opener “Don’t Waste My Time” and their “Unspoken Words.