Thursday, July 05, 2007

Ticket - Awake (1972) & Let Sleeping Dogs Lie (1972)


During the period of 1972, Ticket were New Zealand's ultimate acid band.

Guitarist Eddie Hansen emerged on the music scene in a group called Revival, which also contained vocalist Craig Scott. When Craig went solo in April 1970, the Revival broke up. At that point Eddie left Christchurch and headed to Auckland. He accepted a gig with Challenge, who were in their last days, after having had a couple of successful hits. He quickly realised that he shared a common interest in the styles of music of the likes of Crazy Horse, Traffic and Jimi Hendrix, with Challenge drummer Ricky Ball. The two of them decided to form their own group, in order to be able to play their preferred style of music.

The pair looked around for some like-minded musicians to join them, and found Paul Woolright to play bass guitar and Trevor Tombleson for vocals. With this line-up, Ticket was formed in May 1970.

Ricky Ball started his career with a group called the Beatboys, then the Courtiers, before becoming a member of the Challenge. Trevor Tombleson played bass guitar back in 1965 with a group called Moses and the Munks, before joining the Jamestown Union. He eventually left that group to pursue a solo career as M.T. Davies in 1967. Trevor became friends with Ricky Ball, and this friendship developed, with Ricky asking Trevor to join Ticket.

Ticket started playing gigs around Auckland, but were not getting enough work to pay the bills. Eddie called Trevor Spitz in Christchurch to see if he could help out with a venue. Trevor had been with the Four Fours and when he left them in 1966 he got a job managing Phil Warren's Monaco nightspot in Christchurch. This was the venue that Revival had played at. Trevor asked for a demo tape and after listening to it got the group a gig at another of Warren's venues, Aubreys, in Christchurch.

It was at Aubreys that Ticket developed a sound that was radically different to what any of them had previously played. Trevor Tombleson was one of the better singers of the underground scene, but it was Hansen's instrumental prowess which dominated the band. Tombleson wailed and Hansen scorched, and behind them stood one of the tightest rhythm sections around. Ricky provided a solid and relentless beat and Paul was the perfect partner to Ball's hard hitting style, holding down the bottom end with precision and just a touch of funk.

By mid-1971 Ticket had outgrown their Aubreys venue, and during that time had built up a big following in other South Island centres. In July 1971 the group decided to head north. Their reputation preceded them and concerts at Universities along the way were well attended and received. In Auckland the group came to the attention of promoters Barry Coburn and Robert Raymond. With new promotional power, the group supported Daddy Cool on their tour, and then headlined Coburn-Raymond's National Blues Rock Convention held at the Wellington Opera House. This attracted a capacity crowd and was also broadcast live on radio.

In October 1971, New Zealand's first international outdoor concert was held when Elton John had his debut show at Auckland's Western Springs. The support slot was well sought after and Ticket were successful, performing in front of 20,000 people.

Coburn even had his own record label, Down Under, so once again with his influence, Ticket recorded and released their first single. Actually released on the Ode label the single was "Country High"/"Highway Of Love". This was very successful for an underground group at the time, with "Country High" spending five weeks on the National charts in December 1971, peaking at number 12.

The follow-up single was "Dream Chant"/"Awake". Released on Down Under, it was not as successful, even though "Dream Chant" had been one of the group's most popular numbers back in their days at Aubreys. In May 1972, their debut album, "Awake", was released. "Awake" was produced by Frank Douglas at HMV Studios and released on the Ode label.

A third single "Stoned Condition"/"Then You'll Fly" was released on Down Under, but it was banned by the NZBC. In June 1972, Ticket crossed the Tasman, to perform a month long residency at Sydney's Whiskey-Go-Go. The reaction at the Whiskey exceeded everyone's expectations, and rather than returning to Auckland, Sydney based Robert Raymond secured them another residency at Chequers, another prestige gig. Performances in Queensland and Victoria followed.

While in Australia, a single was released there, "Awake"/"Country Radio", on Atlantic. Also while in Melbourne, the group recorded their second album, "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie". This was self-produced and recorded at Channel Nine's 16-track studio. The album was released in late 1972.

Everyone was happy with the album, except Eddie. He was becoming increasingly unhappy with Ball and Woolright's scotch and speed lifestyle, and the pounding beat which was at odds with the atmosphere he was trying to create. Eddie was becoming disillusioned with the hippie / drugs lifestyle.

Meanwhile back in Auckland, Coburn and Raymond, along with Hugh Lynn, had purchased a downtown nightspot, primarily to be used as a home base for Ticket. Management had great faith in the band and had huge plans for the boys over the next twelve months. Coburn and Raymond were in the process of organising a Woodstock style festival at Ngaruawahia for early 1973. Ticket would be given a key slot on the bill and, following the festival, would support headliners Black Sabbath on their Australian tour. This, they believed, would really break the group across the Tasman. That done, they would then head to the US in mid-year.

Ticket returned to New Zealand in November 1972 and opened the new Auckland venue, Levi's Saloon. Fans didn't seem to notice the growing animosity in the band, but it came to a head at the Ngaruawahia Festival. The crowd loved Ticket's performance, but Hansen was disgusted. It was their last gig.

Another single was released in New Zealand, "Mr Music"/"Let Sleeping Dogs Lie", while in Australia the b-side was "Them Changes". "Mr Music" was an uncharacteristic piece of funk which should have been a hit but wasn't.

After a few months break, Hansen reformed Ticket, with Glen Absolum on drums, Billy Williams on bass guitar and Steve Gunn on vocals. It just wasn't the same, even when Tombleson returned to take over from Steve Gunn. The group had disbanded by the end of 1973.

Tombleson changed his name to Trevor Keith and enjoyed a brief stint with England's Keef Hartley Band in the mid-70's and was later a member of Monsoon, a Melbourne band of expatriate Kiwis.

Eddie Hansen had been converted to Hare Krishna at this stage, the result of his close friendship with Harvey Mann. Eddie played for a short time in 1974 with Band Of Light, but by 1975 he was together with Harvey Mann in Living Force. In 1974 Ricky Ball and Paul Woolright were members of Rainbow. Ricky left that group in August 1976 to become a member of Hello Sailor. In 1980, Paul, Ricky and Eddie all ended up at the same time in Beaver. Taken from here

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16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice to see you posting so much new music of late!

Dave

Anonymous said...

Ticket - Awake 1972
Tracks list:
1. Wake
2. Highway To Love
3. Dream Chart
4. Broken Wings
5. Country High
6. Raign Away
7. Angel Of My Mind

Ticket - Let Sleeping Dogs Lie 1972
Tracks list:
1. The Bad Things In THis World
2. Make The Nice Things Nicer
3. Remember To Understand
4. People Going Nowhere
5. And The Band Played
6. On This Planet
7. Gypsy Rover
8. Let Sleeping Dog Lie
9. We Love Rock And Roll

Anonymous said...

Hello
Great to se the Tracklist here,good Band.Many Thanks
Andre

Anonymous said...

I posted a comment here the other day but it hasn't appeared. Just wondered if someone could confirm - before I download it - that the tracks for Awake in this download are actually the right ones. There was a cd bootleg with supposedly both albums but the Awake portion was actually 'Wasting My Time' by The Underdogs.
regards
Chris

Anonymous said...

Well, no-one answered me so I downloaded it anyway, and pleased to say it IS the album Awake, and pretty good sound quality, too! Maybe this is a legitimate cd reissue at last?
Btw, track 6 is Reign Away, not Raign Away; track 7 is Angel On My Mind, not Angel Of My Mind. [I have the LP but it's really scratched, which is why this download has made my day - thanks Lisa!]

Anonymous said...

Hi Lisa Here is The Artwork for this post found on the same place as the original download
here is the artwork for the Ticket 2 fer 1
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DLJ2N1C8

Have a good weekend yours Paul

Unknown said...

can anyone post a photo of the back of the album awake? this album was dedicated to my dad john smith and he doesn't own the record!!! i've never seen it and if anyone could tell me where i could buy it from i would be grateful.

Richard S said...

Unfortunately this CD is a cleaned-up transfer from vinyl - you can hear some very vinyl noises near the end of the last track, plus some less obvious clues. Still better than my old vinyl though!

I've posted a scan of the original LP's rear cover (two scans pasted together - my scanner ain't LP sized!) at:
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/4723/ticketawakerear.jpg

Also a close up of the dedication "to John and Dianna" at:
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/1118/ticketawakereardedicati.jpg

Neb Maat Re said...

Lucy - Awake is now available on CD from Aztec Music in Australia - and very reasonably priced including postage!

Anonymous said...

The album Awake has been officially re-relased and the orignal band has reforemed and are touring in 2011.

Anonymous said...

Ticket recording "Awake" is now in C.D format with 4 bonus tracks. included in this open out cover is a 24 page booklet giving Ticket history.notes by Nick Bollinger Oct.2010
Released by AZTEC Music in Melbourne.
www.aztecmusic.net

Joe Blogger said...

The new Aztec release of "Awake" is a bit of a disappointment. The packaging is great. Hell, even the shallow Nick Bollinger managed to turn in good cover notes. The four extra tracks are great to have and good quality too. But.... the actual Awake album is yet another vinyl transfer.

This is alarming on two fronts;

First, as this is an official release it implies that the master tapes for this fantastic album are lost, we will never get to hear it at that level of quality.

Second, the actual vinyl transfer used here is badly cleaned up ( this may??? be a little harsh - it depends on the quality of the the vinyl copy or copies they had). Lots of crackly sounds, especially noticeable on the tracks at the end of sides 1 & 2 ("Dream Chant", "Angel On My Mind"). Use headphones if you want to hear what I mean.

To my ears it sounds like over aggressive settings of the software used to remove vinyl snap-crakle-pop sounds. Or even they needed to try a different vendors software. Sometime one vendors software just does not work well with a particular track or album. Whatever - I'm left feeling I could have done a way better job myself.

I don't like dishonesty either. The cover has a generic note about using the best sources available, vinyl may be used when necessary. This is a long way short of stating up front the source for the main album tracks was vinyl. Unnecessary obfuscation too - it would have been an interesting addition to the liner notes to tell us what they know of what happened to the original master tapes and why they weren't used. All we want is the best quality available.

My thoughts at this stage are the German Rock-in-beat/Rock-in psych CDs are a better quality vinyl transfer and to be preferred.

Joe Blogger said...

Added note. This Radio New Zealand item on the Aztec reissue talks of the missing master tapes, and the vinyl transfer. The way they talk though you'd think the vinyl transfer would have turned out good - sigh.....

http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/nrmtalk/nrmtalk-20101108-1140-Ticket_Awake_Re-issue-048.mp3

Cheers

Anonymous said...

My Step farther had this album. Late night joint with the headphones on I loved this album. Over the years of my parents shifting from dairy farm to dairy farm. He no longer know's where it is.
looking forward to the day I open the right box and find it

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much

Jean said...

Bonjour ! Du Rock original, très interessant ! Merci beaucoup!