Trapeze unreleased studio album...

[inoxydable]

taken from Wishbone Ash official website...

"Mervyn Spence - aka Spam - was born in Larne, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Mervyn moved to mainland UK in 1980, taking up residency in the Staffordshire area where he began to play with local bands such as Jury and Big Daisy. It was while doing this that he was spotted by Mel Galley and offered the opportunity to join Trapeze (a respected British band who had once featured Deep Purple's Glenn Hughes and Judas Priest's Dave Holland in its line-up). Mervyn recorded one album with Trapeze, although this remains unreleased to this day as, shortly after its completion, Mel Galley accepted an invitation to join Whitesnake."

Anybody has information concerning this unreleased album ? Do you think the bonus tracks" from "the complete works" digipack (Phenomena) result from these studio sessions ?

Even if it seems there's some acrimony about Mervyn here (...), it would be very interesting to know more about this "last" studio album from 1982...

Thanks from a french Trapeze fan (now you understand why my english is so poor !)

[Still got the Blues]

Please see my post 'Mel Galley Guitar Great' for one of the tracks and a post from a few years ago in the audio section for another. (Don't say its over) These were the only two that made the Whitesnake album Slide it in, albeit with a coverdale rewrite. I have heard the others, but can't remember their names. Its possible that 'Welcome to the Real World'. was also from those sessions.. I wouldn't really have called it an album. As Coverdale put it.. "they were upmarket demos". I am sure there are people on here who know the whole story.

[inoxydable]

Thanks for your answer. Here's what the prog-nose website wrote about the "famous" bonus tracks from the Phenomena "Complete Works" :

"On this re-release, there are 5 bonus tracks: ‘Assassins Of The Night’ and ‘Phoenix Rising’ are from the very first PHENOMENA rehearsals way back in 1982, performed by the then-TRAPEZE members. ‘Coming Back Strong’ is in fact not a PHENOMENA song at all, but a track written and demoed for TRAPEZE, before Mel Galley joined WHITESNAKE and took the song with him (it appeared, with new lyrics, as ‘Gambler’ on Slide It In). Then there’s a rather redundant re-recording of ‘Still The Night’ and ‘Karma’ is a teaser for the soon-to-be-released fourth PHENOMENA album."

So it seems that there's at least 3 of these "bonus tracks" which are from the lost (and last) studio album of Trapeze...

[wolfysmith]

There isnt a "lost" Trapeze album as such.

Mel was writing songs for a new Trapeze album and also for Phenomena.

when Coverdale asked Mel to join he wanted to know if Mel had any songs/demos already done.

Mel played DC and Cozy the tracks and DC wanted to use some.
However, as DC didnt want to lose out on royalties he insisted on using his lyrics, hence the fact the bootleg demos have words written by Tom Galley.

Coming Back Strong became Gambler
Holding On became Give Me More Time

there are also boots of other demos around with Mel singing:

Keep On Running Away (became Assassins of the Night)
Enough is Enough
Destiny
Phoenix Rising

Some of these have been on Mel's Myspace page.
I also have alternate versions of some of these.

You can actually hear Mel call out "verse" and "chorus" in some songs as the session musicians were still learning them.

The demos put out on the Phenomena 3Cd set were issued WITHOUT Mel or Tom's permission.
Merve Spence basically played bass on a couple of rehearsal sessions and not on any finished demo or the album. Unfortunately he managed to buy the rights to the Phenomena project and so has made himself to look more important than he actually was by writing the cd booklet and other stuff.

He has also not paid royalties out for years.

[inoxydable]

Thanks wolfysmith for these interesting facts. It's more clear for me now...

Sad story about the legal rights of Phenomena project... But I don't want to take a stand with the one or the other one, as I always liked Mel's guitar and the singing of Mervyn (notably on "Raw To The Bone" by Wishbone Ash)

Incidentally, do you know when or took place the last concerts of Trapeze in 1982 ?

It would be interesting to know all the dates of Trapeze with the various line-ups... Even the Tourography (with Glenn) is far for being complete...

[BLUE ROOSTER]

Are there different demos of the song "Real World"? ie the one from the Trapeze demos in the early 90's and the Robin George sessions. Or are they all the same?

[galleyfan]

Hello Blue Rooster,
Actually, MGM did a demo of "Real World"
with Bobby Kimball on vocals in '87 as well.
Kimball did a few demos before going back to Toto.
I reaaly love that song & wish Glenn would've redone it
on From now On.

Cheers,
Galleyfan

[EDUARDO]

VERY NICE!!!!!!! GREAT LINE UP.