Biff Byford

@biffbyford

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Biff Byford recommended Paranoid by Black Sabbath in Music (curated)

 
Paranoid by Black Sabbath
Paranoid by Black Sabbath
1970 | Metal, Rock
9.0 (7 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I’m choosing Paranoid the single, not the album. Everything they did before that and the rest of the Paranoid album were really doomy. I liked the fact that Paranoid, the song, was singalong-able… if there’s such a word. I can’t explain why I liked it so much, it just stood out for me as a serious attempt at writing a great rock song that could be played on the radio."

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Biff Byford recommended Demons and Wizards by Uriah Heep in Music (curated)

 
Demons and Wizards by Uriah Heep
Demons and Wizards by Uriah Heep
1972 | Metal
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Of the two bands, I actually preferred Uriah Heep over Deep Purple in their early days. I liked the style and imagery, and of course David Byron was a very charismatic singer. That Roger Dean sleeve made for great packaging, and it had my favourite of their songs, The Wizard."

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Biff Byford recommended In Rock by Deep Purple in Music (curated)

 
In Rock by Deep Purple
In Rock by Deep Purple
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"This one’s a no-brainer. It was the first time I’d ever heard any band play that way; Deep Purple weren’t the same as Led Zeppelin, they were unique. Though I don’t recall the year it happened, I saw Purple playing with Uriah Heep at Sheffield City Hall… which brings me to my next selection."

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Biff Byford recommended Climbing! by Mountain in Music (curated)

 
Climbing! by Mountain
Climbing! by Mountain
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"You can’t beat a bit of early Mountain. I saw them play a club in Birmingham, the name escapes me, but it was very early in their career. Climbing! has so many great songs, including Mississippi Queen, Never In My Life and Theme For An Imaginary Western, it’s great."

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Biff Byford recommended Grand Funk Railroad by Phoenix in Music (curated)

 
Grand Funk Railroad by Phoenix
Grand Funk Railroad by Phoenix
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"It was their sixth album, I think, the one before We’re An American Band. There used to be a jukebox in one of the Sheffield pubs that I frequented, and it had lots of great tracks by what were then quite obscure American bands. We spent a shitload of money on playing Grand Funk Railroad and Black Oak Arkansas, but especially Grand Funk."

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Live at Max's Kansas City by The Velvet Underground
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"That album was such a big influence on me; it was played a lot on the eight-track in the transit van as we travelled to gigs. We liked it, it was mega. The songs were great, it had I’m Waiting For The Man and Sweet Jane on it, and it was really dark."

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Well Respected Kinks by The Kinks
Well Respected Kinks by The Kinks
2001 | Rock
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Favorite

You Really Got Me by The Kinks

(0 Ratings)

Track

"This was one of the first singles I ever bought – at Woolworths, I think. I used to go down there because they had record listening booths, but before that I could have heard it on the radio or something. Radio Caroline, perhaps? But the sheer explosiveness of that riff was enough for me… I went out and bought it."

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Biff Byford recommended Close to the Edge by Yes in Music (curated)

 
Close to the Edge by Yes
Close to the Edge by Yes
1972 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, but Graham Oliver and Steve Dawson of Saxon were into the bluesy bands - simple but with a lot of groove. But me and Paul Quinn were into more muso bands like Genesis and King Crimson. That was the type of stuff we played, with more jamming and improvisation. As a bass player and singer, my goal was to play like Chris Squire. I used to try and learn the songs – it took me about six months to learn ‘Roundabout’. I‘ve talked to Rick Wakeman about Yes, and he said Jon Anderson would structure melodies like I do it. They would sit in a room and arrange things around the vocals, and we do that because it gives me more freedom to write. I could listen to this all day. NWOBHM bands liked Yes because the musicianship was great - it moves away from blues feel to a jazz feel. A lot of these guys were university trained, but we learned from listening to music. We knew nothing about music theory or scales, but prog rock really made you better as musicians when you learned to play it. It seemed unattainable because it was so good."

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