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SPECIAL

DIRTY TRICKS is one of England´s great, but somehow a little bit underrated Heavy Metal bands that has been active mainly in the years from 1975 to 1977. This year the group has reunited with two of the original members, guitarist Johnny Fraser-Binnie and vocalist Kenny Ste--ward. The band released three LP´s and the same number of 45´s in the seventies (details you can find in Terry´s disco-graphie), they toured around England, Scotland, Australia and America, before the group departed in 1977. Dirty Tricks was the first British Heavy Metal band that played at the CBGB´s in New York in 1976, the most known location in town to perform these days. The line-up con-sidered of:

Dirty Tricks #1: Terry Horbury - bass / Johnny Fraser-Binnie - guitar / Kenny Steward - vocals / John Lee - drums

Dirty Tricks #2: Terry Horbury - bass / Johnny Fraser-Binnie - guitar / Kenny Steward - vocals / Andy Beirne - drums

After the split of Dirty Tricks, Terry, Johnny and Andy worked with ex-Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne who had left Sabbath that time and started to check out his solo career. In the "Sounds Magazine" from January 21, 1978, Ozzy says in an interview: "I´ve got some people from Dirty Tricks, guitarrist Johnny Fraser-Binnie and bass player Terry Horbury. I´ve got a few drummers in mind, but no one definite yet (it was Andy Beirne at least - ed.) All three of us write... I wanna have some material by the end of month and go on the road by November of this year. I want the music to be more earthy than what Sabbath was doing at the end, more like what I´m used to playing. I want it to sound like what I want it to sound like. It´ll be heavy alright, spooky." After some time of song writing and rehearsals, Ozzy de-cided to join Black Sabbath again and the group split up.

LINKS:

PRESS REVIEWS:

1. Live at the CBGB, New York, January 7th, 1976

"Billboard Magazine", January 22nd, by Roman Kozak

"New York Daily News", January, by Ernest Leogrande

"Record Mirror", February 26th, by David Brown

2. Live at the Marquee Club, London

"Melody Maker", March 26th

3. Live at Inner Sanctum, Austin/ Texas, December 22nd, 1975

"Concert Review"

ALBUM REVIEWS:

1. Night Man (1976)

"Trouser Press" No. 17, January

"Needle Time" Magazine, December

"Circus" Magazine, January
by Karel S. James

2. Hit And Run (1977)

"Billboard Magazine", March