BRIAN MAY & FRIENDS: EDWARD VAN HALEN, ALAN GRATZER, PHIL CHEN & FRED MANDEL

SIDE ONE:
STAR FLEET
LET ME OUT

SIDE TWO:
BLUES BREAKER
(Dedicated to E.C.)

STOP!
What you have just picked up is not your normal kind of album. Not an album which had been "thoughtfully pieced together by a coordinated band as a balanced and polished listening experience." Not a Queen album. Not a solo Brian May album. It is a record of a unique event.

On the 21st and 22nd of April 1983, five musicians from different backgrounds, who had previously known eachother only as friends, played together for the first time. Purely for fun. In listening to this record, I hope you will share the excitement we felt.

STAR FLEET is the theme for a superb t.v. sci-fi series broadcast in England for kids of all ages; Japanese visuals and British soundtrack including music by Paul Bliss. The heroes pilot space vehicles which can assemble into a giant robot for land battles. The aliens fly fantastic insect-like craft which spawn smaller fighting machines; all intent on possession of the secret F Zero One... Having been introduced to all this by my small boy, I became equally obcessed by it, and formed the idea of making a hard rock version of the title theme.

A few months later I found myself in Los Angeles doing very little. I suddenly realized that four musicians, with whom I'd long wanted to play, were at the end of a local phone call. To my great surprise, they all like the ideas I had, so I took my courage in both hands, booked a studio, and we went. None of us had done this kind of thing before - no record company, no plans for release, no back-up organizations - just us. Just for fun.

In STAR FLEET, recorded on the first day, you can hear a kind of nervous exhilaration. The new situation produced a strange and different kind of energy.

In LET ME OUT - an old song of mine which found new life - and in BLUES BREAKER, which of course is purely spontaneous, you can hear a much more relaxed set of people, just laying back and enjoying the fresh inspiration of each other's playing...

I could have put away these tapes in a bottom drawer and kept them as a private record of one of the best experiences of my life. But the few people I've played them for have urged me to "publish," and it will make me very happy if others can enjoy this stuff the way I have.

I've attempted to hone STAR FLEET into something like a "proper record" - my thanks to ROGER for helping me with the chorus vocals. But I haven't messed one scrap with the tracking done on the day. The rest is simply "naked."

In BLUES BREAKER you can hear us smiling as we search for answering phrases. In the last solo of LET ME OUT, Edward tortures his top string to its audible death and winds up quite naturally on the remaining five. The rest I'll leave to imagination. It's not too hard to figure out who did what!

Thank You!! Enjoy!!!

BRIAN MAY
August, 1983

Capitol / EMI
MLP-15014