Released in November 1986 (May 1987 in Australia), on Previous Records, catalogue number ASF 3136 (AIM 1020 in Australia). Produced and engineered by Kevin Shirley.
Tracks
- Bernadette (Steve Louw) (3.03) b-side of Here Comes The Night single 1986
- Here Comes The Night (Bert Berns) (3:11) single a-side 1986
- On Through The Night (Steve Louw) (4:20)
- Prisoners (Steve Louw) (4:11)
- The Killing Floor (Chester “Howling Wolf” Burnett) (3:53)
- Believe In Love (Steve Louw) (4:55)
- Reign Of Fire (Steve Louw) (4:43) released as a single in Australia in 1986, BANNED in South Africa
- The Hunger (Steve Louw) (3:44)
- Hopetown 1975 (Stolen Gasoline) (Steve Louw) (4:37)
In 2002, Kevin Shirley remixed a few of the tracks off this album, and in 2013 it was released for Streaming / Downloading.
Tracks (2013 Digital Release)
- Intro Bernadette
- Bernadette (Kevin Shirley remix 2002)
- Here Comes The Night
- On Through The Night (Kevin Shirley remix 2002)
- Prisoners (Kevin Shirley remix 2002)
- The Killing Floor
- Believe In Love
- Intro Reign Of Fire
- Reign Of Fire (Kevin Shirley remix 2002)
- The Hunger (Kevin Shirley remix 2002)
- Hopetown 1975 (Stolen Gasoline) (Kevin Shirley remix 2002)
Session track
- All Night Long (recorded in 1986, remixed by Kevin Shirley in 2002)
Musicians
- Nico Burger: Electric Guitar, Slide Guitar, Dobro
- Mike Campbell: Electric Bass
- Tony Drake: Piano, Organ, Synthesisers
- Herman Eugster: Drums
- Mike Faure: Saxophone
- Steve Louw: Vocals, Guitar
- The Glee Singers: Choir on ‘Reign Of Fire’
- Tim Parr: Guitar on ‘The Killing Floor’
- André de Villiers, Tracey Dogon, Mynie Grove, Tam Minter: Backing Vocals
Steve Louw founded trail-blazing eighties band, All Night Radio, with Nico Burger and Rob Nagel in 1981. (See Steve Louw’s Musical Family Tree for more information). All Night Radio released two hit albums, “The Heart’s The Best Part” (1984) and “The Killing Floor” (1986), their gritty, bluesy, rock ‘n roll sound firmly establishing Steve as a star on the South African music scene.
Brian Currin, AllNightRadio.org
Reviews
1001 South African Songs You Must Hear Before You Go Deaf
Cape Times Funfinder
All Night Radio’s second album, The Killing Floor, has met with the wrath of the SABC. One of the main tracks, Reign of Fire, has been banned from airplay. Frontman Steve Louw went up to Johannesburg last week to do an interview on Radio5’s program Loud and Proud and said he was told several tracks had been banned. “I was stunned. DJ Dave Charles broke the news to me. They also wanted to ban the first cut Bernadette because of the reference to District Six; Prisoners because of the lines ‘prisoners of what we are told, prisoners out in the cold and prisoners in this land of gold’.” Louw said after some negotiating with the SABC’s own censor department only Reign of Fire was banned. The album will be released in Australia shortly.
Australia, 1986 – AIM, FAN007
Australia, 1986 – AIM, FAN007
Fair Lady (4 March 1987)
Etceteras by Jeremy Thomas
It was a fair while ago that we saw All Night Radio’s debut The Heart’s The Best Part charge off blindly into the night like some wild rambunctious rock ‘n roll beast. They’d hired a British engineer to produce them, and he liked to make the boys sound lean and hard and live – I went to visit the studio while they were recording, and he’d put the drum kit in a steel-lined service elevator at the back of the room. Somebody banged on the snare and I had to back off in pain. So that’s what it sounded like – very bright and loud. Of course, Stellenbosch yokel Steve Louw made no attempt to hide his Yankophilia, and his voice came roaring out like some weird cross between John Cougar Mellencamp and Tighthead Fourie.
Nico Burger’s lead guitar tore through some pretty neat melodies, while bassist Rob Nagel contented his deepest ZZ Top fantasies by dyeing his beard red and sporting a baseball cap and shades. Ja, The Heart’s The Best Part was a good album. The best ANR concerts had them fooling about with Presley and assorted blues, and their stand-in drummer played standing up. Naturally Steve played ‘rock star” without much hint of irony. Nobody laughed too much. We had an excellent time. Now All Night Radio have a second album, The Killing Floor, which kicks up rather a different storm. It fades in with a light acoustic jig, fades out again, then suddenly guns off into territory I would never have thought possible. We’re talking The Cramps, deep dark rockability with more than a hint of bad psychosis. I must listen to it again, but that was my first impression.
Then comes their cover of Them’s Here Comes The Night – certainly an accomplished effort, but disappointing for adding little to either Van Morrison’s lament of David Bowie’s Pinups Ham-up. But onward: The Killing Floor is a loose, unhassled kind of album – there may be one too many entirely sappy American middle-of-the-road ballads in the Toto mould, but elsewhere the band’s unexpected return to bluesy old rock ‘n roll compensates with much rude aplomb.
Lyrics
Bernadette
Bernadette, I’m burning for just one more touch from you
You got lips of fire and a heart of gold
Baby, I’m your fool
We go out dancing all night on the cheaper side of town
Where a poor man can be a winner
And a black man can be proud
Bernadette, I want you
I’m your fool
Hold me tight, baby
I love you
We talked all night, you told me about your life
Across the tracks
Want to get the hell out of this town
You can’t turn your back
On your family and the friends, and this place that we call home
This city is so cruel, makes you so alone
Bernadette, you got me
I got you
Hold on tight here, baby
We can’t lose
Bernadette, let’s run together to where there’s no one we know
I guess the grass is always greener and the sunshine, it turns to snow
And you walk the empty streets of this town
12 o’clock at night
There’s a cop up on the corner, man
He’s looking for a fight
Bernadette, I want you
I’m your fool
Hold me tight, baby
I love you
You take me to the wasteland, they call it
District 6
Voices of children playing echo across
Piles of broken bricks
Bernadette, let’s run together
To where there’s no-one we know
But I guess the grass is always greener
And the sunshine
It turns to snow
Bernadette, you got me
I got you
Hold on tight yeah, baby
We can’t lose
Bernadette, I want you
I’m your fool
Hold on tight yeah, baby
I love you. Bernadette
On Through The Night
Friday night in Boksburg
Walking home from the steel mill
I’ve got my paycheck in my hand
I’m thinking Sally will you love me still
In twenty-three years, in twenty-three years
When the only thing that we’ve had
Is pain, sweat and tears
Oh, this town is killing us
From day-to-day
When I see the people walking by
Sally, we ain’t going to head that way
We’re heading on through the night
On through the night, just you and me
On through the night
Heading out, baby
You climbed in my car
And as we pulled away
I heard myself say, Sally
We’re not staying here to die each day
Chorus
Oh, Sally baby when you take my hand
I can see that look in your eyes
And I know that you understand
Stopped at some roadhouse
It was 2 a.m.
We didn’t know where we were
But it’s easier heading out than heading in
Chorus
Prisoners
Talk is cheap and who cares what we’ve got to say?
We want to forget the news we hear all-day
I’m not going to sit here and stare into my liquor
I need something that’s a little bit quicker
Something to make me feel my blood flow again
Something to make me forget your name
Come on little darling I can see there’s light in your eyes
I’ll make you mine for a couple of hours
There’s nothing that we really have to do or say
I don’t need no excuse to dance the night away
You tell me your name; I’ll tell you mine
This lonely boy is going to show you a good time
Prisoners of what we’re told
Prisoners out in the cold
Prisoners in the Land of Gold
Forget it all tonight, babe
Let’s Rock and Roll
When I hear that backbeat rhythm that’s
Written on my soul
I look at you, I’m plugged in
I’m revving up to go
The drummers playing louder and you’re shouting in my ear
I can’t hear what you’re saying
You don’t seem to care
We’ve got one last chance to be saved
One last dance, c’mon baby let’s rave
Chorus
Prisoners of what we’re told
Prisoners out in the cold
Prisoners in the Land of Gold
Forget it all tonight, babe
Let’s Rock and Roll
We’re Prisoners of Rock and Roll
Believe In Love
I’m dreaming of a clear blue sky
Burning sun shining in my eyes
I’m walking down a dusty one-way track
Why does it take so long to turn back?
Black smoke rising across a blood-red sun
Sinking down on this shantytown
A baby cries because her mother’s not home
And bullets whine against sticks and stones
You’re staring down the barrel of a cold smoking gun
Why are we spilling the blood of our future?
Of all our sons
Why can’t we turn back?
And walk back up this bloody one-way track.
Believe in each other
Believe in love
The mountains stand, but silence reigns
Over miles and miles of burnt windswept plains
The locusts whine and the sea still roars
But there’s no-one here anymore
Repeat chorus
Reign Of Fire
Stop the Reign of Fire
Stop the Reign of Fire
Have you ever heard a cry in the night?
As someone goes down in a back-alley fight
But where you live it’s cold and its quiet
While across town they’re shooting to kill
There’s an anger that’s not going to die
A flame’s been lit that’s not just a single fire
Have you ever seen someone down on their knees?
Have you ever heard someone begging you please
Have you ever been out in shantytown
When will we learn you can’t keep a good man down?
Cure the hunger, Cure the pain
Stop the killing, Stop the Reign of Fire
Have you ever heard a scream in the dawn?
Have you ever wished that you’d never been born?
Bullets are flying through the flames of the night
As Brother kills Brother, black on white
There’s an anger that’s not going to die
A flame’s been lit that’s not just a single fire
Cure the hunger, Cure the pain
Stop the killing, Stop the Reign of Fire
Stop the Reign of Fire
Stop the Reign of Fire
Stop the Reign of Fire
Stop the Reign of Fire
The Hunger
Feel your love
Watching me
When I lie in your bed
And feel your body heat
You stop the pain inside me
Out on the borders, where we meet
I’m your stranger
I blew into town to meet you
You’ll be comfort in the darkest hours
When I saw your eyes, I knew
I’ve been crossing too many boundaries
There’s miles and miles in between
I don’t want to leave your side tonight
I don’t want to break this dream
I’ll take you in my arms
And let the night fade
I feel your body soothing me
And the darkness ripped away
Feel your love
Watching me
Come with me babe, we’ll be out of danger
I’ll take you with me tonight
Just you and me, we’re two victims of something
We can’t understand, we can’t fight
I’m going to make your eyes shine bright again
I’m going to show you that there’s a way
To keep this cold from our bodies our hearts
Hold me tight I’ll blow the silence away
I’ll blow the silence away
Feel your love
Watching me
Feel your love
Surrounding me
When I lie in your bed
And feel your body heat
You stop the pain inside me
Out on the borders, where we meet
I’m going to make your eyes shine bright again
I’m going to show you that there’s a way
To keep this cold from our bodies our hearts
Hold me tight baby I’ll blow the silence away
I’ll blow the silence away
I’ll blow the silence away
Just blow the silence away
Baby just hold me now
I’m your stranger
And I’m just new in town
Repeat chorus
Hopetown 1975 (Stolen Gasoline)
Driving down to Hopetown with my windows open wide
Lights are getting brighter as the sun is going down
There’s two more hours until I stop
Two more hours then I’ve got nowhere to go
Pull up off the highway to the dirt road heading home
Ten years feels as if I’ve never been gone
Everything still looks the same
Everything holds the spirits that you can’t tame
I’m driving down here on stolen gasoline
I’m driving down here on feelings I shouldn’t feel
The wind is blowing gently as I pull up to the side
It’s blowing across these fields that held us running for our lives
You curse yourself for coming ’cause there’s nothing left alive
But these feelings never die
Chorus
As you turn to leave you see there’s darkness all around
As you look behind you there’s nothing to be found
You leave behind you pieces, you’ll never be quite the same
But these feelings never die
Chorus
You were something special always so out of control
I’d have given you anything baby, I would’ve sold my soul
But you said I’m going nowhere, just heading straight downhill
I couldn’t see it, and I never will.
Chorus
Discography
The Heart’s The Best Part · The Killing Floor · Waiting For The Dawn · Horizon · Going Down With Mister Green · Best Of The Decade · Beyond The Blue · Trancas Canyon · Heart & Soul [DVD] · Headlight Dreams · Thunder And Rain