Carnaby Street Undressed (documentary)

This looks good. Swinging London and all that.
It's on Yesterday TV in the UK on Sunday but, note to self, it's probably available on the net somewhere too.

OMD: Julia's Song - Live at Eric's - 10th Sept 2011

Here's a good quality video of OMD (Humphreys and McCluskey at least) at the re-opening of Eric's Club in Liverpool doing the excellent 'Julia's Song'. Always been one of my fave tunes and a great choice by the boys to remember the good old days.

Looks very sweaty in there though..

Simple Minds - Love Song / Heaven 17 - Play to Win / Ultravox - The Thin Wall / John Foxx - Europe After the Rain / OMD - Souvenir

I Love 1981 - pt 17
A veritable feast of great new "comeback" singles suddenly all came out around this time of the year in 1981, so many in fact that it's hard to keep up with proper reviews, so we've grouped them together with a few lines for each, for now, in the hope of being able to do them justice at a later date.
Glasgow's Simple Minds were still very much on the fringe of things before this year (their big break would come in 1982), although the new single and parent albums Sons & Fascination / Sister Feelings Call (yes, two albums) placed them firmly in the new dance / electronic pop-rock grouping as already so boldly established by Ultravox and others. Although much played by Kid Jensen in his evening programme, as with earlier 1981 release The American, Love Song failed to make the Top 40 although ensured they got their share of the dance floor-space in the trendier clubs. The albums remain often overlooked masterpices so check 'em out if you haven't done so already.

Emerging from their grim-up-north Sheffield studios, Heaven 17 went all out pop/funk to produce the jaunty Play to Win, a taster of their forthcoming album Penthouse & Pavement. It was a departure from the rather more serious agit-pop/funk predecessors Fascist Groove Thing and I'm Your Money although like them failed to make the charts. There was however a brave and rarely seen TOTP appearance as "bubbling under" or something, with Martyn Ware on guitar. We'll come back to Penthouse & Pavement at a later date. You can well imagine Ware/Gregory/Wright gnashing their collective teeth as fellow Sheffielders and former band mates The Human League were already storming the charts with their second hit Love Action, and causing quite a stir.


No strangers to the charts however were Ultravox, with Midge Ure at the helm, and after practically establishing a whole new genre with Vienna proceeded very nicely with their follow-up The Thin Wall, a jagged and jerky pop tune which, although not one of their best over the years, did its job very well it getting them firmly back on the map as pioneering electro-rockers. In hindsight, perhaps not their most accessible single, but the whole track shows off their competence as musicians, modern composers and techno-aces and Ure's vocal leaves any imitators literally breathless. Still not quite sure what The Thin Wall is all about but you just gotta love the line "they shuffle with a bovine grace and glide in syncopation.." Ridiculously pompous, but brilliant.
Again it was a preview of their upcoming new album Rage in Eden which would enter the charts at no. 4 a few weeks later. More of that meisterwerk anon.


And speaking of Ultravox, founder of said band John Foxx, after practically inventing the pure electro-pop artist genre, inspiring newcomers like Depeche Mode, Soft Cell etc to get up and do their thing with a few synths and a drum machine, promptly turned his back on pure electronics at least, got out his acoustic guitar, frilly shirt and baggy trousers and started to go all Italianate-Byron 'retro-romantic' ( I just invented that). Europe After the Rain is bouncy and tuneful enough to fit in with modern trends but was a long way from the dark and dank Underpass and Ballardian soundscapes of 1970's Metamatic which so many had already loved him for. As with Numan's foray into funk, many were alienated from John-Foxx-as-synth-god and duly abandoned him, although it could be debated that Foxx was merely going back to his Ultravox days of Systems of Romance - full circle. Another memorable TOTP appearance here but, alas, another non-starter chartwise, just scraping the no.40 spot.
Ensuing album The Garden was much of the same (if not worse), save for the title track and Systems of Romance, obviously revived from his Ultravox days. But we'll come back to that.

And lastly, and certainly not leastly, a record that suddenly seemed to sweep them all away during those heady end of summer days was the comeback single by OMD, or Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark to friends. Emerging from their own Gramophone Suite studios, their slow and sloppy Souvenir was pumped out left right and centre by everyone from Peter Powell to Steve Wright on Radio 1 (although eveidently they were no longer loved by their champion John Peel) and is even reported to have been played on Radio 2..God forbid! That was the music your parents listened to! But no matter, the song had the appeal of both a smooch friendly tunes for couples, and dreamy would-be lovers but somewhow retained OMD's appeal of being just a tad different from your average "new wave" pop group, and not just because of their cumbersome name. Although they had been practically absent since the success of Enola Gay several months hence, Messrs Humphreys & McCluskey (the former providing vocals here) took just a couple of weeks to get to no. 3 in the charts and establish one of the best known pop tunes of the 80s.
Like most OMD videos, the one for Souvenir is deadly embarassing, inspired perhaps by the fashionable Brideshead Revisited, so here's a much better TOTP performance with the unique line up which included Martin Cooper (who wrote the song with Humphreys) on sax and Mike Douglas on, er, glockenspiel, who it seems stayed around just for this single.

Black is back

80's Liverpool crooner Colin Vearncombe, aka Black is back with a new album wittingly entitled Any Colour You Like.
I bought his debut album (even more wittingly entitled 'Black') on vinyl back in the day and played it quite a lot but I didn't go beyond that. I see there's re-recording of 'Wonderful Life' and 'Sweetest Smile' from said album, so it'll be nice to hear those plus some new material.
Never quite sussed out whether Black was just our Colin or a group, or whatever, but no matter, I'm sure this will be quality stuff from a bloke with a great voice. New album available now from all decent download sites.

Here's one of my faves from back then:

'snow joke

..this time it's for real.

Kate Bush has a new album ready. It's due out in November.
'50 Words for Snow' features seven brand new songs, all about falling snow. 65 minutes. Wow. 


snow-info

Kate Bush has at last revealed why she's been dressed like this all summer.

Belgique: douze points

Yes it's full marks from the Lost in Music jury to the splendid kingdom of Belgium where the good burgers of   Hasselt have organised a rather spiffing 'industrial music' festival called Sinner's Day for 30th October next.
Said fest will feature such greats as Blancmange, John Foxx & the Maths, Karl Bartos, The Psychedelic Furs, The Cult, The Mission and top new romatic band Visage.
Check the Sinner's Day website for all the necessary info on everything from alcohol to, er, toilets...
Furthermore, being towards the Eastern part of Belgium, Hasselt is very close to Germany and Holland and conveniently placed for many Europeans. Uitstekende!

some good burgers of Hasselt (Belgium)  yesterday, getting excited about seeing Visage live in October.

The Beatles' London - 1

During a recent visit to London, I was keen to seek out some Beatles hot-spots - after all they were the ones who kept London swinging and everything in the 60s, right?
Apart from the obligatory Abbey Road zebra cossing / studios etc. I also stopped in front of 3, Savile Row, home of the Beatles' Apple Corps (geddit?) offices from around 1968, and also the Apple Studios in the basement. The famous rooftop concert was also perfomed and filmed there on a bitter cold January day in 1969.

Sadly there is nothing to commemorate this outside the building which could only be noted by the Beatle-related graffitti around the doorway. However, as I was there (Aug 31st) scaffolding was being erected on the front of the building so hopefully some kind of restoration is underway in order to bring it up to the standard of surrounding establishments (a well posh area of Regent Street/Mayfair) and to mark that this was the spot where so many great things happened during Apple's permanence in the building. Don't let me down..

Gary Numan - She's Got Claws

I love 1981 - pt. 16

Wooaahh! .. this one ripped its way into the charts 30 years ago like there was no tomorrow..and indeed there wasn't really as it more or less disappeared as soon as it came.
Numan's return to vinyl and to the charts was a brave change of style, adopting a more funky attitude to his tardemark "colder" electronic sound of previous oeuvres. A shock for fans? Perhaps, but it the music was accompanied by a change of "look" which most followers seem to take to straight away .. baggy trousers, clean white shirt fixed at the top by yer mum's brooch, topped with yer Dad's trilby and Bob's your Gazza.
But back to the music She's Got Claws featured a much more refined sound aided by Mick Karn's trademark bass which had already been giving that touch of class to Japan's records for a good few years. The sound would also characterise the ensuing Dance album, which took a lot from more refined bands like Japan, and not just by stealing the bass player. He even revisted in his own track Metal, turning it into a sarcastic and somewhat bitter commentary of the "new romantic" scene, renaming the track Moral. Not entirely fair, as such artists were already catching up with him and indeed in many cases overtaking him.

Dance was Numan's first not to be accompanied by a tour, and Gazza probably disillusioned many with his new approach, but it was also arguably his last great creative album. We wouldn't see or hear Numan as interesting as this for a long, long time.

Which one's Pink?

Get ready for a Pink Floyd revival onslaught from now until at least the end of the year, and beyodn, as loads of re-issues of the band's back catalogue are planned in various formats under the Why Pink Floyd? banner, as well as a new compilation CD A Foot in the Door.

UK music monthly MOJO celebrate the band (again) in their October issue (out now?!?!) with big feature and a double CD with cover versions of tracks off Floyd mega-albums Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here all by contemporary artists most of which we've never heard of, save for The Orb and the mighty John Foxx and The Maths.

Read the story about Foxx and Benge's cover of Have a Cigar in an exclusive interview on the Metamatic website. You can listen to the CD track in this youtube clip, although MOJO have since announced that they got the wrong version out (doh) and you can download the correct one free from their site here.

The Human League - Hard Times/Love Action - Soft Cell Tainted Love / Where Did Our Love Go?

I Love 1981 - pt 15
In which Britain experiences it's first major synth-pop summer and the 12" single with extended dance mixes finally takes on as a mainstream musical art form.

The Human League first advertised theirs as featuring "a disco mix and odd mix, two separate very long versions of both songs". Major ground breaking here in more ways than one. Firstly it features the B side Hard Times before the A side Love Action, and secondly the B side is a kind of instrumental variation on the A side picking up only on the female 'hard times' vocal parts from the main song. Easier to listen to than explain.
The opus is a combination of The Human League's new style dance music with meaning and the late Martin Rushent's production skills who helped them achieve their distinctive sound not least by introducing them to the Linn drum machine. Lyrically, Phil Oakey is the tough Northern bloke (albeit with jewellry and make-up) who comes out with his hard times story "I've been a husband and a lover too..I've lain alone and cried at night...I feel the pain..." but ultimately gives in to, er, temptation, the 'love action' transmitted by.... who? The Daily Mirror published a gossip style story about his broken marriage and his affair with one of the girls (or both? ..can't remember) and we were even treated to a photo of his shock-horor-probe pierced nipple! Love Action ( I Believe in Love) is classic League of course and the one that got them to number 3 and well and truly on the road to fame (and we still haven't had Don't You Want Me yet).

Although Soft Cell were very much in the synth-pop catchment area their electronics were a tad more minimal and seedy compared to the League's lush production. No matter though as their cover of two Motown numbers remains a classic in its own right to this day. Again it's a 'segue' type long mix cleverly bringing together the two songs in a new style electro-dance bonanza which meant DJs could rest for a bit while the punters danced on.
Like The Human League's "instrumentals" 12" B side, theirs also fetaures a dubby trippy instrumental mix which became the blueprint for so many dub/dance crossover re-mixes for years to come. Tainted Love became a number 1 single in 17 countries and even broke the US top 10 in 1982. Famously however the duo made relatively little money from sales of the single as both sides were cover versions, leaving many royalties to their original owners.
Not bad going though for the archetypal odd couple (see Sparks) Marc Almond and Dave Ball who had recorded it as a make-or-break single for Phonogram. Northern Soul from Leeds for the new electronic age. Beep beep!

OMD to play Eric's Club re-opening

That's according to the local press.

Let's hope it's in a better state than this..

Tubular Bells by the Brooklyn Organ Synth Orchestra

Benge .. if you're reading, I know you're gonna love this.....