Space balls

I'm a bit concerned about the, er, masculine dancing on this one but the soundtrack is ace!

Thanks to the ever resourceful Arefriendelectrick for the upload. More Space Pilots / Space Music here.

Of Ants and Turtles and Electric Video Dreams

Steve Barron: the Ninja Turtle years.

I was interested to read this interview with video and film director Steve Barron this morning. I didn't know very much about him although of course was well acquainted with his work on seminal pop promotional videos starting in 1979 with The Jam and Secret Affair, moving onto pop pioneers Adam & the Ants, The Human League, Tears for Fears, OMD, Simple Minds et al, and then winding up with the big boys like  Madonna, Bowie, Bryan Adams and Michael Jackson (Billie Jean), while still remaining faithful to A-ha throughout.
He also directed a couple of films including the 80's-pop fuelled comedy sci-fi Electric Dreams and some other things which were, and remain, off my radar.
The abovementioned article was there to plug his new autobiography "Egg n Chips & Billie Jean: A Trip Through the Eighties", which from the Kindle preview actually looks quite entertaining.

His videos seem to always have that grainy, slightly old-fashioned feel to them which I quite like. Here's one of those early, seminal videos from 1980 (featuring the legendary GIANT PLUG!).

The Next Compilation

Well, David Bowie's latest compilation Nothing Has Changed is finally now after being announced a few weeks back. Available in three different versions (double CD, triple CD - with their relative digital download equivalents - and double vinyl) each with its own different artwork, depicting Bowie looking into a mirror at various stages of his career (my favourite one here on the left). Although they all stick to basically the same songs each has its own individual tracklisting.

The triple CD version is possibly the most interesting, and the most complete to date. This version features the tracks Your Turn to Drive, previously an internet-only single, and Let Me Sleep Beside You, which is previously commercially unreleased, both being from Bowie's nigh-legendary unreleased 2001 album Toy. The jumbo version also follows the original idea of presenting tracks in reverse chronological order starting with new single Sue and winding up with Liza Jane, a track released by Davie Jones and the King Bees, apparently the first single ever to be released by the boy Bowie back in June 1964...and quite a corker it is too! Nothing has changed? Well, we wouldn't say that...

New Zoo

The remastered 30th anniversary edition of Zoolook by Jean Michel Jarre has unexpectedly turned up as a download only on amazon.co.uk and other download sites (available from 18th November on some in Europe). Although its part of the Sony JMJ re-issues which started earlier this year with Oxygène, Equinoxe, Les Chants Magnètiques and three live albums, this is the first to appear billed as an actual remaster.

The digital download release does in fact coincide with the original album release of November 1984. As usual I'm in two minds as to whether I should download the mp3 files straight away or wait for the actual hard copy to come through my letterbox. My original vinyl copy never did get all the play the earlier albums did although perhaps things will change this time around with the new issue which by all accounts has vastly improved sound with regard to the original or even successive digital editions. 

Having said that I have always found the (over) use of the new fangled sampling technology rather tiresome, and despite all his efforts to always come up with something original, Jarre's electronic doodlings were beginning to tire a little. A more recent reworking of Zoolookologie however shows that its a work that stands up to the test of time surprisingly well, nothwithstanding this cringey video - a colourful slice of mid-80s euro-kitsch:

Official news on the further new releases is scarce - at least on the interweb - and this Spanish-language site is the only one I could find which confirms the re-issue of the next five albums in CD format as of 2nd January 2015. Olé!

Sue view

David Bowie has just made public the promo video for his latest single Sue. Here it is:


David Bowie - Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) on MUZU.TV.

Big music non-stop

I've never had a real adoration for Simple Minds. They did however manage to find a place in my record collection during their heyday, jostling for a place among The Human League, OMITD, Gary Numan et al.
I caught onto them quite late in 1981 with their Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call albums (of which I had the combined version on cassette), moving backwards, but only as far as Empires and Dance (1980), then forward to Sparkle in the Rain (1984) which many hailed as a poor follow up to 1982's classic New Gold Dream, undoubtedly their most accomplished album. Much like OMD they sold out a bit with the Don't You Forget About Me contribution to the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, and after that it was all rubbish as far as I'm concerned.
Except up to now: their new album Big Music is certainly a return to form with some excellent songs and some beefy modern production to back them up. Blindfolded is a blinding (geddit?) opener, followed up by Midnight Walking, Honest Town and the title track all just as good. The ensuing Human is perhaps the weakest track but the rest is all up to scratch in LiM's book. Our only qualm would be Broken Glass Park tagged on almost at the end, although that's already been a Radio2 'hit' so has already done its job rather nicely thankyou.
There's also a deluxe version with more tracks and remixes on the bonus disc, although one wonders why they've gone back to cover versions: the rather pointless Riders on the Storm and Dancing Barefoot again.
However, all that's just unnecessary fan-fodder so just stick to the main album and you'll be OK.

Here's my Simple Minds Top 10 playlist, starting with a couple of tracks from Big Music:

5x10

50 hits (mostly no. 1's) in 50 years:

 

Digital Help!

Beatles movies are a bit like their albums: always revered as timeless works of genius, yet they never quite hit the spot and there's always something not quite right about them.  Wherein of course lies much of their charm: The Beatles were never an 'albums band' just as much as they were never actors or born-movie stars. What they did produce howver were some damn fine singles and - more often than not - some pretty good visuals to go with them, even well before the 'video age'. Just as in A Hard Day's Night the most memorable scenes involve their splendid singles (witness the Fab Four frolicking on a cricket pitch to Can't Buy me Love), the movie Help is perhaps most loved and remembered for the skiing antics accompanying Ticket To Ride or (a personal favourite) lolling about in a living room miming along to You've Got To Hide Your Love Away.

The Beatles' second full length movie (sic.) has just been re-issued in restored digital quality on DVD and Blue-ray, with the usual treasure trove of extras surrounding the making of, filming of, restoring of etc.

For those who don't know it's a mid-sixties comedic romp involving the pursuit of a ring worn appropriately by Ringo, taking in various locations, most notably the Austrian mountains and the Bahamas. It's a sort of Marx brothers meets James Bond affair with the inevitable Goon-style British humour. Unsurprisingly The cheeky Beatles later quipped that the film was shot in a "haze of marijuana".

Full info here: thebeatles.com

Single of the year: OMD - Dresden

"..set the dials to overlaod, my head is ready to explode.."

taken from the recent OMD album English Electric. Remix by John Foxx and the Maths also avilable.

La fabrication de Moscow Diskow (Telex)

Never mind Daft Punk..

Never Mind The Tubular Bells

Virgin Records will be 40 this month, as will Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, the first release on Branson's label.

The historic Oldfield/Branson/Bells happening has been well documented in the past but here's a kind of definitive version of events as published in guardian.co.uk's "How We Made" series this week.

How we made: Richard Branson and Mike Oldfield on Tubular Bells

..and just out of interest here's the tile track of the first Gong release on Virgin, which was actually released the same day as Tubular Bells, yet with the serial number V2002 came in a close second . .

1983 v. 2013 / 2.0

I'm still waiting for my copy of the new Depeche Mode album, Delta Machine, which the whole world and his dog seems to have heard by now. (Ama-zon are respecting their delivery date this time instead of pleasantly surprising this patron as they usually do by delivering early..)

So in the meantime here's the second installment of the occasional series in which we compare what music bands are producing now as opposed to what they were doing thirty years hence.


And indeed here are ver Mode with their January 1983 inter-album single Get The Balance Right. This song did in fact see the band moving away from the sloppy pop songs (See You) of A Broken Frame to their more 'socially aware' output which would become so evident in their Construction Time Again album later in the year.
The video, and presumably the recording of the song, was the first to prominently feature new member Alan Wilder who played such a large part in the group's sound and indeed character until his departure,  ten years or so into the future. The 12" 'Combination' mix of GTBR was particularly ace, and is apparently hailed by some as being the first "house" track given it's bass-heavy rhythm and chunky sound.

Fast forward to 2013 and thirty years, ten studio albums, hundreds of live dates and as many personal crises later and we are in a very different mode (cringe..) indeed. That said, the March 2013 single Heaven touches on by now regular topics of religion, redemption, suffering etc. in a reet bluesy number, but which definitely hits the spot in being ultimately catchy and, well, Depeche Mode-y. New album awaited with the usual trepidation.

We'll be comparing further 1983/2013 singles and perhaps some album tracks later in the series. Stay tuned..