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..

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:

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..

OMD in China crisis

The Liverpool Daily Post reports that the proposed "Liverpool Day" at the Shangahi World Expo in October of this year is in jeapardy due to lack of funds. The proposed Liverpudlian musical bonanza involving the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, the Wombats, and the Pagoda Youth Orchestra may be scrapped because of a £400,000 hole in the budget.
Phil Southward, director of operation for Shanghai Expo, said Liverpool’s Expo presence would end up costing around £2.8m if the £400,000 for "Liverpool Day" were included and that the city council would have to approve for the additional money to be spent on the showcase finale.
Around 115,000 people have visited Liverpool's hi-tech stand at the Expo since opening two months ago.
It features a video greeting from Sir Paul McCartney, football, maritime and a 3D film of a Chinese dragon and a Liver Bird flying over the North West.
The investment is forecasted to bring a £5.5m to £47.5m benefit over the next 10 years in increased tourism and student intake as well as boosting exports and foreign investment.
OMD, busy with the preparations for their new album, History of Modern, and tour in the autumn, have yet to comment .

The Liverpool delegation in China: "Whaddya mean la you can't pronounce Orchestral Manoeuvres?"

Nowhere film

A new film on the teenage years of John Lennon entitled Nowhere Boy has been chosen as the closing film for this year's annual London Film Festival.
The film, starring Aaron Johnson in the role of the young Lennon and Kirstin Scott Thomas as Aunt Mimi, is directed by Sam-Taylor Wood longtime collaborator with the Pet Shop Boys (see earlier LIM post). Screenplay is by Matt Greenhalgh, writer of Control, Anton Corbijn's film on the life of Joy Division's Ian Curtis.
UK general releases for Nowhere Boy is set for Christmas Day 2009.



the young John Lennon plays ukelele: would go on to bigger things.



The Beatles - That'll Be the Day

Awaydays: soundtrack to a generation

The soundtrack to the new movie Awaydays, based on the original novel by Kevin Simpson, will be released on 25th May and features some of the best 'new wave' music from the 78/79 period. Ultravox!, Echo & the Bunnymen, Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, The Human League, The Mekons are just some of the names on the CD accompanying the film to be released in the UK on the 22nd.
Putting together the soundtrack on a low budget was not an easy task, as Simpson eplains in a recent article in The Guardian.
The film's producer is David Hughes, formerly of Dalek-I and and early line-up of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. The legendary Eric's Club in Liverpool features in the film.

"David Hughes and I are unusual in that we have a background in music", explains Simpson, "and we really wanted to clear a glut of new wave classics for that £10,000. We had our work cut out."
Well, full marks for the end result. Looking forward to the soundtrack as much as the film..

Awaydays soundtrack on Amazon
Awaydays offical site



Awaydays cast: here are the (smart) youg men.

Nightclubbin' la'

..and speaking of Liverpool, the history of legendary punk/new wave club "Eric's" is now available as a big, fat book wonderfully entitled "Liverpool Eric's : all the best clubs are downstairs, everybody knows that... " by Paul Whelan & Jaki Florek is now available through Feedback or amazon.

Eric's was the venue in Liverpool from 1976 -1980. Its impact on the Merseyside music scene is legendary.

Eric's, like the Cavern Club before, provided a stage for talented local groups to explore their musical abilities and interests with like-minded people. The club staged music rarely heard in other city centre venues - everything from jazz, reggae and folk music to performance art and poetry, and especially punk.

Eric's flyer from Nov-Dec 1979 feat. Simple Minds, Echo & Bunnymen, Joy Division, Dalek I, The Teardrop Explodes and 'members of' Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

thanks to whycontrol


Eric's on wiki.














Andy Mcluskey and Paul Humphreys of OMD visit the remains of Eric's Club for their Souvenir DVD

Orch Men in two Minds

OMD have issued an official statement on their myspace blog concerning rumours of a possible tour with Simple Minds in the U.S.A. While the band do not either confirm or deny rumours they decline responsibility fo anyone "planning to book air tickets, reserve hotels or change their holiday arrangements based on postings on third party websites".

Andy McCluskeyhad this to say: "Additionally the agents of all touring artists are constantly in negotiations about possible concerts and tours. Since most of these discussions usually don't culminate in actual performances it is very unwise of artists to even mention them as it gets people's hopes up usually for them to be dashed."

The Listening Pool's 1994 album Still Life is now available through Fin Music with the single Oil for the Lamps of China as a free download. The Listening Pool was a post-OMD band formed by Paul Humphreys, Malcolm Holmes and Martin Cooper following the break-up of OMD around 1988. The band's sound featured a blend of electronics and acoustic instruments which resulted in a single album release.


The Listening Pool: traces of "eighties" hairstyles still rife in the 90s

China life

Found some really spiffing vintage pics of Liverpool popsters China Crisis in Gary Daly's photobucket account today, which he very kindly (although perhaps unwittingly?) has made available to the public!

Also some nice music on the band's myspace page including a version of Christian I'd never heard before and a new song Slow Houses which actually I think is Safe as Houses slowed down, hence the name.

Band member Gary Daly apart from being one of Britain's best musicians ever, is also a damn good artist and has a CD/postcard boxset "How to Live and Love your Life" available through Polite publisher of cards, books and art multiples based in Cheshire UK. (See Gary Daly performing Baghead Blues here.) His works will also be shown at Kirkby Gallery in Newtown Gardens, Kirkby, L32 8RR, Merseyside, from 23rd Feb - 10th May.

China Crisis will also be playing a one-off fund raiser for 'Friends of Meols Park' on Thursday 5th February. Let's hope for some new material..... (wishful thinking..?)

China Crisis on myspace
Gary Daly on myspace

Electric biscuit

Never thought I'd write a post about them but it's nice to see Merseyside mavericks Half Man Half Biscuit are still going strong, at least on the live circuit. I never much cared for their music, championed and much revered by the late, great John Peel, but always found they had the best song and album titles back then, e.g. Back in the DHSS (indie album chart topper), Trumpton Riots, I Hate Nerys Hughes, All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit etc.

The band has now been newly brought to my attention thanks to a live cover version of fellow-scousers OMD's Electricity ("nu-clear and H-E-P!") which is actually not half bad with some nifty guitar work replacing the tinkling keyboard lines of the McCluskey/Humphreys debut single.
Download here.

For those interested full Half Man Half Biscuit gig available from Burning World.

OMD: half Humphreys half McCluskey

Be Dazzled!

"these are the little children, the future in their hands..." - Genetic Engineering


It's here at last..or rather I got it at last. 25 years and 4 weeks after the original vinyl LP issue I finally got the remastered CD version of Dazzle Ships by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. So much has been written about it over the past few years, mostly in the 'unrecognised work of genius' sense, and now at last it seems to be getting the recognition it deserves.

I can't begin to describe the effect this album had on me back then - I'd been a fan since their first album, or rather since the I heard their first single Electricity some time in 1979. I searched high and low for that first album (although regrettably to this day do not have the die-cut sleeve) and became more and more involved with the men and their music as the months and years of my angst-ridden youth went by. Architecture & Morality turned out to be their commercial zenith, and in my mind could only be followed up by a complete change in direction..and it was. (That seemed to happen a lot in 1983, see also ABC beauty Stab and New Order's Blue Monday / Power Corruption and Lies). My only crtique of OMD's oeuvre was that it was too short..i couldn't get enough of it and wanted more. needless to say they were hammered commerically and critically and came back a year later with the more standard pop of the aptly titled Junk Culture, which managed to re-establishtheir intelligent pop songs with an eye on the irony...the rest is junk history.
Dazzle Ships stands as a monument to world of technology of the past, present and future. Found sounds and musique concrete are turned into moving melodies (Time Zones, ABC Auto Industry), social comment into pure pop (Radio Waves, Genetic Engineering). and we are still moved by OMD's stirring ballads (International, The Romance of the Telescope). If you like, a re-interpretation of Kraftwerk's Radioactivity bringing the ideas and sounds bang up to date.
But it was too much for the punters who were edging on new pop: Duran Duran and Culture Club were already on the up while Gary Numan, John Foxx et al were already on the wane.

So take the time to buy or download and listen to this newly polished masterpiece.

Be dazzled!

Dazzle Ships minisite

Crisis? What Crisis?

music blog find of the day:
All you ever wanted about the China Crisis