On this day, 32 years ago (19 January 1991), The Cure performed at The Great British Music Awards!
On this day, 32 years ago (19 January 1991), The Cure performed at The Great British Music Awards in London Wembley arena (UK) with a.o. Ride, The La's, Jesus Jones, New Model Army and The Wedding Present.
For this special occasion The Cure played a very rare selection of songs and lots of fans agree some of the performed versions are considered to be pre-eminent.
The entire show was broadcast by British tv & radio
Setlist
Pictures Of You, Fascination Street, Just Like Heaven, Lullaby, The Walk, Let's Go To Bed, Why Can't I Be You?, In Between Days, A Forest, Never Enough
Encores:
Three Imaginary Boys, Boys Don't Cry, Disintegration
Line-up
Robert Smith, Simon Gallup, Porl Thompson, Boris Williams, Perry Bamonte
VVMPYRE begins 2023 having just released their new full-length LP, Neon Night Fright after a series of well-received singles. This long-awaited debut album brings together VVMPYRE’s love for horror with gothic guitars and dance beats.
VVMPYRE’s artistic journey has always been heavily influenced by horror. Many of the tracks like “He Will Always Be”, “Neon Night Fright”, “Surrender”, and “Freedom of Death'' focus on themes of the vampyrism that appears in classic horror films that inspire VVMPYRE; The Vampire Lovers and Horror of Dracula for example.
The call of the vampire waiting to take another victim’s blood while shrouded in love and lust is the common underlying theme to many of these tracks and even makes more subtle tracks like “Alone in the Woods” much darker.
However, tracks like “Offering” and the opener, “Black Cube” tap into the "cult horror" of this same era calling to films like The Omen, The Mephisto Waltz, and Suspiria in their lyrics as well as in the heavy strings and organs that aspire to the scores of composer Jerry Goldsmith. The combination of these influences make for a bloodthirsty collection of tracks with a haunting atmosphere throughout.
However, VVMPYRE is not afraid to diversify these sounds while keeping the core intact. The band takes a more EBM influence in “Black Cube”, “Atrocity” and “Surrender” bringing in heavy guitars with massive solos; a contrast to “He Will Always Be” which brings in more ethereal synths and guitars.
Neon Night Fright is available on all major digital platforms including Bandcamp.
On this day, 43 ago, John Foxx released his first solo project album Metamatic!
On this day, 43 ago, John Foxx released his first solo project album Metamatic (Virgin, 18 January 1980), after leaving Ultravox the previous year. Opposite to Utravox' mix of rock and synth-pop, Metamatic became a pure electronic album. Although John Foxx performed ’Touch & Go’ and ’He’s a Liquid’ already with his former band Ultravox, the band was not credited on the Metametic album. Not surprisingly the remaining and continueing members of Ultravox didn’t credit Foxx when they adapted parts of ‘Touch and Go’ for their song ‘Mr.X’ (What’s in a name?) on their next album Vienna.
Foxx used a.o. a Minimoog, an ARP Odyssey synth, an Elka Rhapsody 610 “string machine” and a Roland CR-78 drum machine to produce the album. It was recorded on 8-track and engineered by Gareth Jones.
The album features one of John Foxx' greatest hits ‘Underpass’, which was previously released as the album’s announcing single.
'Metamatic' was named after a mechanical artwork (a painting machine) by Swiss sculptor and artist Jean Tinguely and became a must have album for (electronic) music lovers.
It spent seven weeks in the UK charts, peaking at #18. The album was generally well received by critics and is still cited as his most influential solo release.
The album was re-released on CD several times, amongst them some with bonus tracks (+ 6 in 1993 & + 7 in 2001) and even with a complete bonus CD featuring 15 extra tracks (2007).
In 2014 the original album finally got a vinyl re-released on Record Store Day with a gatefold sleeve featuring some new and rare artwork.
Metamatic (1980 - Original 12" tracklist)
- Plaza 3:52
- He's a Liquid 2:59
- Underpass 3:53
- Metal Beat 2:59
- No-One Driving 3:45
- A New Kind of Man 3:38
- Blurred Girl 4:16
- 030 3:15
- Tidal Wave 4:14
- Touch and Go 5:33
Today, 38 years ago, Alien Sex Fiend recorded their live album and VHS video Liquid Head in Tokyo (17/01/1985). Liquid Head In Tokyo was recorded at Tsubaki House, at the end of a sell-out Japanese tour. It consists of selected recordings of both shows the band played that same day.
The VHS video and LP have a different tracklist
A 1997 CD re-issue features 4 bonus tracks, though these are not live recordings but normal and 12" studio versions.
Liquid Head In Tokyo (VHS 1985)
1 RIP
2 Dead & Buried
3 Back To The Egg
4 E.S.T.
5 Crazy
6 Hee Haw
7 Ignore The Machine
8 In God We Trust
Liquid Head In Tokyo (LP 1985)
A1 R.I.P. (Blue Crumb Truck) 3:45
A2 E.S.T. (Trip To The Moon) 5:33
A3 Dead And Burried 5:00
A4 In God We Trust (In Cars You Rust?) 4:27
B1 Back To The Egg 4:47
B2 Attack!!!!!! # 2 5:22
B3 Lips Can't Go 5:19
B4 Wild Women 4:56
28 years Divine Rapture | Celebrating The Siouxsie and the Banshees 1995 and final album!
Today, 28 years ago Siouxsie and the Banshees released their eleventh and final studio album in the majestically divine “The Rapture”. This is a erotic-beast created over a year and a half with the Velvet Underground’s John Cale producing and mixing all but three tracks.
This however was not the dark-gothic masterpiece which people thought would close the career of those who forged that very path, instead it contains some of the more lighter elements in The Banshees work.
A natural progression is heard from their acclaimed 1991 offering “Superstition”.
It continues with the same flowing themes, Siouxsie Sioux as the confident, scorned femme-fatale, a chanteuse and not just a punk revolutionary, Sioux moved forward along with the sound built behind her.
From the start and throughout the twelve-track song cycle there is an experimentation, the title track itself is an eleven-minute journey that twists and turns through a haunting atmosphere like a wounded animal.
Along with “The Rapture” another gem to behold is the magnificent and melodic “Stargazer”, a very unnerving though accessible sound breaks through. The pleasures of “Sick Child” and the sublime “The Double Life” make up for any lack of dark joy an often criticism of “The Rapture”.
The last studio hurrah from Siouxsie And The Banshees is definitely worth a revisit, granted it is not cut from the same menacing cloth as “Juju” or “Peepshow”, nonetheless it is a staggeringly beautiful piece of work which shows great passion and depth, displaying Siouxsie Sioux as a singer and not just a screamer.
The Rapture, verse
“Wondering if I dare to say your name
Wondrous thoughts embalmed avow you came
By the crescent disc rising amethyst
How can love remain the same unchanged?
Moonlight plays upon this sunken brow
Midnight ink bleeds wet mercurial clouds
By the crescent disc rising amethyst
Somnambulist unharnessed storms the plow
By the crescent disc rising amethyst
How can love remain the same unchained?”.
The Rapture (Original 1995 Track List)
01. “O Baby”
02. “Tearing Apart”
03. “Stargazer”
04. “Fall from Grace”
05. “Not Forgotten”
06. “Sick Child”
07. “The Lonely One”
08. “Falling Down”
09. “Forever*”
10. “The Rapture”
11. “The Double Life”
12. “Love Out Me”
[Kevin Burke]
