Billy Currie live in 2009

While I was away on [business] travel last week and celebrating my birthday this week, I chanced to get an astonishing email from the contact form on the blog on Monday. Mr. David Myrvold wordlessly sent me the link to an auction on eBay UK wherein Billy Currie is selling off one of his violins. I was aware that Currie had made public pronouncements about the fate of Ultravox, following their spate of opening dates for the Simple Minds arena tour of the Christmas 2013 season. Words to the effect that “it [Ultravox] is finished…” which have now been scrubbed from whence he posted, but it certainly ruffled feathers at the time. I got the impression from Midge Ure that this sort of blindsided him. Having read this when it was current, I was of the opinion that Ultravox was finally through even though Currie has backpedalled and proclaimed that the band was “parked” for now. When Billy Currie is selling off his gear, that seems pretty indicative to me.

As of right now, the violin has ten bids and is sitting at just under £1100, if you’ve got the urge. Caveat? The buyer has to meet Currie in London and pick it up in person, where he’ll be glad to sign it for the winning buyer. So Billy is cleaning house if anyone wants to pick up the violin that the solo from “The Thin Wall” was recorded with,now is your big chance. The auction has a hidden reserve so who knows if this will find a buyer this go round or not. If you probe deeply enough, one can also find Currie’s French gold disc for “Fate To Grey” also on the auction block. Reserve not currently met at £495.00.

I wanted to just pop  this quick mini-post in today. I realize that we had just started an OMD Rock G.P.A. and it’s barely begun, but the timing is not good right now, so it will have to wait until next week and even then, I may have to disrupt it with some timely reviews that are concurrently percolating.

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