Rubellan Remasters | US | CD | 2018 | RUBY06CD
Visage: Visage DLX RM US CD [2018]
- Visage
- Blocks On Blocks
- The Dancer
- Tar
- Fade To Grey
- Malpaso Man
- Mind Of A toy
- Moon Over Moscow
- Visa-Age
- The Steps
- We Move
- Fade To Grey [US Dance Mix]
- Mind Of A Toy [Dance Mix]
- Visage [Dance Mix]
- We Move [Dance Mix]
- Frequency 7 [Dance Mix]
- The Second Steps
Holy frijoles! Exactly how long have we waited for a CD of the first Visage album that had everything that should be on the DLX RM that we would creates in our mind [taps cranium] because that was the only place where it could seemingly exist for decades? Finally, Rubellan Remasters, an up-and-coming reissue label run by Scott Davies, has taken up the gauntlet of helming this necessary project. Davies has a decade of remastering projects for others [Cherry red, Futurismo] but now he’s putting his money where his mouth is and doing the expen$ive dirty work to take it to the next level by actually releasing CDs for us to buy.
He’s gotten his feet wet with synth albums by Mort Garson, but has later focused on synth based acts like SPK [proto-industrial], Krisma [Italo], Trees [synthpop], and now New Romantic prime movers Visage. The “Visage” album was among the first titles that Polydor released to CD in 1983 and my pressing might be among that initial batch. I bought it in 1988 as soon as I ran across one. Alas, to date there has only been a single pressing that had anything but the ten songs from the original LP, when One-Way Records issued a 1997 DLX RM that contained the US dance mix of “Fade To Grey” as a single bonus track. Fortunately, there have been some of the bonus tracks above on the silver disc over the years if one was willing to dig. Most of those were covered in this thread.
Radar Records | UK | 7″ | 1979 | ADA 48
But that’s the past. Here’s why any Visage fan need to buy this latest remaster. First of all Davies does not brickwall. The audio will have all of the dynamic range inherent in the master tape. So buyers will get a 2018 mastering that won’t make you cry. The state of the art in A-D conversion is most impressive if you don’t want to deliberately screw it up! Then the bonus tracks here are almost perfect in number. Sadly, there are two [actually, three] tracks I can think of that are not accounted for here. The Visage 1979 debut single “Tar” B/W “Frequency 7″ was released on WEA on the Radarscope label via Martin Rushent’s Genetic Records, so anyone wanting to license the 7” version of “Tar” and [crucially] its amazing B-side “Frequency 7,” would need deep pockets to do so. Everything else Visage cut between 1980 and 1984 was on Polydor. Fortunately, “Tar” finally appeared here in 2016, and “Frequency 7” was on the silver disc here.
The 6:17 extended mix was cobbled together exclusively for the German market
The third, quasi-legit track missing was the German extended version of “Fade To Grey” which was extended via the tried and true method of tape editing and looping. Nothing too astounding, and it hasn’t got the first thing on John Luongo’s frankly awesome US dance mix that rocked my world when the US Visage EP appeared in early 1981. But if you are desiring digital perfection, you’ll have buy this German Visage CD EP from 1988 that I am selling in my Discogs webstore at the low, low price of $6.00. That German extended version also appeared on CD there as well. I know I don’t normally monetize this blog but I reserve the right to hype my “online yard sale.”
These out of the way, we can focus on what’s right here. I’ve had the dance mix of “We Move” since almost day 1. I have it on the US Visage EP as well as the “Mind Of A Toy” 12″ single among many others. What I have never had was the 7″ mix of “We Move,” since it was only on the “Mind Of A Toy” UK 7″ which is still on my want list! This alone would make me buy this new CD. It has never been on CD before.
The five dance mixes have all made their appearance here and there in various nooks and crannies. This is the first time that all of them are in one place, thank goodness. I can’t say why it took this long, but let’s thank the remastering gods for Davies decision to attend to this title. Finally, the bonus tracks here have one more cut that has not technically appeared on CD before. The B-side to the “Visage” single was an instrumental called “The Second Steps,” which didn’t sound too much like “The Steps” but there you have it. I have the track on the “Visage” UK 12″ single, but there was allegedly a mis-pressing of this compilation which contained “The Second Steps” instead of “The Steps” as stated on the cover. No. I wasn’t able to source one either.
So Mr. Davies has stated that his license was for a few years, so anyone wanting this most definitive issue of this title yet [and probably for decades to come] should buy in haste to avoid disappointment as this one will probably rise in value once it’s OOP. Buy label direct from Rubellan Remasters here. They are doing good work and the sales thus far have been very encouraging and the success of this title will probably allow for more intriguing niche product like the Trees and Krisma CDs Rubellan has already put out.
– 30 –
Post-Punk Monk 
Thanks for the heads up–ordered! “Fade to Grey” was the absolute highlight of seeing Midge Ure the last couple times he was in town, even though it wasn’t him on the original, but that voice!
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Jon – Thankfully, Midge has never shied away from singing that classic. Of course, with all of the members in their own contracts with labels other than Polydor, that meant they needed a singer unencumbered by such things; enter Steve Strange. Of course, Midge sang it better than Steve, but if he was the singer in Visage they would have simply been Ultravox 2.0.
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And of course its missing the two different versions of ‘In The Year 2525’, (original and 1982 remix) and the never released ‘Eve of Destruction’ and ‘All The Kings Horses’ (which might be a demo of The Dancer) which were recorded by Ure, Egan and Strange using studio the left over from the Rich Kids contract.
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Richard Anvil – D’oh! If it was a snake, it would have bit me! I’d forgotten all about about the Zager + Evans cover!! But that was covered on all of the various “Fade to Grey – The Singles Collection” releases. I didn’t know about the other two, but you forgot “Strange Connexions!”
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I am totally indebted to you. This is my all time favourite album and band and to have missed out on this would have been heartbreaking. Such a shame it is not a mainstream release. I’ve just ordered it (and also bought the SPK album I’ve been wanting to get for years as well). Christmas is coming early this year.
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Richard Anvil – I’m pleased to be useful in stoking Visage fervor! I can’t believe that every Visage fan doesn’t know about this already, but this came out in late September when I was in the “30 Days/30 Albums” thread and I was then preoccupied with Simple Minds/Atlanta trip and I’ve just managed to get around to it. Be glad it is not a mainstream release and a small boutique operation. Davies does things right, though the jury’s out on that color shift on the distinctive blue border on the front cover. If this was on Rhino it would sound awful.
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When Midge, Rusty & Steve first thought of the idea of making dance music they recorded three tracks, In The Year 2525, Eve Of Destruction (cover of the Barry McGuire single) and an instrumental called ‘All The Kings Horses’ (Rusty has mentioned about playing a demo of The Dancer at The Blitz so I assume they are one and the same, though I could be wrong). There are a few copies of a one sided 7″ of their original recording of ‘In The Year 2525’ which has ‘Steve Harrington Project’ on the label. This was remixed in 1982 by Midge’s engineer, John Hudson for a potential single release which didn’t happen, probably because of the falling our between Midge and the other two, though it did finally appear on the Singles Collection in 1983. Interestingly the un-remixed version was used on the dance mix version of the single collection. ‘Strange Connexions’ was listed as the B side to the 1982 single release but there is no information about what it was or whether it actually was recorded or not though if it had it seems likely it was in 1982, so wouldn’t fit with this set.
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I find it totally unfathomable that an album which includes a no.1 single in 10 European contries and went platinum in Germany, Italy and the UK finally gets a remastered deluxe release by a small re-issue label in the US where it wasn’t even a hit. Thank goodness for fans wiling to go the extra mile.
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Richard Anvil – I think that the fact that both DLX editions of the album were down to small US labels was due to the band being signed to Polydor NY specifically. I seem to recall having read some stories of difficulty in getting reissues approved down to this factor. But yes, there should have been a UMG “deluxe edition” with the plastic “O” card in the early naughts with a 2xCD of everything. If there was a god.
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Yes, I’d heard about that too that it was the New York arm of Polydor which signed Visage, how this should create problems for the parent European company I’ve no idea but thank goodness there are US fans of Visage. I was a member of the Visage Fan Club back in the day and it stated that We Move was written and recorded after they signed to Polydor as a proposed US single release which didn’t happen (got as far as the 12″ ep with the dance mix version) so ended up as a B side. It will be good to have the original 7″ version on CD rather than the over the top remix. This is a dream come true. Now all you have to do is try and talk him into doing the same for The Anvil and then Beat Boy (with the cassette remix, full radio sessions and even possibly the original recordings of Only The Good Die Young and Beat Boy with Billy Currie and Dave Formula) . Where do I send him a Christmas card with my wish list ;)
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Richard Anvil – The website has a contact form and Scott’s quite active on the New Wave Outpost Forum. The reissue subforum has many, many white knuckle tales of his drive to become a reissue label.
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Finally some good news for a change! It is mind boggling that it has taken this long for a proper, expanded reissue of “Visage.” I just ordered direct from the label – thank you Monk!
Oh, and I have a copy of “The Damned Don’t Cry” compilation with “Second Steps” in place of “The Steps.” However, the disc contains several track errors, so the new remaster of “Visage” makes it superfluous.
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Thank you for posting about this, I didn’t know about it. It’s weird because I’ve slowly (very slowly) been getting my collection mapped onto Discogs, and just a few weeks ago I entered my CDs for Visage and The Anvil. Either it was right before this release was there or I completely missed it. The SPK album is also one of my favorites so I ordered his remaster of that as well.
The first CD I ever purchased was The Anvil. I bought it before I could even afford a CD player; I was a Visage completist so had to have it. I believe it was among the first CDs ever pressed. ABBA’s The Visitors CD (purportedly the first CD out of the factory) is catalog number 800 011-2 and The Anvil is 800 022-2. Why they released The Anvil back then and not Visage as well is beyond me.
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MathManDan – Wow! That was an amazing story! So you got a copy of the always cripplingly unobtainable first “Anvil” CD? Red disc version [1983] or silver [1984]? I suspected that it existed back then, but in the pre internet era, such knowledge was scarce. I never saw any “Anvil” CD until 1997 and the One Way reissue, which let me tell you I was beyond ecstatic to finally obtain after having a CD player for 12 years with no copy of that album to hear! I was thrilled to get that German “Fade To Grey” CD EP from ’88 [that I’m selling a spare copy of] since it had the unedited LP version of “The Damned Don’t Cry,” and I had made do with the [inferior] 7″ edit on the “Fade To Grey” comp for several years by that point.
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Mine is the red disc version. It’s one of my most prized CDs! There used to be this UK mail order shop called GEMA. I got their catalogs in the mail, and would pour over the tiny print listings. They had that CD listed; I didn’t know it existed prior to that. I ordered it, going through the hassle and expense of getting an international money order and everything. I’ve never seen another physical copy of that CD since. I wonder how many they pressed.
That record catalog had a wide assortment of things. I once ordered a cassette from them that, again, I didn’t know existed prior to that–a solo cassette by Stephen Luscombe of Blancmange. I have never seen that cassette for sale anywhere else, it isn’t on Discogs, and a Google search brings up nothing. So how in the world did this mail order catalog have one?
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MathManDan – Now I’m floored!!! How many times in the 80s did I call every bank in Orlando trying to get an IMO to buy some music item from the UK only to have all of the personnel I asked not know what in the hell I was asking for?! That was an unforgivably Sisyphean task that probably took a year off of my lifespan!
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The days of Goldmine, small print ads, landlines, long distance and international calls and waiting, And waiting some more. (Points cane at kids running around in the yard) Those whippersnappers don’t know how good they have it with their world wide web, when we were teenagers we had to buy crawl through the snow for 5 miles to a bank and wait in line for a teller to buy an IMO to send overseas to get a single that may or may not be in stock by the time our money got there.
I remember seeing ads for that GEMA place and never biting. I ordered a lot from…..was it Music Machine? They were in Rockford, ILL and always had a full page ad near the front of Goldmine They *generally* had most of what I wanted (and could afford) and then near the end of the decade I met up with a college room mate who hooked me up with AB-CD in NYC, which became my basic crackhaus of choice until the internets.
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Tim – I remember the “Goldmine Years” well! Getting up at 5:30 to call Espirit Records before heading off to work was a memorable occurrence. Music Machine was a standard player in my world too, not forgetting the Jack Wolek Rare Necessities catalogs that came after every visit to the UK their buyers made on what seemed to be a bi-monthly basis.
So you were also able to buy IMOs from your local bank? What was it about all of the banks in Orlando, Florida? Were the bank tellers there just STUPID? After striking out at my bank, I tried several of the largest financial institutions in town over several years and they all just stared blankly at me when I said “I need an IMO, please.” Gaaaaah! I cannot convey how !@#$%ing frustrating it was not to be able to buy things that I could not otherwise get from the UK in any other way!
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I had no problem with IMO’s.
Domestically I even ordered from places that did CASH ON DELIVERY which takes care of that whole issue of not having stock when your order and check arrive in the mail. ESPRIT is on my very very short list of places I don’t work with.
AB-CD was the bomb. I used to call and the guy who answered the phone, pretty sure the same one every time I called, would actually go through stock and pick my order as I told him the titles that I wanted.
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Tim – you are not the first person [or maybe you were] that has spoken harshly about Espirit. I’ve had no problems. They’re not cheap, but if they sell it it will be MINT- at worst.
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AB-CD got way too large a portion of my scarce funds back then! The chasing of rare titles was so much more difficult (but more satisfying?) back in the pre-internet days. I also got a lot of my imports from SirenDisc, that was when a few retailers started on the internet. I was pouring over Goldmine but also Record Collector from the UK, and trying to make international phone calls or sending letters and waiting a loooooong time.
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MathManDan – You forgot “more expensive!” Any CD I wanted badly was at least $20 for an import with Japanese discs cresting $30. I remember $10 for an import CD single in the 90s but the very first CD singles I bought [on ZTT, of course] were in the $15 range.
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Yes you are right about the expense. Especially Japanese: those were rare purchases. So pricey! My local Tower Records stocked a decent number of Japanese vinyl imports, before CDs took over, and it was there I sprung for the Japanese pressings of the Visage LPs. It was always fun to read the inserts, as it seems that all Japanese albums required lyrics, whether they were originally provided or not. That meant someone sitting down and trying to decipher them. I remember Steve Strange singing “past future in extreme” became “fads featured in a dream” on the Japanese insert.
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MathManDan – The “science” of Japanese lyric inserts merits a coffee table book one day! Every record had them, whether they were right or not! I think they got an intern who was bilingual and let them have a go at it. And it seemed like Michinari Yamada was by and large the writer of the liner notes in every Toshiba/EMI pressing I had. O have many more Japanese CDs than vinyl, but for core collection artists, I always snap up any JPN vinyl I can get my hands on. These days it is a lot less expensive than it was in the 80s. Much like everything… except postage!
You were lucky to have a local Tower. I only got to shop there when I took trips to Washington D.C. and Atlanta. Such a fine chain. Possibly the best corporate record store [?] ever! How I miss them.
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A mall near me had a tiny little storefront/kiosk thing which was a currency exchange. I assume this was for foreign visitors that needed some US dollars, but they also would do IMOs in a variety of currencies. It was still a pain (and an expense) but apparently I didn’t realize how lucky I was to have found that!
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GEMA was great, got Wall of Voodoo Wild Continent on cd from them when I couldn’t find it anywhere else.
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A still have an old catalog or two of theirs tucked away in a box of music memorabilia.
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MathManDan – I never saved any of the many catalogs I’d receive from a half dozen dealers I bought from on a regular basis. There’s no room for such ephemera as we’ve been downsizing aggressively in the last 17 years.
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I suppose I’m guilty of being too much a pack rat, more often than not to a fault, but on occasion I’m glad to pull up such objects from the past.
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Longshot here, MathManDan, did you ever buy Super 8 mm film cutdowns of commercial films? I am looking for someone, anyone, who can send me a scan of a LA FILMS flyer that was printed any time in the late 1970’s. I’ve described these to people and they have a hard time believing that a business sold items like that, but, hey, it was pre-internet.
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Unfortunately no :(
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Tim – I remember the Super [and regular!] 8mm highlight reels of H’wood opuses that could be bought not only in catalogs, or the back pages of Famous Monsters Of Filmland, but I remember in the 70s the local K-Mart [r.i.p.] had lots of them for sale in their photo department! Quite a selection, and in 1977-78 the Star Wars 8mm reel [probably 8 minutes of scenes] was the only way to see anything from the film in the home. My dad was heavy into home movies, but we never bought anything like that. I seem to remember that he had a highlight reel of “Earth Vs Flying Saucers” from way before I was around. He got his gear after WW II and we always had family footage in the home.
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I have both the Visage dlx and the Trees CD on the way to me as we speak. Looking forward to that package popping though the letterbox. Although postage to the UK is high, you pay the same for two CDs as for one so it ended up working out reasonably ok. Of course the postage issue isn’t Scott’s fault!
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Not surprised that people here are familiar with the old super 8 cutdown/digests I found LA Films via an ad in the classifieds of Starlog and what passed for a catalog for them was a sheet of letter or legal paper densely typed on both sides, with a title of the movie, the formats and prices available, and then 2-3 lines relating what scenes of an otherwise 90 min – 2 hour long movie made it into an 8 or 17 minute digest.
i still have a Select Films catalog (they operated out of NYC) from 1978 and it’s pretty interesting. My favorite page in it is the Chaplin library, you don’t own the movies outright, you pay hundreds of dollars for the right to watch them and the prints have to be returned at the end of the contract or on demand. I bet his estate just loves torrents……
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I know a lot of folks don’t consider fan mixes to be canon so to speak but there used to be a blogger/mixer who went by the handle Dreamtime who made some of the best Visage mixes, ever. They’re actually my go-to versions of the tracks in my Visage (Collected Works) folder on the music library of doom.
Why this Dreamtime person, JCRZ and German Homer are not professionally mixing songs for singles is a criminal oversight that boggles me. I know the Pet Shop Boys are aware of some of this activity, they even name check a mashup done by Marc Johnce I think it was in one of their “Further Listening” annotations.
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I haven’t heard of this Dreamtime character! Is there somewhere to check out these mixes?
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MathManDan – Here is what I believe to be his current web presence: https://soundcloud.com/dreamtimemix
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Ah thank you!
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He had……a couple hundred I want to say before he pulled the plug on his site. Several zips. Bowie, Heaven 17, ABC, Pet Shop Boys…
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Bummed I never discovered it! His SoundCloud has just a handful of tracks (and no Visage).
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I see on his Soundcloud there’s a 4th try at Look of Love, also his shortest. That’s one I just can’t nail all the elements that I want to include, shouldn’t be as tough as it is but it is.
There was a purge of file lockers a few years back and a bunch of these bedroom producers called it quits all around the same time. He was my favorite. His style is basically the 80’s night version where the song isn’t radically remixed just nicely longer.
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Tim – I like a radical remix using the actual recordings made for the master. I want similar sounds but a completely different arrangement.
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I miss the days of the “night version,” where the extended versions retained the feel of the original. I hated when the remixes turned more to some DJ making all his/her own instrumentation and throwing an occasional sample of the original track in. The (imo) good remixes could still be quite adventurous without losing the original flavor. The entire “Wishful Thinking” remix album from Propaganda is a masterpiece.
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MathManDan – I agree re: “Wishful Thinking.” The ZTT remixes were all made by the original theam. The Americans started that whole “remixed by other hands” nonsense which led us down a dark path.
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MMD, you should buy some software and start making your own, it isn’t really that hard.
I use Cakewalk 2003, which folks seem to love and also can’t seem to load on newer versions of Windows. I kept my activation pin and am able to load mine on every other iteration of Windows that Microsoft puts out. I was on vacation a couple weeks ago and made some home made ‘’night’’ versions fitting the philosophy we both seem to like, Tindersticks, Sally Shapiro, Beth Orton & Albert Hammond were projects that I was able to complete.
I used to buy A LOT of cds every week and that tapered off due to a lot of reasons. Nowadays I pretty much make my own collections of work by my favorite artists, each folder on the hard drive is called “Collected Works” and I pretty much run in whatever direction my resources and time allow. A lot of the folders are populated with mixes that I found over the years or made on my own, there’s a bit of satisfaction in it, making one of these and listening to it en route to work and realizing, hey, that’s not half bad, and I made it!
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Tim: That is an excellent suggestion! I don’t have time for such diversions at the moment but I really would like to try that out soonish, so it’s good to hear that it isn’t as difficult as I might be thinking. I haven’t used Cakewalk but I have Logic, which should work fine. I still buy a lot of CDs, but I like your idea of “collected works.” There are many songs I really like that are short, or where they never released an extended version, and it would be great to have a version of an “appropriate” length. Even more enjoyable if I made it myself!
Incidentally, someone associated with Visage released all the individual stem tracks for Fade to Grey, so one can really go to town on remixing that one. I did try loading those into Logic and they imported fine. It was so interesting to hear each track isolated!
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There are a lot of interesting fade to gray mashups that use those stems….
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Received this, on a quick sampling it sounds great, as does the Trees cd. Nice work.
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SimonH – Yow! you already have the goods??! My ancient brain can’t cope with such speed of international delivery.
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I got mine yesterday as well. It sounds really good, and he did a great job getting all the original artwork. I love how you can put the booklet in backwards and have the original alternate US cover. My compliments to Mr. Rubellan. This is how it should be done.
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MathManDan – Egads! I only posted about the album five days ago!
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He’s very efficient! And it shipped from not too far away.
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For what it is worth, Rusty and Midge are NOT happy with this re-issue
“Rusty A Egan
6 August…
Midge Ure and Rusty Egan do not want you to promote the Remasters of OUR Album Visage. And If you are upset to be told that I am sorry .End of subject Do not promote it here.”
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(That was posted on the ULTRAVOX – VISAGE FANS Public group Facebook page)
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Duncan Watson – Mr. Egan is laboring under severe delusions that the band he, yes, may have started with Midge Ure but left on his own volition when the terms presented to him in 2011-2012 were not acceptable is still his. And if I had a time machine, I would gladly take him back to 1980 when he signed to Polydor and remind him that he has no control over the masters without a reversion clause which he obviously didn’t pursue. It’s UMG’s baby now and if they want to license the first Visage album to a small, but detail oriented US reissue label starting out and run by a man who only wants to see this album reach the market in its best form possible, then its up to them to green light that notion. And guess what, Mr. Egan… they have! If you feel that strongly about it you can always refuse your royalty check from UMG on principle. Or maybe this would be better… If Mr. Egan feels it is up to him to see that album remastered and reissued – in the way that he sees fit, there’s nothing stopping him from paying the several thousand dollars in licensing fees to UMG who owns the masters and doing the job himself once Rubellan Remasters license has lapsed.
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I wonder if Rusty gives his reasons for this attitude – because I can hardly understand it. It’s not like he ever protested against heaps of Visage compilations over the years. Why is he suddenly so upset and harsh, especially when this CD is THE one people waited years and years for? He’s a great guy but sometimes makes his actions very hard to understand.
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Vlad – You put it well. It’s one thing for him to disparage the Visage music that came after he left the band. I think he’s wrong, but it make a kind of sense. “Anything that came after me can’t be any good!” But for him to denigrate a DLX RM of the first Visage album that he’s on [and will get royalties from its sale] makes no sense at all; unless he is having personal financial issues with UMG, the owner of the catalog. That must be why he’s so negative. Because the audio quality of the remaster is being sung from mountaintops by those who have purchased it already. I look forward to getting a copy before too long, but right now I’m saving my money for something else.
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Rusty must have a chip on his shoulder over some of this past stuff; I recall seeing some grumpy postings from him on Discogs as well.
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MathManDan – Scott Davies [Rubellan Remasters] reached out to Rusty for input on the CD and he was told in no uncertain terms that he would not participate.
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I received my copy of the Visage cd yesterday. I think Scott has done a great job with the sound. It’s good to have the B-sides and dance mixes in one place too.
I’ve waited so long for a reissue that contains literally everything related to that period. It looks like such a collection will never appear so we should appreciate what we do have.
As for Rusty’s reaction to this release I’m a bit perplexed. If he, and Midge, aren’t happy why don’t they get their fingers out and initiate ultimate releases of the eighties Visage releases themselves. If not, be glad that someone loves the music enough to take the time to do the best he can. I doubt Scott is going to make a lot of money on these releases but that’s not the reason he undertook this project I’m sure. So Rusty, put up or shut up!
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> If he, and Midge, aren’t happy why don’t they get their fingers out and initiate ultimate releases of the eighties Visage releases themselves
Absolutely! It’s like they can’t bothered to “do it right” themselves but get angsty when someone else does anything. Maybe they are even a bit embarrassed aboutVisage for some reason? Midge, I feel, is quite condescending about the whole thing, though at the very least it’s in Visage where he honed his producer’s skills. And Rusty has nothing to his name of any comparable note. They should be proud – and yet they seem to be happy for everyone to forget Visage. Sad if that’s in any way true.
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If I was …… Midge Ure what would embarrass me is the dreadful lyrics to ”Do They Know It’s Christmas.”
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Tim – I think Sir Bob was responsible exclusively for the lyrics to that. [checks copy of “Midge Ure – If I Was the autobiography”] Yes. The lyrics were pure Geldof.
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I hold him accountable for being part of the team and not saying, uh, Bob, that’s some s***e lyrics there. “Thank god it’s them, instead of you”? Really, Bob.
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Tim – Midge was already sweating bullets making every other aspect of the music happen in that 72 hour window. The two chapters in the book are fascinating reading,
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Well, Geldof is certainly a despicable figure in my book, not least because he played a big part in demise of Ultravox. But here I have to come up in his defence as this line isn’t to be taken “as is” but as a kind of warning – like, it could be you starving, but this time it’s them so thank God for the mercy on you, this kind of rhetoric stuff. To make people think and worry. Not for nothing it’s “Saint Bono” who sang it.
Still, this whole “Do They Know…” debacle is a painful thing to me – it quite clearly lead to the downfall of the whole New Wave movement, almost singlehandedly brought about the definite change in music, pointing to a more conservative, regressive path. It’s not a very popular opinion but I see it as a huge mistake no matter what good intentions laid behind it.
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Vlad – You make a provocative statement regarding Band Aid/Live Aid, but I tend to agree with you. Band Aid made Live Aid inevitable, and Live Aid was the sound of the music industry “correcting” for all of the changes in its direction that Punk had been ultimately responsible for in the years 1977-1984.
I don’t blame Geldof for anything that might have happened with Ultravox after Band Aid. I am still a big fan of The Boomtown Rats. I think in regard to Ultravox, those wheels that pointed towards 1986 were already turning with great speed without Band Aid putting the band on ice for two years. All Band Aid did was stop the band for two years. There might have been another album in 1985 there without it, and I have no reason to believe that it would have been anything but “U-VOX” a year early. I am of the opinion that the band should have bowed out gracefully after “The Collection” was released. I think it would have been so much better in retrospect to have gone out on a clean high note instead of what happened.
I hated Live Aid. I had to turn it off after the first 60-90 minutes. Artistically, it was a huge fail for me. What I did not know until [checks watch] 15 minutes ago was the horrifying politics behind the Ethiopian famine and the Band Aid response. Anyone who had not read the Spin Magazine story 33 years earlier had better be prepared for an eyeful of hurt. As usual, most “humanitarian disasters” can be laid at the feet of a select few humans.
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