After 43 years this Monk still feels the gravitational pull of the New Romantic movement. The push and pull of the music associated with it still remains the North Star that guides my taste in music. Looking back I almost find it hard to believe that so much of the music that comprises my tastes was down to the decks at a Tuesday night club night in a very pre-gentrified London where a handful of movers and shakers made a scene that we’re still feeling the echoes of, over two generations later.

The origins of what was originally referred to as The Cult With No Name could be pinned down to two members from the crashed and burnt band The Rich Kids; vocalist Midge Ure and drummer Rusty Egan. They tried to mix synthesizers with the guitar faction in their band only to see it fissure into separate camps before imploding. But Ure and Egan felt the sense of change in the air. Cheap synths were arriving on Britain’s shores, and they were no longer the province of Prog Rock acts with fat rolls to spend for them. The new gear was the next generation in sound, and they were egalitarian, affordable, and on the cusp of igniting completely new ways of musical thinking. Egan began hypothesizing about a new band formed of their favorite musicians [Magazine + Ultravox + Rich Kids = ???] as a goal to shoot for and with that concept on the front burner, the next step was a club that played the kind of music they wanted to make: synthetic rock. European Post-Disco. Dance music that had very different content from the sort of American club music that dominated the dancefloors of the UK.

Bowie and Roxy Music had shown that there was a way forward after the ground zero of Punk and the new breed about to erupt in British clubland were flaring like sparks in the tinderbox that was originally Bowie Night at Billy’s; a small club beneath a brothel in Soho. Egan’s friend Steve Strange was the third leg of this tripod and he was a would-be Punk singer given to flights of sartorial fancy that a generation reared on Glam Rock were all keen to make their own as he and Egan made Bowie Nights happen and were soon a magnet for the sort of misfit queer and/or art-obsessed youth who were uninterested in the status quo and wanted to build a more vibrant life.

The soundtrack to this new lifestyle was researched and compiled by Egan himself. Spending time in France and Germany, crate diving for obscure gems on disc, offered him the sort of European perspectives that meant that their dream of European Disco with cultures outside of the US/UK Rock Hegemony would have a place to thrive. Synthetic atmospheres also abounded, and Egan began building the playlist that reflected these new values. Built on a foundation of European melancholy completely at odds with what were normally consider Rock or Disco tropes.

And now that playlist is the genesis of a 4xCD/4xLP set from Edsel/Demon as curated by the man who started the alternative club wave back in Billy’s in 1978. That club soon gave way to the infamous club whose name informs this box… Blitz, in Covent Garden. As Eno famously said, maybe The Velvet Underground + Nico only sold a few hundred copies in 1967, but everyone who bought one, then formed a band. In much the same way, The Blitz was a club night where everyone who came was the focus. Bringing their creativity to the table in a big way. The club goers who were students or squat-dwellers back then soon became the new faces of British art, publishing, fashion, and music. With an outsize reputation that still commands attention to this day.

Ultimately, Rusty, Ure, and Steve Strange manifested their dream band as the iconic Visage, who then burst from the confines of clubland to storm the charts the world over. All while he was spinning the stuff of dreams at The Blitz. This music was the soundtrack to their genesis. A bracing blend of the avant-garde and pure pop merging into a mocha swirl of leftfield energies. Mapping out an emotional territory different to the by then calcified tropes of Rock or Disco. And this Friday, June 28th, Edsel/Demon release the “Blitzed!” boxes in your choice of the spinning discs. First up, the CD box which features 66 tracks hand picked for Blitz vibe by Egan. Along with a booklet of liner notes by Egan and Alexis Petridis. Profusely illustrated with photos [of course!] by Peter Ashworth, Sheila Rock, and Terry Smith. If you pre-order, there’s a signed print by Egan in the box for you as well. And what are the cuts?

Rust Egan Presents: Blitzed! – UK – 4xCD [2024]

CD 1

1. The Human League – Being Boiled (Fast Product version)
2. Tubeway Army – Down In The Park
3. Magazine – Permafrost
4. Vice Versa – New Girls/Neutrons
5. Fad Gadget / Back To Nature
6. Pretenders – Private Life
7. Iggy Pop – Nightclubbing
8. The Normal – Warm Leatherette
9. Throbbing Gristle – Hot On The Heels Of Love
10. Thomas Leer & Robert Rental – Day Breaks, Night Heals
11. Shock – R.E.R.B.
12. The Glitter Band – Makes You Blind
13. John Foxx – Burning Car
14. Yello – Bostich (Album Version)
15. Dalek I – Destiny (Dalek I Love You )
16. Cowboys International – Thrash
17. Joy Division – Shadowplay
18. Cabaret Voltaire – Nag Nag Nag
19. Ultravox! – Hiroshima Mon Amour

CD 2

1. Sparks – The Number One Song In Heaven (Long Version)
2. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Electricity (Dindisc 1980 Version)
3. Ultravox – Passing Strangers
4. Kraftwerk – Radioactivity (Edit)
5. Lulu – The Man Who Sold The World
6. Jeff Wayne – The Eve Of The War (Disco Re-Mix)
7. Don Armando’s 2nd Avenue Rhumba Band – I’m An Indian Too
8. Japan – Life in Tokyo (Short Version)
9. Blondie – Heart Of Glass (12” Version)
10. Amanda Lear – Follow Me
11. Wolfgang Riechmann – Wunderbar
12. Eno – Moebius – Roedelius – Broken Head
13. M – Pop Muzik (12” Version)
14. Barry De Vorzon – Theme From ‘The Warriors’
15. Roxy Music – Angel Eyes (Extended Remix)
16. Suicide – Dream Baby Dream (Long Version)

CD 3

1. Grace Jones – La Vie En Rose
2. Throbbing Gristle – Hamburger Lady
3. The Walker Brothers – No Regrets
4. Hot Chocolate – Put Your Love In Me
5. The Men – I Don’t Depend On You
6. Metro – Criminal World
7. Billy Cobham – Spanish Moss – A Sound Portrait: Storm
8. Cerrone – Supernature (12” Full Length Version)
9. Garçons – French Boy
10. Lori and The Chameleons – Touch
11. Visage – Moon Over Moscow
12. Kraftwerk – Schaufensterpuppen
13. Mick Ronson – Only After Dark
14. Landscape – Japan
15. La Düsseldorf – Rheinita (Single Version)

CD 4

1. The Cure – A Forest (12” version)
2. The Regents – 7 Teen
3. Zaine Griff – Ashes And Diamonds
4. Spandau Ballet – To Cut A Long Story Short
5. Telex – Moskow Diskow
6. Taxi-Girl – Mannequin
7. Silicon Teens – Memphis Tennessee
8. The Slits – I Heard It Through The Grapevine
9. Simple Minds – Changeling
10. Skids – Animation (Edit)
11. Giorgio Moroder – Chase (From ‘Midnight Express’ Soundtrack)
12. Rinder And Lewis – Willie And The Hand Jive (12” Version)
13. Visage – Fade To Grey (1980 Dance Mix)
14. Gina X Performance – No G.D.M.
15. Vangelis – Chung Kuo
16. Lou Reed – Perfect Day

Rusty Egan Presents: Blitzed! – UK – 4xLP [2024]

LP 1

1. The Human League – Being Boiled (Fast Product version)
2. Tubeway Army – Down In The Park
3. Fad Gadget / Back To Nature
4. Vice Versa – New Girls/Neutrons
5. Throbbing Gristle – Hot On The Heels Of Love
6. The Normal – Warm Leatherette
7. Cabaret Voltaire – Nag Nag Nag
8. John Foxx – Burning Car
9. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Electricity (Dindisc 1980 Version)
10. Shock – R.E.R.B.

LP 2

1. Ultravox! – Hiroshima Mon Amour
2. Magazine – Permafrost
3. Hot Chocolate – Put Your Love In Me
4. Sparks – The Number One Song In Heaven (Long Version)
5. The Glitter Band – Makes You Blind
6. Visage – Moon Over Moscow
7. The Regents – 7 Teen
8. Roxy Music – Angel Eyes (Extended Remix)

LP 3

1. The Men – I Don’t Depend On You
2. Barry De Vorzon – Theme From ‘The Warriors’
3. Rinder And Lewis – Willie And The Hand Jive (12” Version)
4. Grace Jones – La Vie En Rose
5. Kraftwerk – Schaufensterpuppen
6. Ultravox – Passing Strangers
7. Iggy Pop – Nightclubbing
8. Gina X Performance – No G.D.M.

LP 4

1. Mick Ronson – Only After Dark
2. Simple Minds – Changeling
3. Skids – Animation (Edit)
4. Japan – Life in Tokyo (Short Version)
5. Amanda Lear – Follow Me
6. Spandau Ballet – To Cut A Long Story Short
7. Yello – Bostich (Album Version)
8. Giorgio Moroder – Chase (From ‘Midnight Express’ Soundtrack)
9. Visage – Fade To Grey (1980 Dance Mix)
10. Lou Reed – Perfect Day

Over half of those cuts reside in my Record Cell. A tantalizing few are, even after all of these years, new to me! Like The Regents and Taxi-Girl. I’ve had Lori + The Chameleons, Wolfgang Reichmann, and Don Armando’s 2nd Avenue Rhumba Band in the want list for many years to no avail…yet. And though I find much to admire from Hot Chocolate, I’ve not heard enough of their canon. That they have a cut that is on this playlist is very intriguing! If a Blitz Club box as curated by Rusty Egan himself appeals to you [if not then what are you doing here?] then DJ hit that button!

66 TRACKS ON CD

36 TRACKS ON LP

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