Art Rocker Jan Linton unleashed a new single on the 1st of February but my lack of a lunch hour [hint – it’s not likely to end any time soon] has meant that we haven’t written about it until today. Mea Culpa! The backstory for “Can I Feel Your Love?” had some strong resonance for this Ultravox fan. Regular readers may remember a post on the Chris Cross auction of musical instruments and personal effects. At the time I was eyeing the iconic Casio VLT-1 and a potential way to have a bit of Chris’ legacy in my Record Cell. But I am not a musician. There were plenty of musicians who were as big a fan of Ultravox as I was, and that included Jan Linton.
Linton was aiming for the MIDI guitar but got outbid and ended up setting his sights on the Arturia Minibrute. The compact 2-octave analog keyboard had kicked off the return of monosynths in a memorable way about a decade ago. There is something direct and tangible with a monosynth. Sometimes chords just muddy the waters. Despite the £80-120 estimate, Linton ended up paying £320 for the privilege. But as fate would have it, he got more than just a new piece of hardware. The synth also came with Cross’ patch notation sheets and with them came the possibility of a kind of collaboration across the ether!
The Arturia Minibrute of Chris Cross came with his notes
Bandcamp | HK | DL | 2025
Jan Linton: Can I Feel Your Love – HK – DL [2025]
Can I Feel Your Love? 4:30
The bass synth pulse of the Minibrute was contrasted by the aerosol polyphony of the patch standing in for strings for that always welcome “I’m Not In Love” vibe. The song is 100% Linton on, well, everything, and he splits an octave higher than his normal range for the backing vocals in a surprising and exciting way. Though Linton normally hits a suave note vocally, the sense of vulnerability he projected here served the song exceptionally well.
As the chord sequence transition built into the chorus, we got treated to the spectacle of Linton singing call and response on the song’s chorus. The second time the verses led into the chorus, that chord ascension got substantially more glorious and on the second pass, Linton’s trademark eBow guitar provided a golden singularity of sound like a shaft of sunlight. Next, the almost hymnal middle eight dropped out all of the rhythm, BVs, and synths except for one soft pad providing the accompaniment to Linton.
Gradually the rest of the accompaniment returned as Mr. Linton gave us a transcendent guitar solo; the Minibrute pulsating relentlessly under that guitar arcing overhead to take us to the euphoric climax to the song as it all reduced down to a single sustained note. Why not listen below?
We call Linton an Art Rocker because he is, but there’s an equally strong thread in his body of work for a Pop sensibility, as this song reminds us. The single will set you back a puny US dollar but remember that the ghost in the machine [via Chris Cross] gave us two artists for the price of one on this single, and up the ante accordingly. The only thing less than fully glorious here was the [sigh] AI cover art. DJ hit that button.
It’s hard to believe, but it’s actually been two years since the latest John Foxx solo albums; the twin-pak™ attack of “Avenham” and “The Arcade Project.” While we’ve been caught up in the heightened drama of life itself, Foxx hadn’t been sitting idle. Or maybe he had! His artistic statement here was all about letting go and engaging freely with the 88 keys without anything intruding on his attention.
“Around dawn is the best time to play piano.” says Foxx. “Self-critical mechanisms mostly dormant, so I’m free to invent and enjoy for a while. The piano faces a window overlooking a valley surrounded by hills, where the sun comes up. There’s often an early mist in the valley – and quite often, it rains. Some notes and sounds resonate with remembered experiences and you get glimpses of times and people. It’s valuable. Quiet. Free association, myriad moments orbiting – and off you go.”
John Foxx
Fans who enjoyed “The Arcade Project” will undoubtedly find something to love here. Foxx had also guided a cover [presumably a Jonathan Barnbrook effort] with interesting references among the re-purposed nostalgia. My eye was immediately captured by the presence of Harold Budd and a closer inspection revealed Ultravox themselves.
Metamatic | UK | CD | 2025 | META79CD
John Foxx: Wherever You Are – UK – CD [2025]
When She Walked In With The Dawn
Someone Indistinct
Once I Had A Love
Evensong
To Whom It May Concern
Night Vision 1
A Swimmer In A Summer River
Morning In A Great City
Chandeliering – On The Ceiling
Night Vision 2
Wherever You Are
Yes, there is a CD, but this being the 21st century, there’s also an LP. Clear vinyl this time. These are available at the artist’s webstore, and the CD will set you back $13.99. The clear vinyl LP will come with a signed A4 print by Foxx himself. Just like the recent “Metamatic” 45th anniversary gray vinyl LP. The clear vinyl LP is depicted below and has the same music and is priced at $28.99. Helpfully, there’s a bundle for compulsives like me with a bit of a discount: $40.99 for the pair.
Metamatic | UK | LP | 2025 | META79LP
Pre-order is live now and the music will ship for a March 28th street date. I’ve got to get some sales cash from my culled titles in the Record Cell, but I think I can swing this. DJs hit that button!
We had sad, but not shocking news yesterday with the news that the great singer and musician Marianne Faithfull had died at the age of 78. The rough road of her life is well known and her hospitalization in 2020 as one of the early Covid-19 cases had me thinking that with her background, it would have been her end right there. But as time proved, Ms. Faithfull was made of sterner stuff. So she was able to tread the earth for another five years. I had gone to her website a month or two ago as I had not heard anything from her in some time. I saw that she had an auction of her collections and personal effects at Sothebys so she left a cleaner slate than many at life’s end.
My experience with her music was from the point zero of her incredible “Broken English” album of 1979. I can’t consider it an artistic rebirth as much as the point where she ceased to be an object and made of herself an artist. I was 15 years old then and my friend in high school was visiting his older brother in Louisiana. Somehow it transpired that I gave him a few C-90s to tape some of his brother’s collection to hear something new. I can’t remember if it was his idea or mine. And from that initial impetus came two tapes that were critical to my musical development from that point onward. One was a tape of “CHANGESONEBOWIE” backed with “The Rise + Fall Of Ziggy Stardust + The Spiders From Mars.” The other was “Broken English. Each were clearly works of excellence that even a greenhorned teenager like me could recognize.
I wasted little time in buying my copy of the “Broken English” album once I discovered used record stores in 1981. I have to say that it took longer before I bought the “Ziggy Stardust” album in comparison! Everything that Ms. Faithfull brought to that album was intense, considered, and believable. I appreciated the “Prog players-go-Post-Punk” vibe it had for miles. At the time I had no idea how harrowing her life had been as a homeless drug addict even during the making “Broken English.”
Lots of 60s artists were buried by Punk Rock. Instead, she was energized by it. She came by her affectations honestly as she had married Ben Brierly of The Vibrators and he had written “Brain Drain” for the album and played on it with the eclectic and accomplished crew of musicians. The music was accomplished and could even be called slick, but the attitude behind most of the songs was not complacent in the slightest. It was very confrontational. Very Punk Rock.
I moved through the 80s frightened to buy her subsequent albums since I felt at the time that ‘Broken English” was a singular achievement, but by the Mid 80s, I started buying the newer albums. I’d really enjoyed the “Trouble In Mind” film by Alan Rudolph, and the Mark Isham/Marianne Faithfull soundtrack album was the next step I took down the Faithfull path. By the 90s, I just started buying everything I came across.
In the 90s I had married and my loved one was an inveterate garage/estate sale person and she bought the first US Marianne Faithfull album from 1965 and when we played it the young girl singing those songs on “Go Away From My World” was completely unrecognizable from the raspy crone whom we knew as Marianne Faithfull. This same scenario would play out once more as we became Leonard Cohen fans and one day heard performances from the early part of his career. In both cases, having come first to the mature version of the artist, we could not come to grips with their earlier selves.
The 90s were very good to Ms. Faithfull. She had more success connecting with an audience through mediators like Kurt Weill, Angelo Badalamenti, and Hal Willner. As the 90s progressed, all sorts of Art Rock royalty were clamoring to collaborate with her. They had probably grown up with “Broken English” the same as I had, and she found herself writing and singing songs with the likes of P.J. Harvey, Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, Beck Hansen providing support. She had come to a point where she was valued and revered as an elder artist with the ability to invest herself in writing songs with a wide variety of partners or else interpreting a song without peer.
We had one shot at seeing Ms. Faithfull perform when she was booked at the local top club The Orange Peel in October of 2009. My wife had eagerly bought the tickets, but before it could happen the show was cancelled. Then, when she was able to book another show locally, she ended up playing the make-up date instead at the Don Gibson Theater in Shelby, NC. A deal-breaking 90 minute drive each way on a weeknight. So sadly, we never got to see her perform live. But I kept buying her albums, finding value in the various projects that came into the Record Cell over time.
Thought he last one we bought was 2008’s “Easy Come, Easy Go.” She had had four more studio albums since that time but I’ve yet to encounter any of these in the wilds. Following her hospitalization for Covid-19 in 2020, her final album from 2021, “She Walks In Beauty,” was a spoken word affair with the artist assaying some of her favorite British poets with musical accompaniment by Warren Ellis and his buddy, Nick Cave. She began recording it before her illness but afterward, singing was out of the question, so she recited the poetry instead of singing. Following that she seemed to retreat from public life to live out the rest of her days at her Paris apartment.
But even if she had recorded only “Broken English” and then disappeared mysteriously, it was the kind of achievement that stands with a handful of towering artistic statements that like it, have only gotten better with age over the decades. Albums like Peter Gabriel’s third or Simple Minds’ “Empires + Dance” are her rightful peers. My first act this morning while driving to the gym was to put “Broken English” on. Side one carried me there, and as I drove away from the gym I heard her magnificent, achingly empathetic reading of “The Eyes Of Lucy Jordan” as I began driving to work. Choking down sobs whilst hot tears stained my face. Her art managed to touch a rarefied plane, so sleep well Ms. Faithfull. You’ve more than earned your eternal rest. Love and respect to her friends and family who will also be processing the loss of this powerful artist. In the meantime, play your copy of “Broken English” today and re-live the magic that never dims.
Last year one of the biggest musical thrills was the re-emergence of Shelleyan Orphan’s Jemaur Tayle in a new band that he and Boris Williams of The Cure had put together for the “Age Of Loneliness” album to be released physically tomorrow. Though Shelleyan Orphan were one of the more distinct bands of the 80s, to put it mildly, nothing in their first three ornate, bucolic, and acoustic albums, cherished for decades in my Record Cell, prepared me for the wild, off-road musical trip that the first two Vamberator singles provided me with. I thought well enough of them for each of them to make my top 10 singles list of 2024. And the only reason why I didn’t know about the third single, “Creature In My House,” was that it was released in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene where my blog was on ice for pretty much the month of October as we had bigger concerns in Asheville.
Unifaun Productions | EURO | CD | UP012 | 2025
Vamberator: Age Of Loneliness – EURO – CD [2025]
I Used To Be Lou Reed
Tiny Little Finger
Sleep The Giant Of Sleeps
Pilgrim
I Don’t Want To Cut The Grass
Age of Loneliness
I Need Contact
Zebra Butterfly Swallowtail
Creature In My House + INTRO
10. They’re All The Same
Imps
We already knew and loved “I Used To Be Lou Reed” but maybe last time I forgot to mention how delightful the “Satellite Of Love” backing vocals were that crept into this impressive soufflé of Art Pop. The surprising palate cleanser of the brief spoken interlude “Tiny Little Fingers” helpfully let us know right up front exactly what we were getting into. We would soon find out that the filtered vocal from Mr. Tayle set the pace for the off-kilter vibe of “Age Of Loneliness.”
As if to reassure us that the album would merely be left field, the debut single, “Sleep the Giant Of Sleeps” used the superb string section of the Archemia String Quartet, imparting a hint of The Cure at their most baroque, to soothe any fevered brows ruffled by the second song. But that was just misdirection, because on the defiantly humid “Pilgrim” the combination of Mellotron and sitar caused overwhelming clouds of patchouli-scented vapors to seep into one’s cranium and open up at least three of one’s chakras. And then the song’s extended coda, complete with Hindi spoken word recitation from Vinita Joshi over a choral Mellotron bed managed to open two more. It was the most unrepentantly psychedelic cut I’ve heard in 40 years.
And then, as if to say, “watch this!” Tayle jumped completely off the cliff with the positively surreal “I Don’t Want To Cut The Grass.” The placidity of the music bed with it’s birdsong and gentle tattoos of snare drums amid the synthesizers gave a genteel foundation for Mr. Tayle’s detached musings on just why and how he did not want to cut the grass. In my more perverse moments, I can imagine a five minute dub coda appended to the track in order to wipe the rest of my brain clean. Clearly, in his time away from music before recording this album, Tayle had dispensed with any residual fear of the sort that most of us carry around to keep us from taking chances like the ones he was tossing into the wind like confetti.
Waves of echoplexed synthesizer rhythms suddenly gave ground to the purity of Luca Etzi’s oboe and the string of Archemia once more. The groovy title track examined various aspects of the current zeitgeist as Jemaur took a hard look at the current predicament. The arrangement might seem like over egging the cake, what with Jo Nye’s backing vocals on the grandiose chorus. But that wouldn’t take into account the fearlessness with which Tayle pursued the muse of this collection of songs.
Then, after this frenzied peak, he delivered the coup de grace of the album with the heartfelt, and unashamedly direct appeal of “I Need Contact.” With his voice bereft of effects and the piano playing front and center, the humanity of the song wears its heart on its sleeve in a way that the excursions into baroque excess that typify the album have no interest in doing. As Tayle suggested, sometimes understatement becomes the loud reply.
Tayle managed to unite psychedelia with a kind of chocolate box pop with the splendid “Zebra Butterfly Swallowtail.” The gentle kalimba and the slow tempo with low bass chords on the piano pumping gently through the intro gave way to the surgical licks of the acid guitar and Paisley Pop percussion. Sprightly coaxes of oboe imparting a dignity to the phantasmagoric wash of the song examining the loss of his partner Caroline Crawley nine years ago. Over time, the underlying grief which was the origin of the song had turned inside out to reach for a kind of cathartic joy as the guitar solo in the coda spun its magical spell.
The lurching “Creature In My House” seemed to be begging for the backing vocals in the coda to “I Am The Walrus” to enter the scene. But the playful xylophones brought the playful song back into Cure territory. Tayle’s delivery dancing skillfully amid the meter of the song. The crescendoes of brass at the climax did little to dispel the whiff of “Sgt. Pepper” inherent to the track, making it lesser goods to these ears.
WhenI read the press kit for this album and saw the name Barry White being invoked I could hardly believe my eyes, but “They’re All The Same” absolutely had some of the great one’s DNA swirling in the spicy cocktail that still pushed the song out to a far point on the horizon. The conga groove coupled with the swelling strings and liquid guitar were unmistakably White touches that were ultimately poured into a very different vessel of song. I never would have imagined half of Shelleyan Orphan moving in this direction and that he did was cause for celebration. So much of this album sounded like little else I’ve heard in ages.
And I think the final track managed to become an outlier to where Tayle might go following this bracing and eclectic project. Instead of mixing cocktails of disparate sounds and styles with an almost bloody minded perversity, the deceptively titled “Imps” instead trafficked in the sort of Art Rock that Roxy Music had proffered on their glorious “Country Life” period. The solid, motorik drums of Boris Williams taking pleasure in driving the sound into Art Rock territory with strategic fills advancing the song.
The combo of horns riffs and a hint of atonal Eno synth riffing pointing back to the foundational period of Roxy Music before circling back to 1974 with handclaps and a focus of power almost alien to this largely dilletantish album with no concern of cohering. When the song faded out suddenly at the 4:28 point, I was actually disappointed since the vibe here was whispering in my ears, “at least 6:00 minutes long, please!”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard an album so willing to follow its’ own peripatetic muse with no regard for maintaining equilibrium and unity. As much as I like the coherence of an “Empires + Dance,” I am equally capable of being swayed by an album that rips up the familiar tropes and shreds the planbook before hitting the studio. Tayle claimed that this time out he was going to let the individual songs lead him by the nose to wherever they needed to go. And this factor makes “Age Of Loneliness” a startling and delightful project from an artist whom we all thought we knew and had placed in a very specific little box. Only to have him rip the box to shreds as he escaped into the swirling night air with gales of laughter.
Normally, an album that deals so heavily with vocals drenched in effects and potentially distancing effects can alienate me, but the cheerful abandon of this album meant that I can almost not imagine the album without them. Tayle has woven a tapestry of sound here that exalts human spirit and eschews deadening techniques like quantization and inhuman grids of sound. This was an album that instead, at this late stage of the game, dared to rebel against the straitjackets of conformity and “good taste.” Reveling instead in the messy and biological world we humans are always trying to deny.
Dark Companion have the CD at €18.00 and the blue LP at €29.00. There are only 500 CDs and 300 LPs so fans of freewheeling and gloriously liberal music would do well to add this opus to their own personal Record Cells. An album like this only comes along once in a decade or so. And if the shipping from Italy [what other nation to best press up this album?] gives one pause, at least the 24/48 DL will fit any budget at a sensible £7.00. DJs hit that button!
I was late to the game and first heard of Minneapolis’ darkwave trio Autumn last summer with “Catacombs,” their first single from their upcoming album “Songs About Dying” being one of my top five singles for last year. So I was all revved up to hear their latest opus, which left the nest on Monday. From the onset I was highly enamored of the accomplished vocals of Julie Plante coupled with the churning guitars of Neil McKay. What would their latest offering be like?
This time we got a completely different angle as the intro unleashed the drum machine and the organ-like synths for a subtle and low key handful of bars until the point where the guitars and Ms. Plante plunged deep into the dark, swirling waters of the song. Her vocal an impressive lower register until the pulsating synthesizers heralded the full-bodied roar of her powerful delivery. With tattoos of rhythmic hi-hat adding whipcrack emphasis to the discipline of the tempo.
It’s all a little more relentless and motorik than “Catacombs” was, but with an equally complex middle eight melody from the band that after two singles, I would now recognize as their sonic footprint. Elsewhere, the swirling eddies of the band’s penchant for potent countermelodies earns our continued respect. By single number two the trio had their hooks deep into this Monk. I’m ready for that album to happen this year. Have a listen yourself, below.
If you don’t want to wait there’s always the download of the new single at Bandcamp for your modest dollar investment in your choice of resolutions up to uncompressed 24/48. A small price to pay for such velvety lushness. DJs, hit that button!
Of course we’re attuned to all things Simple Minds here at PPM. They are a top three band for me and I’ve stuck with them through thick and thin. The thinnest period being 1985-1994 where I bought the occasional single after “Once Upon A Time” showed the former Art Rockers aiming squarely for the stadium. But much of what came after that was a fairly reliable third phase to the band which I’ve enjoyed.
There’s no way any of it compares to the first seven studio albums… what could? [Sorry, Bowie] But their last thirty years have been full of occasional surprises and a lot of good to strong efforts that step away from the stadium and on occasion, reach back to their Post-Punk roots quite effectively.
So when the Simple Minds mailing list sent word out yesterday of their upcoming [as in only a few months away!] North American tour for 2025, my heart sank a little when I saw the branding. With the 1985 logo and a big fat Live Aid photo front and center, this seems like The Minds will be working that popular album action to lean very heavily into their top selling [only selling, really] American success story of “Once Upon A Time” for this jaunt.
The press release breathlessly referenced their “biggest live run across the US and Canada in four decades,” but the fact was that in 2018, this 24 date tour was eclipsed by the “Walk Between Worlds” North American tour where the US leg alone was a fatter 27 dates. Where they might have room to crow was in the size of these particular venues. The venues do run the gamut between 6000-18,000 seats per show. So maybe in terms of tickets sold, they may have a point. But first they have to sell those tickets.
The last Roxy Music tour of North America was similarly ambitious but the hard facts were that the promoter overbooked the shows. Yeah, you and I know that it was Roxy Music…icons! That’s not possible!!! Yet it happened. And Roxy Music is the yardstick by which lesser bands like Simple Minds‡ are measured. So their promoter had better do their job well.
‡ editor’s note: next to Roxy Music, all bands are “lesser bands”
At least the support bands on the bill are either perfectly chosen or delightfully left field. I’m actually very surprised to see Soft Cell on the bill. I never would have thought of them as a complementary act for someone like Simple Minds, but while they only have one hit in America, it was huge. And artistically, they are a much more “underground” act than Simple Minds have been in decades. Their choice shows vision.
And having Modern English open for Simple Minds is just damn near perfect! They have similar New Wave/Post-Punk roots and are such a good fit with the Simple Minds mothership that this couldn’t have been the first time this has ever happened, could it? Having seen them live last year, I know they will deliver a great opening set to the show. Their latest album was an excellent modern album that touched successfully on their roots in much the same ways that Simple Minds have done in the last 20+ years. So they’re a strong choice, yet one which should shock no one paying attention. So what are the dates, then?
SIMPLE MINDS ALIVE AND KICKING NORTH AMERICAN TOUR– 2025
May. 16 | Ridgefield, WA | RV Inn Style Resorts Amphitheater
May. 17 | Seattle, WA | Climate Pledge Arena
May. 20 | Concord, CA | Toyota Pavilion at Concord
May. 22 | Inglewood, CA | Kia Forum
May. 23 | Palm Desert, CA | Acrisure Arena
May. 24 | Chula Vista, CA | North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre
May. 25 | Phoenix, AZ | Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre
May. 27 | Denver, CO | Ball Arena
May. 30 | Austin, TX | Moody Center
May. 31 | The Woodlands, TX | The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
Jun. 1 | Irving, TX | The Pavilion At Toyota Music Factory
Jun. 4 | Rogers, AR | Walmart AMP
Jun. 5 | Maryland Heights, MO | Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
Jun. 7 | Atlanta, GA | Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park
Jun. 10 | Columbia, MD | Merriweather Post Pavilion
Jun. 11 | Holmdel, NJ | PNC Bank Arts Center
Jun. 13 | Wantagh, NY | Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater
Jun. 14 | Philadelphia, PA | TD Pavilion at the Mann
Jun. 15 | Mansfield, MA | Xfinity Center
Jun. 17 | Montreal, QC | Bell Centre
Jun. 18 | Toronto, ON | Budweiser Stage
Jun. 20 | Chicago, IL | Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island
Jun. 21 | Clarkston, MI | Pine Knob Music Theatre
Jun. 22 | Noblesville, IN | Ruoff Music Center
I see the closest date to where we live would be Atlanta once more. In 2018 they were in The Tabernacle; a 2600 capacity venue. This time they’re at Chastain Ampitheatre with a capacity over two times larger. I’ve posted the info to my offline threads with my posse but the response has been quiet. The last Minds show was good, but not the sort of transcendence they delivered for me in 2002 or especially 2013. They they lacked a dedicated keys player in 2018, splitting the synths between Burchill and Goudy was a misstep to my ears. Now they have a dedicated keyboard player again, but the last album was merely tepid to my ears. It was the single backsliding album of the last 20+ years of strong album development for my ears.
And then there’s the reliance on nostalgia for a period of Simple Minds I actually regret partaking in. None of these factors are encouraging me to spend a minimum of $500 to trek to Atlanta for a weekend to see Simple Minds trying their best to relive what was for me a terrible period in their story. But there is another bit of revisiting that they are doing as well to the far away world of 1985.
ONCE UPON A TIME RUBY EDITION
just streaming for now but physical will follow later this year
Simple Minds: Once Upon A Time [Ruby Edition] – STREAMING – [2025]
Once Upon A Time (5.44)
All The Things She Said (4.16)
Ghost Dancing (4.46)
Alive + Kicking (5.25)
Don’t You (Forget About Me) (4.23)
Oh Jungleland (5.12)
I Wish You Were Here (4.42)
Sanctify Yourself (5.02)
Come A Long Way (5.08)
When “Once Upon A Time” dropped in 1985, I was fully expecting it to carry the megaton payload of “Don’t You [Forget About Me]” which had preceded it in the marketplace to an astonishing degree of success. But back in 1984 the band only performed the track, which they didn’t write, under the duress of their American label and out of respect for its writer, Keith Forsey. Whom they met socially and liked. When “Alive + Kicking” climbed to the number two spot it looked like all’s well that ends well, but you, me, and your pet ferret know that had Simple Minds relented and allowed “Don’t You [Forget About Me]” on that 1985 album, they probably would have sold twice the number of copies [500K, by the way] in America, if not the world. I think that their new American fans were probably expecting it.
Now this has come to pass, forty years later. And the artwork has been remastered, and re-jigged to a fresher ruby palette. With DYFAM [as SM fans call it] slotted in between sides one and two of the original album. Exactly what I would have done if asked to. As of today it’s only streaming online, so you kids have fun. But the band say that physical copies and “other anniversary reissues” will hit physical form later this year. Will I be buying one? I can’t imagine as I’m now at the point of purging all of the Simple Minds albums I do not want to listen to for the rest of my life. Including this one. Nothing personal, Simple Minds. You’re still a core collection band for me. My goal is much broader with 25-33% of my entire Record Cell in my sights for a culling. But that’s another story, and for sure my copy of this will be in the out box.
Meanwhile the tour tickets go on sale this Friday if you’ve not had the pleasure [you really should see this band live if you haven’t] with the fan presale happening tomorrow at 10 a.m., so if you want those presale codes, be sure to sign up for the Simple Minds mailing list like Ye Olde Monk here has. DJs hit that button!
I love it when these sort of things happen. My last post on PPM was a look at Grace Jones, and at a certain point I needed to find out data about the “Hurricane” album. So I went to Discogs and did a search on “hurricane”+”Jones” and sure, sure. I got hits on the album by Grace Jones, but I also got hits on the 1981 album by Hurricane Jones. Which triggered memories of seeing an ad in Trouser Press magazine ca.. ’81-’82. Which sent me tumbling down the Discogs rabbit hole; one of my favorite things. I recall seeing the quirky looking, indie release in Trouser Press. For the last 30 years, if I run across anything I can recall seeing but not hearing from Trouser Press, it’s obviously a point of interest.
I went to the Hurricane Jones page on Discogs and I wondered to myself, the Mutiny Shadow International label sure had a weird name. How many releases did they have, anyway? I pivoted to the label page and saw that there were only four: Hurricane Jones, SVT [ex-Jefferson Airplane bassist Jack Casady’s “New Wave” band whom I remembered from the era], The Mutants, and what looked like a vaguely New Romantic technopop band, Neeva! They looked like refugees from the Spoons’ “Nova Heart” video. Of course, I was drawn to Neeva like a moth to the flame. Here’s their one album, which got a Canadian release [through Quality Records] in 1983; the last from the MSI label.
MSI | CAN | LP | 1983 | MSI 2003
Neeva: Neeva – CAN – LP [1983]
Starshine
Love [Gotta Hold On Me]
Blue Star
In Tune
Seventeen
Walking On Air
Let Your Body Go
Will You Be Mine [Part I and II]
Tomorrow’s On Its Way
The core of the band were vocalist/guitarist Nevius with Ms. Wilkinson on synths [Korg MS-20, Wasp, Micromoog] with C.P. Roth also on synths [Yamaha CS-80, Oberheim]. Lots of gear from the golden age of analog synths! T.J. Tindall [MFSB, Salsoul Orchestra] produced and played guitar. But this band avoided the drum machine scenario. Instead they got the Great Andy Newmark [Sly + The Family Stone, Roxy Music, Bowie…to name a few] to bang the skins. So this was a late in the game album from 1983 that featured synths, guitars, and real drumming…by a top notch pro! Better still, the actual sessions were from two years earlier. Making this an album from the holy year of 1981! I was now hooked on hearing this.
I looked at the availability of LPs and found that even though this was from the “Minimal Synth” era copies of this on LP were still affordable. I started digging deeper and found some very interesting pedigree to one of the players here. Ms. Wilkinson came from California to the East Coast [Tenafly, New Jersey, actually] with her boyfriend, Keith Silva in 1979. Vanessa, Keith and their high school friend Layne Rico had formed Our Daughter’s Wedding. But when Vanessa broke up with Keith, She was out of the band and Scott Simon, of Jim Nevius’ band Neighbors and Allies joined the nascent ODW in time to decamp from the East coast to California to record “Lawnchairs.” For ODW, the rest was history.
Meanwhile, Ms. Wilkinson found a new boyfriend in Jim Nevius and they formed Neeva. T.J. Tindall of various Gamble + Huff projects took an interest and offered to produce their sole LP, recorded in 1981. Which finally came out in 1983…in Canada. And now, 42 years later, this album seems like technopop catnip for me. I’m tempted to buy a copy tout suite and check it out. To be continued…?
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