Tuesday 29 December 2009

Births, Deaths And Marriages 2009 #2



In July this year our beloved Christow D'Bum-Bum left us. We had shared our home and life with Christow for 5 years. We had no idea how old Christow was, he was a feral cat living on a farm in Christow, Dartmoor. We heard that the farm owners were going to put the cat down as he was worrying the cats and livestock on the farm, so we had him. The vet aged him at anywhere between 8 and 12 back in 2004.
Extremely anti-social at first he soon came round to being a lap cat, although stroking and tummy rubbing was only done whilst wearing oven gloves.
Oscar loved him. (He died on Oscar's bed). We loved him.

Farewell Christow D'Bum Bum.

Simple Minds

All of this is true : The year is 1979, it is the first week of December and I have been given some money by my Mother for my birthday. My 17th birthday. It was a Saturday and it was snowing. Money burning a hole I walked the mile to the bus stop to catch the No.7 bus in to Lincoln. Destination Sanctuary Records on Park Street, the bestest damn record shop I have ever been in. (Except the record shop that Steve Underwood + I found in Stockholm that sold secondhand punk/new wave vinyl, horror videos and hardcore porno mags...but I didn't buy ought from there so that doesn't count). Out that day was Simple Minds "Reel To Real Cacophony" on Arista. Fashionable label eh? Home of Japan and the first "punk" band I ever saw live - The Secret. I bought (probably for £3.49) and headed to The Cornhill Vaults for a pint and a devouring of information from the sleeve notes. At this time I was aware of Simple Minds, but certainly not a big fan. I liked the "Chelsea Girls" single but found the first LP dragged a little. Anyway, the album title, the song titles the sleeve (blue velvet and dimpled) attracted me enough.
Back home I played the album non stop. Every track was a winner. It fitted with my love of Ultravox!, Tubeway Army, Magazine, XTC etc. I even used to learn the drum patterns on my old drumkit. Slip the old Ear-Sweater headphones on, turn the volume to max and thump away with cushions on the drum skins and air cymbal.

I lost the album in 1983. In 1983 I lost all my albums, all my vinyl. In 1983 I was living in Hulme Crescents, Manchester.

In 1990 I decided to start collecting vinyl again. (And tapes, and later entering in to the spirit of the 20th Century CD's too). A lot had happened to my favourite bands since 1983, a hell of a lot of them had gone naff, this of course had tainted my view of their work. Gary Numan being prime example. Adam And The Ants, The Jam ("All Mod Cons" was a favourite back in the day when I had a bedroom I called my own). I just could not re-buy their albums and have them sat alongside modern classics like Column One, Genocide Organ or Smell + Quim. Gradually Adam and other naff bands like Psychedelic Furs and The Cure have made it in to the racks. "Dirk Wears White Sox" is an album I shall be buried with.
Simple Minds were on this "cannot buy" list

Jane Newton put up a Simple Minds clip on her blog site. It took me back to 1979, I had to buy "Reel To Real Cacophony" album again. I found the digitally remastered CD dirt cheap on Amazon.
To hear it again for the first time in nigh on 20 years was a very tearful experience. I was not just hearing the tracks I was transported back to North Hykeham, to my bedroom, to being 17 again. It is a timeless classic. Listening to the album now (especially on headphones) it is amazing. So much is going on in there, beautiful synthesizer and echo FX, a lot of upstroke guitar and octaves. Multi-layered vocal effects. Just damn clever. (As you can tell;I am not a musician). It is very related to Ultravox!, that is clear, but I also hear a lot of Eyeless In Gaza too - especially the vocals. They are so indecipherable that I make up my own lyrics as I sing-a-longa Jim. (I do the same with EIG songs). Songs end up surreal and sounding like a Burroughs cut-up prose piece. There are a few instrumentals too. Very brave. One in particular "Veldt" sounds like Brian Eno. No, I am glad I re:bought this LP. Classic.
So Simple Minds were only a two album band. Like Psychedelic Furs, Gloria Mundi, The Damned and ... well add your own name. Still, it is one album better than Adam And The Ants.
But why did they go pants? Why, when they could have gone down the electronic/experimental song path did they throw their hat in to become "Stadium Rockers"? Support to U2 and all that jazz? Money obviously. I know that, I'm not bloody stupid, but where the integrity?
I saw them live at Futurama 3 festival. Bingley Hall but by then it was all "Empires & Dance" and shit.
Now - should I buy "All Mod Cons"?

Births, Deaths & Marriages 2009 #1



In to this world at 5:23 am on the 17th of March came Isabel Frances.
She is a joy, a face of smiles and laughter and usually a nappy full of poo!
Now, at 9 and a half months old, she is gibbering and jabbering, crawling like a greyhound out of the trap and standing on the stairs looking inquisitively at the toilet at the summit....Soon Isabel.

Isabel was the name of Tamsin's grandmother and Frances just seemed to be a name that suited. We both like "middle" names.

Sunday 27 December 2009

2009 - Has it been a good year??

Had a couple of E Mails over the holiday asking me my favourite releases for/from 2009. Off the top of my head I couldn't remember what I had bought, received, traded or pinched over the past 12 months so I had to make a list. (I love lists). After compiling it Tamsin (Mrs Cammack) did say: That's a lot of records.....is it?? (NO)!
Here's the list. As to my favourite(s). Maybe later.


Aavikko - Novo Atlantis (Music For Peoples) LP
Al Qaeda/BBBlood - Split (Trans Dimensional Sushi Recordings) 7"
Anenzephalia - Projected Void (Tesco Org/Zaetraom) 7"
Anenzephalia/Inade/Operation Cleansweep - Untitled (Teito Sound Company) CD
AntiChild League - Big Fat Arse (Hagshadow) 7"
Astral Social Club - Monster Mittens (Dirty Knobby) 7"
Astral Social Club - Skelp (Trensmat) 7"/CD
Astral Social Club - Plug Music Ramoon (Dancing Wayang) LP
Astral Social Club - Model Town In A Field Of Mud (Textile Records) LP
Astral Social Club - #14 (Astral Social Club) CDr
Astral Social Club - #18 (Astral Social Club) CDr
Astral Social Club/Glockenspeil - Split (Krayon Recordings) 7"
Au Pairs - Stepping Out Of Line:The Anthology (Castle Music) CD
Bauhaus - Crackle (Beggars Banquet) CD
Blasterkorps - Untitled (La Nouvelle Alliance) Cass.
Blod - Red Light Companion (Segerhuva) 3xLP
Bloodyminded - Phases:Three (Rococo Records) 3x7"
Neil Campbell - Muttertown (Not On Label) 7"
Circular/Inade - Deep Space Illumination (Skogholt) LP
Cloama - Death Certificate (Freak Animal Records) 7"
Column One - Dream Box Experience (A.N. Column) LP
Column One - Sometimes (90% Wasser/Laub Records) 7"
Column One - Feldaufnahmen 1 (Auf Abwegen) CD
Comus - Songs To Comus:The Complete Collection (Castle Music) CD
Con-Dom - Holy Bible (Freak Animal Records) CD
Content Nullity - Rotting Walls Of Decaying Sound (Scrape Tapes) 3"CDr
Coum Transmissions - The Sound Of Porridge Bubbling (Dias Records) LP
Cranioclast - Carl's On Acit (Auf Abwegen) 10"
Crash Course In Science - Crash Course In Science (Vinyl On Demand) Box Set
Culver - Cherry Blossom Girls (Turgid Animal) 7"
Culver/Courtis - Culver-Courtis (Riot Season) LP
Culver/Fordell Research Unit - Split (Cosmic Slumber) 10"
Culver/Fordell Research Unit - Split (Cosmic Slumber) CDr
The Cure - Seventeen Seconds (Polydor) CD
The Cure - Failth (Polydor) CD
The Cure - Pronography (Polydor) CD
Deadwood - Ramblack (Cold Spring) CD
Death And Beauty Foundation - Death And Beauty Foundation (Somniage) CD
Dif Juz - Out Of The Trees (4AD Records) LP
The Digitariat - Morgan Stanley Overdrive (Luggage Records) CDr
Aaron Dilloway - Corpse On Horseback (Hanson records) Cass.
Aaron Dilloway - Beggar Master (Hanson Records) CD
Aaron Dilloway - Chain Shot (Throne Heap) LP
Aaron Dilloway - Infinite Lucifer (Hanson Records) 12"
Aaron Dilloway - Chain Balled (Turgid Animal) 7"
Aaron Dilloway - Face Mask (Turgid Animal) 7"
Aaron Dilloway + C.Spencer Yeh - The Squid (Hanson Records) CD
Doornen - AIDS Love You To Death (Scrape Tapes) 3"CDr
Mark Durgan - Ploughing Furrows Into Rotten Burrows (Pan) LP
Early Hominids - Metatarsal (Music Mundane) CDr
Eddie & Sunshine - Perfect Strangers (Survival Records) LP
Erdlicht - Erstes Licht/Die Wilde Jagd (Licht Und Stahl) 3"CDr
ESP Kinetic - Fleck Nor (Music Mundane) CDr
Kiko C. Esseiva - Sous Les Etoiles (Hinterzimmer) CD
Ex Order - War Within Breath (Malignant) CD
factor x/The Cheesemen - Split (Eeriephone) Cass.
Fad Gadget - The Best Of Fad Gadget (Mute Records) CD
Alex Fergusson - The Castle (Eis Und Licht) CD
Fieberflug - Ernte (Licht Und Stahl) Cass.
Fjernlys - Ascending Triads And Luminous Arcs (Loki Foundation) CD
Fjernlys - Within The Mind Of Ghost (Skogholt) LP
Flutwacht - Fiebertentackel (Tourette Tapes) 7"
Flutwacht - Mit Nichts (Licht Und Stahl) CDr
Geniuser - Press/Delete (Phisteria) 10"
Genocide Organ - Live In Japan 2003/2007 (Tesco Org) CD
Genocide Organ - With Heart And Hand (Tesco Org) 7"
Gerechtigkeits Liga - Per Ignum Ad Lucem (Vinyl On Demand) LP/7"
Gerechtigkeits Liga - Vom Nachteil Geboren Zu Sein (Ironflame) 7"
Carlos Giffoni - Resignation Letter (Harbinger Sound) 7"
Golden Oaks - Three Billion (Not On Label) CDr
Duncan Harrison - Until Then (Not On Label) CDr
Duncan Harrison - No Day Blues (Not On Label) Cass.
Duncan Harrison - Untltled (Not On Label) CDr
Duncan Harrison - Recycled (RRR Records) Cass.
The Haters - In The Shade Of Fire (Hanson Records) CD
Hive Mind - Death Tone (Hanson Records) CD
IBF - Ideas Beyond Filth (Harbinger Sound) 12"
Inade - The Incarnation Of The Solar Architects (Loki Foundation) CD Box Set
Infinate Light/VibraCathedral Orchestra - Split (Krayon Recordings) 7"
Jazkamer/Mark Durgan - Split (No-Fi) 7"
June 11 - Matter Is Alive (EE Tapes) CD
G.X. Jupitter-Larsen + Allan Zane - Banjax (Somniage Corporation) CD
K11 - Voices From Thelema (Aurora Borealis) CD
Kallabris - Hafalgar (CoC/Jazztone) 10"
Kave - Hidden Fields (Scrape Tapes) 3" CDr
Konstruktivist - Psych Genetika (Third Mind Records) LP
Konstruktivists - Flowmotion Years (Vinyl On Demand) LP
Land:Fire - Gone (Power And Steel) LP
Leyton Buzzards - Saturday Night Under The Plastic Palm Trees (Chrysalis) 7"
Maeror Tri - Yearning For The Secret(s) Of Nature (EE Tapes) CD
Bruce McClure - Vouchsafe Me More Soundpicture (Fain Make Glories) (Old English Spelling Bee) LP
SR Meixner/Band Of Pain - Split (Black Rose Recordings) 7"
Milk From Cheltenham - Triptych Of Poisoners (Alga Marghen) CD
N.Strahl.N - Nachtstucke (Tourette Tapes) CD
N.Strahl.N - Neue Sachlichkeit (Listen To Something Different) CDr
N.Strahl.N - Strom (Licht Und Stahl) Cass.
Nackt Insecten - A Site Specific Piece Of Avant Garde Sound Art, Nothing To Be Worried About (Memoirs Of An Aesthete) 7"
Nackt Insecten - Quantam Odyssey (Blackest Rainbow) LP
Nackt Insecten - Quantem Odyssey 2:Corridor Voyager (Memoirs Of An Aesthete) CD
The Nath Family - Sounds Of The Indian Snake Charmer (Hanson Records) CD
Netzach - Force And Fire (Membrum Debile Propaganda) CD
Nevari Butchers - Arms And Everything Else (Hanson records) Cass.
Hermann Nitsch - Die Geburt Des Dionysos Christos (Vinyl On Demand) Box Set
Nocturnal Emissions - World Is My Wound (Earthly Delights) CD
Nocturnal Emissions - Lest We Forget-Work In Progress (Vinyl On Demand) Box Set
Nurse With Wound - Angry Electric Finger-Raw Material-Zero Mix (Beta Lactam Ring) Book/CD
Nurse With Wound - Sand Tangled Women (Klanggalerie) 7"
Nurse With Wound - Flawed Existence (Vinyl On Demand) Box Set
Nurse With Wound - Paranoia In Hi-Fi (United Dirter) CD
Pecus - Flecks (There's A Dolphin Talking To Me) 3"CDr
Pestdemon - Hidden Temple (Unrest Productions) Cass.
Pestdemon - Vexations (Stromkarlen) Cass.
Plurals - Half Reality (Dead Sea Liner) CDr
Plurals - Palpitation (Not On Label) CDr
Colin Potter - A Skeleton/Cupboard Situation (Vinyl On Demand) LP
Praying For Oblivion - Euthanasia Institute (Nationstate Recordings Ltd) 3"CDr
Psychogeographical Commission - Genius Loci (Not On Label) CD
Pump - Untitled (Klanggalerie) CD
Putrefier/Romance - Live Collaboration, Newcastle 2007 (Harbinger Sound) LP
Ramleh - Hand Of Glory (Harbinger Sound/Hospital) 12"
Eric Random + The Bedlamites - Time Splice (New Hormones) LP
Boyd Rice & Friends - Baptism By Fire (Neroz) CD/DVD
Boyd Rice & Z'ev - Untitled (Cold Spring) 12"
Romance - Live (Harbinger Sound) 7"
SPK - Despair (Twin Vision/CaTV) DVD
Schuster - Brutal Arc (Adeptsound) 7" Lathe
Shift - Bulk (Unrest Productions) CD
Simple Minds - Reel To Real Cacophony (Virgin) CD
Sixes - Cursed Beast (Troniks) CD
Slits - Cut (Island) CD
Slits - Return Of the Giant Slits (Blast First Petite) CD
Slogun - Bleached (Bloodlust!) 7"
Soviet France - Music For A Spaghetti Western (Klanggalerie) CD
Spine Scavanger - Shameful Progress Of the Human Face (Hanson Records) Cass.
Splodgenessabounds - Splodgenessabounds (Deram Records) LP
Robin Storey & Nigel Ayers - Perfidious Albion (Soleilmoon) CD
Sutcliffe Jugend - Pigdaddy (Cold Spring) CD
Sutcliffe Jugend - The Fall Of Nature (Groundfault/Hospital) CD
Third Door From The Left - Face The Firing Squad (Vinyl On Demand) LP
Thorofon - Freedom (Steinkland Industries) 7"
Throbbing Gristle - The Third Mind Movements (Industrial Records) CD
Tiermes - Malahvia (Saaren Levy) CD
Toll - Christ Knows (Cold Spring) CD
Turbund Sturmwerk - Sturmgeweiht (Rebauken Records) CD
Robert Turman & Aaron Dilloway - Split (Hanson Records) Cass.
Robert Turman & Aaron Dilloway - Blizzard (Hanson Records) CD
Ultra United - Ultra Audience (State Art) CD
Ultraxox! - Ha! Ha! Ha! (Island) CD
Units - History Of The Units-The Early Years (Community Library) CD
Various Artists - Aural Atrocities Volume 3 (412 Recordings) CDr
Various Artists - Berlin Bruit (Ironflame) LP
Various Artists - Feral Debris Volume 3 (Feral Debris) CDr
Various Artists - Feral Debris Volume 4 (Feral Debris) CDr
Various Artists - Heilige Feuer (Der Angriff/Indiestate Distributions) LP
Various Artists - Incendium 2 (Loki Foundation) CD
Various Artists - Michigan (RRR/Hanson) Box Set
Various Artists - Micro-Bionics (Creation Press) Book/CD
Various Artists - Radio Interference From Unknown Orgasm (Somnimage) CD
Various Artists - Sacrel Symphony (EE Tapes) CD
Various Artists - Ultra Volumes 1-4 (Come Org Bootleg) DVDr
Various Artists - 90% Wasser (90% Wasser) CD
Chris Watson - Oceanus Pacificus (Touch) 7"
We Be Echo - Decades (Vinyl On Demand) LP
Whip And The Body - Whip And The Body (Dias Records) 7"
Wolf Eyes - Stabbed In The Face (Sub Pop) 12"
Zahgurim - Moral Rearmament (Atonal Records) LP
Zilverhill - Latent-Active-Descent (Adeptsound) CD




Friday 25 December 2009

Dieter Muh #38



Live performance number 38 for Dieter Muh was inside St Giles in the Field church in central London. The gig was organised by Second Layer Records and Turgid Animal Records.
It was nice to be asked. We were playing support to Skullflower but that didn't put us off - we wanted to play in a church. Mess with the acoustics somewhat. A great opportunity.
Our previous live outing was at The Cavern in Exeter. Then we played a largely improvised set. No spine to work with - no backing on the mini-disc, so to speak. This performance Dave and I decided to do 100% improvised. We discussed on the telephone what samples we were going to be using and what we wanted to do with the space. No hard pulsating rhythms, no vocals (or at least no lyrics), no guitar solos.
What happened was a 40 minute set where Dave reprised the "old sample" called "Burning People". This was a sample that we first worked with in 1984 when we called ourselves Diet Of Worms. We created an atmosphere, experimenting with the sound of bowed cymbals, gourds, chanters, escaping gas, slowed drill and spoken words all around the loop of a woman claiming "WE ARE BURNING PEOPLE". Dave and I managed to set up in the choir stalls and performed opposite each other, conducting each other with our eyes. The set worked - especially for the first twenty and maybe last fifteen minutes. We finished in silence. I think we shifted one album from the merch' stall!
Dieter Muh gigs, for Dave and I, were social events as we very rarely got to see each other in life outside of Muh. This gig was not a social event. Skullflower messed Pete of Second Layer about by not showing up until very late and then demanding outrageous soundcheck time, leaving the people milling outside in the cold. I was there when the PA arrived and the only member of the band that had showed refused to help carry the equipment because he has a bad back. Even when it came to packing up after the gig, they didn't help.
It was certainly an experience playing in a church. Would love to do it again.

Thursday 24 December 2009

Simon Jarvis


To prove what an exciting and just damn strange year it was....
I was browsing through some MySpace pages where I chanced upon a chap called "Simon" on the Punishment Of Luxury site. He mentioned gigs and stuff that meant it could only be Simon Jarvis. I made exploratory E Mithers. It was. Weird.
In 1982 / 1983 I was the drummer in a band put together by Simon Jarvis. We were a 5-piece called Wallpaper Paris - I know terrible name. Not my choice...but - we wanted to be included in the same breath as Clock DVA, Bauhaus or The Pop Group.It didn't quite work out. After a non-amicable split I only saw Simon again the once. He was performing as Peking Trees with a chap called James Carcas. The year was still 1983.
How weird was it to find him lurking in the bowels of MySpace, more bizarre than that, he was staying just down the road from me in Devon. (Fashionable South Brent).

We met in a pub just north of Torquay and got on really well. 26 years of life had passed, but non of that was mentioned, we just talked about the now as if we'd known each other for all those 26 years. That night was one of the highlights of 2009.
Simon has now moved on. He is living the nomadic life. Hopefully he'll be back in 2010.

Filth & The Dilloway





This year saw the realization of a release that had been in the workings since 2006. Back then Steve Underwood of Harbinger Sound made it known that he wanted to put out a vinyl record of IBF AKA Ideas Beyond Filth AKA a project that I was involved with back in the 1980's. First came the idea of a lathe cut disc limited to 23 copies. Harbinger Sound being masters of the ultra limited lathe cut release. Think Culver, think Government Alpha, think MOTE.
I had to get in touch with the other half of IBF to find out if he was all keen and thumbs up, and what would he like to hear on the record. The other half is a guy called Tim who lives in the 'burbs of Perth Western Australia.
Back in the 1980's IBF released a couple of cassettes and appeared on a plethora of compilation cassettes, perhaps our greatest achievement was being included on the 1986 compilation LP "Songs Of the New International" that Recloose Org released in Picture disc format. The track was produced by Simon Crab of Bourbonese Qualk. Our track "Why The Confusion?" is a favourite of Steve's and when I first met him in 1994 and mentioned that I was in IBF I think he has always been keen to put something out.
Tim compiled the EP. He is a computer wizard and managed to clean up some old cassettes.
That was 2006. At the end of 2008 Steve called to say that he had given up on the idea of a 23
lathe cut release and was prepared to put out a 12" pressing limited to 100. He had mentioned the idea of releasing a product by IBF to a few folk and a few folk had shown interest, so a 100 limited edition it was.
IBF began in 1983. Sean Rorke, Tim Bayes and myself. Lincoln, UK, 1983. Back then a group of us would get together, make a noise, make a few tapes and maybe play a gig only to disband and reform under another name with a new kind of noise. This is what happened in 1983. We made a racket, recorded some of it and played a one-off live show in Sean's house. We split, with Sean & I moving to Manchester and Tim spending a few months in Austin, Texas. Tim never liked the UK winter and would fly out to Austin to live with Dan Plunkett & Co. (The ND Magazine folk.) come the winter months. In 1985 with Tim now firmly back in the UK and myself back in Lincoln we resurrected IBF. For roughly 6 months we created a "daily regime" where we recorded every day. I was living in a place that was a recording studio and rehearsal space.
If we knew that 23 years later what we were recording would be released on vinyl - then maybe we would have produced more "quality" material, but Tim and I would probably spend three / four hours max on an idea and then it was on to the next.
In 1986 we kind of split when I moved back to Manchester. I still did recordings with Tim, but not under the IBF moniker.

Steve being the generous soul that he is gave me a wodge of IBF 12"'s and pointed me in the direction of Hanson Records. At the start of the year I was on Facebook. (Not now though - don't try and find me). Aaron Dilloway was on Facebook too, Aaron was keen to have the 12" on his mail order roster. Aaron remembered IBF from the time when we were releasing stuff on compilations. ND Tapes, Recloose Org and especially the "Wolfsangel" 2xC90 release that Peter Zinken @ Bloedvlag Produkt put out in 1986. I (more or less) traded all of my copies of the 12" to Aaron. In return I got a box full of Hanson goodies.
At this point I have to point out that I had never heard a Dilloway record - cassette - CD. I knew he was a founder of Wolf Eyes, but, I had never heard Aaron Dilloway as a solo or collaborative artiste. I was thinking he would be something along the lines of a cheap bedroom noise master, there are so many in the States! I have seen pictures of Aaron with contact mic's and microphones stuck in his mouth, pictures of a writhing noise artiste. Needless to say that I was and am pleasantly surprised. What I received (i am eternally grateful) is probably the best stuff I have heard in years. The 12" "Lucifer Rising" and split cassette/CD with Robert Turman are masterpieces with which I shall be buried.

Aaron wanted me (as Dieter Muh) to support him on his UK tour in the Spring. The tour he did with Nate Young. Unfortunately the tour was pretty much a closed book vis-a-vis support and the only one we could do was in Newcastle, with no guarantee of payment, but we could kip on somebody's floor. I live in Torquay and do not drive. We had to turn it down. Shame.

In the spring of 2009 the 12"EP was released. It sold. It bloody sold. It got good reviews and a positive response. What the bloody hell was going on?
In November I got a call from Aaron. He wants to release an IBF album on compact disc. Aaron was playing a show at the ICA in London in November, I had to go and meet. We met and chatted, swapped stories and product. Aaron wants to put out, on Hanson Records, a full album by IBF. New material?? Old material?? Aaron was not concerned, just wanted to hear what we wanted to release - so 2010 will see the first album by IBF. (we will drop the <<>> brackets and the full title of Ideas Beyond Filth). 27 years after we all gathered in Sean's bedroom in Lincoln we shall produce all new IBF CD.
Life is strange.
Hopefully Sean will be able to appear on a track too....





Wednesday 16 December 2009

Bauhaus


Just finished reading the biography of Bauhaus. Interesting read, but badly written. Ian Shirley is a poor author. I remember getting annoyed at his Residents book - which I have since passed on.
Any way. It is written by a guy who I reckon used to write for Smash Hits or Jackie back in the day. If you are wanting deep insight in to the machinations of Bauhaus (as I was) then you are going to be very disappointed. There are stories that go nowhere and then the denouement is....to rude to be printed, or best left unsaid. Not good enough for a "warts and all" biography. OK for Jackie or Record Mirror. The book does seem to be based around a 1994 interview the guy had with the group.

I saw bauhaus many times in the early 1980's. Live they were certainly par excellence. The tour they did with The Birthday Party + Subway Sect sticks in my head. They were good. I didn't buy their records though, certainly no LP's. I just used to pick and choose their 7" outputs.

One thing that is interesting (to me) is that they began playing back in the early 1970's as a pub band doing covers etc. (without Pete Murphy) and looking back - Bauhaus were just a glorified "covers" band. They have a name for such bands now - "tribute" bands. Thay did so many cover versions.
Any way. I bought "Crackle" CD from Amazon. Played it and danced to it. "Kick In The Eye" is probably one of the best songs ever put to vinyl.....

Like Bauhaus. Didn't think much of the book, but read it from cover to cover - more than I can say for the Slits of Gang Of Four recent biogs....

Sunday 13 December 2009

Coming to a computer near you....


A bizarre year. Enlightening and beguiling.
New friends, Old friends, Lost friends and
2 Throbbing Gristle gigs.

I will endeavour to uberview in the coming weeks.

Agape.