Heartland

d0gbones wrote:

markfiend wrote:Anyway... Back on topic sorry

Anyone else off to the Brudenell on Saturday for the Eureka Machines?

Yep!

Be sure to say Hi. I have a big moustache and I'll probably be wearing a Hawaiian shirt, you can't miss me.

A good time was had by all - I met Chris's mum! (God knows what I said to her; I was wankered by that time lol)

markfiend wrote:A good time was had by all - I met Chris's mum! (God knows what I said to her; I was wankered by that time lol)

markfiend wrote:

d0gbones wrote:

markfiend wrote:Anyway... Back on topic sorry

Anyone else off to the Brudenell on Saturday for the Eureka Machines?

Yep!

Be sure to say Hi. I have a big moustache and I'll probably be wearing a Hawaiian shirt, you can't miss me.

Pretty sure I spotted you from a distance, just before the Main Grains, but you were going somewhere and I didn't want to chase you down.
Chris' mum is ace, she was actually waiting for the lift when I went out the hotel the next morning. Decided to take the stairs instead.

I had to dash to the cashpoint, that was probably it

Wed 17th July 2019 Athens
The Cure + some others

I researched a few links to recent Peter Murphy shows, and I have to say I will not be going to the Auckland gig after all.

Dirty Stranger 18th of October with some friends 'The Troubled Bones' supporting.https://soundcloud.com/user-161486766/p ... m=facebook

The Stranglers. Glasgow. March. Another bucket list item sorted.

Starting to be concerned by the lack of news from Suede about upcoming dates North of the border. Their new album The Blue Hour is magnificent, maybe even better than the outrageously good Night Thoughts. Brett, last time you were in Glasgow, you told us you would be back.

Still, was nice to meet Jim Kerr and his revitalised Simple Minds in Inverness a couple of weeks ago. They played a blinder of a gig. Told him that the first CD I bought was NGD, in 83/84 and this was my first time seeing them because on every occasion when they played Glasgow, by the time I got to hear about it, they were sold out. Laughs all around and then:

"We better not f**k it up then!" - Jim Kerr

It occurred to me afterwards that if I still had a copy of the Sisters cover of NGD I would have given it to him on a USB stick for his perusal, but I don't.

Next gig: John Carpenter in Glasgow Barrowlands. My icon says it all.

Peter Murphy celebrates 40 Years of Bauhaus ft. David J, December 9 Brixton.

"Witness as Peter Murphy is joined by Bauhaus co-founding member David J for an unmissable live performance. They'll play In The Flat Field in its entirety plus an extended encore of Bauhaus classics."

Similarly a bucket list item, although not over optimistic about the show as it goes, I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

Going to see Peter and David in Glasgow, 05 Dec. Peter was terrific last time he came here, although supporting that guitarist and his band, a couple of years ago. Should be great so long as he doesn't storm off in a hissy fit as I hear he did on the Manchester date of that tour.

EATB in SF in December. And the Nephs a few times in October (I must be the only old goth who has never seen them)

Levellers in December; very excited; don't laugh
Thinking about Crazyhead (again) in March
Thinking about StillMarillion this month...

It's a bit sparse ATM

PiL in two weeks (first time, can’t wait)
Nick Cave about a week later (first time I’ve seen him since the 1990’s)
High on Fire in early November (4th or 5th time, I think)
Neubauten in late November (first time, can’t wait)
Probably the Rev around Christmastime, since he seems to play DC around the same time every year. I’ve seen the Rev more times than I can count.

Saw the Supersuckers last week (more times than I can count; hard to believe it’s been almost 20 years I’ve been going to see them), and Slim Cessna (second time) a few weeks prior, so a big part of me is looming forward to not seeing anyone at all in the Spring...

EmmaPeelWannaBe wrote:EATB in SF in December. And the Nephs a few times in October (I must be the only old goth who has never seen them)

Well I’ve never seen them either. I’d like to though.

sultan2075 wrote:PiL in two weeks (first time, can’t wait)
Neubauten in late November (first time, can’t wait)

I had Chance to see PiL few years ago, it was very good gig. i felt that it wasn't pension fund on tour, but proper band giving proper gig.

Neubauten, i had Chance to see tchem last year but i couldn't foced myself to drive 500km to do this. I'll probalby have wait for good time and somewhere in Czech or Germany. But, I'm gonna see Blixa in his side project with Teho Teard, second time, next month.

We’ll be taking the week off and flying to Germany for the show. It seems horribly extravagant to me, but it’s probably the only chance I’ll have to see them.

I’d love to see Blixa with Teho - both of those records are favorites of mine.

sultan2075 wrote:PiL in two weeks (first time, can’t wait)

I saw them in June. They were great. You'll love 'em.

> Nick Cave about a week later (first time I’ve seen him since the 1990’s)

Last time I saw Nick Cave was in the same decade, I think around the time of Let Love In. Since that album I've lost interest in him to the extent that I can count on the fingers of one hand (and in some cases one fifth of one hand) the number of times I've listened to each of his subsequent albums. Continuing the theme, it's hard to put my finger on why.

I think it's probably because he became too serious and too 'muso'-like. There was a deranged, exceptional and dangerous, raw adventuring genius in his earlier work that went to every emotional extreme: from the infinite tragic sadness of A Box For Black Paul to the ravenous sexual hunger of From Her To Eternity through the black-hearted Trainspotting of Tender Prey before consumer-friendly Trainspotting to the whole Goodfellas on bad acid romp in the heart of America that was Henry's Dream (IMO his masterpiece.)

What a journey he took us on! But I just don't get a feeling of a continuation of that from anything he's done since, say, Nocturama. Even Murder Ballads arguably sounds too clean for the subject matter- compare with rusty knife abrasiveness of The Reptile House E.P., which was only marginally about murder. The production values have obviously gone way up but possibly to the detriment of the immediacy, atmosphere and grab-you-by-the-collar quality of the songs themselves, if they even have any of the key qualities of his earlier songwriting. From the admittedly limited time I've given them, I don't really have much to say. For the most part I've just found them boring, with the only exception that springs to mind being the first track on Skeleton Key, for obvious reasons.

Sorry for the rant. Just thinking aloud here trying to pin this down. I'm thinking, frankly, that he's saturating his market and diluting his creativity in doing so. He should take 5 years off and then make a truly great album.

At least he did, with The Boatman's Call, make the most depressing album since Leonard Cohen's Songs of Love and Hate. I guess that counts as some sort of achievement.

I'm actually very sympathetic to what you're saying, and the flippant answer is that he kicked heroin. Anyway, I am sympathetic to the critique you're offering - extremely so, in fact. I disagree about the merits of Murder Ballads, and I do think The Boatman's Call is almost perfect.

That being said, every record between The Boatman's Call and Push the Sky Away has bored me to death. My guess is that part of that stems from the fact that he stopped writing with Blixa, and hadn't really yet started writing with Warren Ellis. I think it took him (them?) a while to find a post-Blixa voice. He was more important than people realized (I think the last 15 years of Neubauten have confirmed this).

All of that being said, I think you are right - there's a point where he stopped "vomiting" from the depths of his soul, and started being a songwriter in a more literary sense. It is something that is probably very good for him, but not so good for us. There's a point where he becomes a "muso" as you put it. That's good for him (his life is no longer a drug-fueled shambles), but it is not necessarily good for his art. I view the (in my opinion, at least) thoroughly mediocre albums between The Boatman's Call and Push the Sky Away as the period in which he is, essentially, learning to be an artist again.

Wow, this sounds pretentious. Sorry.

XidiouX wrote:> Nick Cave about a week later (first time I’ve seen him since the 1990’s)

Last time I saw Nick Cave was in the same decade, I think around the time of Let Love In. Since that album I've lost interest in him to the extent that I can count on the fingers of one hand (and in some cases one fifth of one hand) the number of times I've listened to each of his subsequent albums. Continuing the theme, it's hard to put my finger on why.

I think it's probably because he became too serious and too 'muso'-like. There was a deranged, exceptional and dangerous, raw adventuring genius in his earlier work that went to every emotional extreme: from the infinite tragic sadness of A Box For Black Paul to the ravenous sexual hunger of From Her To Eternity through the black-hearted Trainspotting of Tender Prey before consumer-friendly Trainspotting to the whole Goodfellas on bad acid romp in the heart of America that was Henry's Dream (IMO his masterpiece.)

What a journey he took us on! But I just don't get a feeling of a continuation of that from anything he's done since, say, Nocturama. Even Murder Ballads arguably sounds too clean for the subject matter- compare with The Reptile House E.P. The production values have obviously gone way up but possibly to the detriment of the immediacy and grab-you-by-the-collar quality of the songs themselves, if they even have any of the key qualities of his earlier songwriting these days. From the admittedly limited time I've given them, I don't really have much to say. For the most part I've just found them boring, with the only exception that springs to mind being the first track on Skeleton Key, for obvious reasons.

Hey Sultan,

Maybe it is that simple: he kicked heroin and sorted his life out. It's become something of a cliché that pain, adversity etc. are the best fuel for great art. Well, Nick became very well-off, married a beautiful woman etc. I vaguely remember a lyric about raining money on the wife and the kids and on the house that they live. I'm not strongly on the political Left but how much sympathy was he expecting to get when he decided to complain about the ennui of his conspicuous consumption to the much less well-off fans who enabled this?

So it's been decided--PiL at Asbury Lanes this Saturday. It was a tough choice. The Feelies playing the music of The Velvet Underground in conjunction with the exhibit in NYC would have been a pretty cool thing, and more local, but it's not like PiL comes around every day. The Feelies play often in the area as they are a Jersey band. And I can bowl a few frames before-hand. Just got my tickets somehow to a sold out show at face value. I think the venue released some additional tickets.

I also met John Ashton outside a bar a few weeks agp while trying to score Killing Joke tickets (I didn't get in but I'd seen them before and didn't want to reward the scalper who was aggressively scooping up tickets to sell). He saw my Sisters shirt and told me he produced Alice and some of the other early singles (John, not the scalper--ha!). The conversation was brief as I didn't want to monopolize his time, but then when I looked him up later, I then realized he was the same John Ashton of The Psychedelic Furs! I knew the name sounded familiar but I wasn't sure why.

John Ashton on Alice

i'm going to this:


if you dont know you dont need to know beyond it being "Proper Techno" like what we likes...knew you'd be pleased.

EmmaPeelWannaBe wrote:John Ashton on Alice

Thanks for this! I found his insight into Eldritch as interesting as the discussion of how the record was produced.