The Cure in 2008?

Look I wrote the Cure off years ago...but um...they seem to have a lot of absolutely amazing new songs these days. Yikes. I'm gobsmacked.


Here's some more new Cure songs if you don't believe me.

Crispy Ambulance

Any Factory Records fans in the house?

If you are a fan of Factory records like me, please consider purchasing this fantastic fanzine. I just got it in the mail today and I am speechless. The photos of Tony Wilson alone are blindingly fantastic, let alone the rest. It's typed just like an old fashioned fanzine, too. I was so touched to receive a package of paper in the mail from the UK like that, just the way I used to so many times when I was a teenager and in my early twenties. I even got a little misty-eyed at the familiar fragile brown paper it was packaged in. There isn't anything like that in the whole U.S. of A., mark my words, and I haven't seen that kind of paper in a long, long time.

Here's what was posted on the Factory mailing list about this issue:

Scream City, is the Manchester fanzine from the people who brought you Cerysmatic Factory and special guest contributors. Covering music, art, books, popular culture, it's an old school fanzine and is made from paper, ink and staples.

Scream City 4 is the FAC-2 special and the contents include:

Anthony H. Wilson by David Nolan
Peter Hook interview by Michael Eastwood
Vini Reilly interview by Phil Cleaver
Industrial Relations: The Design of FAC-2 by Matthew Robertson
Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire) interview by Michael Eastwood
John Dowie interview by Ian McCartney
Sample Minds: Before and After A Factory Sample by Andrew James

Scream City 4 is on sale via eBay (seller id="cerysmatic")
priced 2.00 GBP + postage and packing. Paypal only.

Thank you for your forebearance.

John
--
Cerysmatic Factory / Scream City
www.cerysmaticfactory.info/screamcity.html

For those too lazy (or drunk) to look it up, here's the link on ebay:
Buy it here.

De Press

De Press - Block To Block, 1981

Here's one of the more goth tracks on the album entitled "Kejk"

De Press are a Polish-Norwegian band that were featured on a Uniton Records compilation, which is how I originally found out about them. My original intention was to post their goth masterpiece album "Produkt" from 1982 here but I see that Systems of Romance's blog beat me to it. So here is their first album instead and this one is more punk than that one. I always thought the coolest thing about this band though was that they could put both punk and goth songs side by side on their albums, and do both styles quite successfully. According to wikipedia, they still tour and record today, albeit with a very different lineup. Another interesting thing I learned there is that the Produkt LP was produced by John Leckie who I remember as having produced The Stone Roses and The Fall, among many others.

Ed Banger

Ed Banger - Kinnel Tommy/Baby Was A Baby 7", 1978

I'm pleased as punch to finally post this. I adore this single. I adore the far-out sleeve, everything. The A-side features Ed yelling at the TV screen to a player on his favourite football team. The background music features echo-ey plunkety plunk piano, a steady bass-line, and a couple short stabs of guitar here and there. It all works out far better than it should on paper. The B-side seems to do a Jerry Lee Lewis impression on the piano or something. It's a good old fashioned 50's rock and roller, only it kinda comes off more like pop music. Both sides of this single were produced by Martin "Zero" Hannett, and I think he did a bloody fantastic job on this.

As I said earlier on this blog, I obtained permission from Ed (now Edweena) Garrity to post this single. The A-side can be found on the "Rabid/TJM Punk Singles Collection" which is still availble on CD, and it's a great CD to have, too.

Here's a list of my fave bands/artists of all time

1. Joy Division/New Order (or vice versa)
2. Dif Juz
3. Crispy Ambulance
4. Kate Bush/Nick Drake (or vice versa)

Then there are some things which are my ultimate faves by artists who only hit a short stride of brilliance in their careers:

David Sylvian - First three solo albums inc. Blue Of Noon b-side
Simple Minds - Sparkle In The Rain and A Brass Band In African Chimes
Echo & the Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
U2 - Unforgettable Fire era plus Joshua Tree b-sides and some early stuff too
Ride - Today Forever EP, Grasshopper, Leave Them All Behind and Seagull (live versions)

That's a good summary of my fave music ever. But then I'm leaving off a whole lot of Martin Hannett stuff, so...sigh.

Well, at least I feel more prepared for a trip to a desert island now.

Yell-O-Yell

Before on this blog I mentioned Greek post-punk bands. Best one so far is probably Yell-O-Yell. Annie's Animal's blog posted a bunch of their stuff but I found another album called "Hello Hell" that wasn't on that blog. And it's really freaking cool in that it's very obviously influenced by the Birthday Party, but maybe a slight step mellower than that. Birthday Party with just a dash of goth. Lovely.

Here's a song from the album called "Death Pirouette". I doubt Bauhaus would have disapproved of this.

Next up will be the Ed Banger single. I'm pleased to announce that I have received approval from none other than Ed Banger(now Edweena) him/herself to post this single and so I shall, for Martin Hannett produced it after all, and Hannett remains my favourite musician/producer ever.