The Associates: Have the years been kind?

After a brief interview, Billy M. and Paul Haig perform "Amazing Grace" on STV's Hogmanay show in 1986. The opening of the song doesn't accurately convey what happens next.

A lovely performance of "Kites," the Simon Dupree song that he first did under the 39 Lyon Street guise with Christine Beveridge singing -- this is from French TV around the time of the Perhaps promo tours.

Billy gets interviewed by Leslie Ash for The Tube pre-Perhaps and merrily takes her for a ride.

The tragically awful B. A. Robertson interviews Billy and Alan for Friday Night, Saturday Morning following a mimed performance of "Party Fears Two"

I haven't heard anything after Sulk, though Waiting For The Love Boat is alright. I think. I can't really remember it very well, to be honest. Should I look into it?

"Skipping" from that Friday Night Saturday Morning show

The Creatures did a similar tribute with "Say" -- and knowing Siouxsie, she probably complained about how Robert ripped her off again. ;-)

We owe a debt of gratitude to Nigel Reeve at EMI (who, as it turns
out, also looks after Bowie's reissues), who, once he'd made his mind
up to go with the reissues, spared no expense and cut no corners.
Remastered on the very Abbey Road desk that was built by Mike
Batchelor for the original "Dark Side of the Moon" sessions... it was
quite an experience... No one was in this for anything other than
love. Becky, who has done the artwork "remastering" even dug out some
old Associates magazine articles that she'd kept since the early 80s,
proving that she was anything but a mere hired hand.

For myself, the real triumph is that I honestly believe that the
original CD masters never even came close to reproducing the sound of
the mix tapes, basically meaning that other than Billy, Julian
Mendelson, and very few others (probably including Blair), none of us
were actually hearing these albums in their full glory. This has now
been rectified with bells on.

It is unlikely that any of Billy's work will ever be reissued in any
physical format ever again, the future of music archiving is almost
certainly downloading. This made it all the more important to get
these albums out there in the sound quality that will henceforth
always be available in. Anything less would have been less than they
deserve.

I've said it before, but I cannot wait for you guys to hear Wild &
Lonely. At the moment you only think you know it. It'll knock your
socks off... I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it...

Thank you all. Again.

Jude

TOTP performance of "Club Country"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEWkNoKxTUg&search=Associates

Meantime, I finally picked up Holger Hiller's Oben Im Eck, which I know Momus praised as containing Billy M.'s best thing ever, "Whippets," IIRC (though I can't seem to find the comment on this thread). It really *is* something bizarrely wonderful, and for the first time the idea of him as a proto-Bjork makes total sense in terms of sheer 'WTF.' And the fact that he named it after/wrote it about his 'spirit animal,' as the bio put it, makes it even better!

also - just picked up the "club country" 12" - fuck, had no idea there was an extended version! though, just looking now, it was mentioned upthread. if if if only the latin rascals had been around!

Meantime another YouTube treat -- "White Car in Germany" on Dutch TV in 1982.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI9lqh0Dwho

tell me easter's on friday, and i'll bend my hips

Tell me Easter's a draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggg!

Was thinking about Billy this morning on the way into work, especially the stuff he did with Yello.

"Give me your gooooold..."

ah, someone else was thinking of it:

http://thep5.blogspot.com/2008/03/associates-tell-me-easters-on-friday.html

7 years, 2 months :(

Attention all -- Blair Booth, who worked with Billy for a long stretch, has put the Wild and Lonely demos tape up on eBay. He's on the Associates list and had discussed this with folks before doing it -- opinions differed but anyway:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280210968898

A bit of a rarity, this hadn't surfaced on YouTube yet -- "Those First Impressions" and "Waiting on the Loveboat" from 1984 on the TV show No. 73. Great stuff, of course:

They sound like the Pale Fountains or something.

(in that youtube clip, at least for the first few seconds)

Wait until he starts singing.

Speaking of which, how come I can't find no Pale Fountains threads on this thing? Geez louise.

Strange thing, but I found myself thinking about the Associates in the bath one day in 1997, not having listened to them for years. I got out, dried myself, turned on the radio and heard about billy's suicide.

So, when was "Party Fears One" released?

i was about to revive this thread last night, weird.

i always thought it was "tell me easters adjourned"? was always one of my favourite billy lyrics that way

i think it is adjourned

i want some live associates. any top boots available on blogs or soulseek?

There is or was a page with a bunch of shows for downloading, I recall.

Oh yeah, posted just upthread a bit:

http://associatestracks.blogspot.com/

thanks so much Mr. Ned
you just made my day

Glad to help!

Ned, with that posted link, I can finally forgive you for that YouTube vid about the cape. You are indeed a gentleman.

There's a new play on at Dundee Rep Theatre, "Balgay Hill", in June that is kind of Billy Mackenzie related. It's not purely autobiographical. I'm not going to explain it well, but here's the link: http://www.dundeereptheatre.co.uk/p2s22.html

Will be going along to see it, the Rep is usually good.

One tries, KBP.

And I kept forgetting to mention Balgay Hill! The Associates list has been talking about it for a bit -- and someone on there just posted a link to this thread so hello all who are seeing it for the first time! (I have to apologize as upthread I say Blair Brown is male, which is obv not the case!)

After the first half of this thread talked exclusively about Sulk, I'm glad The Affectionate Punch got some love after it was reissued in 2005. It's my favorite of theirs. AMG said "Two years later -- a year after the genius run of bizarre singles collected on Fourth Drawer Down and the same year as the high-drama overdrive of Sulk -- Rankine and Mackenzie partially re-recorded and completely remixed this album to spectacularly layered and glossy effect." Too bad the reissue didn't include that version, it might have won over some of the Sulk fans.

That version was already on CD for years, so it was quite exciting to get the original version back in print. I think it's like the Slapp Happy thing (Casablanca Moon/Acnalbasac Noom) some people prefer one, some the other, some like to pick from each!