we listen so fast: forgotten/unkown/unloved 80s we are listening to.

I got to work on the art layout for a Perennial Divide CD some time ago and was excited to be in somewhat indirect contact with Jack Dangers.

When house/techno hit Cabaret Voltaire, I'd sum it up this way. Kirk started a super prolific underground solo career in bleep techno with Sweet Exorcist and Sandoz. The Cabs went pop with it working with chicago producers, probably the glossiest thing they ever did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw6MmJbHDyA

but they also did some more stripped down bleep stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRzzwVGE7J0

but most of the last few Cabs albums of that period were more ambient/electronic with samples and such, not much vocals or dance beats. I think Kirk kept the clubby side for himself and the ambient side for the Cabs.

And Mallinder teamed up with Dave Ball from Soft Cell and bleep techno pioneer Robert Gordon for this oddity, which would likely give any owner of The Voice of America a heart attack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUbLuL3oGAs

quite a journey from live in sheffield 19 jan 82. or live at the y.m.c.a. 27.10.79 for that matter.

i like all 80s cabs pretty much.

i think it was colours that i listened to. i should really listen to more of their 90s stuff. i don't know what i'm afraid of. those guys will always be cool with me.

Yeah, plenty of people are picky about where they get off the cab train (when Chris Watson left, when they signed to Virgin etc) but I'm a fan, I like it all more or less.

My intro to Cabaret Voltaire was the very club-oriented Code LP, which I haven't heard in probably 30 years. I do recall it was in the same vein as Nitzer Ebb, which was probably why I picked it up. Lots of booming beats and some guy yelling a bunch of vague stuff about surveillance and government.

Code is the height/end of the industrial funk dance thing. House/Techno pretty much moved the direction right after that.

the first thing i bought was the Drinking Gasoline EP in 1985 because i was obsessed with the song "Kino". they played that on the local college radio station a ton. they played "Yashar" a ton too but i didn't buy that until later. couldn't find it! or forgot to look for it. i make up for that now by playing it, like, 5 times in a row once a year.

i always tell myself i'm gonna try and get all the early rough trade 7-inches but i am too old now. but if i get any at the store they are going home with me.

this is great! this must be some sort of electronic new age classic but i've never heard it. its very engaging. will search out his previous album too.

https://i.discogs.com/w9zfzoyIN-8BCV1wAIf4pWDeTwsNqQY1r4c1ju8vNSg/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:597/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTEzMjA5/MTktMTU3NzQ1NzEw/OC01ODcyLmpwZWc.jpeg

Ponder this...

https://i.discogs.com/VnZ67nRnhiYmxcRXm7vCXCYTA9SlgOQtnOO9MjnPjbc/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:450/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9BLTU3Nzk0/Ny0xNTI3OTcyMzQz/LTcyMTQuanBlZw.jpeg

damn! luv.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLovjE9owfY

A1 Graham Dene– "Hello from Great Britain..."
Music
A2 Toyah (3)– Rebel Run 3:15
A3 Howard Jones– New Song 3:40
A4 Genesis– Just A Job To Do 4:30
Naughty Bits Department: Out Cue For Break Point #1
A5 Graham Dene– "...We'll Be Right Back"
Incue After Break Point #1
A6 Paul Weller– "Hello, This Is Paul Weller..."
A7 Siouxsie & The Banshees– Dear Prudence 3:35
Interview With Boy George
Music
A8 Kissing The Pink– Maybe This Day 3:20
Out Cue For Break Point #2
A9 Graham Dene– "...I'll Give You The Details Next."
In Cue After Break Point #2
B1 Kate (Haysifantayzee)*– "You're Listening To Rock Over London..."
Music
B2 China Crisis– Working With Fire And Steel 3:37
Melting Pot Segment : Out Cue For Break Point #3
B3 Graham Dene– "...so bang on"
In Cue After Break Point #3
B4 Hal Lindes– "This Is Hal Lindes..."
Music
B5 New Order– Blue Monday 3:30
B6 Kajagoogoo– Big Apple 4:00
B7 Big Country– Chance 4:00
B6 David Bowie– Modern Love 3:40
B9 Culture Club– Karma Chameleon 3:45
B10 Graham Dene– "...Cheerio From London"

i would totally get a kissing the pink tattoo.

although a haysi fantayzee tattoo would be even cooler.

“certain things are likely” is my KTP OPO, a perfect anthem that should have been huge

i only listen to the first two albums. and the 8 or 10 singles that came from those albums. but i do enjoy the song "certain things are likely".

Certain things are likely must’ve had some impact on the American clubs. It’s got a “paradise garage lol mix and the 12” is pretty common in NY dance store bins. Earlier stuff was big in the cosmic/balearic scenes.

Interesting band.

Another 80s band I like that has one balearic classic hit started with some really cool post punk stuff and went more adult pop is It’s Immaterial.

yeah I know it was a successful club record, I meant more like hearing it at the grocery store or something

i really like that first It's Immaterial album. a late discovery for me about 5 or 6 years ago.

with kissing the pink i bought Naked when it came out because they played "The Last Film" a ton on the radio and i fell in love. i have never stopped playing that album since 1983. it was a big deal to me. funnily enough, i never even saw the second album, What Noise, until years later! mostly because it didn't come out in the U.S. It's great too.
the KTP stuff i wasn't as sold on but i did love the big single.

Naked one of my fave art rock records of all time. i think i can call it that. its perfect to me.

the KTP song must have charted here? it was kinda everywhere at the time. mtv. radio.

they toured it here too. lots of publicity money spent on it.

okay i'm gonna listen to that ktp album now. maybe i will fall for it late in life.

aww, i forgot about "one step"! love this song. they played this song on the radio too.

where do people stop with Shriekback though? it's Go Bang!, right? but i'm pretty sure they put out records in the 90s! we may never know what they sound like. they were godhead up to and including Big Night Music. Simple Minds win for me. seven amazing albums until they all became filthy rich and i stopped listening. but i will listen to those 7 records until they cart me away to the old grump's home.

I would think that they would have a decent hi-fi at the old grumps home.

ok I stand corrected Re Kip , maybe it’s an east coast/west coast thing

there’s this apocryphal meeting between Jim Kerr and Bono on the beach that occurred in between NGD and Sparkle, I always cite that as the beginning of the end

Shriekback never stopped making excellent records. "Go Bang" is the one outlier in their catalog, everything else is worth hearing.

I liked Go Bang! :(

weird to see ktp love, i had an import lp on the strength of love lasts forever i think? somewhere in the pacific trash gyre now after a relocation catastrophe in the 80s

Add me to the love of KTP.

Barry wrote up the story of "Go Bang" on his website:
https://www.tumblr.com/shriekbackmusic/87300284602/go-bang-and-after-compromise-king-swamp-and

Sometime within the last few years I saw a brand new video for a new shriekback and it was way better than I’d ever have expected. Some people just never lose it.

Simple Minds I thinks gets the interest in all their history and tries to recapture it a bit but it’s not quite there. I like a tiny bit of post Derek Forbes stuff but his leaving seems the turning point to me.

i like this. from the movie Wildcats. there is an actual LOL 80s video for the song but the long version is nice. i would play this if i was DJing an 80s night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d5-GUE4va8

i got a copy of the first Blackbird EP! in a random box of records. "Howl" sounds even better on vinyl than on the unsigned band CD comp i first heard it on. now i want the album on Scotti Brothers from 1992 which ALSO has "Howl" on it because why not nobody ever heard it and its a bitchin' song. in 1990 Fundamental put out a Blackbird comp that...you guessed it...also has "Howl" on it. the first side of the EP is so cool i haven't even gotten to the second side. lots of great guitar noise.

i won't post the "Howl" youtube again but you should listen to it! it's addictive to me.

https://i.discogs.com/OJj41mjCIT9Q1k04qUfjL4TWmFaf4biyCy6vBQ61kJc/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTI4ODQ2/ODYtMTUxODgwNDU1/NC0yNTkxLmpwZWc.jpeg

(they also put out their own album in 1989 after the EP and it does not have "Howl" on it. i'd like to get a copy of that too.)

This is one of my all time favorite deep dive tunes. It's not even the considered the good lineup of TSOL. I found this one doing radio back in college.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voJSmhxiQBM

i had that album! i liked it a lot. i even liked that hokey song "how do". i bought it when it came out thinking it would be punkier of course. but i played it a bunch.

i just sold that first red rockers album - condition red, which is great and i was totally tempted to keep the copy - and they did that similar thing that t.s.o.l. did.
heck lots of punk bands did it. went cowpunk or poppunk or slower/gothier.

'October File' by Die Kreuzen is an example of that thing. I heard that before I heard the early hardcore.

This may be an ILX first mention, of this song, at any rate? A truly weird and good 80s Quebec band called The Box

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A3gcDg5M3M

Mock me if you will but I'm quite a fan of this ludicrous 1983 piece of sub-Queen nonsense from Northern Ireland's Cruella de Ville, just playing it for the first time since it came out ― the phantom flim-flammer (Matt #2), Monday, August 14, 2023

I absolutely ADORE Cruella de Ville. I wish they'd gone further - they had a Roy Wood-produced album in the can apparently. I'd love Cherry Red to pick that up, but maybe not enough people are aware of the band.

I can't not post China Doll, a singer from Birmingham who fused Kate Bush with italo disco and got... nowhere.
Great tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4Tv0_ln4N0

Wow! that is really something. how have i never seen that? that is a gem.

i got a copy of the first Blackbird EP! in a random box of records. "Howl" sounds even better on vinyl than on the unsigned band CD comp i first heard it on. now i want the album on Scotti Brothers from 1992 which ALSO has "Howl" on it because why not nobody ever heard it and its a bitchin' song.

heck lots of punk bands did it. went cowpunk or poppunk or slower/gothier.

I love TSOL's Change Today?

were Blackbird any good live, elvis?

thank you so much for the offer of the rip but i probably wouldn't listen to it that way. i don't know why. i take things slow. i just ripped my first CD a month ago. i haven't even progressed to burning yet.

i'm imagining they were the kids of some hollywood guy who made music for commercials and they used their dad's studio to make their EP and LP. that's my imagination for you.

right now i'm listening to a 1987 EP by the band King Face and i only put it on because Ian MacKaye produced it. it's pretty terrible. and produced terribly at Inner Ear. maybe Inner Ear was just terrible. it was that guy's basement, right?
you can see the 90s coming in King Face and not in a good way.
Ian connection. the singer of King Face was in the band Sevens with Joe Lally.

SKOT'S TIP FOR THE DAY! buy this record. go get it on discogs. cost you like 10 bucks. get it before numero group or soul jazz or whoever gets their hands on it and the price skyrockets. its insane. homemade mix of soul/rock/dub/dance/whatever. sounds crazy. just gets crazier because they include an LP of dub versions that are even MORE bonkers. there is one track on youtube but it doesn't really do justice to how the record sounds.

https://i.discogs.com/4jRRhU8Hg39PiReFrk8lvbgFPylGIP5_18n1MwyJJfA/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTc4ODY5/NTUtMTQ1NDcxNzcz/My02NjY4LmpwZWc.jpeg

what the heck i'll include it but you really need to hear the dub version which is a whole other animal. this record will do something to the wiring in your brain. its made...weird. the first track on the album "rita rita" is the most bizarre of the bunch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1dJxAmxS-8

private press. vinyl only. never reissued.

were Blackbird any good live, elvis?

...

i'm imagining they were the kids of some hollywood guy who made music for commercials and they used their dad's studio to make their EP and LP. that's my imagination for you.