terry hall s&d

Destroy: The Colourfield "Deception"

I enjoyed FB3, especially "Waiting", which saw them stripping away some of the more self-consciously goofy stuff of the debut.

The Colourfield debut (with Bunnymen drummer Pete DeFreitas) features some of Hall's strongest Pure Pop work (Castles in the Air, Thinking about You), but also has a moodier side that adds some weight. By the time of the second one, the band split up mid-recording, and as a result, "Deception" is very clinical and over-produced, although not without its highlights for Hall fans.

I used to adore the Terry, Blair and Anouchka album "Ultra-Modern Nursery Rhymes", but it really hasn't stood the test of time, and seems kind of flat and samey - and too jaunty overall. Not sure it goes on the D-list, though.

Hall is featured as a co-writer and prominent b-vox man on The Lightning Seeds' "Sense", and some of the tracks there were later redone in inferior versions for Hall's solo album (produced by Lightning Seeds frontman Ian Broudie).

Vegas saw the unlikely coupling of Eurythmic Dave Stewart with Hall, and though it was not an immediate favorite (far from it), with its Olle Romö-programmed drum tracks and synthetic feel, I think it contains some of Hall's strongest songs.

As for The Special AKA, that was actually the original name of The Specials, and Jerry Dammers reverted to it when Hall, Golding and Staples left for FB3 and he drafted a new vocalist (name eludes me completely).

Do it! Do it!

Just found this tidbit. Ooooh Neneh Cherry and Terry Hall together, I think I'll explode in three million orgasms or rather should track this down.

the ENTIRE fb3 debut album is freaking great -- my favorite is "the telephone always rings"!

I have to tell that 'Laugh' is a surprisingly good album. The production is not that too polished like it was on 'Home', has a more organic sound, and the songs are perhaps stronger too. Surely a heartbroken album, but still sounds pleasantly, a bit like Morrissey's recent things.

SEARCH:
This 10-minute-long Doors cover by Fun Boy Three featuring jazz odyssey freak-outs, real balls of fire and Terry Hall with crazy hair even for Terry Hall:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIuAUJ2VyP4&feature=relate

just wanted to echo how classic "Virgins and Philistines" is. it kind of reminds me of The Feelies "Crazy Rhythms" - not that they sound alike at all, but that album was one that was impossible to find for a long long time despite being fairly popular on the internet. I'm hoping that now that V&P did get the re-issue it'll take on the same kind of life here. I don't know about much of his work outside of that besides the Specials, though the second Colourfield album is pretty bad (and completely unreleated to the first one)

aw, deception isn't so bad. or maybe i just like terry a lot. i started a thread on V&P kinda. never hard to find if you like vinyl. don't know about CDs. but yeah everyone on earth should own a copy. the american version! (see thread i started)

and everyone on earth should own everything tht FB3 ever made. but that's a given.

Tery Hall leaves us. Just 63! rip.

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing, following a brief illness, of Terry, our beautiful friend, brother and one of the most brilliant singers, songwriters and lyricists this country has ever produced. (1/4) pic.twitter.com/qJHsI1oTwp

— The Specials (@thespecials) December 19, 2022

Gutted. RIP Terry.

awful news, RIP Terry
Specials had a massive impact on me as a kid, and Our Lips Are Sealed is an all time classic

Fucking hell. Difficult to take in.

Immortal for "Friday Night, Saturday Morning" and co-writing "Our Lips Are Sealed" alone.

Fuck. More shocked by this than I would've expected. I will rep for 'Ghost Town' as one of the greatest pop singles ever. RIP.

RIP. Hard to believe this one.

Truly a loss. Cosign on "Ghost Town."

Ahhh! No way!!

wow. speechless.

Also: his bit here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBSdwox134s

Jeez. Just so wrong.

man this sucks! rip terry

fucking hell, this is awful news

Well this is fucking shitty news

Singing random songs to myself in a [Terry Hall voice] has always been one of my favourite things

x-posts - That's the song I went to, Alfred. Horrible news.

and this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfSqTO5pV0o

more recently, the album he did with Mushtaq was really good -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5du2-kR1FF0

Aw man, R.I.P. What a great singer.

Gutted to hear of the passing of #terryhall. He was a lovely, sensitive, talented and unique person. Our extremely brief romance resulted in the song Our Lips Are Sealed, which will forever tie us together in music history. Terrible news to hear this. 😢 pic.twitter.com/Fxxqr0p01T

— Jane Wiedlin (@janewiedlin) December 19, 2022

Fuck. More shocked by this than I would've expected. I will rep for 'Ghost Town' as one of the greatest pop singles ever. RIP.

Oh man - Terry Hall.

Me and some pals have an occasional covers band - weddings, parties, anything. Due to all of us having worked in 'the biz' we've brought in some powerful ringers to sing with us over the years...

— John Niven HQ (@estellecostanza) December 20, 2022

Sad to hear that Terry will not be joining us for another season. Cryptic, droll, a heart of gold, and he could tackle like a donkey! Always a proper gent to The Beat, our condolences to family and friends x pic.twitter.com/ilQIt8P3dd

— dave wakeling (@dave_wakeling) December 20, 2022

Never checked what the Locarno was till now

https://i2-prod.coventrytelegraph.net/incoming/article8387113.ece/ALTERNATES/s1227b/locarno.jpg

https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/lifestyle/nostalgia/gallery/look-10-photos-old-locarno-10657835

Never heard Tunnel of Love before today. What a tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi7BXqmYxiw

I've loved The Specials and Fun Boy Three albums for so long, & he's always been that paradigmatic voice - many trying the same tone, no-one really touching him. What a set of songs, too.

Rather than a track, a documentary that I saw years ago at an NFT 2-tone night. I love looking at that scruffy grey midlands world - it's where my memories start. Also, that gig looks fucking great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PciCyURg6V0

RIP Terry.

Only found out recently that the Colourfield covered the wonderful 'Hammond Song' by the Roches. Its frankly a pretty terrible version tbh, but at the same time I was really impressed that Terry knew and loved that song too

A highly local view:

This just flowed. Not remotely close to everything I have to say about this man, but all I could manage this morning x https://t.co/BBFGmOuu5n

— ⚫Neil Kulkarni (@KaptainKulk) December 20, 2022

"Fuck Larkin, who disavowed us anyway, and whose racism showed he wasn’t fit for the city we had become. In the death of Terry Hall we have lost our greatest ever poet."

There is a really wonderful deep divey interview with Terry by Ian Svenoneous that seems to have been scrubbed from the internet. If anyone knows where to find that hmu.

Bless whoever posted this 4 hours ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g6EERtOZC0

🖤

He somehow got more handsome as he aged.

How he died

Horace Panter, bass player for the #Specials, on the shockingly brief last days of his bandmate, #TerryHall. #music https://t.co/lJTuCKU2sw pic.twitter.com/JPLKgM57Nb

— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) December 21, 2022

not sure that was something i wanted to read 8(

Jesus thats horrific, poor guy

Sorry, should have done that as a link not an embed.

(i saw it as a link because i have images off. it was more that it was just so sad and so sudden)

so awful!

https://www.mixcloud.com/TimmyMallett/terry-hall-easter-special-piccadilly-radio-tx-8th-april-1985-tx-2100-2300/

"I asked 25 year old Terry Hall if he'd like to have a go at presenting his own show. There were just the two of us in studio 2 at Piccadilly Radio with a pile of records and a delightful shy and slightly nervous Terry. I played the records in real time, and encouraged him to tell his story and he gets more confident as the show progresses.

Enjoy the revelation of his inspirations and a personal insight into the processes of his recording. There are some joyous surprises coming up

The tape has been in the loft since 1985."

anyone have recommendations on where to srart with fun boy three? i was thinking of going ahead with the waiting album (because it has "our lips are sealed" on it) but would love any recs

It's only really two albums so dive in imo. They're very different - first is dark, claustrophobic, heavy percussive drive all the way through, sort of like Adam + Ants buried underground & despairing; second has a broader palette and stronger more traditional songs. Both great.

yeah, dive right in. Waiting is the darker of the two imo.

there are a couple of singles not on the albums afaics - summertime, really saying something, both worth tracking down

There was a brief but heartfelt tribute posted by Steve Albini, as he often does when a musician of note dies, but the specific tone of the post really underscored what an impact the Specials made.

and some great 12" mixes too, esp. our lips are sealed.

great to hear, i'll prob listen to both albums today

still very much love that first Colourfield album. I got the American copy which screws up the tracklist (no "Armchair Theater"! come on!) but still, the band is so good that everything they do kinda works for me. can't remember much about that follow-up, though lmao @ Deception's cover imitating New Order's Low Life pretty much exactly. maybe I'll give it another shot.

also was thinking about how The Specials, Fun Boy Three, and The Colourfield all had fairly successful singles with Terry Hall as frontman. I wonder if anyone else has managed 3 successful groups by their mid-20s like that. there's probably an obvious answer (Clapton?) but I can't think of it right now.

At a stretch, there's Midge Ure (Slik, Rich Kids, Visage, Thin Lizzy, Ultravox, all before the age of 26) and Graham Nash (Hollies => Crosby, Stills and Nash => CSNY).

Steve Winwood had hits with Spencer Davis Group, Traffic and Blind Faith by the age of 22.

Did Funboy 3 and Colourfield have any magnitude of success at the time beyond the sort of people who read music mags?

funboy 3 had top ten hits and TV presence, colourfield much less so

FB3 were a mainstream pop act for a couple of years in the UK, regular appearances on TV shows, in Smash Hits etc

I even remember seeing "It Ain't What You Do..." on Friday Nite Videos here in the States.

FB3: A top ten album, a top twenty album, two top 5 singles, two top ten singles, three top twenty singles, launched Bananarama. We can't definitively prove that any of those sold to people who didn't like music though.

I don't remember them making any sort of impression in the U.S. beyond the video for "Our Lips are Sealed," in which Terry looks hilariously mopey.

(Colourfield had a #12 album and a #12 single, and several less-successful releases. Just managing those two by 25 would feel pretty good imo tho.)

FB3 do The Specials - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8MkuJKHJ7g

cool!

Terry perhaps channeling a contemporaneous Robert Smith in personal style.

Yeah, I always used to think that!

Robert Smith less likely to wear moccasins though

https://cdns-images.dzcdn.net/images/artist/61da3ac01e57203ff76539851fcd6c48/500x500.jpg

https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/migration_catalog/95b73/25660901.ece/AUTOCROP/w620/GYI0058744302

Amy Winehouse, Terry Hall and Lynval Golding attend the 2009 Q Awards held at the Grosvenor House Hotel on October 26, 2009 in London, England.

Well done, Coventry City.
RIP Terry Hall#PUSB #thespecials pic.twitter.com/U80LBWEwF0

— SkyBlueFansTV (@SkyBlueFansTV1) December 21, 2022

Nice!

FB3 - perfect discography btw - had one of the strangest (if slow) public exits of any band I can think of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIuAUJ2VyP4

In 1994 I head his singles from Home on the radio a lot (Mark Radcliffe), and they seem to have been forgotten. Sense hung around the bottom of the singles chart, and made an impact because it sounds like The Lightning Seeds, cowritten with Broudie.
But for me it's Forever J which should have done better. It was around the time Urge Overkill were big and it felt like it was part of the same genre. To realise years later it was the same bloke who had sung Ghost Town and Too Much Too Young was weird!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxdQZf57k8g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM1sv_gQGxw

Good night, Terry. Good night, Rhoda.

That sound of Coventry video has Jerry Dammers going on about the impossibility of teaching Terry to dance. Don’t know if that was fair but based on the video loop that accompanies the streaming video of “A Message to You, Rudy” I am inclined to agree.

the 6 minute version of Too Much Too Young just popped up on shuffle and i love the way the last half just chills out. i think the single version was live and angry and got them into a bit of trouble.

https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/the-complete-fun-boy-three-deluxe-set/

Terry Hall night on bbc4 tonight

2100 Terry hall at the bbc
2200 specials, rock goes to college
2245 arena - Two Tone doc
2320 specials 6 music sessions
2355 2-tone - the sound of Coventry
0055 later with jools, reggae and ska

Les from the bunnymen on bass there for the track they just played from Home.