Echo & the bunnymen: Classic or Dud?

It remains a miracle that they managed to do 'epic rock' whilst remaining fresh and without becoming boringly 'political', bloated or pompous. (U2 had failed on all counts by the time they released 'War'.). Sure Mac loves himself, but you can't completely dislike the guy, whereas Bono...

Although they're in no way essential any more , the re-union albums are both very good, but it's perhaps a little disappointing that EATB haven't been influenced by anything 'new' whilst they were away. It seems that Mac's small store of influences (Doors, Cohen, VU, Scott Walker, Iggy) has remained unchanged over the years.

Finally - just think back to some of the singles if you need confirmation : "Rescue", " A Promise" "The Cutter", "Back of Love", "Seven Seas", " The Killing Moon" !! It's a no-brainer - CLASSIC

They've risen vastly in my estimation since reading Bill Drummond's secret theories about them in 45, though.

I hate with a passion : The Wedding Present, 99% of all C-86 - affiliated bands, Sister of Mercy, Mission, All other Goth, New Model Army, Carter the..., The Cult and many more.

Just to put things straight, Omar! ;)

Great, great music, though! Really, I was surprised by just how much of it I liked, and how many of the tunes I remembered. I'd forgotten just how nice the "feel" of the band is - crisp, tight, a little bit robotic, just how I like it, plus the guitar playing is excellent. they're a really underrated group of musicians. Most impressive is the way "Ocean Rain" manages to achieve this epic, big music thing, whilst retaining this crisp sound and feel, and w/o sounding flabby & turgid. IIRC there was some bumpf recently in mojo or uncut about the waterboys, and there was a side panel with all the "big music" also-rans (they said) I think "Ocean Rain" is what the should have been writing about, and the waterboys (who = sux0r) should have been in the also-rans side panel.

I'll be buying the rest of these reissues very soon. It occurs to me that Warner (going on the last lot of yes re's as well) are one of the few companies who are not fucking up their back catalogue by overcompressing it at the moment, so 3 cheers for them, or something.

The Teardrop Explodes were, of course, superior in every way.

you know, yesterday I would have agreed w/this 100%. I mean the teardrops were great, cope solo as well, really, one of my favourite bands/artists ever, but to-day, right now, I've got to disagree. "Ocean Rain" beats anything the TDX recorded hands down. Really, it's knocked me flat. I remember "Silver", for example being not-that-good, but when I put it on yesterday, i was like FUCK, THIS = TEH BEST MUSIC EVER!!1 It fucking lifted me up.

i 2d everything norman said upthread about ocean rain. i would also add that it's the 1 eatb record where i can see the purported doors influence -- in that ocean rain is kinda what the soft parade should have sounded like.

Yes to both. (The reissues' bonus tracks are by and large not ones from the box set, though there's a small bit of overlap.)

I dunno `bout that. Cope isn't so "amiable" toward Mac through much of Head-On and Repossessed. Rivalry does that, i suppose.

That said, I just never though the two bands sounded very similar. I mean, the Bunnymen were much more of a guitar band than the Teardrops.

Thanks for the advice. I'll have to sell some stuff on ebay to pay for the reissues!

Utterly awful band, yr right. Back to EATB - I have just bought the grey 5th album in the reissue series. I like this one greatly, but I realise that no-one else in the world does. Original (non-LP)version of Bedbugs and Ballyhoo is the absolute bizness.

Norm - based on what you've said about Ocean Rain, I reckon you'd really like 'Flowers' the 2001 EATB album. It's not widescreen like OR, but Will's interested again and his guitar work is fantastic in the same way that it's great on Porcupine and Killing Moon. Little details chucked in that no-one else would think of.

Shine So Hard EP on Crocodiles.
Live tracks from Australia on Heaven Up Here including The Disease - worra knees-up.
Nothing on Porcupine.
Life at Brian's (albeit minus newly topical miners' strike chit-chat) on Ocean Rain, and the non-12" AKA LP versions of Silver and The Killing Moon.
12" version of Bring on the Dancing Horses on the grey one. I quite like Soul Kitchen too.

Also they make the box set look much better than it did before.

Very much so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEThL6WcgF4

FOREVER YOURS, NOCTURNAL ME

TAKE ME INTERNALL FOREVER YOURS,
NOCTURNAL ME

Best o f british music, folks, this is it.

CRYSTAL VIEWS

PURIFY OUR MISFIT WAYS AND MAGNIFY OUR CRYSTAL DAYS

you know heaven and hell collide there are no in betweens

This is all because Echo & The Bunnymen are...the link at the end of my willly nillly

"I'm the Yo YO Man always up and down /so take me to the end of your tether"

Forget it. Echo & The Bunnymen forever

CA CA CA CABBAGE

YOU THINK YOURE A VEGETABLE NEVER COME OUT OF THE FRIDGE

YOU SET MY TEETH ON EDGE
CCAAA CA AULIFLOWER MEMOIRS APRIL SHOWERS

YOU ARE A DYING BREED! ooooooo

cucumber cabBAGE CAULIFLOWER AAAAAAAAAAH@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

wait for me on a new horizon new horIzON FOR EVERYONE

o deCIDED TO WEAR MY THORN OF CROWNS

ALLTHE WAY ROUND....

insideout!

uPSIDE DOWN!

bACK TO FRONT!

aLL THE WAY ROUND!

dOWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

fate up againST YOUR WILL THROUGH THE THICK AND THIN
HE WILL WAIT UNTIL YOU GIVE YOURSELF TO HIM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEThL6WcgF4

that tube video had my neck hairs standing up. can't help but think that the 10 minutes after the credits rolled would've been excellent.

That performance off the tube is incredible, so powerful!

Ian McC is definitely amongst my top five Liverpool fans (it's not a list that goes down much further than #5). From the stage at the Royal Court in '98..."I don't want Everton to go down - it would be bad for the city. Of, er, Wolverhampton."

The Mac/Will interviews on the BBC's Rock Family Trees (Liverpool post-punk episode) are absolutely priceless. "Nein Danke."

A few duff records aside, some days I think they're my favourite band ever.

I only ever saw them after their famous year off, so I think that means past their prime.

The Bunnymen have this strange ability to make me yearn for childhood Merseyside experiences I never actually had; I want to wander along Otterspool Prom with some befringed pals at dusk and talk drunken rubbish until the small hours on the steps of the Palm House in Sefton Park. I didn't do any of this in the '80s, I was playing tennis in New Brighton and then running home for me tea.

The grey album is the only remaster I have bothered with. I love that album, but of course I'm nuts. I have the boxset so the extra tracks on the remasters are less of a lure. They should have picked a gig from each era and put out a second live CD with each reissue.

Anyone else remember them doing fantastic versions of 'The Game' and 'Lips Like Sugar' on some sort of tribute the the OGWT TV programme just before the grey record came out? Bit of a letdown when I heard the actual album though.

(I might still have it on VHS in the loft somewhere)

Bring On The Dancing Horses, which I think of as the best Xmas single of all time, is only available (as far as I can tell) in this reissue programme in two different versions on the grey album. Bah, I'm not buying the bloody grey album.

S/T record from 1987.

Not part of this reissue programme, though. It was last year, wasn't it? That might be too much duplication for me ("Killing Moon" in about five places then) but if I see the CD/DVD version going cheap...

I think I could "do" you a Dancing Horses replica 12" if you like. The 7" was on the box set, but I sold that (fool!).

Ocean Rain does sound fantastic. Possibly the best use of strings on a rock record ever.

i do like the 90s/present-day bunnymen records, though i concede that it's more "for the fans"/already-coverted and they aren't the same w/t de freitas & pattinson et. al. & they haven't come up w/ any as catchy as even "lips like sugar" (much less anything offa the first 4).

i think the newer stuff is OK if you take it for what it is -- competent, polished late 90s sorta-indie rockish stuff -- as opposed to expecting heaven up here, v. 2.0. and of this latter stuff, their LAST record siberia may be the best of the lot -- they play w/ a bit more passion than the other latter-day stuff.

personally, the biggest letdown re the latter-day stuff is that ian's voice is totally shot to SHIT.

unfortunately, its true.

That was a mistake, I feel. If only for what I might have cribbed from it.

Perhaps BOTDH should stay where it is - on my picture disc LP and mixed in with the slush and drizzle of the walk along the Breck to school.

Just listening to the box set on CD1 right now. Broke My Neck (long version) - WOW!!

completely different. grind stuff is ambient soundscapes, some quite dark. glide stuff is poppier, lots of samples, reminds me, somehow, of willy wonka's chocolate factory gone bad.

samples here (ipcress track particularly good. do not listen to whilst operating machinery or driving though):

http://www.bunnymen.com/Glide/mp3page.html

last glide lp (curvature of the earth) had instantly recognisable bunnymen style guitar submerged within it in places, was very odd given that i wasn't expecting it and it took me right back.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000HKDC6C/ref=olp_product_details/026-3945335-0330023?ie=UTF8&seller=

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ECHO-AND-THE-BUNNYMEN-VERY-BEST-OF-PLUS-DVD-NEW_W0QQitemZ280075967382QQihZ018QQcategoryZ2250QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Anyway - now on Disc 3 of the box. And really, what's not to like about any of the later stuff? Nothing Lasts Forever, Rust - all tremendous. Must dig out the WAYGTDWYL album later.

All the B-sides/outtakes are stellar - e.g. Rollercoaster (Will back on the Fender Jag - yay!, Hurracaine etc)

Angels and Devils is possibly my favourite EATB song. Who else could get that groove, that *sway*? The guitars and drums are fantastic on that - really woody and close-sounding.

I'd recommend it. Both under his name and as Glide.

The box set does a great job at cherrypicking the early reunion material, and all the B-sides and rarities and live tracks = rockness. It's a well-put-together compilation and one of the few box sets around that's worth relistening to.

There should be a compilation of that era called "Nein Danke".

Just listening to the box set on CD1 right now.

Sounded vaguely Doors-ish or even Love-ish or just generally Elektra-ish, at any rate.

I'm going to be the Porcupine newbie here, but I found a nice cheap copy and I'm listening to it for the first time. What the fuck HAPPENS in "Porcupine" about 1/2 way through? Awesome!

I like Porcupine just fine, but it's probably my least favorite of the five, original 1980s albums. Still a good one, though.

What the fuck HAPPENS in "Porcupine" about 1/2 way through?

The drugs kick in.

I like Porcupine just fine, but it's probably my least favorite of the five, original 1980s albums. Still a good one, though.

Really? God, that's such great news to hear. I've only heard Songs to Learn and Sing and Porcupine, and I couldn't be more instantly obsessed. I've had so many experiences with being introduced to bands with the best possible entry point (aka, Jesus and Mary Chain, Psychocandy)) and being disappointed afterwards with further exploration.

What the fuck HAPPENS in "Porcupine" about 1/2 way through?

The drugs kick in.

ah ... so THAT'S what the "pork of the porcupine" was really all about then!

> I like Porcupine just fine, but it's probably my least favorite of the five, original 1980s albums.

there's not a lot to dislike about those first 4.

very cheap double cd best of just released
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Killing-Moon-Best-Echo-Bunnymen/dp/B000WTNDQ2

but buy the original lps anyway.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/musicclub/doc_ericsliverpoolclub.shtml

"Steve Lamacq presents a celebration of Eric's, the Liverpool club that helped establish Merseyside as the UK's musical epicentre at the end of the 1970s.

During a brief period of time in the late seventies, the club witnessed the birth of a whole new Liverpool music scene, one that would travel far and beyond the city.

With Echo and the Bunnymen playing their first ever gig at the club as support to the Teardrop Explodes in November 1978, Eric's has earnt its place in rock 'n' roll history as the angsty younger brother to the Cavern."

(this was over the weekend but is listenagainable)

also, this friday on bbc4, 2 liverpudlian Rock Family Trees, the merseybeat years and the early eighties. "Contains some strong language."

recently went to liverpool for the first time in search of eric's and brian's and the like. and found nothing. eric's is now vivian westwood's (was slap bang next to the old (and new) cavern in matthew street. was all knocked down and rebuilt as appartments & shops. only mention i saw of E&tB was at a poster of liverpudlian bands in hmv...)

I'm in NYC now, having flown here to catch the Bunnymen doing the entirety of the Ocean Rain album with a ten-piece "orchestra". They also did an earlier set of stuff from across their career.

Anyway, I want to give thanks to the wonderful European man at the gig who spontaneously and rather passionately hugged me in the middle of "Thorn of Crowns" and said "this song is amazing isn't it?"

Also want to give a shoutout to Deeznuts, for even though I was at my worst drunkenness-wise when I last posted that "Thorn of Crowns" You Tube clip here, he remembered it and said he really liked that song, too.

I'm playing Killing Moon on my iPod now.

The SOUND OF THE GUITAR.

I really think Silver is their finest ever moment. Those strings! that will sergeant guitar! the 'did he
slip in a rude word there?' bit
so much mightier than the cutter, good as that is, but it's really just a good riff and some choppy guitar
but not much melody. even killing moon can't top silver.
never stop is another overlooked single, the best thing on porcupine

"Boney Maroney??"

Go to sleep.

Yes, I shall soon, indeed. But what business is it of yours?

i was just watching this before i posted earlier. mac for home secretary, circa 83

> never stop is another overlooked single, the best thing on porcupine

except it isn't. was only added to the re-releases.

Yeah I was gonna say...Never Stop wasn't on a regular LP of theirs...

To me that's when the Bunnymen started really getting good was when that song came out.

But it's possible I have my timelines a bit skewed. Anyway, I found the Radio City Music Hall NYC performance on You Tube of Thorn of Crowns...it's not quite as energetic or animated as you might imagine (was Mac just extremely pissed?) but if you were there at the venue to shout and jump around like I was, you wouldn't care:

Nice performance! It looks to me like Ian is doing his best Jim Reid impersonation, though.

...Never Stop wasn't on a regular LP of theirs...

forgot that, have just dug out my copy to remind myself. the other side of that single, heads will roll, is
on the album. i always felt never stop should have been. i agree it was their first stunning record, much
as i like the first 2 albums and songs like Over the Wall

"looks to me like Ian is doing his best Jim Reid impersonation"

Jim Reid started out as a McCulloch impersonation.

LOL

Okay, get ready folks, new dbl CD reissue of Ocean Rain due Oct 21st has a gig from 1983 as the second disc.

"Some fine singles but with Interpol's stronger rhytm section they may be rendered totally redundant if the new breed make enough albums."

Oh boy.

Wait, so.. Bimble, did Echo actually play "Never Stop" at the RCMH show? I love that song too & always thought it would sound absolutely fanfuckingtastic played live with string section.

No, they didn't play Never Stop at the gig I attended, but it is on the '83 gig that comes with the new Ocean Rain reissue.

I love Ocean Rain and all that sails in her.
But it has to be said that reciting a list of vegetables bears as much relation to psychedelia
as sticking pencils up your nose and placing yer underpants on yer head bears to madness

I've got the Peel Sessions and presumably, you don't.

Definitely more goth than you lot.

Go fuck a giraffe in the sunlight of the desert, folks. You don't get any more goth than Echo & Bunnymen Peel Sessions.

OVER THE WALL

Oddly enough, I don't. But I soon will.

I can't help it, that Peel Session song "No Hands" is the gothiest thing ever. Beautiful and amen. Listen to the bass. I'll never recover. That is absolutely the most beautifully goth thing I've ever heard. Oh my god, make it stop. That is going to fuck with my head all night.
Too much goth. Too much.

Echo & Bunnymen Peel Sessions, people. This is where the living is. Breathe the fresh air.

Do you know why I'm cooler than you? Because I have them doing New Order/Joy Division's "Ceremony", that's why. Out cooled you all, too late.

I've got McCulloch joining NO for 'Ceremony' at the Festival of the Tenth Summer, 1986. That's got to count for something!

Last time I saw Ian Mac, was at an 808 state gig where he was featured vocalist.

haha that track ("Moses") is probably my favorite thing he's done

last time i saw IM he was singing Pale Blue Eyes with edwyn collins (and A N Other?) as one of a few support acts for the cocteau twins (which also include jim and william reid doing acoustic songs) (brixton academy, er, nov 1990)

Last time I saw him was Electrafixion. D'oh!

he was singing Pale Blue Eyes with edwyn collins (and A N Other?)

Roddy Frame, I believe.

you are right. who else played, do you know? google got me lots of links to that same cocteau's gigography but no details.

I like how you're asking Ned, Deano.... I mean, you were there. I suppose if you remembered maybe you weren't.

Anyone have the "Baseball Bill" 7" that was Electrafixion's last release? It was later included on Echo's "Avalanche" but to my ears the two versions are labeled backwards:
"Baseball Bill (Electrafixion version)" - 4:44
"Baseball Bill (Sgt Fuzz remix)" - 4:35

The first track sounds fuzzy, the second less so. Can anyone check?

Moment from Simon Reynold's "Rip It Up..." book that made me laugh:

Ian McCulloch started to make bitchy comments about U2, describing their anthemic songs as "music for plumbers and bricklayers" while boasting that the Bunnymen were "an oceans and mountains band."

lol @ these guys blaming the IRS for them fucking up their tour

Just been speaking to my brother in law who went to see them last night in Glasgow. Sounds interesting, as Mac was totally hammered, was abusing the road crew, ranting at the audience and walked off before the end. Though my brother in law had left before then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PtwgdcB4tk

Skip to 2'30 for Mac meltdown.

absolutely no idea what he's saying. made out 'shut up' and 'fucking bastard'.

Sadly it wasn't “I will knee-cap yer fuckin’ head off”

http://wandywatson.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/all-at-sea-again-%e2%80%93-echo-and-the-bunnymen-at-the-royal-concert-hall-glasgow-28-september-2011/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearls_Before_Swine

So yesterday friend Stripey and I got to chat for a while with Will Sergeant about his art at his gallery showing in LA. Very cool guy. Artwork's excellent as well, BTW; showing only started on Friday and half the pieces were sold!

Also he has a new solo album out, Things Inside, which is acoustic and not limited to guitar either -- enjoyable and will have to give it a couple more listens here for sure. Les Pattinson also plays bass on four tracks!

i once briefly lived in a car (a friends) and killed their battery listening to 'the cutter' over and over and over for about three or four days.
obsessed with that song.
can do no wrong. (just got lent that julian cope 'double' book about that whole thing... which one should i read first?)

I really like Echo & the Bunnymen, but I've never gotten Sergeant's guitar hero status. It's amazing, in fact, how little the guitar plays a role in much of their best stuff, aside from a few little simple but not terribly inspired licks (compare to Pete, who is one of my favorite, and a wildly creative, drummer). Though I admit, knowing what not to play, or when not to play, is often gift enough.

Meantime, other Will-related stuff. First, a new project, Polter-Geist, with Les Pattinson.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Polter-Geist/412308438805076

Separately and a couple of years old, the Metronome.

http://www.myspace.com/themetronome

Are they any cop? It's been years since anything from a Bunnyman interested me, sadly.

The new Bunnymen album is...another pleasantly forgettable listen.

http://thequietus.com/articles/15246-echo-and-the-bunnymen-meteorites-review

I see they're touring again too. Have not seen 'em live in ages.

That's some excellent music writing in that review, really sums up how I've felt since "Evergreen". Also liked the bit about it being as long since Evergreen as Evergreen was from Crocodiles.

That was one of those moments I had to double check to be sure -- and when I realized I was right, it made everything clearer.

...and the Bunnymen's UK tour has been cancelled. This according to Black Submarine's twitter feed (it's Nick McCabe and Simon Jones' new band - they were opening all dates for the tour)

Eh....tbh their whole comeback hasnt really been up to it.

Wished them all the goodwill esp after De Freitas but they just seem to be THERE now....its hard to imagine Mac the mouth in his pomp being satisfied with this

evergreen = last album i picked up by this band.

saw them in 2005 at glastonbury .. and they were just going through the emotions to say the least.

now thats its 2014, has mac the mouth found somewhere to live ?

last time the promo machine kicked in, he was supposedly living in the studio as he had moved out of the marital home due to a full on midlife crisis kicking in (same era as the live gig meltdown as above) ..

The press release kinda half alluded to stuff like that.

Yeah, here we go:

http://swellpublicity.com/ECHO-THE-BUNNYMEN-ALBUM

Read into it all what you will, especially these bits:

A year ago, Ian McCulloch found himself in a dark place. After leading Echo & The Bunnymen through 35 years of epic highs and turbulent lows, the singer realised it was time to take a break and look inwards. Although the group’s last album, 2009’s ‘The Fountain’, had been enthusiastically received, McCulloch’s songwriting partnership with Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant had virtually ground to a halt. What’s more, years of rock excess and running away from personal problems had left him feeling adrift and unsettled. “I wasn’t happy with a lot of stuff,” admits the singer. “Emotionally I was at a very low ebb.”

Yet from this slough of despond, ‘Meteorites’ unexpectedly began to take shape. Holed up in his Liverpool flat, mired in self-reflection, McCulloch started writing music on a bass guitar that was lying around, a process that instantly proved cathartic and fruitful. “Straight away I felt better for it,” he explains. “I had been thinking of taking five years off on an island, or whatever, but suddenly all these songs came from nowhere. It was really exciting and fresh. This record’s about my personal journey, my rebirth, even if it is a Bunnymen record.”

...Deeply personal and subtly revelatory, it sees McCulloch finally facing up to his demons with an honesty that his previous records, however emotionally raw, have invariably shied away from. The singer was encouraged to confront his feelings by legendary producer Youth, who had worked on McCulloch’s 2012 live solo recording, ‘Holy Ghosts’, and who was drafted in to work on the nascent ‘Meteorites’ at his Attic studio in London.

“Youth said, ‘Your lyrics are brilliant, but you’ve got something to get out’ - about where I was at that time,” explains McCulloch. “So I followed his advice. I wrote from the soul, more so than the heart and the brain. It scares the hell out of me, and surprises me, how much I’ve been able to reveal without putting a veil over it. There were signs all through my life of what was down there inside me - [‘Crocodiles’ album track] ‘Rescue’ touched on it as an 18 or 19 year old. But maybe it was seeing the future more than what was happening at the time.”

Among McCulloch’s startling self-realisations was that his upbringing in Liverpool may have profoundly scarred him in ways he hadn’t comprehended – a subject he addresses on album closer ‘New Horizons’. “I realised the first word of the song was going to be ‘if’– ‘If I got distant, from all the gifts that heaven sent…’ It was me finally seeing what people close to me could see for so many years, like my wife, friends. I remember, Lorraine saying, ‘You think it hasn’t affected you, the way your dad was?’ – he was a compulsive gambler, everyone loved him, but they also thought he was fraught with deep problems. But I was like, ‘No, he wasn’t fucked up, he was my dad.’ Lorraine said, ‘You don’t see how much you are your dad.’ So instead of me going, ‘Fuck yeah, I’m a twat’, I wanted to write about it, and see where it gets me and takes me.”

...Will Sergeant – the only other surviving Bunnyman from the original line-up that came together on the Liverpool post-punk scene in 1978 – was absent from the initial recording sessions of ‘Meteorites’, but a playback of several tracks at Youth’s house in London persuaded him to contribute guitar. Sergeant’s parts were recorded at his home near Liverpool as the deadline to finish the album rapidly approached. The results, reminiscent of his best and most inventive work with the group, underscored the feeling that ‘Meteorites’ wasn’t a McCulloch solo album, but a bona fide and worthy addition to the Bunnymen’s canon.

ahh .. indeed this does read like a post midlife crisis awakening ..

saw them in SF last night for the first time ever and they were incredible. I gather Ian is poorly behaved at times, but we got none of that and his voice was great. Local SF man Kelley Stoltz (who is a massive, massive Echo fan and about 10/12 years ago did a Crocadiles show which is legendary to, well, some people) was invited to be in the band for this tour handling all the rhythm guitar duties so it was extra special for the SF audience, a good portion of whom are friends of his. All in all an incredible night.

also they played nothing newer than "nothing lasts forever". I could have done with some songs from Siberia which I think is a great album, but not really missing anything else

Sounds like they're keeping the correct focus, then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1B6LrOmNsg

i decided this is the year i finally get into Echo & the Bunnymen. they are a band i have always liked and now i am listening to their albums in full for the first time. "Porcupine" is so great. i wish i had that voice, his vibrato is so glorious. this is some great stuff!

The break and build up to Shankar's violin in Heads Will Roll is the best damn thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veRBiHeUTp8

this video rules

porcupine's my favorite, one of the all-time guitar LPs for me and an apex of that post-punk snake charmer vibe that so many bands of the decade visited but seldom like THIS.

when i was 15 and would buy things i saw written on other people's leather jackets, and was also a sucker for weird band names, I bought a cassette of Porcupine with my paper route money at Har Mar Mall and put it in my walkman -- i have the most vivid memory of walking through the arcade there as The Cutter came into my head, what a holy shit moment.

Classic classic classic classic - Echo & the Bunnymen are my all-time favourite band and I love everything they did. I'm always thinking that while I claim Ocean Rain is the greatest album of all time, the real answer might secretly be Porcupine.
The first four albums are the undenyable perfect classics, but IMO all other albums have plenty of amazing stuff on them too.

I have met Ian McCulloch several times and he's always been super nice to me. My greatest experience was when he toured his solo album Slideling and I caught him after the show. I told him how much I loved 'Kansas' from that album and he realized it was one of the few he hadn't played - so he sang the first verse and the chorus to me, on the spot.

Seeing them tomorrow night with the Violent Femmes which is a very weird bill to me but I like both so hey. I can't wait.

Ooh jealous!

I super regret not going to the Ocean Rain at Radio City Music Hall show a decade or so ago

xp - my friend Ava is opening that show! Wish I was on the East Coast to see the whole thing.

Oh, that's cool! Will certainly let you know how it is. My best friend from college (who now lives in LA) is going to be in town and coming with me and earlier today I realized that while I've seen her lots since we were at NYU, this will be the fist show we've seen together in 18 years which is crazy and now I feel very old.

loved the use of jimmy brown in i don't feel at home in the world, what a track

Two different trails on uk TV have used bunnymen tracks in the past month. It's like it's a thing now.

(Second season of French drama on bbc4 used a nouvelle vague version of all my colours, and that thing about the history of a Liverpudlian house is using killing moon)

I agree with Not Jon upthread, Porcupine for the sound, esp. Heads Will Roll, but Ocean Rain for the songs

All I need imo.

What a fine idea!

https://www.thirdmanbooks.com/catalog/bunnyman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t620DfthImk

The first half of Will's book is not good.

Maybe I've read too many of these memoirs recently but I'm always impatient to get past:

What did the parents do?/who was musical in the family?/The Beatles/Bowie on TOTP/Sex Pistols/Ramones first album/older brother into Genesis and Henry Cow/OGWT/inadequate parent's stereo system/wasn't growing up in the suburbs during the 60s-70s shite?/school days (waaaaay much of this in Will's book)/crap clothes/first instrument/first girlfriend/college/university/dole/hash/cheap beer/getting a kicking/street fashion...

All that part eats up the entire first half of the book, the second half, much better. Starting with Eric's, but I didn't realise that this is just Vol.1 and it stops with Pete DeFreitas joining the band, booooo

A bit like Brett Anderson's first book, then.

want to read it just to see how it compares narratively to Julian Cope's Head On

It's much less colourful or interesting, but probably more accurate. Pretty much the same tone as Stephen Morris or Peter Hook's bios.

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

^ La Via Luonge | featuring Echo & the Bunnymen | A film by Bill Butt | Nacho Restoration | 1981

i know the name "La Via Luonge" as a solo cd of will's, on ochre records, which had some connection to the local record shop in cheltenham, so they'd stock all the Glide stuff. but have never seen the above.

https://www.discogs.com/Will-Sergeant-Weird-As-Fish-Le-Via-Luonge/release/900378

love the krautrock roadtrip vibe of that film, haven't seen it for years

i think i like the instrumental music from it more than i like most of their records tbh

Not sure which is considered the best Bunnymen thread but they're sounding incredible tonight (playing old stuff/random YouTube stuff after clicking through on someone else's Tweet earlier).

Will Sergeant is about to do a City Lights THird Man books webinar alongside Bobby Gillespie. Not sure if there is a Facebook feed but there has been before.

I saw Ian McCulloch in concert once, about 20 years ago. I thought it would make me appreciate Echo and the Bunnymen, but it didn't. I do like Seven Seas, though. That song seems very romantic in a Morrissey kind of way—very operatic (probably because it sounds like 'O sole mio).

There are a slew of alternative acts from that 80s that all had these Mixolydian songs that all blend together in my mind: The Cutter, Lips Like Sugar and many others by Echo and the Bunnymen; also Primitive Painters by Felt (who I otherwise like), She Sells Sanctuary by the Cult, Uncertain Smile by The The, and I'm sure there are others I can't think of right now. I was an adolescent when the 90s alternative thing hit, and sometimes a DJ would come on the radio and start playing records from when he was in college, and it would always be one of these records. I have a bad association with them but I don't exactly know why.

Speaking of Seven Seas: is this the origin of the Tortoise track title "The Taut and Tame"? Ian McCulloch says this in the lyric. Or, is this a phrase or reference to something else that I'm just not familiar with?

these Mixolydian songs that all blend together in my mind

That's unusual! Do you have problems with ♭VII chords outside of 80s alternative?

is this the origin of the Tortoise track title "The Taut and the Tame"

That was my assumption.

I thought those City Lights talks turned up on youtube shortly afterwards. Not seeing it appear yet but it is Will Sargeant, Bobby Gillespie and a couple of other talking heads talking together about recently published memoirs.
Goad to hear that Sargeant already has the next section underway since the first book ends before the first lp.
Lasted about an hour and 10 minutes.

Do you have problems with ♭VII chords outside of 80s alternative?

Nope, it's mostly just in that context. It doesn't bother me in Krautrock, or 60s Psychedelia, or Post Rock, or in an Indian Raga. But if I hear "Perfect Skin" by Lloyd Cole it makes me cringe a little.

Buh buh bite the nose off and make it the most of

SWUNG FROM A CHANDALIER

Couldn't cut the muuuuuustarrrrrd

Rolo McGinty remembers Pete de Freitas on the anniversary of his passing.

https://www.facebook.com/rolo.mcginty/posts/pfbid02Lx9ozR8uVgYLX6bAKKzaVvD5vsLTGCwmqqhLrQCr2s8tnpcAknkAfPTuVmay9R7xl

Well well. Per Echo's social media:

We have just posted what I think is maybe the greatest live film of Echo and the Bunnymen over on our YouTube channel.
Filmed live at Zeche Bochum, Germany, March the 5th 1983 during the Porcupine European Tour.
Broadcasted by Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) in the Rockpalast TV programme.

1 Going Up
2 With A Hip
3 Gods Will Be Gods
4 Show Of Strength
5 Zimbo (All My Colours)
6 The Cutter
7 Rescue
8 My White Devil
9 Porcupine
10 Crocodiles
11 All That Jazz
12 The Back Of Love
13 Heads Will Roll
14 Heaven Up Here
15 Over The Wall
16 Do It Clean
17 Villiers Terrace
18 No Dark Things
19 A Promise

And here it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5krHYQ6SxkM

first part of will's biography is 99p on amazon uk this month

ian on sky arts' Great Songwriters this week (last week). very fidgety and rambling but always entertaining.

likes cryptic crosswords, doesn't get Only Connect though.

odd choice of songs though (killing moon, dancing horses, proud to fall, unstoppable force)

Steinbeck et al, they just wrote novels, they don't have to sing them...

I think the second volume of Will's bio comes out very soon.

The way Will describes the current dynamics of the band makes me feel sad, he comes across as quite enervated by the whole business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FoIifB2Ylk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1QFubPHyZc

i had that (glasto 85) as a bootleg, bought during my first week at university from a guy selling them in the students Union building. they do, iirc, it's all over now baby blue, she cracked, paint it black

(oh, track listing right there...)

the Crystal Days box has versions of those, and more, from Swedish radio. don't know if the glasto versions ever saw an official release.

I can't help it, that Peel Session song "No Hands" is the gothiest thing ever. Beautiful and amen. Listen to the bass. I'll never recover. That is absolutely the most beautifully goth thing I've ever heard. Oh my god, make it stop. That is going to fuck with my head all night.
Too much goth. Too much.

― think you're a fookin' bat, eh? (Bimble), Saturday, February 7, 2009 6:25 AM (fifteen years ago)

bimble otm, but it's not too much. i just heard this song for the first time earlier this week, listening to the peel sessions collection from a few years back. when "no hands" came on i immediately tried to figure out which album it was from and how i had missed it before. but it's only on that session, i think, the january 1982 peel session, i think? it rules

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSd36N5rBg8

I had that Glasto / Swedish radio bootleg, too -- so good!

There's only one, pitifully short and tangential Wild Swans thread on ILM, but I thought it worth mentioning here that I'm halfway through Paul Simpson's memoir and it's pretty enjoyable so far.