Curve: C or D?

Curve is still the best.

i heard 'fait accompli' randomly in the gym once

It looks like there was mention of them here six years ago, but I just discovered Dean's band SPC ECO with his daughter on vocals when their new album came out this year. Nice stuff.

Yeah they've turned into a pretty good act, and they were always good from the start.

Hold up, have they really released basically an album and EP a year for the past several years?

So, reissues of the two first albums coming out this summer. Already have all of the bonus material but Doppelgänger could do with a remaster so I'll probably get these.

Wow, great news.

Track details here. Same here, re: owning it all already (aside from the original versions of "Rising" and "Half the Time", on the _Cuckoo_ 2 cd), but not to bad a price to gather those singles w/ the albums. Can't remember if "I Feel Love" was on _The Way of Curve_ - I got it on an NME covers comp. This quote in the comments made me laugh: That said, if they’ve done a decent remaster of Doppelgänger, I might buy it just to hear stuff like Ice That Melts The Tips (“sounds as though three guitars are beating the crap out of a fourth” said Q).

Will have to check the Rare/Unreleased Bandcamp list against my discs and see what I'm missing. Seeing the main page, their output and art aesthetic is impressive.

Can't remember if "I Feel Love" was on _The Way of Curve_ - I got it on an NME covers comp

just checked.
nope its not.
i will probably get both of these as the mastering on the original cds is pretty shrill and tinny.
so, to have them all dusted up and at the same levels will be nice.

I have all the singles so the only tracks I'm missing are I Feel Love and those live and original versions of things. Doppelganger CD is really flat sounding though so might be worth getting if they've done something to fix it.

It's totally on The Way of Curve. Disc 2, track 13.

It's totally on The Way of Curve. Disc 2, track 13.

ahh .. i checked the wrong album !
doh.

https://daily.bandcamp.com/2018/07/25/curve-dean-garcia-spc-eco-interview/

Thank ya for sharing that!

Has anyone listened to the pre-Curve stuff like State of Play from '86, Toni Halliday's solo album from '89, or the Uncles single from '84? Any good?

I've listened to the '89 solo album and I want to like it more than I do but can't get past the dated '80s production

lol I just read this whole thread and I've mentioned that I saw Scylla live 3 times.

Did you know I saw Scylla live in 1995?

The Scylla demos are great. ("Helen's Face" was on the "Showgirls" soundtrack, fwiw.) The link for the demos is dead, but they must be out there somewhere.

Whoops, didn't catch the "pre-Curve" specification.

Curve has been perfect for West coast road trip! I noticed once on another thread how Robert Plant's Now & Zen features (iirc) both Toni and Kirsty MacColl on backing vox.

It's never enough to swallow those pills
Now I'm sick, and always will be.

Bonus points : Today I found Public Fruit and Come Clean in a local charity shop.

Pubic Fruit rules. Come Clean hurts my ears sometimes, but I've come around to it!

just had one of my tweeters fixed due to excess a few weeks ago.
so, probably not the best time to rediscover how much i love curve.

I was just blasting "Frozen" last week

DJP : if you haven't checked them out, then the freebie SPC ECO remixes/art of pop remixes compilations are way better than i ever expected them to be.

so, today i picked up some eurythmics cds from a local charity shop.
i never expected to see deans name in the credits.

Curve were on Dave Stewart's label!

more connections here: famous bands (or significant portions thereof) who backed up a solo artist or were absorbed into an existing band for a single album: the thread

ooh yeah, of course ..
duhh ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae5FYlDB_QI

Weird, band looks to be playing live, but the music is the recorded versions, afaict.

No audience actually - and camera moving through where an audience would be. The vocal is live, anyway.

Is it? Missing Link for sure pre recorded vocals, at least backing vocals.

guys it's a TV performance

I know! But the band seems to be doing an unusually good job miming.

I discovered Doppelganger back in the mid-2000s and thought it was pretty good, although there wasn't much variety. I'd never heard of the band until that point but I was familiar with Garbage, and the similarities were striking - they sounded exactly the same, down to the vocal style and drum sound. The production sounded massive, that's what appealed to me. The drums, they have a huge booming sound that's badly out of date nowadays but I'm genetically programmed to respond to that sound.

Also, there's a bit in "Already Yours" near the end where most of the mix falls away and there's a rhythm guitar solo a la Carlos Alomar's solo in "Don't Look Back in Anger". It's not as good but I like it. The song has a massive wall of production that reminds me of "Leave Them All Behind" by Ride, where the guitars almost turn into a wash of static. Listening to it again on Youtube I'm amazed they weren't put on the soundtrack of a generic mid-1990s PlayStation racing game. I assume Gran Turismo was out of bounds because it actually had Garbage.

I've always wondered why they so totally failed to make any commercial impression, to the extent that I'd never heard of them; I can't name any of the band, so perhaps they didn't have Shirley Manson's charisma, and from what I know they were on a small indie label at a time when indie bands weren't supposed to sound like massive stadium rock acts. I can't think of another instance of a rock band anticipating the sound of another rock band so perfectly, down to the production and vocal style (I've always liked to assume that Garbage were unaware of Curve).

Also, dismembered dolls or multiple babies on an album cover = commercial disaster, viz The Human League's Reproduction. A single baby is okay, viz Nevermind and Van Halen's 1984. Multiple babies no. When Chumbawamba put a single baby on the cover of one of their albums they had a massive success AND YES I KNOW that Anarchy also has a baby on it but the cover was widely censored so no-one got to see it. Why was Moby's Animal Rights a commercial failure? Because the baby was obscured by towel.

Never go full baby.

(I've always liked to assume that Garbage were unaware of Curve).

lol

HA!

I can't name any of the band, so perhaps they didn't have Shirley Manson's charisma

Let me assure you that Toni and Debbie both had charisma to burn onstage, for a start.

Garbage had the advantage of having big time record biz connections from day one.

well to be fair Curve were hardly total strangers to the recording industry

Was gonna say

Heh, yeah, Curve's industry ties are massive.

I do think Garbage's debt to Curve is a little overblown. The former never really aligned with anything shoegaze or dark or goth or mysterious. Garbage could never pull off starting their set in a haze of thick smoke, for example.

Also, wouldn't call Toni particularly charismatic, though Debbie sure was. But Shirley is one of the most compelling, charismatic front people I have ever seen live.

(That said, I think Curve is massive and Garbage was pretty slight.)

Speaking of Debbie, I met her last month! (post gig party for The Raincoats' 40th anniversary show in London) Within ten seconds she correctly ID'ed me "I bet you're a guitar player" and we chatted about effects pedals and amps for twenty minutes. I still miss Curve.

otm

Another one from that playback tv appearance just popped up -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKwbx6GLq6o

still can't decide whether there is anything being played live on these videos and if not why the band seem so engaged

It's all playback

Like the last one, this one seems all pre-recorded, the album version. Though yeah, the band is fake playing its heart out.