So why don't LOVE & ROCKETS have their own thread?

I met the man who made those videos a few weeks ago (Funnily enough, he's a friend of Joe's, and does all of the Disinformation videos) and of course the first thing I asked him was "WHAT THE F@CK WERE THE BUBBLEMEN ABOUT?!?!? It was *them* in the suits, wasn't it? Wasn't it?" but he just laughed and evaded the question with a mysterious twinkle in his eye.

Beggars Banquet release a Love and Rockets Best Of compilation.

During the first week of June Beggars Banquet release SORTED! The BEST of LOVE AND ROCKETS on both CD and DVD.

Back in the mid-Eighties, when the USA alternative scene was just that, Love And Rockets were on of the leading lights. They were a band that followed their own trajectory, from the legendary Bauhaus through Tones On Tail and solo work to the dance club success of their 1985 debut single, Ball Of Confusion. They released the darkly psychedelic “Seventh Dream Of Teenage heaven” album followed by “Express”, the album that bassist David J summed up in 3 letters - L.S.D.

As in the Sixties, the acid fallout led to a softer, more acoustic feel for their “Earth.Sun.Moon” album which again topped the alternative charts. The wider commercial breakthrough came with their eponymous fourth album and the hit single “So Alive”.

In the USA these first four albums are available in remastered, expanded versions which feature bonus tracks (and, in the case of Love And Rockets, a bonus CD of the previously unreleased “Swing” sessions.)

Following a five year hiatus the group returned with a near ambient album, “Hot Trip to Heaven”, mostly replacing the expected chain saw guitar sound with loops, textures and beats.

The 1996 album “Sweet F.A.” was a return to a more song based structure under the guidance of Rick Rubin and, after switching to a new label, Red Ant, they released their final album, “Lift” in 1998.

Following a successful USA tour at end of 1999, the band felt the itch for new challenges so split up for the second time to pursue solo careers.

SORTED! The BEST of LOVE AND ROCKETS - CD:

- 15 track compilation selected by Love And Rockets from across their entire career
- Some rare 7” single versions previously unavailable on album
- remastered from original tapes
- new sleeve notes by Love And Rockets

1. Kundalini Express
2. The Dog End Of a Day Gone By
3. Mirror People ‘88 - 7” version
4. Ball Of Confusion - 7” version
5. Yin And Yang - alternate 7” version
6. Holiday On The Moon
7. So Alive
8. Holy Fool
9. No New Tale To Tell
10. No Big Deal - 7” version
11. Haunted When The Minutes Drag
12. It Could Be Sunshine
13. Shelf Life
14. Sweet Lover Hangover
15. Saudade

Still, Youth is a beautiful song, and the first side of Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven holds up quite well.

However that CD thing looks like it's got some excellent stuff on it.

L&R are one of those bands that I'm periodically slightly ashamed of having been so into. And then I'll hear one of their tracks, and be astonished that it is so good, and then wonder why their reputation is still slightly tarnished.

The second side of 7th Dream is still one of the best passages of music ever put to disk. And <> - wow. Just the sheer amazing haze of psychedelic guitar noise. I really wasn't that into the guitar at the time, because I loved the rhtyhm section so much (and that really was their power all along - even from Bauhaus days - an astonishingly tight and powerful rhtym section. Deceptively simple, yet devastatingly comples.) But listening to it now, even on the most gentle acoustic of songs, there's this background texture of ebow and feedback and just ... gorgeous haze ... that lends a slightly sinister tension that turns mere prettiness into outright beauty.

http://www.angelfire.com/on/darknymph/images/lnr1.jpg

vs

http://www.comicbookradioshow.com/trapped/love-n-rockets.gif

Hot Trip to Heaven, Sweet F.A. and Lift?

The tarnish was way before then - really, the treatment between US and UK press was so different. It's kind of like their arty affectations were treated in the US as "Oh, they're British and arty and cool!" while in the UK their arty affectations were treated as "Oh, they're middle class and pretentious and wankers."

this was my take, and i ignored them. maybe i was wrong?
the only bauhaus track i like is crowds, and thats a wonderous thing....but its just piano and pete.

plus if you play them to unborn babies you might make an orphan ;-)

Watching the videos, it was very funny in that it was patently obvious how much Daniel Ash was trying to be A ROCK STAR while David J clearly thought he was AN ARTIST. But the complete disparity between them, and how they brought the two totally dichotamous approaches together and resolved them was part of the interesting tension of the band.

And they weren't bees. They were BUBBLEMEN. Ha-hem.

Their videos were genius. I think this was a big part of the appeal, personally.

Ah, well I suppose Daniel Ash can be forgiven for his appearance. SUCH an inventive musician...his talent really comes to light on the Tones on Tail stuff.

i always enjoyed l & R,never had shame about them. yet another band i listened to that got the "ew-they are goth" label from my friends.
wonderful songs, amazing
"a slightly sinister tension that turns mere prettiness into outright beauty" sums it up best.

i guess nobody cares about seeing d ash solo shows(myself included) he had to cancel the last time he was in town. then he turned up at the club i went to instead~

That was a very funny conversation when it came up. Joe told me "Oh, my filmgeek friend Barry is coming round this weekend, you'll like him, we'll go to Forbidden Planet and stuff..." and we were chatting, I asked him where he was from and he said Northampton - I was impressed, he asked why, I said "Most of my fave bands are from that area" - I was gobsmacked that he knew/had worked with all these people like L&R, Jazz Butcher, Spacemen 3 - he was gobsmacked that I actually had seen any of his videos! < /namedrop >

I didn't actually hear that Daniel Ash was doing solo shows. Though I'd be more likely to go to David J solo shows.

Taking sides: David songs vs. Daniel songs? FITE!

Daniel started up doing solo shows again last year and the one I caught was really good, actually. I do want to finally see David J live, though. The show I really regret missing is him headlining at the Whiskey back in 1992. Opening act -- PJ Harvey. ;-)

I should probably give that S/T album another listen. At the time, I hated half of it and loved the other half. It's amazing how little I knew in terms of actual *news* about the band at the time - gah, the world before the invention of the internet, how did we cope?

What fuckin' "tacky affectations"?

"bubblemen," eh? they can call themselves whatever they like, but they still look an awful lot like bees if you ask me :-)

http://members.tripod.com/heylownine/images/bman1.gif

Not true. By the Sweet F.A. era, he'd abandoned the spikes in favor of just slicked long hair and pointy sideburns. I always thought his hair looked fuckin' great, I mean....it just made'im look like more of an alien, it was perfect. His sharp angular features matched with a maroon halo of spikes? What's not to like?

Maybe they were "middle class wankers" etc., but they had their own damn sound and style,....you can't take that from them.

Bless Love & Rockets.

Actually I couple months back I pulled out the self-titled record for a reason I can't remember, and I really wanted to like it, but yeah while it was enjoyable it didn't really move me. Not like it did back when it was released, anyway. But, like James I have some pretty poignant teenage memories linked to that record... so I suppose I'll always have a place for their records.

I always thought Earth, Sun, Moon was their best record. At least the one most overtly hearkening the psychedelic era - even though it may have seemed like a "move" at the time, that's probably why I liked it the most and I'll bet it remains so. I'll play that one next...

::sputters::

You are so wrong that I am surprised you can figure out which shoe to put on which foot in the morning!

The rhythm section is probably one of the greatest reasons that I love L&R/Bauhaus!

*bows* It is one of those periods in my life where I can pretty much pin down everything in the air as opposed to floating randomly through it all.

"Kundalini Express" rocks so fuckin' hard I can hardly stand it.

Anyway, blah blah blah blah...LOVE AND ROCKETS WERE GODLIKE. For a little while, at least.

BECAME an obstreporous...blah blah blah.

"So I'd need a million dollars
To sit on mountaintops
To see the stars surround you
Is to see an awful lot..."

While i think the self titled album is grossly underrated, the second disc is far more interesting, if not for the completely absurd KCRW interview that takes up the last half of it. Deidre O'Donahue, the radio show host, is just being "OMG you guys are ROFLing me.. you're derailing my radio show lol" and the band are obviously either a) REALLY tired, b) on acid, or c) both a and b. In any case, Daniel and David are being extremely funny and uncooperative, and they request all sorts of weird stuff to play, and Daniel randomly blurts out sax noises occasionally.

"STEADY....EASY...!!!"

They're back! (Playing Sunday at Coachella.)

The way out of date official page might have to update now:

http://www.loveandrockets.org/

One of the few I'd go to see at Coachella -- if I were going.

Well, now that Bauhaus is well and truly out of the way, I guess we should've seen it coming.

burning from the inside, 7th dream, and thr british version of pop are three of the greatest albums i have ever owned. and NOT just cuz they remind me of all the acid i used to do when i was 16/17. though they were great for that. i never stopped playing them.

-- scott seward (scott seward), Friday, June 24, 2005 11:38 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

I'M STILL ON THE MONEY!

They were certainly more enjoyable than Bauhaus. Especially when they were really propulsive ("Kundalini", "I Feel Speed", etc.)
-- Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Friday, June 24, 2005 11:04 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

Uh, "I Feel Speed" is actually one of their most *ambient* tracks. ;-)
-- Ned Raggett (Ned)

I really should learn to read, shouldn't I? Or at least attempt to ascertain titles...Anyway, the two transportation-odes that surround it are plenty propulsive.

As heavy as Bauhaus could be it's pretty amazing how seriously rocking L&R could bend things and how delicate and, well, pretty they could sound. And then, to take all the bombast (a good thing) and squish it into the confines of the relative minimalism of Earth, Sun, Moon. That they were also responsible for the simple effervescence of Tones on Tail and the kitsch-hop of The Bubblemen is all the more sauce for the goose. Brilliant -- Express is nearly a soundtrack for a generation in its seminal standing and regard. When I think about how just a few years later how Nirvana would create their landmark record, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for the impressionable fans of the latter and how self-loathing a pool they would have to set in. Yeah, yeah, I hear you all groan – but really, who the hell cares what the goddamn lyrics say; L&R friggin’ rock!

They rocked. Anyone who disagrees should be pulled apart by jackals and made to listen to ceaseless airrings of solo acoustic demos by Natalie Merchant.

Bahaha. I slay me.

Listened to some vintage L&R today. "Kundalini Express" still has the power to make me very happy during even the grimmest moments.

Awesome revive. I actually just pulled out the Seventh Dream reissue a couple days ago, listening to it again now and goddamn if this isn't one of the most perfect albums I've heard in my life.

"Haunted When the Minutes Drag" is my jam.

Yes!!! Haunted is my jam, too! Definitely my fave song of theirs. I still have Seventh Dream on vinyl and do pull it out every once in awhile.

That's what I'm talkin'bout.

i've listened to that album a thousand times and i could never get sick of it. just so perfect.

I think they were pretty grand up through Hot Trip to Heaven, which was still pretty damn good... and I won't even comment on the last two albums, I haven't heard them yet.

Oh hey tribute album:

---

1. All In My Mind - Black Francis
2. Holiday On The Moon - Puscifer (MJ Keenan) (Tool & A Perfect Circle)
3. Love Me - War Tapes
4. No New Tale To Tell - Blaqk Audio (Davey & Jade of AFI)
5. I Feel Speed - Dubfire
6. Inside The Outside - The Dandy Warhols
7. Life In Laralay - Sweethead
8. An American Dream - Film School
9. The Light - A Place To Bury Strangers
10. Mirror People - Monster Magnet vs Adrian Young (No Doubt)
11. Fever - The Stone Foxes
12. No Big Deal - Frankenstein 3000
13. It Could Be Sunshine - VEX
14. So Alive - Better Than Ezra
15. Haunted When The Minutes Drag - James Hall
16. Lazy - Chantal Claret (Morningwood) vs Adrian Young (No Doubt)
17. Sweet F.A. - Lossy Coils with Ian Moore
18. No Words No More - Snowden
19. Sweet Lover Hangover - Charlie & The Valentine Killers
20. Yin And Yang & The Flowerpot Man - Halloween Jack (Stephen Perkins & Gilby Clarke)
21. Seventh Dream Of Teenage Heaven - The Manichean
22. Bound For Hell - Johnny Dowd & Billy Cote
23. Saudade - Halls Of The Machine
24. Kundalini Express - The Flaming Lips
25. Mirror People - The Invisible Humans
26. No New Tale To Tell - Astra Heights

http://www.loveandrocketstribute.com
http://www.myspace.com/loveandrocketstribute

The AFI spinoff thing covering "No New Tale to Tell" is better than I expected, though.

(And Shepard Fairey cover art = nice.)

Actually the more I'm listening to the randomized stream the more I'm surprised, so far this has been pretty good to great! No real major reworkings per se but at the least enjoyable takes on the originals. Then again I haven't hit the Better Than Ezra track yet...

David, why?

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=151971474841352

Oh hi Love and Rockets box set out of nowhere

http://archive.beggars.com/releases/206/love-and-rockets-5-albums

Annnnd I took a little time here to talk about Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven.

http://thequietus.com/articles/18758-love-and-rockets-seventh-dream-of-teenage-heaven-review

Very nice piece Ned - enjoyed it!

Listening to it for the first time in over 25 years because of that well-written piece, Ned. Thanks for reminding me of it! It's a better album than I remember it being.

The drum sounds are still abysmal, though.

He came much more into his own with Express, I think you can pretty audibly tell the band was starting to think of themselves as a band rather than a tentative project. J posted the other day that his own favorite L&R album remains Earth * Sun * Moon, which is definitely the most straight up 'musicians in a room' effort. Anyway, thanks all!

this is great Ned! i have just listened to most of their debut album because i'm getting ready to poll Love and Rockets and Bauhaus here real soon. i think i will need the votes so i should email everyone on this thread. i will wait to talk about recent stuff when it is open.

Reminder: Bauhaus/Love and Rockets-Tones on Tail poll is going to open up very, very soon (this month or Oct 2015). wish i could get Ned to vote.

I'll submit one ballot for myself, then one for Ned by proxy.

The new tour is on.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CpxfR2EOR4A/

Still pondering it.

Recorded: classic. A step beyond Bauhaus.

Live: dud. Dreadfully dull. That said, I'll definitely go see them again.