Curve: C or D?

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 The drums, they have a huge booming sound that's badly out of date nowadays but I'm genetically programmed to respond to that sound.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.

It's just kinda cool to watch them swaying about, they were always a pretty good looking band.

I dunno if any of you have ever watched this dude, but he's a totally square yet knowledgable and enthusiastic old nerd who breaks down music theory and whatnot. Anyway, out of nowhere, he included Curve is his list of the top 20 rock bass sounds of all time. #18, around the 30 minute mark!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0P5isBr7uw

Nice, I like Rick's videos, his son Dylan has perfect pitch, the clips of him calling out the names and notes of gnarly cluster piano chords are amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VZcW7JCpCU

New Toni H. EP is totally unexpected and totally awesome

Well I trust you're going to link this!

Streamable on your favorite platform and downloads here:
https://www.junodownload.com/artists/Toni+Halliday/tracks/

that's a timely revive.. i've been going through my old CDs and ripping ones that are missing from my digital collection and just hit the "C"s – was literally just wondering how Curve was going to hold up

They hold up really really well! Also, mysteriously absent from Amazon's streaming service.

But thankfully fully on Bandcamp, including a slew of rarity comps.

https://curve.bandcamp.com/music

Wow, what's all that "bootleg series" stuff?

A lot of it is mixes and various elements of final tracks -- Garcia breaks each entry down thoroughly in the liners.

happy 30th to cuckoo

Claaaaaaaasssssssssic (imagine this word said with tons of fuzz and overdrive and reverb and flanger and the like)

I wish I knew what the mad vocal sample at the start of Clipped is all about, I've been wondering that for 30+ years.

That Cuckoo tour was a hell of a thing to experience.

xp the absolute zenith of Curve for me (shout out to “Turkey Crossing”) - I remember Cherry coming out and thinking, well, this hits every mark dead-on.

also Cuckoo is their best album by an order of magnitude

To each his own. Never much cared for Cuckoo despite some good moments. But then again all their albums were flawed. Pubic Fruit all the way

well yeah the EPs were the real high point.

Curve is one of those bands where I kinda liked them, picked up Cuckoo at a record store on a whim, it became one of my favorite albums of all time, and I never really bothered finding any of their other music. Now, my curiosity is piqued and I'm finally listening to the E.P.s that comprised Pubic Fruit after all these years. Might be doing some Bandcamping today.