OMG! It's 9:30 AM And I'm Listening To Front 242!

baaderonixx, that is amazing

now I regret not going to that anniversary show last year - I would have been like "wait a minute, what are you doing up there?!"

the other night i was at this queer industrial/goth party and "Quite Unusual" came on really loud and i started freaking the fuck out. only if they had played "Masterhit I & II" would i have freaked out more.

"Official Version" has been in constant rotation recently, in other words.

There's a second live DVD, came out last year apparently. I had no idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPInPCw4h-o

OMG! It's 1:23 PM and I'm listening to Front Line Assembly!

its 18:40, i have had a couple of glasses of "it's the weekend" treats, and i am listening to my newly re-ripped @ 256 front 242 UP EVIL album.

it is, quite frankly, sounding f*cking brilliant.

it's 19:57 and i am listening to front 242.

i often forget just how brilliant this band were ..

reasons i love ilm part 463

OMG! Guys, sit down... It's 2:48 and I've just discovered that the guy who distributes the internal mail for the last few years is... Richard 23!!!!!!!!

Geography, y'all

They celebrated their 35th birthday last year by releasing loads different versions of these three remasters, including these super deluxe box sets:

http://alfa-matrix-store.com/Front-242/front-242-filtered-pulse-anniversary-box (including live show from 1989)

http://alfa-matrix-store.com/Front-242/front-242-geography-deluxe-box-vinyl-7inch

http://alfa-matrix-store.com/Front-242/front-242-no-comment-politics-of-pressure-boxset (including live show from 1987) (and No Comment sounds fantastic)

Attention DJP...

They're on tour in the US right now! http://www.front242.com/live.html

(without Daniel B who is 66, he's not out of the band, just not touring anymore - the rest are 58-64) and they're even playing a couple of new songs! (first one is Funkhadafi/Generator (new) )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQuXmCdsVW4

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

I caught the Philly show a couple weeks ago and had a lot of fun though the specter of COVID seemed to take the wind out of really enjoying myself.

Just need to stop in from vacation and say that “Pan Dhemihk” from Pulse (2003) is mind-blowing.

What’s a good place to start with these guys if I love the funkiness?

Just listen to their big three albums: Official Version, Front By Front and Tyranny For You, plus the Backcatalogue compilation. That's all you need.

Every once in a while I remember that Front 242 had an album named "06:21:03:11 Up Evil", and I think what an innocent time it still was in 1993.
When "Closer" by NIN started getting major radio play a few months later, they must have realized their album might have done better if they'd just spelled it out.

Utilising a simple alphanumeric conversion from numbers to letters, i.e. 1=A, 2=B, 3=C, ..., 26=Z, the title can be interpreted as:

06 = F
21 = U
03 = C
11 = K
Which gives a full album title of Fuck Up Evil.

i think "No Comment" and "Geography" are the ones with the most funk, "Politics Of Pressure" EP too. For me, by the time it got to "Tyranny For You" they had programmed all the funk out of the music.

I had tickets to see them in March 2020 which has been rescheduled and rescheduled. Now looking like being Feb 2022.

If not for Covid and a vacation I would probably catch this tour.

https://www.front242.com/store/p90/USA_91_DIGIPAK_CD.html Live in the USA 1991, released last year

oh, and there was a live in Europe 2LP too - sold out by now

https://www.front242.com/store/p91/91_DOUBLE_LP_BOX.html

both are great btw

They really know how to put on a show

40th anniversary show in July - they got the whole crew out this time, even Daniel B back on stage, how long ago was that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAt4Czl6bsI

keep watching until the end of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPSwGj45gxM

last time i saw them was on the 'front by front' tour in 1988 - i went to see them at the ancienne belgique in brussels. i thought that could never be beaten but have watched this recent AB gig and it is up there. such a great show! such a great set list! i'm still getting over the fact i had to give away my ticket as i had to work the night they played glasgow a few weeks ago. hopefully they will be back sooner than last time as i don't think i'm going to make waiting another 34 years.

i think it ain't just!

xxpost: that was a live version of Controversy Between where they start fighting at the end. was online for years and the second I link to it it gets set to private. Thanks.

it's a classic. i can never get over how young Jean-Luc De Meyer is there.

this should work -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxvgCc91J_I

this thread led me down the Bandcamp rabbit hole, those remasters sound sweet

thanks! xpost

all four of these are very recommended: (had the first two for a while in box sets but now available digitally too)

https://alfamatrix.bandcamp.com/album/hamburg-87-official-version
https://alfamatrix.bandcamp.com/album/ancienne-belgique-89-front-by-front
https://alfamatrix.bandcamp.com/album/91-live-in-eu
https://alfamatrix.bandcamp.com/album/usa-91-live-in-the-usa

https://alfamatrix.bandcamp.com/album/ancienne-belgique-89-front-by-front

woah! this is the one i was at. so it was '89, not 88! i can still vividly remember losing my shit to lots of this and then to the nth degree when they played "WYHIWYG / U-men".

I listened to 06:21:03:11 UP EVIL, one of their two albums from 1993, this morning. I don't think I'd heard it since it was new. It was pretty good! They were trying a little too hard to write "real songs," and the guitars seemed unnecessary (as they always did when anybody but Ministry used them), but overall pretty solid stuff.

I listened to 06:21:03:11 UP EVIL, one of their two albums from 1993, this morning. I don't think I'd heard it since it was new. It was pretty good! They were trying a little too hard to write "real songs," and the guitars seemed unnecessary (as they always did when anybody but Ministry used them), but overall pretty solid stuff.

agreed. of the 2 albums, these days i listen to OFF a lot more than EVIL.
seemed to remember that OFF was billed as a more ambient album, which i guess is true.

I couldn’t find any posts on ILM about graphic novels about particular scenes or music subcultures, and this one goes across way too many bands, but this post has seen some recent action, so here we go!: my old pen pal Tomas has just published the English edition of the best graphic novel ever written about being a synth-obsessed teen in Sweden in the 80s/ 90s!

Richard 23 even contributed a jacket blurb!

https://synth-kids.com/images/ministry.jpg

More info here: https://synth-kids.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFzT1L0Faos

due to this thread revive, i am currently loving the M✧✧@g✧.M✧✧@ge release.
possibly the first time i have heard this to the end in well over a decade, and yeah, it's not really a F242 release at all, but an excellent mixtape of underworld/orb/prodigy enhanced 90s ambient techno.

other than Pulse (which i seem to recall not being well received by fans at the time), and the never ending live albums,
have the band actually recorded any new material since the era of UP EVIL/OFF + eps/remixes excess ?

guess the use of the 'at' symbol caused trouble.
of course i meant 'mutage.mixage'.

it's 2:41 pm and i'm listening to front 242!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwMdpDsaqW4

i can't believe i started this thread before there was a youtube!

Front 242 have just announced that they'll stop touring after this year. Final dates here...

https://www.instagram.com/p/C3w0JeJNjBZ/?igsh=cWh5MGFpeW14dWd4

rest in peace, brave warriors. your work is done. we salute you.

there should be an old industrial musician home that people can go to.