Post by noren sobczyk on Feb 25, 2006 11:01:01 GMT -6
I make no apology, nor have I ever, for my love of Duran Duran's music. Now the Wild Boys video is another snicker inducing story entirely. Maybe enough time has passed for straight men to openly admit to liking the music? Come on -- You know John Taylor is a solid bass player. It's okay to nod your head in agreement - no one is looking. Sure Nick Rhodes sometimes teeters one small step from being an overly pretentious drag queen, but he wrote some perfect songs and tenaciously followed through with his original vision. New Romantic - New Wave - Pop - Classic Rock? Who cares; but the band's founding members compiled a cd where they wear their influences on their sometimes frilly sleeves.
Here is the cherry ice cream scoop:
Birmingham Club Music of the late 70s /80s compiled by members of Duran Duran. The idea for this cd was born of fans' interest in what the early Birmingham club scene from which Duran Duran emerged might have been like. Nick Rhodes DJd at the Rum Runner club owned by the Berrows Brothers who would manage Duran Duran in the early 80s. Duran Duran were the resident house band.
Nick Rhodes & John Taylor Present: Only After Dark (EMI Catalogue)
May1 (UK only)
'Only After Dark' is the first compilation to recreate one of the UK's most dynamic and exciting moments in music. The late '70s and dawning '80s period has often been misunderstood and overshadowed by the punk rock era, yet for many it was the point where the most innovative ideas of the 1970s collided to create a new set of possibilities - a fusion of punk, glam, art-rock, disco, synthesizers and DIY experimentalism.
Birmingham teenagers Nick Rhodes and John Taylor were inspired by these ideas as they formed their own band Duran Duran. Their HQ in 1979 was the Rum Runner club in the town centre, a meeting place on Tuesday night for all the local misfits, art students and music fans. Rhodes DJ'd on those evenings, mixing together old glam idols - Bowie, Roxy Music, Mick Ronson - with the Sex Pistols, Kraftwerk and strange post-punk bands such as Magazine and Wire. This was the time when electronic music got into the hands of thin young men from London's squats around Kings Cross, the suburbs and Northern England, namely Ultravox, Tubeway Army and The Human League.
"By putting together this album our intention is to introduce songs by artists who influenced us," explains Rhodes. "As we were developing our own sound, this was the backdrop. John Foxx's Ultravox in particular were important as they were the first to fuse punk with synthesizers and there was a new kind of groove creeping in there too. Bands were moving ever closer to the dance floor."
There have been photographic books about the New Romantics; compilations celebrating early '80s synthesizer pop, and intense, politicised readings of the monochromatic, sloganeering post-punk scene, but as to date none have expressed the real atmosphere of 1978 - 1980. As Rhodes explains, "Everything was at a crossroads. Everything was in flux."
The result was a new wave of artists who reinvented themselves through fashion, graphics, photography, and identity as well as through their music - New ideals that were misinterpreted at the time as a distraction from the songs. The cover art and booklet of 'Only After Dark' uses images from a fascinating new book, 'Duran Duran Unseen …Paul Edmond - Photographs 1979-82'. Edmond documented the Birmingham scene and its more experimental characters: the designers Kahn & Bell, Martin Degville, Fashion and even Boy George a frequent visitor to the city.
As for the music, 'Only After Dark' brings together some of the most inspiring songs and artists of the period. Magazine's 'Shot By Both Sides', Yellow Magic Orchestra's pristine oriental techno, the Psychedelic Furs' first single, Giorgio Moroder's opus with Donna Summer 'I Feel Love', Simple Minds's 'Changeling', and the title track 'Only After Dark' by Mick Ronson. It re-creates a night at the Rum Runner when Bowie, Iggy and Ferry were still leaders in the field, and British synthesizer pop went from the underground to Number 1 with 'Are 'Friends' Electric?'. Punks were tearing up their own rulebook and trying new things, as John Taylor explains: "The gender identity thing was going on around the music: boys looking like girls; girls looking like boys. Everything was in a state of transition. Punk was a drug that everybody had taken and we were all wide awake - eyes dilated and pores open. You're as high as a kite because your senses are alive and you're turned on - it's that moment of possibility which we've tried to bring to life again on this album."
Tracklisting:
Human League – Being Boiled (Fast version)
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Computer Games
David Bowie – Always Crashing In The Same Car
Psychedelic Furs – Sister Europe
Simple Minds – Changeling
Mick Ronson – Only After Dark
John Foxx – Underpass
The Normal – Warm Leatherette
Bryan Ferry – In Crowd
Brian Eno – The True Wheel
Tubeway Army – Are Friends Electric?
Kraftwerk – The Robots (single edit)
Donna Summer – I Feel Love
Wire – I Am The Fly
Magazine – Shot By Both Sides
Grace Jones - Private Life
Iggy Pop – The Passenger
Ultravox – Slow Motion
Here is the cherry ice cream scoop:
Birmingham Club Music of the late 70s /80s compiled by members of Duran Duran. The idea for this cd was born of fans' interest in what the early Birmingham club scene from which Duran Duran emerged might have been like. Nick Rhodes DJd at the Rum Runner club owned by the Berrows Brothers who would manage Duran Duran in the early 80s. Duran Duran were the resident house band.
Nick Rhodes & John Taylor Present: Only After Dark (EMI Catalogue)
May1 (UK only)
'Only After Dark' is the first compilation to recreate one of the UK's most dynamic and exciting moments in music. The late '70s and dawning '80s period has often been misunderstood and overshadowed by the punk rock era, yet for many it was the point where the most innovative ideas of the 1970s collided to create a new set of possibilities - a fusion of punk, glam, art-rock, disco, synthesizers and DIY experimentalism.
Birmingham teenagers Nick Rhodes and John Taylor were inspired by these ideas as they formed their own band Duran Duran. Their HQ in 1979 was the Rum Runner club in the town centre, a meeting place on Tuesday night for all the local misfits, art students and music fans. Rhodes DJ'd on those evenings, mixing together old glam idols - Bowie, Roxy Music, Mick Ronson - with the Sex Pistols, Kraftwerk and strange post-punk bands such as Magazine and Wire. This was the time when electronic music got into the hands of thin young men from London's squats around Kings Cross, the suburbs and Northern England, namely Ultravox, Tubeway Army and The Human League.
"By putting together this album our intention is to introduce songs by artists who influenced us," explains Rhodes. "As we were developing our own sound, this was the backdrop. John Foxx's Ultravox in particular were important as they were the first to fuse punk with synthesizers and there was a new kind of groove creeping in there too. Bands were moving ever closer to the dance floor."
There have been photographic books about the New Romantics; compilations celebrating early '80s synthesizer pop, and intense, politicised readings of the monochromatic, sloganeering post-punk scene, but as to date none have expressed the real atmosphere of 1978 - 1980. As Rhodes explains, "Everything was at a crossroads. Everything was in flux."
The result was a new wave of artists who reinvented themselves through fashion, graphics, photography, and identity as well as through their music - New ideals that were misinterpreted at the time as a distraction from the songs. The cover art and booklet of 'Only After Dark' uses images from a fascinating new book, 'Duran Duran Unseen …Paul Edmond - Photographs 1979-82'. Edmond documented the Birmingham scene and its more experimental characters: the designers Kahn & Bell, Martin Degville, Fashion and even Boy George a frequent visitor to the city.
As for the music, 'Only After Dark' brings together some of the most inspiring songs and artists of the period. Magazine's 'Shot By Both Sides', Yellow Magic Orchestra's pristine oriental techno, the Psychedelic Furs' first single, Giorgio Moroder's opus with Donna Summer 'I Feel Love', Simple Minds's 'Changeling', and the title track 'Only After Dark' by Mick Ronson. It re-creates a night at the Rum Runner when Bowie, Iggy and Ferry were still leaders in the field, and British synthesizer pop went from the underground to Number 1 with 'Are 'Friends' Electric?'. Punks were tearing up their own rulebook and trying new things, as John Taylor explains: "The gender identity thing was going on around the music: boys looking like girls; girls looking like boys. Everything was in a state of transition. Punk was a drug that everybody had taken and we were all wide awake - eyes dilated and pores open. You're as high as a kite because your senses are alive and you're turned on - it's that moment of possibility which we've tried to bring to life again on this album."
Tracklisting:
Human League – Being Boiled (Fast version)
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Computer Games
David Bowie – Always Crashing In The Same Car
Psychedelic Furs – Sister Europe
Simple Minds – Changeling
Mick Ronson – Only After Dark
John Foxx – Underpass
The Normal – Warm Leatherette
Bryan Ferry – In Crowd
Brian Eno – The True Wheel
Tubeway Army – Are Friends Electric?
Kraftwerk – The Robots (single edit)
Donna Summer – I Feel Love
Wire – I Am The Fly
Magazine – Shot By Both Sides
Grace Jones - Private Life
Iggy Pop – The Passenger
Ultravox – Slow Motion