slicing up eyeballs // 80s alternative music, college rock, indie

Morrissey’s concert at Hollywood High School to be screened in IMAX 3D in the U.S.?

Slicing Up Eyeballs — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:28:31 +0000

[tweetmeme]Morrissey’s intimate concert at Hollywood High School last March — arguably the highlight of Moz’s illness-plagued and cancellation-prone U.S. tour — is not only due for a DVD release this year, it appears the film also may be shown in movie theaters in the U.S. — in giant-screened IMAX 3D no less, according to the singer’s nephew.

As the …hang the dj blog points out, Sam Esty Rayner — a professional photographer who is both Morrissey’s nephew and Roseanne Cash’s son-in-law — last night re-posted his gallery of photos from the March 2 concert on Facebook and wrote the following message:

“So the film of the Morrissey show at The Hollywood High School will be shown at 47 cinema across the United States of America, you lucky bastards. Available in IMAX 3D.”

Nothing has been officially announced about the release of the Hollywood High concert, but there was mention of it in the Spring 2013 catalog from Eagle Vision, the TV arm of Eagle Rock Entertainment, which releases concerts and other music DVDs and, in recent years, has screened its titles from the Rolling Stones, Peter Gabriel, Ozzy Osbourne and more in U.S. theaters via Fathom Events.

Morrissey currently is scheduled to tour South America in July and early August.

Below, check out footage of the Hollywood High concert shot by Rayner:

Morrissey at Hollywood High: Intro

Morrissey at Hollywood High: Encore

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‘Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD’ to explore history, legacy of iconic indie label

Slicing Up Eyeballs — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:56:20 +0000

[tweetmeme]Ivo Watts-Russell’s legendary independent record label 4AD — home in the ’80s and ’90s to the Pixies, Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, Throwing Muses and so many more — will be the subject an exhaustive history this fall with the publication of journalist Martin Aston’s new 800-page book “Facing the Other Way: The Story of 4AD.”

Due out Sept. 26, the book promises to tell the story of the label’s first 20 years, from its inception in 1980 through the late ’90s, via interviews with more than 100 artists and label staff, including Watts-Russell and what is being billed as the first-ever interview with label co-founder Peter Kent, who left the music industry in 1982 “and willingly disappeared into obscurity.”

In an e-mail to Slicing Up Eyeballs, Aston writes of the project:

“I’m hoping it’s going to be the definitive story of 4AD. It’s a story that you’d think would have already been told, but I guess no one has approached Ivo before… and I’ve known him since the mid-’80s, which helps. I’ve written about 4AD many times, including the sleevenotes to the Lilliput compilation in 1992, so I haven’t come to it as on outsider. Not that it’s an officially commissioned book by the label: it was my idea, and they all got on board, thankfully.”

The hardback book, published by HarperCollins imprint The Friday Project, includes cover artwork designed by 4AD’s renowned in-house designer Vaughan Oliver plus 15 pages of photographs and record sleeves.

There also will be a limited-edition run of 1,000 that will have different artwork by Oliver and will be packaged with two CDs of 4AD music compiled by Aston, one covering the ’80s and the other the ’90s (with a couple of unreleased tracks on the ’90s disc, Aston notes). All told, there will be 42 tracks across the two discs — but the song selection will remain a surprise for the buyers of the limited-edition version.

“Facing the Other Way” is now available for pre-order through Amazon.com. The limited-edition version can be pre-ordered through Amazon.co.uk for £100, or about $156.

Stream: The Dead Milkmen, ‘Welcome to Undertown’ 7-inch single — 3 new songs

Slicing Up Eyeballs — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 12:00:41 +0000

[tweetmeme]The Dead Milkmen return this week with the fourth in their new series of limited-edition 7-inch singles — this one’s called “Welcome to Undertown” — and you can now stream both songs off the vinyl single (the title track and “Streetlamps”) as well as the digital-only bonus track, “The Sun Turns Our Patio Into a Lifeless Hell.”

Due out Friday, the vinyl single is limited to a pressing of 500 copies, and will be available directly from the Milkmen. In October, the Milkmen released the first single in the new series, “Dark Clouds Gather Over Middlemarch,” and followed that up with “Big Words Make the Baby Jesus Cry” in December and ‘The Great Boston Molasses Flood’ this past March.

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Playlist: Slicing Up Eyeballs Music Hour on Strangeways Radio; Episode 124, aired 6/18/13

Slicing Up Eyeballs — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 04:29:26 +0000

[tweetmeme]Exploring the legacy of ’80s college rock, the Slicing Up Eyeballs Music Hour airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. Pacific on Strangeways Radio. If you caught tonight’s episode, pop over to the Strangeways message board to leave comments or requests for future shows.

And if you missed tonight’s episode, it’ll rebroadcast at 2 p.m. Eastern/11 a.m. Pacific on Friday at strangewaysradio.com.

Best of 1983 Edition, featuring songs off albums on Slicing Up Eyeballs’ Top 100 Albums of 1983.

Ramones, “Pscyho Therapy”
Bauhaus, “She’s In Parties”
Pylon, “Crazy”
The Church, “One Day”

R.E.M., “Sitting Still”
Violent Femmes, “Confessions”
Echo & The Bunnymen, “The Back of Love”
Talking Heads, “Girlfriend is Better”

New Order, “Age of Consent”
The The, “This Is the Day”
Depeche Mode, “Love In Itself”
Ministry, “I Wanted To Tell Her”
Oingo Boingo, “Nothing Bad Ever Happens To Me”

The Chameleons, “Up the Down Escalator”

Video: ‘Talking Heads vs. Television’ — aka 1984 UK TV special ‘Once in a Lifetime’

Slicing Up Eyeballs — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:03:23 +0000

[tweetmeme]In 1984, David Byrne helped put together a TV special on the Talking Heads for U.K. TV’s Channel 4, a 68-minute mix of live material filmed at Wembley Arena, interviews with the band, TV news clips, commercials and other various bits of found footage and sound — sort of a visual version of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts set to a live concert soundtrack.

The film — which comes to us via Joey X, and can be seen below — was titled “Once in a Lifetime” when it was broadcast in the U.K., but apparently is known to the band and fans as “Talking Heads vs. Television” (Byrne, credited in the film as “creative consultant,” lists it as such on his website).

Check it out:

‘Talking Heads vs. Television’ (1984)

Songs performed include:

“Life During Wartime”
“Big Blue Plymouth (Eyes Wide Open)”
“Once in A Lifetime”
“Mind”
“Big Business”
“I Zimbra”
“Slippery People”
“Psycho Killer”
“My Big Hands (Fall Though the Cracks)”
“Swamp”
“What A Day That Was”
“Crosseyed And Painless”

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Blondie announces U.S. tour with X, will give away 5 new songs with each ticket

Slicing Up Eyeballs — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:06:07 +0000

[tweetmeme]Blondie will tour the U.S. this September and October with special guest X in tow, an 18-date trek dubbed the “No Principals Tour” that will include, with the purchase of each ticket, downloads of five exclusive new songs off Debbie Harry and Co.’s forthcoming 10th studio album, which is expected to be released later this year.

The tour opens Sept. 5 in Hampton Beach, NH, and runs through Oct. 4 in New York City (see full dates below); all tickets go on sale this Friday, except for the bands’ appearances at Riot Fest in Chicago, which already is on sale; the Dallas concert, which is free with admission to the Texas State Fair; and the Nashville concert, which goes on sale July 12.

Fans who buy tickets to see Blondie – featuring original members Harry, Clem Burke and Chris Stein, plus newer members Leigh Foxx, Tommy Kessler and Matt Katz-Bohen – will be able to download the new songs “Make A Way,” “Drag You Around,” “Can’t Stop Wanting,” “A Rose By Any Name” and “I Screwed Up” off the as-yet-untitled follow-up to 2011′s Panic of Girls.

Special guest X features the original lineup of John Doe, Exene Cervenka, Billy Zoom and D.J. Bonebrake.

Blondie and X tour dates:

Sept. 5: Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom, Hampton Beach, NH
Sept. 6: The Rapids Theatre, Niagara Falls, NY
Sept. 7: Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino – The Grand, Atlantic City, NJ
Sept. 9: 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C.
Sept. 11: PNC Pavilion at Riverbend Music Center, Cincinnati, OH
Sept. 12: Royal Oak Music Theatre, Royal Oak, MI
Sept. 14: Riot Fest, Chicago, IL
Sept. 17: King County’s Marymoor Park, Redmond, WA
Sept. 19: Nob Hill Masonic Center, San Francisco, CA
Sept. 20: Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, CA
Sept. 23: The Santa Fe Opera House, Santa Fe, NM
Sept. 26: Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater, Austin, TX
Sept. 27: Warehouse Live – Ballroom, Houston, TX
Sept. 28: State Fair of TX – Silverado Main Stage, Dallas, TX
Sept. 30: Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN
Oct. 1: The Buckhead Theatre, Atlanta, GA
Oct. 3: The Keswick Theatre, Glenside, PA
Oct. 4: Roseland Ballroom, New York, NY

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Video: Pet Shop Boys, ‘Vocal’ — featuring footage from ’80s raves, Hacienda club

Slicing Up Eyeballs — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:33:18 +0000

[tweetmeme]The Pet Shop Boys today debuted the video for Electric single “Vocal,” and it’s a bit of a time warp: The Joost Vandeburg-directed clip — which you can see below — is comprised of “authentic amateur film footage shot at various raves in the late ’80s” as well as images from the renowned New Order-owned Hacienda club in Manchester.

The band notes:

The video (and the song) was inspired by the way British youth at this time found its own freedom with a new culture epitomised by dance music and raves: “It’s in the music/It’s in the song/And the feeling of the warmth around us all is so strong.”

The single is now available on iTunes, and the full album will be released July 15.

Pet Shop Boys, “Vocal”

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Video: Siouxsie closes 2nd Meltdown gig with Banshees classic ‘Spellbound’

Slicing Up Eyeballs — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 04:15:54 +0000

Photo via bishi_music

[tweetmeme]While we’ve already posted copious video from Siouxsie’s first concert in five years this past Saturday, it is worth sharing one key piece of footage from tonight’s reprise at the Yoko Ono-curated Meltdown festival, namely the one song on Saturday night’s setlist that got dropped from that show: the Banshees’ classic 1981 single “Spellbound.”

Until that final song of the concert, tonight’s set was identical to Saturday’s, featuring a full performance of 1980′s Kaleidoscope plus favorites like “Cities in Dust” and “Israel” as well as tracks off her 2007 solo debut MantaRay. It’s not clear why Siouxsie didn’t perform “Spellbound” on Saturday, but it was on the setlist.

She did, however, close with “Spellbound” tonight, and you can it below via Derek Smalls.

Siouxsie, “Spellbound,” Royal Festival Hall, London, UK, 6/17/13

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Video: Depeche Mode, ‘A Concert for the Masses’ — rare footage from 1988’s ‘101’ concert

Slicing Up Eyeballs — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:50:05 +0000

[tweetmeme]Tuesday marks the 25th anniversary of Depeche Mode’s iconic “Concert For the Masses,” a daylong show at the 100,000-seat Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., that also featured performances by Wire, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Thomas Dolby — and was, of course, filmed and recorded for the 101 live album and concert documentary.

To mark the milestone, Depeche Mode today debuted on its website an 18-minute reel of rare behind-the-scenes footage from the massive production compiled by webmaster Daniel Barassi. As you can see, it includes the announcement of the concert, interviews with band members, DM performance footage and clips from OMD’s and Dolby’s opening sets — and lots of KROQ’s Richard Blade.

Check it out:

From archives.depechemode.com:

A Concert For The Masses
June 18th, 1988

For the 101st show of the Music For The Masses Tour, the band played a special stadium show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of KROQ FM (a long time supporter of the band), the all-day concert featured Wire, Thomas Dolby and O.M.D. as the opening acts.

The Depeche Mode portion of this legendary show was recorded, both audio (the “101″ album) and video (the D.A. Pennebaker directed “101″ documentary film).

Pulled from some very rare audio and video sources, we present a small look back at the day of June 18th, 1988.

“Good evening, Pasadena!”

Thanks to our friends at the DMTV Archives for letting us use some of their clips.

“101″ (audio) is available from Amazon (UK & US) and iTunes (UK & US). “101″ the film is available from Amazon (UK & US).

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Q&A: Echo & The Bunnymen’s Will Sergeant on new instrumental trio Poltergeist

Slicing Up Eyeballs — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:50:37 +0000

[tweetmeme]When it came time for Echo & The Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant to put together a new band “outside of the restrictive confines of Bunnymen-world” last year, he actually ended up tapping some Bunnymen for the job: namely former bassist Les Pattinson, who has been playing with The Wild Swans of late, and current drummer Nick Kilroe.

Yet the result — a three-piece instrumental group named Poltergeist — isn’t going to be mistaken for the Bunnymen anytime soon, and not just because it lacks the distinctive croon of Ian McCulloch. The band, as Sergeant points out in a new interview with Slicing Up Eyeballs, mines Krautrock and prog rock influences (“To my mind, Krautrock is just German for prog rock,” Sergeant quips).

Poltergeist’s debut album, the eight-track Your Mind Is a Box (Let Us Fill It With Wonder), is due out next week on CD and double vinyl on Sergeant’s own 92 Happy Customers label.

The band was slated to play four U.K. shows this week, but Pattinson fell ill and was hospitalized over the weekend. Tonight’s show in Bristol has been postponed, while concerts in York, Manchester and Glasgow may need to be, too, according to the group’s management (see full dates below).

Last week, Sergeant — who also has begun work on a new Bunnymen album with McCulloch — graciously agreed to answer a few questions from Slicing Up Eyeballs via e-mail:

SLICING UP EYEBALLS: ‘Your Mind is a Box (Let Us Fill It With Wonder)’ is the second instrumental album you’ve released over the past year, although they’re quite different. Is there something liberating or freeing that you’re finding while writing songs that don’t have to be structured for verses and choruses?

WILL SERGEANT: The whole process of both albums has been liberating. It has kept me sane(ish). Working on a project that has freedom woven in its heart is very important for me. I like to let things appear and then I take the path they present and just enjoy the journey. There is structure to the songs, verse and chorus, etc., with hook lines and blasts of melody. But we do not tie the music down with a formula dictated by a lyrical content. I believe this is what the main difference is between Poltergeist and my solo work and most of the more mainstream stuff I have been involved with. We do not have the pressure of trying to get to the top of some ridiculous list or chart, we don’t want to compromise what we do to get on a radio play list.

We have financed the albums via Pledge Music. I like the Pledge way of working it enables us to do what we want. Both the recent projects are on my own label, 92 Happy Customers, so we don’t have to answer to someone in control of the purse strings, giving us grief about the length of the songs or some other trivial crap. I even managed to keep the dreaded barcode (we will all have one soon) off the cover of the album.

EYEBALLS: After recording ‘Things Inside,’ what prompted you to form an actual band for your next extracurricular project? Or where you just looking for an excuse to play with Les again?

SERGEANT: I had it in my mind to have a band outside of the restrictive confines of Bunnymen-world, I have had it in my mind to call it Poltergeist for many years. It has a nice feel of Teutonic darkness, and it fits in perfectly well with the influences of Krautrock, which I openly admit to.

Everything is influenced by something. The Bunnymen were influenced by punk, The Velvet Underground, Bowie, Roxy Music and psychedelia, etc., etc. And all of that lot were influenced by blues, folk or LSD.

My daughter reminded me the other day that over the years when we would play “Guitar Hero” on the PlayStation (I am really crap at it) I always called my band Poltergeist.

I did not need an excuse to play with the mighty Les Pattinson. Les has always been my friend through thick and thin. I have known him since we were 11 years old. It was obvious when it was pointed out to me by Peasy of our management, that Les should be involved. You sometimes really can’t see the wood for the trees. He had played some acoustic bass parts on ‘Things Inside’ for me and it was a very easy process, he knows instinctively what to do. He had also been dipping his toes back into band work with our friend and ally Paul Simpson’s band The Wild Swans (we all went to the same school). So I approached him with the idea, he was a little reticent at first. I think leaving the Bunnymen had left a stale taste in his mouth. but he is enjoying everything about being in a band again now.

EYEBALLS: Speaking of Les, what did he bring to this project?

SERGEANT: I had quite a few ideas on my hard drive which I had built up over time, but not much of it was in a finished state. Me and Les listened to what I had amassed, the ones that fitted the concept of Poltergeist were winkled out into a Poltergeist folder. Then with him in the loop we were able to get them into shape. Les comes at things from a different angle than me and that sets me off at a tangent to his ideas. This is what I wanted, to be able to bounce off another person and find new interesting pathways to oblivion.

EYEBALLS: And how was it for you writing and playing with him in a non-Bunnymen context?

SERGEANT: It has been a lot of fun, really. Les is very fresh with his ideas, he has had a good break and he is not as full-on a music nut-job like me. He is a practical bloke who can fix things, he can analyze the music and sees what needs to be ‘fixed’ His playing and choice of notes are really interesting. Along with Nick we all have a common interest in sending the listener’s mind to other worlds without having to spell it out with lyrics. Nick is an incredibly inventive drummer if he is given the freedom to take it to new areas. We like the idea that people have a film playing in their heads and that our music becomes the soundtrack. We would love to be involved in making a soundtrack for a film.

EYEBALLS: You’ve described Poltergeist as being somewhere between Krautrock and prog rock. Do you find there’s a common ground, a meeting place between those genres that perhaps gets overlooked?

SERGEANT: To my mind, Krautrock is just German for prog rock. Kraut is seen as the cooler cousin to progressive rock, but both genres have their fair share of dross mixed in with the gems. They just have different accents in a musical language. Both were influenced by the war (World War II), or a reaction against it anyway. The war was still very fresh back then. Most of the bands would have had a father fighting in the armies of both sides. This would have coloured their way of thinking and dealing with the past. My dad was in the war and as a kid I felt that WW2 was still very close. People would often mention things that happened during the war. The German and the British hippies wanted to put that behind them and move on with a fresh head. Plus Vietnam was an ongoing open sore at the time, so the hippies of Europe and America had war very much at the forefront of their minds. Today, we are still involved with several wars, but I don’t see it reflected in music of today much.

The Germans came at it with a more hypnotic rhythm-based kind of sound. Neu, Can, Harmonia, La Düsseldorf, Cluster, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk are all masters of this. I remember back to my school days in the early 70s, the few kids with the Roger Dean Yes logo drawn (including me) onto their school bags would also be the ones who would seek out more interesting bands like Guru Guru, Amon Düül or Can. It was a completely different world back then. Things actually could still be underground and difficult to find. Now it’s all available for you to have. Because it’s so easy to find anything, I think this is one of the reasons why the vinyl revival is in full swing. Collectors want to feel like they own something tangible, rare or difficult to find. It’s like they have a sacred relic from the religion of rock. There is a radical Luddite feel about it. It’s like saying, ‘Stick your technology and your 21st century up your arse.’ I myself am not opposed to technology, but it is easy to become entranced by it and sanitize sounds in the digital realm then lose the warmth. A balance needs to exist to keep the human input. If in doubt, stick it through a fuzz box.

EYEBALLS: With a song like “Psychic Warfare,” which is more than three times as a long as a traditional pop song, is there a special challenge to constructing a more complicated song like that — or is it really just born out of jamming with Les and Nick and seeing where that takes you?

SERGEANT: The song is not that complicated, it just seems that way because you don’t have lyrics as signposts to lead you from one part to the next. We have tried to keep the listener engaged and have new things to get into as the songs progress’s. There is a fine line between trance or boredom. Having said that, there is a lot to be said for the comfortable aspects of repetition in music. I like repetition and I like randomness. I think we have the balance just about right. Structure and chaos is what the world and all of us are made of, and Poltergeist is a reflection of this.

EYEBALLS: On a lot of these songs, so many of which have really great grooves and deep basslines, they sound like they must be a lot of fun to play live. What has the live experience been like with Poltergeist, and do you find, given the nature of the songs, that you’re able to take them to new and interesting places on stage?

SERGEANT: In my head I only ever wanted it to be a three-piece, a power trio, three sides of a mystic triangle. From the very beginning I wanted this to be a live band. We even recorded the songs with one eye on how we would be able to do it in a live format. And never let the complexity of the instrumentation get out of hand. We have only done two shows up to now, one in London and one in Liverpool, but we have some more coming up in June and beyond. We do have some of the live set, background sounds and atmospheres on tape, so we can’t meander too much from the path. But some of the passages are so long that we can experiment within the structure and still be able to get back home before the next big change in the music. We are starting to get people noticing that it’s not just a sub-Bunnymen offshoot, but has its own dark and intense identity and power. We are getting offered more gigs as the word spreads and the feeling is that the Poltergeist ball is starting to pick up momentum.

EYEBALLS: I understand you and Ian are working on a new Bunnymen record this summer. Does the experience of making something like ‘Your Mind is a Box’ carry on to your next project — in this case, the Bunnymen — or is it a compartmentalized outlet to get something out of your system so that you can return fresh to writing songs with Ian?

SERGEANT: I think compartmentalized is more what I am thinking at the moment. The two projects can live quite happily together.

Poltergeist tour dates:

June 17: The Louisiana, Bristol, UK
June 20: Fibbers, York, UK
June 21: Sound Control, Manchester, UK
June 22: King Tuts, Glasgow, UK

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