Psychedelic Furs & The Church

[Library Jon]

The Church & Psychedelic Furs are doing a summer US tour together. I will be attending the Philadelphia Keswick Theatre show during August 2015.

Here are some details:

http://thechurchband.net/


Library Jon

[bob_32_116]

An odd pairing, though not totally silly, I quite like both bands.

Didn't know the Furs were still performing. Mirror Moves was the last vinyl album I bought before I switched to CD.

Some time ago "Under the Milky Way" by the Church topped an ABC listeners' poll of favourite Australian single.
I see their Perth gig is at a venue only about 10-15 minutes' walk from where I live. Hmmmm.... thinks....

[GuitarGeek]

I'm curious to hear how The Church sound without Marty Willson-Piper. Unfortunately, the tour isn't coming to Cleveland, probably because they were just here in March. I remember hearing about the show back in January or whenever, but somehow it slipped my mind. I just now realized looking at the tour dates on the website, the venue they played at here was within walking distance of the house, so now I feel like a dope for not going. Oh well, I probably wouldn't have been able to get the night off from work anyway.

[Progatron]

Re: The Church: I only have Seance, and aside from "Under The Milky Way" and whatever songs they played when I saw them open for Van Der Graaf Generator, I've never heard anything else they've done. Any recommendations?

[Gruno]

Didn't know the Furs were still performing.

Their 2012 album Beautiful Friction is one of their top albums in their catalog, in my opinion.





My favorite track from the album:







Here is one PE thread:

http://www.progressiveears.org/forum...I-Monday-Night

[GuitarGeek]

Re: The Church: I only have Seance, and aside from "Under The Milky Way" and whatever songs they played when I saw them open for Van Der Graaf Generator, I've never heard anything else they've done. Any recommendations?

All of their 80's era albums are excellent. If you like Seance, I'd definitely suggest you seek out the EMI Australia remasters of Of Skins And Heart, The Blurred Crusade, Hey Day and Starfish, as well as the Sing Songs/Remote Luxury/Persia CD (which gathers together all the material from the band's three EP's from that era). I suggest the remasters because comes with a bonus disc with the B-sides to the singles drawn from each album (Of Skins And Hearts also has the Too Fast For You double single, I believe).

Or alternately, you can probably buy the old Arista CD reissues off E-bay, last I checked those were still plentiful at reasonable prices, plus the Hindsight double CD compilation, which has most of the non album tracks from the pre-Starfish era. But you'd still have to get the Sing Songs/Remote Luxury/Persia CD because that's the only place to get A Different Man, one of their best non-album tracks, apart from the original Sing Songs EP (which has been out of print for over 30 years) or the Goldfish video compilation:

A few of my favorite Church songs:

[GuitarGeek]

[bob_32_116]

Their 2012 album Beautiful Friction is one of their top albums in their catalog, in my opinion.
Here is one PE thread:

http://www.progressiveears.org/forum...I-Monday-Night

But The Fixx and The Psychedelic Furs are two different bands, are they not?

[bob_32_116]

All of their 80's era albums are excellent. If you like Seance, I'd definitely suggest you seek out the EMI Australia remasters of Of Skins And Heart, The Blurred Crusade, Hey Day and Starfish, as well as the Sing Songs/Remote Luxury/Persia CD (which gathers together all the material from the band's three EP's from that era). I suggest the remasters because comes with a bonus disc with the B-sides to the singles drawn from each album (Of Skins And Hearts also has the Too Fast For You double single, I believe).

I would only add that Gold Afternoon Fix is a pretty good album as well, although apparently Steve Kilbey was unhappy with it for some reason.

[GuitarGeek]

I would only add that Gold Afternoon Fix is a pretty good album as well, although apparently Steve Kilbey was unhappy with it for some reason.

Gold Afternoon Fix is a decent album, though maybe a notch below it's predecessors. The impression I have is that when the band signed with Arista, the new label insisted they recorded in LA, with a producer of their choosing (wait a minute, I think I saw this movie before...). So on both Starfish and Gold Afternoon Fix, they worked with Waddy Wachtel and Greg Ladyani, and I gather the collaboration wasn't to the band's liking, particularly when it came to Gold Afternoon Fix (reportedly, the band wanted John Paul Jones to produce the follow up to Starfish, but Arista vetoed that option).

The band didn't like working in LA (apparently, on Starfish, the song North South East West is a commentary on the shallower aspects of the city), and I don't think they liked having to demo all the songs for the label before they even started recording. Also, with Starfish producing a hit single, I think Arista wanted "another Under The Milky Way", and like most bands who score a fluke hit single, that wasn't really going to happen.

Richard Ploog got dismissed from the band while recording. According to the Wikipedia page on the album, they used drum loops made from the useable stuff Ploog recorded, but I've also heard they used a lot of drum machine on the record. At any rate, by the time they made the Metropolis and You're So Beautiful videos, Ploog had already been replaced by Jay Dee Daugherty.

And to make matters worse, during the Starfish tour, Marty Willson-Piper's Rickenbacker and Shergold electric 12 strings were stolen (the Rickenbacker is the one he's playing in the A Different Man video above, and you can see the black Shergold in the Electric Lash and Tantalized videos, if one wishes to look for them). So he was probably in a sour mood as a result of that (when I met Marty nearly 2 decades later, the topic came up and he seemed to still be pissed about losing the Rick in particular). This is why there's no electric 12 string on the record, because at the time, Marty didn't have one handy.

So yeah, there were a lot of bad vibes attached to Gold Afternoon Fix, which is probably why the band doesn't like it too much.

[GuitarGeek]

Oh, and I should mention that the album that came afternoon Gold Afternoon Fix, which was called Priest=Aura, is also pretty awesome. Its got a more psychedelic vibe, as it were, with Marty Willson-Piper playing some rather trippy guitar solos on some of the songs, particularly on Chaos.

After that, I kinda lost track of the band. Sometime Anywhere I didn't particularly like, Hologram Of Baal I thought was just ok (the version I have comes with a bonus disc called Bastard Universe, which is a single nearly hour long improvisation the band recorded in the studio), but I thought Uninvited Like The Clouds was a pretty good record (though again not in the same class as their 80's era work). I don't think I've heard any of the other post Arista records.

[Gruno]

But The Fixx and The Psychedelic Furs are two different bands, are they not?

Yes haha I read it and was thinking it but somehow totally mixed them up. Especially easy since I have friends who work for the Furs.

[Mythos]

Both great bands, I saw both of them multiple times back in the early/mid 80's. I have also seen the Furs within the last few years, they are still a great band...