Three Singles by The Psychedelic Furs

One of the real pleasures of The Same Mistakes is being able to collaborate on the writing and design with The Second Chameleon, extending an obsessive dialogue that he and I have been carrying on with regards to the music of the Post Punk era since the time when we were, well, Post Punks. It's not only a conversation that I enjoy, but one from which I always learn something new about the music that I thought I already knew through and through.

Last week's post on The Psychedelic Furs' Radio One Sessions was no exception. No sooner had I clicked on "Publish," I had an email telling me that there were four cracking good tracks from the early days of the band that had not managed to make their way on to one of the various album re-issues or best of collections for the band: "****" from the "Sister Europe" 7"; "Dash" from the flip of "Dumb Waiters;" and "Danger (Remix)" and "I Don't Want to Be Your Shadow (Extended Version)" from the "Danger" 12". As these are all very much worth having, I've ripped the singles in their entirety to preserve their original context, and zipped 'em up here for your pleasure.

Feel free to join the conversation--add a comment below!

-- Crash The Driver

Sister Europe 7"

01 Sister Europe
02 ****

UK 7" CBS [S CBS 8179] 1980




















Dumb Waiters 7"

03 Dumb Waiters
04 Dash

UK 7" CBS [CBS A1166] 1981




















Danger 12"

05 Danger (Remix)
06 Don't Want To Be Your Shadow (Extended Version)
07 Goodbye (Dance Version)

UK 12" CBS [CBS A13 2865] 1982

Radio One Sessions by The Psychedelic Furs

Not all music is driving music. And not all driving music is for all cars. In fact there is some music that is only driving music for very specific cars, perhaps even very specific model years. My case in point: The Psychedelic Furs.

Formed in England in 1977 by Richard Butler (vocals), and his brother Tim Butler (bass), together with saxophone player Duncan Kilburn, the band went through various line up changes until they found John Ashton (guitar) and Vince Ely (drummer). A well-received Peel session in 1979 led to a deal with CBS records. "Sister Europe," their first single for the label, was a funereal affair, a sluggish, mid-tempo bass and drum pulse against which Richard Butler, already fully in command of his rasping, world weary voice, mused idly about a sister who had returned home. If the saxophone reminded one of Roxy Music, the flanged guitars and air of profound resignation were pure Low-era Bowie, spliced with Joy Division (perhaps not surprisingly as Martin Hannett produced both bands). An audacious and compelling debut, perfectly suited for the time. But driving music? Not exactly.

The eponymous album that followed showed that the P Furs were, in fact, capable of rising above the merely morose, with some storming tracks like "Fall"and the comparatively jubilant "We Love You," but somehow the band never really got in my bones. They seemed too obvious. too derivative, or sometimes just trying too hard. Echo and the Bunnymen and PIL did this kind of thing so much better. That was until I plugged a tape with the first album and its follow up, Talk, Talk, Talk into the cassette deck of my 1972 Dodge Dart Swinger.

The car had been left to me by a reclusive uncle, a man who had lost his job building jet fighters following the Avro Arrow debacle of the 1950s, and seemed to have rarely left the house until his death in 1980. I visited him once. Wet towels hung from doorways as make-shift humidifiers, and stacks of newspapers in every corner of every room. I never quite knew why he wanted me to have the car. Perhaps I said something right that day. But man was I pleased to learn of my inheritance. The car was practically new. In fact, it looked like it had just come out of the show room; its slant six engine, reputed by some to be the finest achievement of the American auto industry, positively gleamed under the hood. And there was enough room in that trunk to fit the gear for an entire band.

Driving late at night, through the glittering, rain-soaked streets of Toronto, the street car wires humming over head and the cassette player cranked all the way up, The Psychedelic Furs suddenly made sense. Not just sense. They spoke a kind of truth. I was in love with the nuclear bomb. I was in love with Sophia Loren. With Brigitte Bardot. The people dead in cars. I saw them. It all made sense. But only here, in this car, listening to this tape. I got it at last. Got it in my bones.

Collected here are the various sessions that the P Furs did for various BBC Radio programs, between 1979 and 1990. Tracks 1-4 are from that first session for John Peel (7/25/79). Tracks 5-7 are from the band's second Peel session (2/18/80) and tracks 8-10 for their third (2/2/8). Tracks 11-12 were recorded 9/4/81 for Richard Skinner, and tracks 13-16 were recorded 2/7/90 in session for John Campbell.

And that tape that sounded so good in my 1972 Dodge Dart Swinger? Still got it--thanks Second Chameleon!

-- Crash The Driver

Psychedelic Furs - Radio One Sessions

01 Imitation Of Christ
02 Fall
03 Sister Europe
04 We Love You
05 Soap Commercial
06 Susan's Strange
07 Mac The Knife
08 Into You Like A Train
09 On And Again
10 All Of This And Nothing
11 She Is Mine
12 Dumb Waiters
13 Entertain Me
14 Book Of Days
15 Torch
16 Pretty In Pink

UK CD Strange Fruit [SFRSCD003] 1997

"The Same Mistakes" by Faith Global

It's always the best
That seem to crack and break
So it always seems right
To make The Same Mistakes

Stevie Shears must have known that his time with Ultravox! was coming to an end when he first heard a copy of the band's second album. Released at the very height of the punk explosion in November of 1977, Ha! Ha! Ha! was a raucous rejoinder to those critics who had dismissed Ultravox! as pretentious art rockers, hopelessly out of sync with the times--all rampaging guitars and sheets of wailing feedback it gave the spiky-haired bands a run for their money. But even to the band's guitarist, the standout track had to be not one of the more aggressive songs such as "Rock Wrok," or "Distant Smile," but "Hiroshima Mon Amour," a plaintive ballad for drum machines and synthesizers, to which his most important contribution was a saxophone solo. The future, it seemed, would belong to the machines.

Shears of course was not the only guitarist to struggle in the dance hall days of the late seventies and early eighties. Those schooled in the funk grooves of bands like Chic and Parliament prospered, but more rock-oriented players, like Shears, or Japan's Rob Dean, had an increasingly hard time among the banks of Arps, Korgs, and Oberheims that now crowded the recording studios. Even Gary Numan dropped the guitar for his most successful album, The Pleasure Principle. So when Shears slipped out of sight following Ha! Ha! Ha! no one seems to have much wondered why.

The first inkling that Shears had remained actively involved in music came in the form of a twelve inch EP released under the moniker of Faith Global on the independent label Survival Records in 1982. "Earth Report" had the wide-eyed optimism and soaring ambition of bands like Echo and the Bunnymen and The Wild Swans, with a sound that was decidedly less commercial than that followed by Shears' former band mates. Shears played not only guitar, but bass and synths, too, conjuring up a colourful, almost impressionistic swirl of sound to support newcomer Jason Guy's stirring vocals.

Comparisons were made to the Psychedelic Furs, perhaps not unfairly, but with a pair of strong b-sides, the record garnered favourable reviews and augured well for the album to come. The Same Mistakes contained nine tracks, two of which in fact featured Furs saxophone player Duncan Kilburn, together with some session players. Dave Henderson, writing in Sounds, gave the album a resounding four stars, adding, "Here is a confident new dance music that doesn't steal religiously from funk, and has no intentions of falling into an electrobop typecast."

The b-sides were re-recorded without the abrasive drum machine, giving the tracks a smoother, moodier feel. Surprisingly the single itself is not on the album; back in the post-punk era value for money was still a reality.

The Same Mistakes
01. The Same Mistakes
02. Forgotten Man
03. Hearts and Flowers
04. Knowing The Way
05. Love Seems Lost
06. Coded World
07. Yayo
08. Slaves To This
09. Facing Facts
UK LP Survival [SUR LP 003] 1983

Earth Report
10. Earth Report
11. Coded World [version]
12. Love Seems Lost [version]
UK 12" Survival [SUR 124] 1982

Faith Global are...
Stevie Shears: guitar, synthesizer, piano, bass, sleeve design
Jason Guy: vocals, acoustic guitar

With...
bass on 01, 02, 03, 04, 07: Neil Hughes
drums on 01, 02, 03, 04, 06, 07: Graham King
saxophone on 02, 04: Duncan Kilburn
bass on 05, 10, 12: Steen
snare on 10, 12: Dave Modesty
guitar on 05, 12: Adam Hart

Faith Global has been stuck in my head for decades. The opening bass riff from the title track of the album bounces my head into a slamming piano chord which makes way for intertwined snakey guitar lines. Guy's bizarrely appealing vocals launch into odd abstract vocals about... something. All this in the first thirty seconds. In part evoking the krautrock-influenced Sons and Fascination period of Simple Minds, in part kin to England's Trance by Placebo (no, not that Placebo, the original one) and definitely recalling a Talk Talk Talk without Richard Butler's bravado, this record has everything I want in post-punk. I don't know what it's all about, but I know it was important to those who made it.
-- Second Chameleon

The album has a charmingly ramshackle quality, like it was bolted together in somebody's garage out of spare radio parts and disused lighting grids. I don't think it is appreciably better than the single, however, and the fact that both b-sides ended up as album tracks suggests that Shears and Guy weren't exactly brimming over with ideas at this point. No surprise, then, that there was no follow up. Still, there's lots to like here and "Earth Report" will always be a personal fave.
-- Crash The Driver

Read another appreciation at Down With Tractors.