Messengers - Complete Singles

Messengers should have had it all. They had the gear, the talent, and the songs. They were a synth pop duo at the very height of the music-buying public's fascination with guys in buttoned-up shirts and monophonic synthesizers. And they had the unstinting support of the prime mover of all things New Romantic, Midge Ure. Ure signed them to his label, produced their records, and even invited them to tour the world with Ultravox. But not everything works out as it should.

Messengers were formed out of the ashes of Modern Man, a Glaswegian post-punk outfit that Ure discovered playing in a bar on Sauchiehall Street. Ure took an instant liking to the band, and offered to produce their first and only lp, Concrete Scheme (1980). Though it featured some strong songs (Ure would later cover "Wastelands" on his solo debut), the band broke up soon after its release. Drummer Colin King and guitarist Danny Mitchell decided to carry on as a duo, with King taking on the lead vocal duties and Mitchell turning his attention to the synthesizer. Calling themselves The Furious Monkeys, they recorded some demos on a four track tape deck and sent them to their former mentor.

More than a year passed when, out of the blue, Ure asked them if they'd like to support Ultravox on their upcoming Monument tour. Ure also suggested that they should have something to hock while they were getting the chance to play in front of such large audiences. Mitchell and King happily agreed: they signed with Ure's Musicfest label, a subsidiary of Chrysalis, and set about recording their first single. The Furious Monkeys had suddenly become Messengers.

"I Turn In (To You)" (1982) has the full and lush sound that Ure and his compatriots had been developing on albums such as Quartet (1981), and on Ure's own solo single from the period, "No Regrets" (1982). In a recent interview, Mitchell suggests that the similarity was the result of circumstances rather than any effort to consciously emulate Ure:

"I think the similarity of the sounds would be down to sound engineer extraordinaire John Hudson who was Midge’s first choice in those days and Warren Cann’s Linndrum and, of course, Midge’s guiding hand. The other ingredients were a heavily compressed vintage Steinway, a trusty Yamaha string machine and my duophonic Yamaha synth. As for the vocals, they were painstakingly put together almost word by word, much to Colin’s frustration, in a technique that Midge favoured."

"I Turn In (To You)" may indeed sound rather like paint-by-numbers Ultravox, but, to its credit, it is a much more successful attempt to recreate that sound than many bands were able to manage during this period. The vocals, in particular, have that Olympian quality of yearning that few singers can achieve convincingly. And it has a positively sublime middle eight.

Messengers toured the world with Ultravox, taking their place on a towering gantry to the left of the impressive, monochromatic stage set each night. Mitchell added additional keyboard parts, while both he and King sang backing vocals, allowing the band to reproduce the increasingly dense wall of sound that Ultravox had become known for on their albums. On one occasion, while playing in France, King accidentally toppled from their crow's nest and broke his arm. Mitchell picks up the story:

"At the end of the show Midge called out, whilst turning to face our perch, ‘Our special guests Messengers’. With a combined look of confusion, puzzlement and anger he mouthed to me, ‘Where the f**k is Colin?’ Meanwhile, Colin was having his wedding ring surgically removed by bemused French medical staff, who, due to language difficulties, had concluded that he had fallen from a trapeze."

The duo's contribution to Ultravox's live sound during this period is abundantly evident on Monument (1982), the audio record of this tour, and one which has been recently remastered and expanded.

Messengers went on to release two more singles, both produced by Ure. "Great Institutions" (1983) featured a gorgeous Bronzino nude on its Peter Saville-designed cover, and a pair of impressive b sides, including a live track, "Strawboy." "Frontiers" (1984) added a wash of feedback guitar as texture and showed the duo continuing to grow as song writers and arrangers. The b sides offered a tip of the hat to Bowie's influence with a cover of "Andy Warhol."

And that was that. Though the band had enough material for an album, and Ure continued to stand by his Glaswegian mates, Chrysalis wasn't willing to put the money up to record a long player and the duo went their separate ways. Mitchell continued his collaboration with Ure, co-writing one of his best-known singles, "If I Was," but there was little else to be said of Messengers until 2004 when King and Mitchell reunited to record the songs that they had imagined forming their first long player all those years ago, and then releasing it directly through Extreme Voice, the Ultravox fan site. You can purchase a copy here.

Messengers have been unfairly overlooked, even in this remaster and reissue age of ours. Despite their close association with one of the best-known bands of the eighties, there's no Wikipedia page, and the entries at All Music Guide and Discogs are threadbare at best. Listened back to back, however, the three singles and the accompanying b sides gathered here make a persuasive case for the duo's claim to being something more than a footnote in the Ultravox story.

--Crash the Driver

"I Turn In (To You)"

01 I Turn In (To You)
02 The Semi-Professionals (Theme One)

UK 7" Chrysalis [CHS 2663] 1982

"Great Institutions"

03 Great Institutions (MF Mix)
04 Here Come The Heroes
05 Strawboys (Live)

UK 12" Chrysalis [MUST X1] 1983

"Frontiers"

06 Frontiers (Extended Version)
07 The Plains of Siberia
08 Andy Warhol

UK 12" Chrysalis [MUST X2] 1984

John Foxx - Burning Car Mini-LP

Armed with stacks of vintage electronic gear, from Boss Flangers and Dr. Rhythm drum machines to Arp Odyssey synthesizers, John Foxx played an all-analogue set at The Roundhouse, London, on June 5th, 2010. Gary Numan and Ade Fenton worked the turn tables and the evening began with a panel discussion featuring author Iain Sinclair, and the leading lights of the Ghost Box label, Jim Jupp and Julian House. The Second Chameleon and I were there on behalf of TSM to report.

If you don't know Ghost Box, you should. They're responsible for what has become known as "hauntology," a concept associated with artists such as The Focus Group, The Advisory Circle, Belbury Poly, and The Moon Wiring Club who mix seventies instructional films and the sounds of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to imagine an alternate past, one where parish churches sang hymns to oscillators and school children learned the gospel of video tape. The panel discussion, called Moving Through Old Daylight, was a thoughtful exchange on the ways in which mass media shapes our conception of the past, and featured some especially fascinating short films by both Sinclair and Jupp. Check out their new web site here.

Following a quick dinner in Camden Town, we made our way into the fabled space of The Roundhouse. Pink Floyd and The Soft Machine launched The International Times here, The Doors played their only UK show, and of course Hawkwind recorded the legendary "Silver Machine." A former railway shed, its circular structure was used to house the massive turntable on which Victorian locomotives were turned around. Today it fully lives up to its reputation, its dome ceiling billowing like a canopy above the punters gathered below. Jori Hulkkonnen played a tasteful opening DJ set, but his follow up, Gary Numan, got stuck in traffic, leaving us in the hands of some preening jester in a leopard print coat who saw fit to play minimal synth standards, from The Normal to Fad Gadget. Oh, and plenty of bass feedback from the over worked sound system.

A short break, and the screen behind the stage flickered with Steve D'Agostino's brilliant remix of "Film One", an early Foxx b-side. As the strangely animated images of Alex Proyas's video sputtered and jerked in the night, Foxx's band assembled on stage, coaxing the ancient circuitry gathered on the stage into life. The twin tape reels of a Revox began to slowly revolve and the opening beats of "Plaza" boomed into the vaulted space of The Roundhouse. Expectations were running high on such a strong opening, and as Foxx himself came to centre stage a huge cheer went up from the crowd. He looks great for a man in his fifties, still a compelling figure behind the microphone. Too bad, then, that the mix was so murky, as if the sound system was not really up to the task of meeting the challenges of the cavernous venue. Foxx's vocals, bathed in a variety of harmonizers and filters, didn't really help matters, simply contributing to the indistinct and hazy sound.

The gig was billed as a celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of Metamatic, Foxx's groundbreaking debut, but the set list was more wide ranging then this would suggest. After five tracks from the Metamatic era, we were treated, if that's the right word, to three songs featuring Louis Gordon, with whom Foxx has recorded several albums since his return to music in the late 1990s. With his fist pumping in the air as he twisted the beleaguered VCF knob on his CS1X, Gordon's risible antics stood in marked contrast to the aloofness and diffidence of Foxx's sense of modernity. As The Second Chameleon noted above the din, "He just doesn't get it, does he?"

More promising was the clutch of songs from Foxx's forthcoming collaboration with a young group of analogue fetishists called The Maths. Where the techno-tinged beats of Louis Gordon seemed well past their best before date, the new material had both a freshness and edginess that has been largely missing from Foxx's most recent work. The album, which is due in October, will be worth seeking out.

The crowning glory of the evening, however, was the appearance of Robin Simon, whose psychedelic fretwork helped lift Ultravox's third lp, Systems of Romance, to such empyrean heights. As a ticking synth set the stage for "Dislocation," Simon appeared to rapturous applause. Foxx too seemed well pleased to have his erstwhile guitarist at his side again, and we were treated to several Ultravox-era faves, including a rare outing of "The Man Who Dies Everyday," a track dating back to the band's second lp, Ha! Ha! Ha! Simon leaned into the proto-punk riff with gusto, Foxx ditched the harmonizers, the crowd went mad, and, for a moment, the great dome of The Roundhouse seemed to levitate into the air.

To commemorate this one-off gig, we are including here one of the rarest items in the Foxx canon (the sole copy for sale on discogs is listed at $229). The "Burning Car Mini-LP" was a Japanese-only release, gathering together two post-Metamatic singles: "Burning Car" b/w "20th Century" and "Miles Away" b/w "A Long Time." Two older b-sides filled out the release: "This City" and "Mr. No." These tracks have all been reissued as bonus tracks on the various cd reissues and compilations in recent years, but never sequenced together again in this way. And they never sounded so good as on this sublime slab of Japanese vinyl, with its over-sized picture label and superb mastering at the disc cutting stage. Here's to thirty years of the Quiet Man!

-- Crash the Driver

John Foxx - Burning Car Mini-LP

01 Burning Car
02 20th Century
03 This City
04 Miles Away
05 A Long Time
06 Mr. No

Japan Mini-LP: Victor Musical Industries [VIP 5903] 1981

Arias & Symphonies by Spoons

I sleep in your nova heart
As things come apart

No-one had heard a Canadian record like Arias & Symphonies when it hit the airwaves in 1982. Here was a bona fide New Romantic record from a home-grown talent, sounding as though this relatively unknown band from Burlington, Ontario, were seasoned habitues of the Blitz club in London, England. It wasn't just good. It was great.

This was primarily down to the band landing John Punter, who had produced both Roxy Music and their stylistic successors Japan. It was on a trip to Canada with Japan in 1979 that he became acquainted with Spoons, as they both shared distributor Quality Records. At the beginning of 1982 he worked with them for three days on the "Nova Heart" / "Symmetry" 12". This went top ten on release in April and paved the way to a further collaboration in the form of a full-length album. These sessions were the first time Punter worked with a group outside the UK.

Arias & Symphonies, released in October, is full of the suburban concerns Spoons displayed on their quirky debut single "After the Institution" (1980) and first album Stick Figure Neighbourhood (1981). But the drums have been streamlined and machined, the synths sequenced and arpegiatted, the vocals sheened and the guitars layered. The cover photo, used with permission of the Austrian National Tourist Office, gives the album an air of European grandeur, especially with its elaborate typography and heraldic insignia. The band portraits on the reverse, shot by noted photographer Peter Nobel, further attest to the influence of Ultravox, with the band all kitted out in white and posing before neo-classical buildings.

But it was not simply Punter's polished production and arrangements that make this the very pinnacle of the Canadian New Romantic scene. The song-writing is first rate, melodic and compelling, with a variety of tempos and moods on display. What the songs have in common is a sort of play-acting, extrapolating to the absurd, whether it's about communications theory ("One In Ten Words"), quantum physics ("No Electrons"), pirates ("Walk The Plank") or the ever-dramatic life-or-death struggle known as, um, winter ("Smiling In Winter"). The title song is a sumptuous slice of pop in the grandiose style of "Vienna," with Deppe's vocals approaching the operatic as he laments the things that parents expect of their children.

Smack dab in the middle there's "Nova Heart," with its over-the-top verses and lovely chorus. And the middle eight is a thing of beauty: instruments leisurely encircle the precision drum machine (Derrick Ross, automated), building to a lead synth line from Rob Preuss (only 17, eye-shadow, longing looks) as good as any Billy Currie mustered. Sandy Horne (long hair, ballet shoes, swooning followers) lays down bass grooves and trills expertly in the background. Vox Angelica they used to call it. This one belongs up there with the first Duran Duran and Visage albums, Vienna and Spandau Ballet's "To Cut A Long Story Short."



What follows is our usual high-quality rip of the vinyl album. We've exactly preserved the inter-song timings and have erred on the side of under-processing the audio. No extra compression or noise reduction here, and the high VBR rate ensures you'll enjoy all the top end sizzle of those double time hi hats.

Listen to this rip and then go to the Spoons site and order the Limited Edition compilation. You'll get several later hit tunes you can sing along to in the kitchen, two selections from the debut album and that magnificent "Nova Heart" EP, with its fab b-side, "Symmetry." And just to complete the experience, don't forget the "Nova Heart" video as well.

Arias & Symphonies
01 Trade Winds / Smiling In Winter
02 One In Ten Words
03 No Electrons
04 No More Growing Up
05 Arias & Symphonies
06 Nova Heart
07 South American Vacation
08 A Girl In Two Pieces
09 Walk The Plank
10 Blow Away

Canada LP Ready Records [LR 27] 1982.10
USA LP A&M Records [LP-4920] 1982.10
Canada CD Universal Music [7697421972] 2000

Recorded at Sounds Interchange, Toronto & Air Studios, London.
Mixed at Air Studios, London.

Sandy Horne: Bass, Vocals
Derrick Ross: Drums, Percussion
Rob Preuss: Jupiter IV, SH-2000
Gordon Deppe: Guitar, Vocals

Produced and mixed by John Punter
Photography by P.L. Noble

The album was accompanied by two singles, "Arias & Symphonies" / "Trade Winds" [SR 271] which charted at #18 and "Smiling in Winter" / "South American Vacation" [SR 272] which only made it to #30. That second seven inch is obscure enough that discogs knows not of its existence. That's what you've got us for!

-- The Second Chameleon

Tubeway Army Rules

It's a bleak vision of the future. In the foreground a cut-away view of a subway reveals a speeding train, broken glass littering the tunnel, grafitti daubed on the wall. The tunnel snakes through a lunar landscape to a dominant dome, a bubble fit to burst with the skyscraper city inside. But this is not a utopian view of some glorious future. The image is rendered in crude black and white; rough pencil strokes hatch in a claustrophobic perspective. There is no sense of accomplishment, no intimation of the boundless possibilities of the future. The city is capped and constrained; our focus is on the seedy underside. And the train is speeding away from the city, not towards it.

"Tubeway Army Rules" says the grafitti; it's their first single and they are punks. Valerian and Scarlett want to create a new future, but the present lies too heavy. They soon give up their space-age monikers and go back to plain old Gary and Paul. And while the dress-up games might continue, it is apparent throughout the two albums issued under their collective name that this is music of a profoundly dissociated present.

From the very opening of the Tubeway Army LP Gardiner's bass is central. Paired with minimal synth it propels "Listen To The Sirens" and "My Shadow In Vain" out of the shadows and into some stark hinterland already perfectly illustrated by that single cover. Half future / half retro, born of the Eno / Ultravox! experiments and Bowie characterisations, it's got a desolate feeling all its own. Just as Ultravox! looked to literary antecedents ("this is the Burroughs song", "this is the Ballard song", they planned in session), so too Tubeway Army has its Burroughs song, its Dick song, its Zamyatin song.

Though the synths throw up spectral possibilities of uncertain futures, it is the bass (and drum pulse) that anchor the songs in the back streets of a dire monochomatic London. Without Gardiner's bass these songs would not be such controlled exercises in restraint and power.

"Mr. Webb there is no way out," Gary sings, reminding himself of the traps that await failure or, even worse, success. Pop is there to give us a sparkling illusion, but Gary knew from the beginning that we never get to live in that glittering future, only in a present we fashion for ourselves, day by day. His songs are redolent of melancholy and loss from the very beginning.

Paul should have listened more closely.

-- Second Chameleon





This missive contains the first two Tubeway Army singles. "That's Too Bad" was issued in early 1978 in an obvious attempt to break the punk market. Despite the chugga-chugga guitar it contains a hint or two of stranger things to come. "The Lemon Kid is my friend" and other lyrics from "Oh! Didn't I Say" are pure Burroughs.

"Bombers" came five months later and marks Numan's first use of synthesiser, pressed into service to create the sound of a siren.

The two singles were re-issued together as a double pack after the debut album sold out its first run and started to create a stir. The versions here are the very best quality we could find, sourced from the very rare Japanese-only four CD set Asylum. This collected The Plan, Tubeway Army, Replicas and The Pleasure Principle together with rarities and b-sides. Eventually Beggars Banquet re-issued the albums individually in a similar fashion.

"That's Too Bad"
01 That's Too Bad (3:23)
02 Oh! Didn't I Say (2:19)
UK 7" Beggars Banquet [BEG 5] 1978.02

"Bombers"
03 Bombers (3:54)
04 Blue Eyes (1:47)
05 O.D. Receiver (2:39)
UK 7" Beggars Banquet [BEG 8] 1978.07

"That's Too Bad" / "Bombers"
UK 2x7" Beggars Banquet [BACK 2] 1979.06

Asylum 1
Japan 4xCD Alfa Records [ALCB 6-9] 1990.12

Ultravox! Live At Reading, August 27, 1977

Hello, Mutants of the mud!


A quick update for all you enjoying the Faith Global post. Here's Ultravox!, with the exclamation point intact, playing before the sodden crowd at the Reading Festival on August 27, 1977. The sound quality is better than most from this period, and it offers a rare snap shot of the Foxx-era line up at about the time of Ha! Ha! Ha!. Shears' guitar stands out from the get-go, and the band really hits its groove with a blistering take of "Young Savage."

Stay tuned next week for a new post, of particular interest to fans of New Order, the Associates, and Martha and the Muffins--you remember "Echo Beach," don't you?

-- Crash The Driver

Ultravox! Live At Reading, August 27, 1977
1. Rock Wrok
2. Slip Away
3. The Frozen Ones
4. Distant Smile
5. Young Savage
6. My Sex
7. The Wide Boys
8. Satday Night In The City Of The Dead
9. Artificial Life
10. The Wild, The Beautiful, And The Damned
11. Fear In The Western World

"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.