Madness Reissue One Step Beyond.

Just in time for its 30 year anniversary, Madness' debut album One Step Beyond, "which took the world by storm with its nutty slant on ska, Motown, rock'n'roll and good old fashioned music hall," has been remastered and reissued by Salvo, the new reissue label from Union Square Music.

One Step Beyond, originally released in November of 1979, spent one year on the UK charts. The first single, "The Prince," was a tribute to Jamaican legend Prince Buster. The title track, released as the second single, was originally written and recorded by Buster in 1964.

One Step Beyond...(30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) is available at amazon.com and iTunes and contains extras not found on the original album, including several B-Sides, a John Peel Session, five promo videos, and exclusive liner notes by novelist Irvine Welsh.


Photo & quote: unionsquaremusic.co.uk

Holly Johnson Collects Award For "Relax."

Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax" was honoured with the Classic Song Award at the prestigious Q Awards 2009 held in London on Monday. The award was presented to former frontman Holly Johnson by Sophie Ellis Bextor.

The announcement was made public last week, when Q Editor-In-Chief Paul Rees said: "Determining what constitutes a classic song is a tricky beast, but staying power and instant recognition aren't bad yardsticks. Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 'Relax' more than ticks both boxes - more than a quarter of a century it is undimmed and unforgettable. That it also defined its era is equally inarguable. As such, Q is delighted to give it the recognition it deserves."

But apart from Holly Johnson, "none of the Liverpool-born band were invited to the show - and even after requesting tickets, they were not allowed to attend. While Johnson was invited to accept the award, the rest of the band only found out about its existence when Norris Green-born guitarist Brian 'Nasher' Nash overheard the news on the radio last Friday."

A source close to the band told the Liverpool Echo News: “This was the first any of them had heard about it. The band contacted the team behind the awards, who were quite staggered they had not been informed or invited.” But despite the other bandmates’ requests for tickets, they were not allowed to attend the ceremony.

A spokesperson for the Q Awards said: "This award was sorted out via the band’s label Universal, who said it was Holly fronting the campaign."

Universal Music Group, which is about to release a greatest hits collection by the band called Frankie Say Greatest, was unavailable for comment.

The Trevor Horn-produced "Relax" spent 5 weeks at #1 in the UK and remained on the charts for 42 weeks. "Relax" is credited jointly to Peter Gill, Holly Johnson, Brian Nash, and Mark O'Toole.


Photo: Mirror.co.uk
Material: qthemusic.com & Liverpool Echo

OMD See 30 Year Dream Come True.

On June 20 2009, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark realized a 30 year dream, backed by the rich resonance of a 75 piece orchestra, the visual majesty of filmmaker Hambi, and the vision of artist Peter Saville.

Set in the opulent and historic setting of Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall, OMD performed their imposing back catalogue abetted by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, after collaborative audio-visual installation The Energy Suite received its orchestral premier.

The hit laden set, dripping with classics such as "Enola Gay" and "Joan of Arc," and stuffed with exclusive firsts, such as the primary live outing of Radio Prague, is captured in all its magnificence on Electricity: OMD with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

The band's determination to utilise the entire orchestra to maximum effect saw Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys abandoning almost all the original instrumentation in favour of complete re-workings of the song arrangements. The result is so much more satisfying than the usual "safe" attempts of rock and pop acts to add a little classical colour to their catalogue!

Aided by Hambi's commanding film backdrop, the blazing and abstract imagery augments the breathtaking theatrics of this unique musical and artistic performance. The Energy Suite emerged from an 80's vision, born around the time OMD recorded "Stanlow," an epic musical journey, which featured ambient recordings from Stanlow Oil Refinery on the Wirral peninsular. The imposing beauty of Stanlow at night fuelled their love for industrial architecture in pictorial settings, a love which was shared by iconic artist and designer Peter Saville.

When the genre hopping art pioneer and Factory Records partner Saville first created the neo-classical cover for OMD’s foremost release "Electricity," no-one could have guessed it would lead to a partnership which would span over three decades.

Though Stanlow stirred their combined passions, it wasn’t until McCluskey and Saville, aided by Hambi, created The Energy Suite for an exhibition at specialist new media gallery FACT in 2008, that their infatuation saw an outlet.

Using striking and often haunting imagery of five power generating sites in the North West of England based in an arc around the Irish Sea, McCluskey along with long time collaborator Stuart Kershaw composed a provocative yet tender score to lift the iconic imagery and purvey the beauty the trio saw within its stature.

Electricity: OMD with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra will be released November 30th, 2009. A preview can be seen at Official OMD Facebook.


Photo: FACT
Material quoted directly from: FACT

"Video Killed The Radio Star" Turns 30.

Released on September 7, 1979, "Video Killed the Radio Star" went to #1 in the UK the week of October 20, 1979. The song also went to #1 in Australia, Sweden, and Switzerland, and debuted on the US charts at #40, where it remained for one week.

"Video Killed the Radio Star" appears on The Buggles album The Age of Plastic and was the first #1 song for Island Records.

Trevor Horn has said that "the song - about a radio star whose career is cut short by TV - is based on a Ballard short story The Sound Sweep, in which a mute boy obsessed with collecting music discovers an opera singer hiding in a sewer. It taps into Ballard's interest in the hold of mass media on people's lives, especially the influence of television, beamed into the same suburban homes that used to listen in their millions to radio."

The video for "Video Killed the Radio Star" was directed by Russell Mulcahy who went on to direct, among many others, the Rio era videos for Duran Duran. "Video Killed the Radio Star" was the first video to be shown on MTV when the music channel debuted at 12:01am on August 1, 1981.

Video: Recorded at Wembley Arena in November 2004 for Produced by Trevor Horn, a concert for The Prince's Trust. This was the first time that The Buggles played "Video Killed the Radio Star" in front of an audience since they had recorded it, and features all the original in-studio band members.
Quote: BBC News Magazine

Further Proof That "Without Music, Life Would Be A Mistake."

Video Courtesy: Snow Patrol Official Myspace

Howard Jones' Ordinary Heroes Special Edition Is Now Sold Out.

The long awaited new studio album from Howard Jones, Ordinary Heroes, is set to be released by the end of 2009. The special limited edition version of the album was available exclusively at howardjones.com, and is now sold out.

From Howard: "This special edition of the Ordinary Heroes album will have ground breaking packaging and an exclusive extra cd with exclusive songs and alternative mixes. If you pre-order this special package, you will have your name printed in the album artwork and you can also specify a personal dedication which will be handwritten by me on the packaging with a signature. The people who buy this album are in a sense my "patrons"; those people that support my work and want me to continue making new recordings. This album has been a 4 or 5 year project between the writing and recording, and is entirely self financed. I intend to invest the revenue from this special package to finance the promotion of the album to a wider audience. There will be a conventional single album release available around the album launch at a normal price, taking into account the economic times. Please spread the word about this album. As you know I regard my audience as my partners, and we are in this together."

Ordinary Heroes is available on pre-order at howardjones.com, where fans can also see the video of Howard's forthcoming single "Soon You’ll Go," to be released on October 26th. It is exquisite.

If you want to hear a version of Howard's "What Is Love?" which has "been given a golden sunshine lick of the good times, the way only Aswad know how!" go see Aswad's version from their summer 2009 album City Lock.

Duran Duran's Live at Hammersmith 82! Now Available.

Now available for the die-hards is Duran Duran's performance in London on November 16, 1982. The show was the first of three nights at the Hammersmith Odeon, recorded by the BBC during the height of Duranmania, into which this writer was unquestionably swept up.

The release is available as a double DVD and CD pack, "allowing fans to both enjoy the visual spectacle of the concert and CD audio," and contains extra archive DVD content not previously released including all six videos from Rio.

The release of Live at Hammersmith 82! at the end of September coincided with the release of a 2 CD Special Edition of 1982's Rio.

Live at Hammersmith 82! is available on EMI and can be purchased at amazon.com.


Live at Hammersmith 82! Tracklisting
CD/DVD:
1. "Rio"
2. "Hungry Like the Wolf"
3. "Night Boat"
4. "New Religion"
5. "Save a Prayer"
6. "Planet Earth"
7. "Friends of Mine"
8. "Careless Memories"
9. "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)"
10. "Girls on Film"

DVD extras
1. "My Own Way"
2. "Hungry Like the Wolf"
3. "Save a Prayer"
4. "Lonely In Your Nightmare"
5. "Rio"
6. "The Chauffeur"
7. "Hungry Like the Wolf" (Top of the Pops, May 13, 1982)
8. "Rio" (Top of the Pops, November 18, 1982)


Quote: duranduran.com

Peter Hook's The Hacienda: How Not To Run A Club To Be Published Oct. 5.

Co-written with New Order/Joy Division biographer Claude Flowers and available through amazon.co.uk:

"Peter Hook, as co-founder of Joy Division and New Order, has been shaping the course of popular music for thirty years. He provided the propulsive bass guitar melodies of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' and the bestselling 12-inch single ever, 'Blue Monday' among many other songs. As co-owner of Manchester's Hacienda club, Hook propelled the rise of acid house in the late 1980s, then suffered through its violent fall in the 1990s as gangs, drugs, greed and a hostile police force destroyed everything he and his friends had created. This is his memory of that era and 'it's far sadder, funnier, scarier and stranger' than anyone has imagined. As young and naive musicians, the members of New Order were thrilled when their record label Factory opened a club. Yet as their career escalated, they toured the world and had top ten hits, their royalties were being ploughed into the Hacienda and they were only being paid GBP20 per week. Peter Hook looked back at that exciting and hilarious time to write HACIENDA. All the main characters appear - Tony Wilson, Barney, Shaun Ryder - and Hook tells it like it was - a rollercoaster of success, money, confusion and true faith."


Video: Simon & Schuster UK Channel
Quoted Material: amazon.co.uk

Happy 25th Birthday Into The Gap.

The constant soundtrack to a legendary West High School sophomore year for many of the staff here at Waist High, Into the Gap was the fifth album by the Thompson Twins. Into the Gap was released in February of 1984 and went to #1 in the UK and #10 in the US. The album was preceded by the release of the single "Hold Me Now," which became the band's biggest hit in the US. "Hold Me Now" reached #3 and stayed in the US charts for 21 weeks.

Four more singles were released from Into the Gap, "Doctor! Doctor!," "You Take Me Up," "Sister of Mercy," and "The Gap."

Into the Gap was produced by the late Alex Sadkin.

Other bands, said Keith Sharp of Music Express in April of 1984, "may have transformed synthesizer-based 'new wave' music into chart-topping commodities. But few bands make this technical wizardry sound so delightfully commercial as the Thompson Twins. They use all the tools at their disposal, mix them together with current trendy beats (reggae, calypso, etc.), and create a stunning concoction which, to these battered ears, is the best album of 1984 so far.....Into The Gap could be perceived as a distinctive milestone on how far new music has come in the past few years. It's enough to make you forget that the old dinosaur bands ever existed."


Photo: The Waist High Collection

Spandau Ballet To Release First Single In 20 Years.

From telegraph.co.uk: The band, who have reunited after one of the most acrimonious splits in pop, kick off their comeback tour next month.

They have signed a new deal with Mercury Records to release a single and album in November. Their last release was in 1989.

Singer Tony Hadley said: "When we got back together and the tour dates went on sale, none of us could believe the fantastic reaction we got from fans and the press alike.

"When the opportunity came to get into a studio and play music together, we couldn't pass it up."

Songwriter Gary Kemp added: "The band gelled immediately and we played better than we did even back in the day. The new song was a way for us to show that Spandau Ballet are back, not just to play the hits on tour but also to take on our contemporaries in the pop charts."

The band will pocket an estimated £12 million for the tour, which begins at the O2 Arena in Dublin on October 13.

The reunion ends a lengthy separation in which three of the band's members sued Kemp for a £1 million share of the royalties and lost.

The new single will be called "Once More" from the album of the same name. Fans will be able to download a track from the new album at spandauballet.com.


Photo: Dave Hogan/Getty Images via telegraph.co.uk

God: "Tony, You Did A Good Job."

Now out and available from John Blake Publishing, Ltd, is Waist High favorite David Nolan's You're Entitled To An Opinion - The High Times and Many Lives of Tony Wilson, Factory Records and The Haçienda.

Synopsis: Tony Wilson was the TV reporter turned would-be music mogul whose life was more rock'n'roll than the bands he nurtured. He was the co-founder of Factory Records and The Hacienda, he kicked-started the careers of Joy Division, Happy Mondays and New Order, he put the Sex Pistols on television for the first time and was the inspiration behind the film 24 Hour Party People.

From his unique childhood growing up with a gay father and a domineering mother to his tragically early death in 2007 after battling the NHS for a drug that could prolong his life, David Nolan investigates the lives and times of the man they called 'Mr Manchester'.

Drawing on nearly 50 interviews with musicians, DJs, writers, actors, family and friends - including Wilson's partner of 17 years Yvette Livesey - You're Entitled To An Opinion... paints a picture of a unique, driven influence that is still being felt today across the worlds of music and television.

About the Author: Steeped in the chaotic swirl of the Manchester music scene, David Nolan is the critically acclaimed author of Bernard Sumner: Confusion, and I Swear I Was There: The Gig That Changed The World. He's also an award-winning former Granada TV producer with 150 television credits to his name including documentaries on the Sex Pistols, The Smiths and Echo and the Bunnymen.

Kraftwerk To Release Remaster Sets.

Celebrating the 35th anniversary of their album Autobahn, Kraftwerk plan to release eight of their albums in remastered form on October 6.

The 8 CD box set, 12345678 The Catalogue, will include 8 reissued LP's; Autobahn (1974), Radio-Activity (1975), Trans Europe Express (1977), The Man Machine (1978), Computer World (1981), Techno Pop (1986), The Mix (1991), and Tour De France (2003).

From PlugInMusic.com: "Due to licensing restrictions in the US, only five of the eight albums will be released as separate CD editions: Autobahn, Radio-Activity, Trans Europe Express, The Man Machine and Tour De France. As a result, the only way for fans to own the entire catalogue on CD is to purchase the Box Set."

One of the most sampled groups in history, Kraftwerk formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 and is currently Ralf Hütter, Fritz Hilpert, Henning Schmitz, and Stefan Pfaffe.

Happy 25th Birthday Human's Lib.

The debut album by Howard Jones went to #1 in the UK in March of 1984.

The four singles released from the album, "What Is Love," "New Song," "Hide And Seek," and "Pearl In The Shell," all made it into the UK Top 20. "What Is Love" and "New Song" made the US Top 40.

Human's Lib sold 100,000 copies in the first week of release, and spent a total of 57 weeks in the UK charts.

In between Human's Lib and Dream Into Action, Howard released The 12" Album, an album of 6 remixes and extended mixes. The 12" Album was only released for the European market and included "New Song (New Version)," "What Is Love (Extended Mix)," and "Pearl In The Shell (Extended Mix)."

Howard's long awaited new album Ordinary Heroes will be released by the end of 2009, and a "special limited edition version of the album will be available exclusively at howardjones.com."

"We Thought We Were Killing Off Rock & Roll."

A musical friend in Sheffield has directed Waist High to Made in Sheffield, a 2003 documentary on the history of the Sheffield music scene, a film Time Out London called one of the "Top 50 music films of all time."

From Sheffield Vision: The best post-punk music in Europe was electronic music & for five years the best electronic music came from Sheffield. Made in Sheffield documents the evolution of the Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, Heaven 17 & ABC, who emerged from Sheffield's music scene in the late 70's. Their dream was to destroy rock music. The result was the creation of some of the most influential sounds in pop music.

Loaded with endearing moments & humour, it captures the essence of the seldom portrayed aftermath of Punk & the spirit of the early 80's British New Wave movement.

(Waist High side note, the song from the trailer is "Being Boiled" by a very early incarnation of the Human League. The song was written by Martyn Ware, Ian Craig Marsh, and Philip Oakey in 1978 and is notable as one of the very first singles to use only electronic instruments.)

A sequel to Made In Sheffield, The Beat is The Law (Part One - The Eighties) will premiere at the UK's Documentary Festival in Sheffield in November. The Beat is The Law documents the "fateful journey through the 80's and 90's taken by a group of innovative musicians/artists living in Sheffield, a city famous for Electronic Pop but at the same time worst hit by Thatcher's economic policies; a journey which lands them at the heart of the UK's Dance and Britpop movements."

When music is your life, the beat is the law

A Little Something To Make Me Sweeter.

On October 12th Erasure will release the Phantom Bride EP which features contemporary remixes of key tracks from their The Innocents album, alongside a 2009 remastered version of the original track.

The EP will precede the 21st Anniversary edition of The Innocents album which will follow on October 26th.

Tracklisting for Phantom Bride EP
Phantom Bride – 2009 Re-master
Hallowed Ground – Vincent Clarke's Big-Mix
Chains Of Love – Almighty 12" Essential Mix
Phantom Bride – Ghostly Groom Dub by FrankMusik
A Little Respect – Wayne G & Alan Allder Hurdy Gurdy Club Mix
Heart Of Stone – Joebot's 'Ounce Of Bounce' Remix
Phantom Bride – Dogmatix's 12" Tearless Mix
Chains Of Love – Plastic Operator Remix

The remastered The Innocents 2 CD set will include the original album, a B-SIDES, REMIXES & RARITIES, which includes "the much sought after 7" version of 'River Deep Mountain High,' the US mixes of 'Chains Of Love' and 'A Little Respect' and four previously unreleased tracks from the BBC's 'In Concert' recording of Erasure at London's Hammersmith Odeon on The Innocents tour back in 1988."

The DVD will feature "The Innocents concert from Birmingham's NEC (originally released as a VHS video in 1989) with remixed and remastered audio, plus the two tracks from that concert that have never been released before, but there is also the videos for the three singles taken from the original album, a selection of TV performances from the BBC archives and The Innocents live in MP3 format for you to download to your computer or music player!"


Quoted material: erasureinfo.com/news