Happy 25th Birthday The Golden Age Of Wireless.

"Though all of (Thomas) Dolby's studio albums are excellent, his debut album, The Golden Age of Wireless is still his crowning achievement."

Following the album's overall theme of radio are the songs "Airwaves," "Commercial Breakup," and "Radio Silence," along with songs about the modern world "Windpower," "Flying North," and Waist High favorite "Europa and the Pirate Twins." At the time of the original US release, the moody and cinematic tone, a major departure for synthesizer-driven records, prompted Musician magazine's reviewer to declare it "The best damned synth-pop record ever, period."

Quote: Dwight Blubaugh via amazon.com
Material: wikipedia.org

Happy 25th Birthday Business As Usual.

The debut album from Men at Work gave the band the position of being the only Australian artists to reach #1 in the album and singles charts in both the United States and the UK with Business as Usual and "Down Under" respectively. "Who Can It Be Now" also hit #1 in the USA in October of 1982.

Business as Usual toppled the record for a debut album for most weeks at #1, originally set by The Monkees, staying at the top of the charts for 15 weeks.

The album would also help the band become Grammy winners for Best New Group in 1982.

The Crossing.

A Scottish music resource site celebrating Scottish popular music, jocknroll.co.uk, has voted The Crossing the greatest Scottish album of all time.

Of Big Country's first studio release, furia.com has this to say: "They made one of the greatest debut albums of all time, a record as musically anthemic as it is emotionally harrowing, with an unmistakable sonic quirk that was as integral to their initial success as it was probably inimical to their critical longevity."

"Big Country has no use for synthesizers, and their extraordinary twin-guitar sound should make The Crossing a must-own item for rock die-hards."

Quote: Kurt Loder via rollingstone.com

Happy 25th Birthday Special Beat Service.

Waist High favorite Special Beat Service was the third and final album by The Beat. It reached #39 on the Billboard 200 album chart in 1983. Special Beat Service features the greats "I Confess," "Jeanette," "Sole Salvation," "End of the Party," and "Save It for Later."

"Special Beat Service is one of those rare recordings that never loses favor or fades with age. The English Beat are on top of their game here, singing and playing with madcap energy. The songs--a riot of riffs, driving percussion, high energy horns (particularly saxes), punctuating bass, shimmering guitar, spot-on keyboards--still sound brash and bold. And the vocals are a thing of wonder--soaring and confident."

Quote: "loce_the_wizard" via amazon.com

Farewell.

CITY BIDS FAREWELL TO TONY WILSON

Manchester never knew how much it would miss Tony Wilson. Yesterday, beneath a grey northern sky, the city's sense of loss for the man who had been the life and soul of its party for so many years was clear.

Family and friends of the man known as "Mr Manchester" attended a private funeral ceremony at St Mary's Roman Catholic Church, known as the Hidden Gem, in the city centre.

Fans gathered outside the church to pay their final respects to the founder of Factory Records and the Hacienda nightclub.

A roll call of famous Mancunians turned out to remember Wilson, a champion of the city, who died earlier this month, aged 57, after a prolonged battle with kidney cancer.

Peter Saville, who co-founded the iconic record label with Wilson, gave a reading during the mass. So too did Richard Madeley, who worked alongside Wilson at Granada Television, and arrived at the service with his wife Judy Finnigan.

After the service, which included the hymns "Hail Queen of Heaven" and "To Be A Pilgrim," six pallbearers, including Wilson's son, carried the coffin out of the church to the sound of the Happy Monday's track "Bob's Yer Uncle." Wilson was buried in Manchester's Southern Cemetery.

The television and radio presenter Terry Christian and the former Liverpool City Council deputy leader Derek Hatton were also present to wish farewell to the Salford-born music mogul, who doubled up as a reporter and presenter on the news programme Granada Reports and fronted So It Goes, the first UK music programme to show punk bands. The Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson was among those who sent floral tributes.

Photo: manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Material: news.independent.co.uk

"In Control To The End."

As Anton Corbijn's film Control premiered in Edinburgh tonight, the thoughts of all those present were focused on one man. And though the film itself is the emotionally-charged biopic of tragic Joy Division legend Ian Curtis, those thoughts will be of another who looms large in the action - Tony Wilson.

Wilson, who is credited as co-producer of Control, died one week ago today, and as a mark of respect to the man who first signed Joy Division, establishing Factory Records in the process, the screening tonight went ahead in tribute to him.

The film, the directorial debut of rock photographer and Joy Division fan Anton Corbijn, is continuing to cause a stir after its award-winning entry at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.

At the heart of that buzz is the startling debut from Sam Riley as the Joy Division singer. Sam and his co-stars playing Joy Division band members Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris, all performed the songs featured in the film. The film, based on Deborah Curtis's memoirs of life with Ian, will get a Manchester premiere on October 4, before going on general release in the UK and America later that week.

The funeral of Tony Wilson, "one of the most significant figures in British music," will take place in Manchester next Monday, it has been announced.

It will be open to family and close friends via invitation only, although there are understood to be plans for a separate memorial service.

Charitable donations can be made to The Christie Hospital in Manchester online at Christies.org/makedonations.html or via post to:

Appeals Office
Christie Hospital NHS Trust
Wilmslow Road
Withington
Manchester
M20 4BX

Photo: manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Material: manchestereveningnews.co.uk & uk.news.launch.yahoo.com

A City In Mourning.

 

Photos: manchestereveningnews.co.uk

Anthony Howard Wilson.

February 20 1950 - August 10 2007

"Part of me, part of Manchester, part of modern British music has died tonight."
--Phil Saxe

Photo: Richard Bellia via cerysmaticfactory.info

RIP Anthony Wilson.

MANCHESTER music legend Anthony Wilson has died.

Mr Wilson, who was diagnosed with cancer last year, died aged 57 following a heart attack in Christie Hospital.

The former Factory Records boss had been in Christie Hospital for the last two weeks. He suffered a heart attack on Thursday and was with half a dozen family and friends, including his partner Yvette Livesey and his children when he passed away. Mr Wilson revealed he was battling kidney cancer in the M.E.N. in February.

The music mogul founded the famous Hacienda and was one of five co-founders of Factory Records, which produced bands such as New Order and the Happy Mondays during a period in the eighties dubbed 'Madchester.'

Born at Hope Hospital, Salford, he went to De La Salle Grammar School, Salford, and studied English at Cambridge before beginning his TV career as a trainee with ITN in 1971.

He was a reporter and presenter on Granada Reports and went on to present So It Goes - the music show that first aired punk bands.

Steve Coogan played Tony in the film 24 Hour Party People, a semi-fictional account of Tony and Factory Records.

Photo: manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Material: manchestereveningnews.co.uk

The Alarm: VH1 Bands Reunited.

The reunion concert now available on DVD

The complete recorded footage of the events leading up to the concert, held in London in October of 2003, and the full live gig are now available on a 6 hour 3 DVD Set plus Bonus Audio Disc.

The DVD features the complete Alarm Reunion Concert plus extensive footage of all the ambush sequences together with every interview given during the course of the program by Mike Peters, Eddie Macdonald, Dave Sharp and Nigel Twist.

Over 6 hours of unseen footage, including a behind the scenes film of the original Alarm performing for first time in rehearsals leading up to the gig, and the complete group interview during which The Alarm confront the events that broke the band back in 1991.

Also included are hours of programming as The Alarm are followed by cameras every step of the way towards an emotional reunion live on stage with their fans in London on October 28th, 2003.

"And heroes are exactly what they are. It strikes me at that moment, that this is one of the amazing things about these guys. Offstage, whenever I have talked to any of them, they are normal down-to-Earth people. But when they get together on stage and make music, something magical happens. The Alarm is the sum of its parts. An amazing chemistry exists when all four are on stage together, and as they return for possibly their final performance together, I stand in awe - amazed that these four people can still move me as much as they did 20 years ago."

Material: myspace.com/thealarm & myspace.com/goldengraz

Happy 25th Birthday Pelican West.

Of Haircut 100's debut album, thefirstpost.co.uk says:

"The 1980's produced lots of radically different bands that today get lumped into one single genre - 'the 80s.' Yet no one sounded like Haircut 100 then, and nobody comes close now. It's a fantastically daft album, with (lead singer) Nick Heyward summoning up a sunny suburban world of indecipherable nicknames and slang where the only item on the news agenda is boy meets girl, girl smiles. The music is light and funky, peppered with excellent saxophone breaks, choppy guitar and Heyward's occasional yelps."

"The album gave you a lot of what it was to be a New Wave fan. It came during an innocent time, and musically, the best time ever."

Haircut 100 reunited in 2004 for an episode of VH1's Bands Reunited.

Quote: Lou via amazon.com via chrissyfessler.blogspot.com

Piece By Piece.

Now available through pre-order, Plexus Publishing will release Joy Division: Piece By Piece in January 2008.

Joy Division: Piece By Piece is the definitive collection of writings on the legendary cult band, by their contemporary Paul Morley. Collecting all Morley's classic articles and reviews from the late 1970s/early 1980s this book includes his obituary for charismatic epileptic vocalist Ian Curtis and his hindsight pieces on the significance of the band, framed by an extensive retrospective essay.

Contemporary elements include Morley's critique of the films 24 Hour Party People - which told the story of the band's record label, Factory - and Control, the new Ian Curtis biopic, for which the author visited the set during production. Most movingly, Morley includes the original text that grew into his literary work Nothing, which parallels the suicide of Curtis with that of his own father.

Paul Morley evokes the zeitgeist and the 'psycho-geography' of Manchester, which combined to produce the most uniquely intense rock group ever.

Morley "wrote for the New Musical Express from 1977 to 1983," and is the "co-founder, with Trevor Horn, of ZTT Records, and electronic group Art of Noise. Morley is also credited with steering the marketing and promotion of the phenomenal early success of ZTT's biggest act, Frankie Goes to Hollywood." Although it has never been confirmed, it is generally accepted that it was Morley who authored the provocative slogans on the band's t-shirts (e.g. "Frankie Say Arm The Unemployed," "Frankie Say War! Hide Yourself.")

Material: plexusbooks.com & wikipedia.org

Happy 25th Birthday A Broken Frame.

Waist High's favorite DM album A Broken Frame was the band's second studio release and their first following the departure of founder member Vince Clarke.

Recording was completed in July 1982 with Martin Gore thrust into the position of chief songwriter, where he remained until 2001's Exciter. The music videos from A Broken Frame were directed by Julien Temple and have never been officially released, possibly hindering exposure for the album.

"After the release of A Broken Frame, Depeche Mode went onto their first world tour, which included North America, Europe and the Far East."

The best song on the album in this writer's humble opinion, "The Sun And The Rainfall," was never released as a single. "Markperkinsdesign" at amazon.co.uk reviews agrees, "But what makes this album essential for old school Mode fans, is 'The Sun & the Rainfall,' a haunting beauitful song."

Quote: wikipedia.org

Smiths' Fans On Their Bikes.

A KIND-HEARTED team of music fans has come to the aid of Salford Lads Club to help get its renovation back on track.

They plan to complete a 16-mile sponsored bike ride through Manchester, Salford and Trafford to raise funds for the building - after thieves stole valuable roofing materials.

The club was the backdrop for an iconic picture of 80s Manchester band The Smiths and it is some of the group's devoted fans who have offered to help.

Their route will take in landmarks made famous by Smiths front man Morrissey, including Strangeways prison, the Holy Name Church on Oxford Road and Kings Road in Stretford where Morrissey grew up.

The club - made famous throughout the world after appearing on the sleeve of the 1986 Smiths album The Queen is Dead - is undergoing a 1m renovation.

But four weeks ago thieves climbed scaffolding to steal guttering and lead from the roof, leaving the grade II listed building at the mercy of heavy rain.

The fans, lead by Ruth Martin and Phil Gatenby, were shocked to hear of the theft and decided to do something about it.

Ruth, a lecturer at South Trafford College, said: "It's such a shame that vandals took the lead from the roof. I couldn't believe it when I heard the news and decided I'd send a cheque to help."

Landmarks

"But then I thought I could do better than that - and settled on a bike ride taking in all the famous Smiths landmarks. We hope to raise awareness of the club and get as many people as possible involved. I think you'll find it's people of a certain age who will take part in this event!"

The group plan to set up a website over the next few weeks and in the meantime are seeking police approval for the bike ride, which is scheduled to take place on September 30.

Author Phil Gatenby, whose book Panic on the Streets details Smiths landmarks around Manchester, said the theft was bitterly poignant because it had connections with some Smiths' lyrics.

He said: "In the song 'Vicar in a Tutu' there is a line which says: 'I was minding my business lifting some lead off the roof of the Holy Name Church,' so it was important that we included this building on the ride."

Since the theft, volunteers at the club have been working hard to repair water damage. The building is now water tight and plasterwork repairs to the interior are due to take place in the next few weeks.

Club honorary secretary Brian Ball said: "The bike ride is a fantastic idea and we're all very grateful to the Smiths fans for stepping in like this."

The bike ride will start and end at the Lads Club on St Ignatius Walk in Ordsall.

Photo: manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Material: Caroline Jack via manchestereveningnews.co.uk

Happy 25th Birthday The Gift.

Reaching #1 on the British charts in 1982, Waist High favorite The Gift was the final studio album by The Jam.

From their debut In the City in 1977, to The Gift in 1982, The Jam had 18 top 40 singles in the UK, including four number ones.

Not every critic's favorite, The Gift delivered "Precious," "Happy Together," "Carnation," the great "Town Called Malice," which entered the chart at number one, and the beautiful "Ghosts," which "looks at our own insecurities against a simple click beat and vocal with one of The Jams sweetest ever."

Conceived by a "thriving Weller as a new direction in pop, on The Gift he aspired to perfection, sometimes reaching his goal, sometimes hitting the post, but nearly always on target when it came to passion and integrity, and keen to capitalise on The Jam's status as Britains best loved band."

Quotes: terriano via cd.ciao.co.uk

Brotherhood.

Bernard Sumner Says New Order Mate Peter Hook "Needs to Chill Out"

Last week New Order bassist Peter Hook shocked fans by lashing out at his bandmates on his blog and announcing the group had broken up: "You are no more new order than i am! You may have two thirds but dont assume you have the rights to do anything NEW ordery cos you dont ive still got a third!"

New Order guitarist Bernard Sumner - who hasn't seen Hook since the group toured South America last November (NOOL Editorial Note: Not true, they were in Cannes at the premiere of Control) - was as surprised as anyone who read the post. "I find it very distasteful for him to do that after all this time," he says, checking in by telephone from England. "He should have had a meeting with us. I'm not having someone tell me that we've split up without consulting me first. I think that's very arrogant."

Sumner is unsure whether he and drummer Stephen Morris will continue on as New Order without Hook. "We haven't got any plans to make any music under the guise as New Order," Sumner says. "I've working on two other projects at the moment so I'm kind of busy for the next couple of years anyway."

And Hook, he says, needs to take five: "I think that Hooky just needs to chill out a little bit and relax." Sumner says he has no plans to reach out to his blogging bandmate to clear everything up. "He's the guy who with the problem, so he should approach us," he says. "We haven't got a problem. I just don't think he likes me, so what can you do?"

Photo: Getty Images via news.bbc.co.uk
Material: Rolling Stone

Happy 25th Birthday New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84).

Recorded in the summer of 1982, Simple Minds' fifth studio album and Waist High favorite New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) was a significant turning point for the band; critical and popular success in the UK and Europe finally intersected.

With a slick, sophisticated sound thanks to producer Peter Walsh, Simple Minds was soon categorized as part of the 'New Romantic' outgrowth of New Wave.

The record includes the classics "Someone Somewhere In Summertime," "Promised You a Miracle," "Glittering Prize," and "Colours Fly And Catherine Wheel." In addition, Herbie Hancock performed a solo on the track "Hunter and the Hunted."

"Most of America only came to know Simple Minds a couple years after they hit their gorgeous peak on this album. This album will stand up as a timeless classic of the 80's, for even the synthesizers are lush-sounding and production is immaculate."

"One of the most brilliant albums of all time."

Material: wikipedia.org & Michael Paulsen and Nadir Uddin "A Modern Day Dervish" via amazon.com

Happy 25th Birthday Upstairs At Eric's.

Released 25 years ago this month, Upstairs at Eric's reached #2 in the UK and has been hailed as a landmark synth pop release; a record that established the link between American-style R&B and European electronica. Named after the duo's living space in producer Eric Radcliffe's home during the recording, Upstairs at Eric's contains the three classic singles "Don't Go," "Situation," and "Only You."

Departing Depeche Mode after their first album Speak and Spell, Vince Clarke formed Yazoo in 1981 with Alison Moyet, a veteran of a number of southeast Essex based punk and rock bands. Their second and final album You and Me Both went to #1 in the UK, however on the eve of the album's UK release, Clarke and Moyet announced their split.

"Upstairs at Eric's is a true classic of not only the 80's synth-pop movement but also, without exaggeration, of 20th century music. On the one side is the genius of Vince Clarke on the synthesizers and on the other side, the beautiful, unmatched powerful voice of Alison Moyet. They were together for only two albums but they attained immortality with these. Every song in this album is a work of genius. Arrangements are first class. This is a once in a lifetime performance."

"The FINEST piece of electronic pop music to come out of the Eighties."

Material: wikipedia.org, Halil Bolayirli and J. Brady via amazon.com, and synt.nu/depeche via chrissyfessler.blogspot.com