Just when you thought that all I do is stuff bacon covered maple bars down my throat, and wonder why the world is filled with so many women that are so desperate to be loved, may I now reveal to you my great discovery of this year, the 2000 film Searching for Roger Taylor.
In Searching for Roger Taylor, director Aaron Barnett traveled from the "United Kingdom to the United States, exploring the phenomenon of the new wave movement while searching for his long missing childhood rock idol. The 'search' for Roger Taylor is the central metaphor in a much larger story: the repiecing of the '80s. This was a decade unparalleled for musical milestones."
Material: bitterboyproductions.com
"Modern rock innovators Echo and the Bunnymen will make a triumphant live return to New York's Radio City Music Hall on October 1, where the band will be performing their landmark 1984 album, Ocean Rain, with an orchestra as part of its 30th anniversary celebration. Pre-sale tickets can be had through the band's official website beginning April 26, with tickets available to the general public a week later."
The album, widely considered their best, is #38 on The Observer's 100 GREATEST BRITISH ALBUMS list.
The band will play at Liverpool's Echo Arena on Nov. 27, almost 30 years to the day after they played their first gig at Erics in Liverpool.
The group's current incarnation comprises Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant along with Stephen Brennan (bass), Gordy Goudie (guitar), Nicholas Kilroe (drums), and Ceri James (keyboards). The band will release a new album, The Fountain, this summer. The album will be preceded by a single, "Think I Need Two," on Jul. 14.
In related news, McCulloch is set to publish his memoirs next year.
"Book publisher Transworld recently bought the rights to the singer's memoirs from Mayer Benham, and plans to publish them in summer 2009. Simon Taylor, editorial director of Transworld, said in a statement: 'The man is a one-off, an iconic figure whose passion for words, music and for his city is utterly infectious.' A title for the singer's memoirs is yet to be decided."
Material: spinner.com & nme.com
Of the first studio album by Big Country, Kurt Loder had this to say on Sept. 15, 1983:
Here's a big-noise guitar band from Britain that blows the knobs off all the synth-pop diddlers and fake-funk frauds who are cluttering up the charts these days. Big Country mops up the fops with an air-raid guitar sound that's unlike anything else around, anywhere, and if their debut album promises more than the four musicians can quite deliver at this stage in their young career, what it does deliver - especially on the Top Ten U.K. hit "Fields of Fire," one of the great, resounding anthems of this or any other year - is sufficiently scintillating to preclude any extended critical carps about the group's occasional lack of focus. At this point, the big picture is clear enough.
Like U2, 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. Generally dispensing with power chords, the group's two lead guitarists, Scotsmen Stuart Adamson and Bruce Watson, whip up skirling, bagpipelike single-string riffs that, on such crackling tracks as "Fields of Fire," "In a Big Country," and the grandly martial "Harvest Home," are a nonstop, spine-tingling delight. The slightly out-of-kilter guitar lines intertwine into a trebly alarm that has all the galvanic urgency of an ambulance careening down a darkened city street - it's really something to hear.
Stuart Adamson would have been 50 on Apr. 11.
RIP.
Material: rollingstone.com/reviews
Simple Minds recently announced plans to perform a number of UK shows to celebrate 30 years in the music business. The band will perform their legendary album New Gold Dream (81,82,83,84) in its entirety for the very first time. The second half of the concerts will focus on the bands more well known hits.
An excited Jim Kerr explained that they couldn't let this milestone go by without performing live. "Strangely enough, now that the time has probably come for us to maybe give a nod to the past and the journey that has evolved over three decades, I find that I am enthusiastically up for it."
The shows begin in November at the MEN Arena in Manchester.
Photo & material: simpleminds.org.uk
Is Waist High just another American music blog posting European tour dates? Guilty as charged.
On the recommendation of our advisors (who are huge Kajagoogoo fans I might add), Waist High has removed all inflammatory posts of late and is taking a brief hiatus.
Seems my advisors don't think evil people should be called out in a blog devoted exclusively to new wave music. Who would have thought.
And like our boy Rick, I will never give you up, let you down, run around, or desert you.
Moving on from all the 40th birthday excitement, I would again like to say thank you for all your birthday well wishes. And if I didn't say it before, 40 isn't so bad.
Please check out my top 36 favorite photos from the over 500 taken during my week long 40th birthday celebration:
Happy 40th Birthday Waist High!
