I don’t remember exactly when I first picked a bassline off a record, but India from the first Psychedelic Furs LP was pretty early on.
I had never seen them live until Friday.
They were terrific.
They come to their (expansive) catalog as 50yr-old men. A little more roll in the rock, but there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s much more cabaret than lounge, and a rather heavy cabaret at that.
What strange feelings it brings up.
Memories. A spread in NME, centerfold of Richard Butler sprawled across a floor, confusingly sexual. You always knew where Bowie and them were coming from, even if it was both sides. It was pretty obvious stuff. RB not so much.
I played all their first three records a lot, but Talk Talk Talk was/is a cornerstone for me. Maybe my favorite LP of all LPs by anyone, and hearing some of it live I know why. There’s depth to the worry and world-weariness and loss in it, in all their music, and it translates completely to the present.
We played the next night, at the freewheeling annual barbecue hosted by members of the Electrical Audio web forum. The venue was an old church in a terrible neighborhood here in Chicago. All the windows were either closed or boarded up out of necessity. Sweltering hot.
We were good, powerful, probably great at times, working our way through our own songs of worry and world-weariness and loss.
Rock and roll is morbid, mordant, insular. A…little…fucker.
Gets us all. Me at forty-one, making more money than I’ve ever dreamed of making, itching for a few days, like I have a rash, to throw it away and go back to a past that wasn’t even that great. The Butler brothers, climbing onstage at 50-some, ecstatic transparently to be there but knowing it’s a spotlight turn in the end. Kids upon kids at the EA thing, hammering through it like it’s never been done before.
We worry, grow weary, lose. People die, get sick, go broke. The world turns on its head for however long and maybe keeps wobbling for good. But WTF. Fuck the world. Hit the right notes, have them hit for you. All’s well for a spell even if the sound is in essence only your own little sad sad blues.