Midge Ure. The Ultravox front man who rode the crest of the wave through the band’s biggest success and then went on to form Band Aid and Live Aid to feed the starving millions in Ethiopia. In part 2 of this podcast Midge takes us behind the scenes of the Band Aid recording where he and Bob Geldof stood outside the Sarm West recording studios in front of a huge media … [Read more...]
Learning To Crawl – Pretenders
The Pretenders, what a band! The original line up of Chrissie Hynde (rhythm guitar, vocals), James Honeyman-Scott (lead guitar), Pete Farndon (bass) and Martin Chambers (drums) only managed to survive through two albums before Jimmy and Pete lost their lives through drug abuse. Learning To Crawl was the band’s third album and while only half of the original line up remained, … [Read more...]
Parallel Lines – Blondie
The phone rings twice. Pause. Then Debbie Harry launches into “I’m in the phone booth, it’s the one across the hall…” the driving power pop and immediacy of Hanging on the Telephone hits you right between the ears. It’s the perfect entrée to one of the great summer soundtracks that is Parallel Lines, an album I recall with great fondness as a substantial part of my summer of … [Read more...]
Martha Davis – Podcast
In 1979 I remember listening to the radio and being stopped in my tracks as one of the sultriest, sexiest and arresting songs I’d ever heard hit the airwaves. Now being in my mid teens and suddenly having an interest in the opposite sex may have had something to do with it, BUT – almost 40 years later I still think it’s one of the sexiest songs ever committed to vinyl. The … [Read more...]
This Year’s Model – Elvis Costello
I was in my 20’s before I really got Elvis Costello. Sure there were the radio hits like Oliver’s Army and Watching The Detectives when I was in my mid teens, but to me at that time they were just cool sounding, catchy radio songs. It wasn’t until I began to explore his lyrics that the light went on and I realised just how clever a wordsmith he was. This Year’s Model was the … [Read more...]