The Passions - Sanctuary

The Passions

Sanctuary

1982

New Wave Post Punk

England

Tracklist:


 1. Jump for joy
 2. The letter
 3. Into night
 4. Small talk
 5. White lies
 6. Cars driven fast
 7. Love is essential
 8. Your friend
 9. Hold on don't go
10. Sanctuary


     Based in Shepherds Bush, west London, The Passions' music was grounded mainly in Barbara Gogan's voice, and Clive Timperley's delicate echoplex guitar work. Before forming in 1978, most of the group's members had played in other groups. Timperley was formerly with the 101ers, whilst drummer Richard Williams and singer/guitarist Barbara Gogan were in the punk rock outfit, The Derelicts. The Passions' first single, issued in March 1979, was "Needles and Pills", which assisted in gaining a recording contract with Fiction Records. The Passions were predominantly a guitar band but they fitted in with the spirit of the times, being part New Romantics, and part "European grey".
     Michael and Miranda, the band's debut album was released in 1980. Singles "Hunted", and "Swimmer" followed, and then their major charting song, "I'm in Love with a German Film Star". Before "Swimmer" was issued, Bidwell and Barker left the band, the former joining The Wall. David Agar took over duties on the bass guitar. The band's second album, 30,000 Feet Over China, was released in August 1981. It included previously released A-sides and several brand new recordings.
     Clive Timperley left the band in Verona in December 1981, during the Italian leg of their prophetically named "Tour Till We Crack" tour, as a result of "serious political differences". The follow-up single release "Africa Mine" was recorded with a new line-up. Barbara Gogan explained the situation thus: "It's the same old story. Some bands play together for ten years and it's all very wonderful and imaginative. More often, though, you reach a point where you've done all you can do and you want to change. Whenever we've reached that point someone has always left and brought us a step further on. Any band playing their own songs to the public has a duty to change and keep being imaginative all the time".
     Kevin Armstrong (a contributor to a Thomas Dolby album), who had previously been with Local Heroes joined, and the group added a keyboard player, Jeff Smith, best known for his past work with Lene Lovich. Armstrong and Smith took part in the recording of the band's third album, Sanctuary, which appeared in the autumn of 1982.
     Stephen Wright, previously in the band Bim, joined in 1982, replacing Armstrong. The band toured Europe and the US, appeared on the Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC 2, and Whatever You Want on Channel 4, but dissolved for good in the summer of 1983, after playing their last show at London's Marquee Club on 12 August that year..
     Gogan and Wright are currently playing together as The Monarchs.

Pia Zadora - When The Lights Go Out

Pia Zadora

When The Lights Go Out

1988

Pop Funk

USA

Tracklist:



1 I Don't Wanna Love
2 Still Remembered
3 Dance Out Of My Head
4 Laughin' At You
5 When The Lights Go Out
6 Pia's Interlude
7 I Really Like You (Not Him)
8 Silence
9 Since I've Been Lovin' You
10 Pia's Theme
11 It's Always The Same


     Pia Zadora (born May 4, 1954) is an American actress and singer. After working as a child actress on Broadway, in regional theater, and in the film Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964), she came to national attention in 1981 when, following her starring role in the highly criticized  Butterfly, she won a Golden Globe Award as New Star of the Year.
     When her film career failed to take off, she became a singer of popular standards and made several successful albums backed by a symphonic orchestra; as a singer she earned a measure of respect from critics who had previously written her off as an actress.
     She attained success in Europe as a singer, and had several hit singles throughout the world. In 1984, she received a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for the song "Rock It Out". Her cover of the Shirley Ellis hit "The Clapping Song", reached the U.S. Top 40 in 1983, and she had a hit duet with Jermaine Jackson titled "When the Rain Begins to Fall" in 1984 from the movie Voyage of the Rock Aliens. A minor hit in the US, the song reached #1 in some European countries. She released Pia & Phil, an album of standards with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1985, and recorded a follow up entitled I Am What I Am shortly after.
     In 1988, she worked with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis on an album entitled When the Lights Go Out. The single "Dance Out of My Head" wasn't a hit despite the top producers and club remixes by Shep Pettibone and Ben Liebrand. The album was only released in Europe.

Positive Noise - Give Me Passion EP

Positive Noise

Give Me Passion EP

1981

New Wave Synthpop

Scotland

Tracklist:

01. Give Me Passion
02. Ghosts
03. End Of A Dream


     Positive Noise were a New Wave and Synthpop band from Scotland who had a number of indie hits in the 1980s. They released three albums and several singles and were together for over five years.
     The band was formed in 1979 by Ross Middleton (vocals), his brothers Graham Middleton (keyboards, vocals) and Fraser Middleton (bass guitar, vocals), Russell Blackstock (guitar, vocals), and Les Gaff (drums).        Their first released material was two tracks ("Refugees" and "The Long March") on the Statik label compilation album Second City Statik in 1980, and they followed this with two singles on Statik in 1981, both of which were top-ten hits on the UK Independent Chart. Début album Heart of Darkness was released in May 1981, after which Ross left ot form the short-lived Leisure Process, with Blackstock taking over on lead vocals. Heart of Darkness peaked at number four on the independent chart, and the band's second album, Change of Heart (1982), also charted, reaching number 21. They released a third and final album, Distant Fires, in 1985, now with John Telford on drums and John Coletta on guitar, but their earlier success was not repeated and they split up shortly afterwards.
     Ross Middleton went on to work as a music journalist, writing for Sounds under the pen name Maxwell Park.

Play Dead - T.V. Eye 7''

Play Dead

T.V. Eye 7''

1981

Gothic Rock

England

Tracklist:

01. T.V. Eye
02. Final Epitaph



    Play Dead were an English Goth rock group from Oxford that grew out of the fading English punk scene in 1980. Though the band was identified with groups like UK Decay and Sex Gang Children, the band felt they didn't belong under the "Gothic" title. The band made three studio albums for four different small labels—Fresh Records, Jungle Records, Situation 2, and Clay Records—before forming their own label, "Tanz", for their final album, Company Of Justice, which appeared in 1985.
     The original lineup of Play Dead was Rob Hickson (vocals), Pete Waddleton (bass), Mark "Wiff" Smith (drums), and Re-Vox (guitar). In July 1981, Re Vox was replaced by Steven Green. In 1984, Rob and Pete created the project "Mankind's Audio Development" nicknamed M.A.D. Only one single was recorded with the two songs "Craving" and "Sunfeast." Waddleton left the group in 1986 and after a brief period as "The Beastmaster Generals" the band dissolved.

Pâle - Blue Agents

Pâle

Blue Agents

1982

New Wave

Italy

Tracklist:



A1 The Parallel Cat (2:30)
A2 Teutonic Knight (3:24)
A3 Something Wicked This Way Comes (2:18)
A4 Tatuate E Contuse (2:39)
A5 The Livid Triptych (3:05)
A6 Lôve (4:04)
B1 All The Dead Children (3:55)
B2 Photoglass (3:03)
B3 Lovelace Lips (1:44)
B4 False Actions (3:38)
B5 Shimpu (4:10)


     To know the origins we have to come back at the end of 70's, to a punk rock band called Electric Nerves. Then the band lose the guitar player and changes the name in Pale T.V., with an atypical formation of 3 girls and 1 man: Francesca "Blue Niagara" (keys), Valeria "Whip" (bass), Alessandra "Lady Adrenalina" (drums), Alex (voice and sax). Their first 7'', 'Night Toys' got a tipical new wave inspiration.The name changes shortly in Pale and in 1982 Blue agents Lp is out. In this period they receive a lot of proposals, including invitations from Caterina Casella, Milva or a possible participation to the Festival of Sanremo.
The Pale reject these offers, considering them as a compromise : after this waste, the label Italian Records decide to split with them. In 1983 they open the four italian concerts of Simple Minds and after few months, unable to get labels interested, they stop their career in music production. Credit:.(bluetvset.blogspot.com)

Panoramas - Amanda 7''

Panoramas

Amanda 7''

1982

Post Punk Coldwave

France

Tracklist:

01. Amanda
02. Les Secrets Du Pharaon

Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth

Young Marble Giants

Colossal Youth

1980

Post Punk

Wales

Tracklist:



"Searching for Mr. Right"
"Include Me Out"
"The Taxi"
"Eating Noddemix"
"Constantly Changing"
"N.I.T.A."
"Colossal Youth"
"Music for Evenings"
"The Man Amplifier"
"Choci Loni"
"Wurlitzer Jukebox"
"Salad Days"
"Credit in the Straight World"
"Brand - New - Life"
"Wind in the Rigging"

     Young Marble Giants were a post-punk band formed in Cardiff, Wales in 1978. A trio, their music was constructed around the powerful and minimal instrumentation of brothers Philip and Stuart Moxham along with the vocals of Alison Statton.

     Stuart Moxham wrote the majority of the band's songs, and his writing was often deceptively simple-seeming, giving the YMG's classic work a uniquely fragile yet powerful quality. Centered around a weird mix of Philip's steel-hawser bass, Stuart's punchy rhythm guitar (played on a mapleglo Rickenbacker 425) and haunting, rhythmic Galanti electric organ lines, with Statton's vocals tentatively suspended in the space between them, their sound was unlike anything anyone had heard before. Stuart Moxham's girlfriend Wendy Smith lent Stuart the money to buy the Rickenbacker. Wendy, an art student in Cardiff (and later in Nottingham) at the time the YMG's were forming, also designed cover art for several singles and albums by Weekend and The Gist, Stuart Moxham's later project. Wendy also accompanied the band on their tour of the US, and shot a set of seminal photographs of the band.
     Very early in their existence, there was a fourth member of the band, Peter Joyce, Phil and Stuart Moxham's cousin. Joyce was a telephone engineer and an electronics whizz, who had made his own synthesiser from a kit. This was a small touch-sensitive keyboard with an attache case-like box of circuitry, with several knobs and dials. It made sounds similar to Eno's synths in the early Roxy Music and Kraftwerk, who employed similar 'low-tech/high-tech' electronics. The YMGs used tape recordings of Peter's home-made drum machine (Roland didn't release the Boss DR-55, the first fully programmable drum machine, until 1979), since they had no desire to have a drummer. They were also interested in (by today's standards primitive) state of the art effects devices such as ring modulators and reverb units, with the emphasis always on simplicity.
     Their first vinyl release was on the compilation LP Is The War Over? on Cardiff DIY label, Z Block Records, in October 1979. While signed to UK independent record label, Rough Trade Records the YMGs released two EPs, Final Day and Testcard, and one acclaimed and very influential album, Colossal Youth (a reference to the Early Greek 'Kouroi' marble statues, from which the YMGs took the inspiration for their name.)
     The band toured and played in the US and Europe, and played in San Francisco, Vancouver, New York, Berlin. Touring companions included the band Cabaret Voltaire.
     Musical influences included Eno, Kraftwerk, Neil Young, Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground, Roxy Music, David Bowie, Can and others. The band were acquainted with Scritti Politti, the band of Cardiff native Green Gartside, and ended up signed to the same label, Rough Trade Records. It was revealed in the 2003 book Journals that the band were, along with Scotland's The Vaselines, Kurt Cobain's favourite band. Courtney Love's band Hole covered the Young Marble Giants track "Credit In The Straight World". Peter Buck of R.E.M. is another self-confessed fan of the YMGs. Stuart Moxham was a fan of Manchester guitarist Vini Reilly's early work, and was also very interested in Dub Reggae.