Tag: Rusty Egan (Page 6 of 6)

A Short Conversation with MIDGE URE

23 June 2014 /

Midge Ure needs no introduction as one of the most highly regarded elder statesmen of the British music scene. Having become fascinated by KRAFTWERK when they hit the UK charts with ‘Autobahn’, he purchased his first synth, a Yamaha CS50 in 1977 and eventually became a prime mover in helping electronic music gain a mainstream acceptance in the UK.

Through his work as a member of VISAGE and ULTRAVOX, songs such as ‘Sleepwalk’, ‘Vienna’, ‘Fade To Grey’, ‘Mind Of A Toy’, ‘The Voice’, ‘The Anvil’, ‘Hymn’, ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’ and ‘Love’s Great Adventure’ have since become recognised standards in Synth Britannia folklore. During this period, he also produced tracks for FATAL CHARM, RONNY and MESSENGERS.

Previously, he’d been a member of THE RICH KIDS and had worked with THIN LIZZY and THE SKIDS. And all this is without mentioning his three UK No1s with SLIK, BAND AID and as a solo artist, plus his charity work with the Band Aid Trust, the Prince’s Trust and Save The Children. The last few years have been particularly busy for Midge Ure.

A regular on the live circuit with his endearingly intimate acoustic gigs featuring career highlights in stripped back form, he also undertook a number of key collaborations in Europe with acts such as X-PERIENCE, SCHILLER and JAM & SPOON. There was of course his own covers album ’10’ in 2009 with Ure’s emotively respectful takes on Peter Green’s ‘Man Of The World’ and Freddie Mercury’s ‘Nevermore’.

But his most high profile project was the reformation of the classic ULTRAVOX line-up. His successful live reunion with Warren Cann, Chris Cross and Billy Currie in 2009 subsequently led to the recording of 2012’s ‘Brilliant’ album. An impressive collection of songs by any standard, the songs ranged from the motorik stomp of ‘Live’ and the ‘U-Vox’ gone right melodic rock of ‘Lie’, to the pulsing electronica of ‘Rise’ and the Odyssey laden ‘Change’. It was a highly apt return as ULTRAVOX’s biggest legacy has probably been the stadium pomp of MUSE… just listen to ‘Apocalypse Please’, ‘Starlight’ and ‘Guiding Light’ if any proof is needed.

2014 has seen Ure contribute to the orchestrated great adventure of ‘International Blue’, an album celebrating the art of the crooner. Assembled by Dutch composer Stephen Emmer, the album also features Ure’s old pal Glenn Gregory from HEAVEN 17. With the release of Ure’s song ‘Taking Back My Time’ as a single and his first solo album of original material in 12 years ‘Fragile’ about to be unleashed, Midge Ure kindly chatted to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK at the world famous Abbey Road Studios about both projects and what the future may hold for ULTRAVOX…

Photo by George Hurrell

How did it feel to be working with an orchestra again on ‘Taking Back My Time’, having done so previously on ‘All In One Day’ and at the ‘Night Of The Proms’ concerts in Germany?

This is slightly different. Stephen Emmer did all the arrangements for the ‘International Blue’ album so I was presented with a backing track that he’d fine honed and worked on.

He thought my voice and my style of melody and lyric writing would suit this project.

This is very grown up stuff, it’s really complicated, beautiful musical arrangements… so to sing a track like that, it was an absolute joy because I didn’t do it the same way I would normally approach one of my songs; it was a different key for me, I sing it much lower so it’s a different vocal range and you can hear that.

Were there any particular classic reference points you used for ‘Taking Back My Time’?

Not really… I mean the chord structure and arrangement that Stephen already had were so reminiscent of the Burt Bacharach school of songwriting, that whole Scott Walker thing, the melody instantly came into place so my process of writing for this took maybe two or three days so it wasn’t a huge amount of time to sit there and do it. My big worry was that I wasn’t going to do Stephen’s backing track justice. So I had to make sure I was singing something that was solid and informative plus had interesting plays on words and subject matter. But the melody itself had to embellish and compliment what he’d already put there.

You have a new solo album ‘Fragile’ coming out soon. How would you describe it?

I describe it as wearing my musical influences on my sleeve. There are elements of prog rock, a lot of electronics, a lot of electric guitar… it’s very difficult for me to say what it is but if one of the tracks came on right now, you would know it’s me… you’d know from the melodies, counter-melodies, structures and vocals of course. So it’s very definably me. In a way, it’s a much more grown up record than anything I’ve done before. It’s been worked on over a period of maybe twelve or thirteen years,

There’s a song ‘Let It Rise’ which you originally did with SCHILLER. How have you reworked it to suit your own style?

SCHILLER’s got his very own, very good and distinctive style which is much more of a laid back, trip-hop dance thing. And although when we wrote it, the track suited his style incredibly well, I thought I could take it back again and turn it into something that’s much more me which is precisely what I’ve done.

One of the highlights of ‘Fragile’ entitled ‘Become’ is another of the songs that’s been around?

It’s the first single… that’s kind of harking back to early VISAGE.

You had originally offered ‘Become’ for the VISAGE comeback album?

I decided not to get involved when originally Rusty Egan and Steve Strange looked like they were getting VISAGE back together again. But when Rusty wanted to start playing around with remixes using modern electronic computer recording techniques, he asked if I had anything so I gave him ‘Become’. He started playing around with it and changing it; but I kept saying to him “Rusty, I will finish that at some point, it’s just something for you to dabble with”! Then it was going to be a track with Steve singing on it, it was going to be a VISAGE track, it was going to be this, it was going to be that… eventually, I said “it’s mine, I’m gonna finish it!” – Rusty is more than welcome to take it down the route he was taking it, but it’s a very different track to the one I finished, although they were conceived from the same idea.

You also worked with Moby on this album?

Yes, the track is called ‘Dark Dark Night’ and it was originally going to be for Moby’s last album… but in true Midge Ure style, by the time I’d finished it, Moby’s album was out! So I converted it and turned it into my thing. I’ve never met Moby or spoke to him, but we’ve got an email / tweeting relationship, so he asked me to do a modern collaboration and that was one of the songs he sent over. I’ve run it past him, he absolutely loves it and more than happy that I’ve put it on ‘Fragile’. I’m touring in America during the summer and he’s coming to the show at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, so I’ll finally meet up with him.

Photo by Chi Ming Lai

Is there a concept behind ‘Fragile’?

Yes, subject matter-wise, I always think of an album as a diary and about what affects you. The period, between this album and the last one ‘Move Me’, is such a long period that there have been many highs and many lows during it. So I just documented most things. Some of the songs were starting to be conceived way back then, but I never completed them until the last couple of months, so the whole thing still is coherent and works as a unit, as an album. I’ve started playing with instrumental music again, it’s fairly diverse and very distinctly me.

It’s been 12 years since ‘Move Me’ and you’ve mentioned that part of the delay has been the frustration of the modern music industry. What are your hopes and fears regarding the future… if there is one in the conventional sense?

I can’t predict how it is going to go but I can’t imagine it’s going to get any worse in the industry. We seem to have gone through a massive period of mediocrity while there’s still been some great music, writers and musicians out there. But they seem to be buried under this sea of apathy. I think that the more people understand that the industry as we knew it has completely and utterly gone, then they have to start to do what I’ve had to do for the last thirty years, which is learning how it all works.

So on the ‘Fragile’ album, not only have I played 99% of the instruments, I’ve engineered it, I’ve produced it, I’ve mixed it, shot a video and edited it… you have to be a kind of king of many things. You have to understand how it all works, because there aren’t people out there to do it all for you. There are no budgets out there to throw money at the wall and hoping it will stick! You have to get it right for you, first and foremost. I’m a firm believer that if you absolutely are convinced it’s right, other people will get it.

Photo by Chi Ming Lai

You did some dates with ULTRAVOX supporting SIMPLE MINDS in Autumn 2013… was that to test the water with the view to ULTRAVOX continuing in the future at some point, or just some fun?

I think the ULTRAVOX thing, as we said from day one when we got back together, was that we’ve opened doors now that were certainly closed before. And now ULTRAVOX can just sit on a shelf until we find something that interests us to do.

The idea of just going out every year and doing another tour / another tour / another tour kinda is self defeating because it’s a case of diminishing returns… the more often you go out, the less people will go and see you and it becomes a bit pathetic. And we never set out to make it anything pathetic. We want to keep it quality and keep it right. So it’s still sitting there, still breathing, we’re just waiting for a breath of life to spark it back into action again.

midge & bob

The 30th Anniversary of the original BAND AID recording is approaching. Are there any plans to officially commemorate it?

You know what? I honestly have absolutely no idea! There are no plans to do any celebratory 30th Anniversary things. We did Live8 ten years ago, we did BAND AID20 ten years ago… there was talk of a new version of the song, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. But watch this space, who knows?

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Midge Ure

Special thanks to Sacha Taylor-Cox at Impressive PR

‘Fragile’ is released by Hypertension Music on 7th July 2014. Further information can be found at http://www.midgeure.hypertension-music.de/

http://www.midgeure.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Midge-Ure/275159919205373

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
23rd June 2014

RUSTY EGAN Speaks Out

29 May 2013 /


There is a new VISAGE album but the majority of its founder members have not been involved.

John McGeoch passed away in 2004 and although Barry Adamson played on the first two albums, he gave up his equity in the collective after the first single ‘Tar’.

Whilst Dave Formula has contributed one song ‘Dairies Of A Madman’, ULTRAVOX members Midge Ure and Billy Currie did not participate.

The collective’s original catalyst Rusty Egan did take part in the initial stages as musical director of the project, but withdrew due to artistic differences and disagreements over production values.

Then in November 2012,  Steve Strange announced on German TV that he was writing songs with Midge Ure which proved to be incorrect while various sources reported on the fallout to confirm that all was not well.

Thus Steve Strange is the only ingredient from the original Blitz Club days who appears throughout the resultant album entitled ‘Hearts & Knives’. Although there are guest appearances by notable players from the scene such as ex-ULTRAVOX guitarist Robin Simon and ex-SIMPLE MINDS keyboardist Mick MacNeil, this album to many ears is not a real VISAGE album.

Rusty Egan spoke to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about the background of ‘Hearts & Knives’ and how he intends to pursue his own musical interests in the future…

How did the idea for a new VISAGE album come about?

I was consulted about the possibility of a new VISAGE album on the basis that royalties due to me, the estate of John McGeoch and to Dave Formula had been misappropriated by Steve Strange over a period of eight years.

The proposition was that the only way to recover the misappropriated royalties was to produce a fourth VISAGE album and pay Steve Strange a reduced royalty share until the misappropriated funds were restored. I was only willing to be involved in the production of an album that would do credit to the heritage of VISAGE. I spoke with all the members to establish their willingness to reform which was a tough call, and one by one they all declined.

So what did you do then?

I then thought “If I was going to form VISAGE today, who would I invite?” I talked with Chris Payne who co-wrote ‘Fade To Grey’ for writing and keyboards, SPANDAU BALLET’s Steve Norman for sax and percussion, ex-ULTRAVOX guiarist Robin Simon, Didier Marouani of SPACE and as producer, Brian Tench who had worked with KATE BUSH and OMD as well as VISAGE.

But some might say your concept for a new VISAGE is no more valid than this solo Steve Strange version?

Of course, a VISAGE album without a contribution from Midge would be crazy. When the team started to come together, Midge kindly offered a song called ‘Become’.

But early in the production cycle, it became clear to me that the company who were funding the production had no intention of meeting my production values nor matching the quality of the team that I had pulled together with an album that would show them or the VISAGE heritage in a good light.

So why is ‘Hearts & Knives’ not a VISAGE album then in your opinion?

Midge Ure and I alone came up with the concept for VISAGE. That is a matter of historical fact. VISAGE was and is our intellectual and emotional property.

The album has been produced and released without the consent of Midge or myself.

‘Hearts & Knives’ I presume alludes to love and death. Well I loved VISAGE, but this album is the death of everything that VISAGE represented. This collection of songs/music does not represent the heritage and musical values of VISAGE. It is a Steve Strange album. I believe that no-one would be interested in a Steve Strange album so using the name VISAGE is the only way to market the album.

So what have you thought about the end result?

Given this background, I have really struggled to be impartial about this album. ‘Lost In Static’ is the only track on the album that actually works, just because it’s simple. It has a decent drum and bass track. There’s one song ‘Never Enough’ which was very SIMPLE MINDS; but it could be good if we worked on the lyrics, got some great guitar and pumped that bass… the final version sounds like a home recording that was submitted as a demo. The production company has only added some guitars.

‘Shameless Fashion’ is OK but does not sound like VISAGE. ‘She’s Electric’ is also OK but nothing special; the ‘Fade To Grey’ CR78 drum track has been copied as an intro. The thin drums once again sound like a demo as if the producer has said “We’ll do the drums later” but never got around to it. I hate the vocal delays.

‘Diaries Of A Madman’ is the only song written by Steve and he had recorded it a few years ago with Dave Formula.

‘Dreamer I Know’ appears to have some potential…

That song is the one that I am most upset about. I met Arno Carstens at the Isle Of Wight Music Festival after I saw his performance. I just had to ask him about this song, he said it had been released but without any great take up. “I love it” I said, “It is like DEPECHE MODE, can I use it for VISAGE but make some changes?” Arno said “Sure, just do it and let me hear it”. I hope he does NOT EVER hear this VISAGE version… I had nothing to do with it. I have done this song the justice it deserves.


So what are you going to do music wise?

I have continued to write with Chris Payne and an amazing writer Gerard O’ Connell who co-wrote ‘Welcome To The Dancefloor’. We have done an amazing job on ‘Dreamer’; Youth co-wrote that with Arno, I have to say the mixes are simply wonderful. I have six more amazing songs co-written with Chris Payne and other songwriters. Didier plays his style keys, Steve Norman plays some nice sax which is very ROXY MUSIC.

Now I must say I am so much more content now to just do ‘Rusty Egan Presents…’ and release some tracks AFTER this album has gone away.

You’ve previewed ‘Welcome To The Dancefloor’ which is like GIORGIO MORODER meets DAFT PUNK…

Well, collaboration is really the way forward. Robin, Gerard , Didier, Brian Tench… there are many talented people I come across. If you listen to the radio show there are some amazing new bands that I would love to work with; SIN COS TAN really do it for me, METROLAND and KARIN PARK too.

‘Welcome To The Dancefloor’ is an example of how I have always worked. There was this amazing bassline with synth stabs that grabbed me, but what I could hear was an electro style uplifting track and I wrote this on the roof of the villa in Ibiza… I just looked and thought “Welcome To The Dancefloor of THE WORLD”. It’s here and as a DJ, I am and always was inspired in Ibiza and will head there again this summer and write some more… we wrote that track and recorded it very simply and then sent it to Robin Skouteris who did the final mixes.

I first came across Robin when I heard his amazing ‘Wonderful’ mix featuring HURTS. We just clicked and he did exactly what I wanted with the finished mixes… we are working on every track together first, then some friends want to remix. We are speaking with Paul Oakenfold, Richard Grey, Michael Gray and Tim Overdijk. And I’m excited to be in contact with METROLAND.

Although you did the deep backing vocals on VISAGE songs like ‘Fade to Grey’ and ‘Night Train’, you’re not known for singing. So will all the songs be vocodered like ‘Welcome To The Dancefloor’ or do you have other plans?

I always did backing vocals on everything and I sung ‘Dancefloor’ then got Gerard to do it pre-vocoder.

On ‘Night Train’, I do the whole answer verses and on all my current stuff, I just sing it badly and then Gerard does it better.

I could sing it but it would be in the Bowie/ Iggy low baritone and I love that style but I am not a frontman. I would love VIKTORIA MODESTA rather than me.

Once I have the songs recorded… well, all I can do is make some calls and hope people like them. I would just love KARIN PARK to sing on them, I have two songs that I know would suit her and also Theo from HURTS or the guys in MIRRORS. There are so many perfect singers out there.

So now I just want to get the songs and the music right, the only good sign I have is that when I ask people to work with me, they hear the simple music and say “YES I love it, let’s do it” … that is the way I know I am doing something right.


Are there any other plans for the project?

I hope to play drums with RRussell Bell and Chris Payne in DRAMATIS so I hope there is a need for RRussell’s guitar…

I have Robin Simon playing on one song and it’s perfect, he just sounds like the Robin of the ‘Systems Of Romance’ era.

How are you finding doing the radio shows?

I say “Less Talk, More Music” as I really think ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK is about the NEW MUSIC and the inspired classics. I am just the link… people love the tracks I select and that’s always been the case. I find bands / songs / music and say “I love this”… success!

It may take a year or four albums like with SIMPLE MINDS and ULTRAVOX but I can hear it, first time… and my track listings will show that we have found great talent; it may take time… but it’s QUALITY!

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Rusty Egan

https://rustyegan.com/

http://www.facebook.com/djRustyEgan

http://rustyegan.blogspot.co.uk/

https://soundcloud.com/rusty-egan

https://twitter.com/DJRustyEgan

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
29th May 2013

KRAFTWERK 45RPM at The Vinyl Factory

13 September 2012 /

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK were kindly invited by The Mott Collection to the launch party viewing of KRAFTWERK 45RPM, a new exhibition at The Vinyl Factory in the leafy London suburb of Chelsea.

Among those present were Back To The Phuture’s Mark Jones and SEX PISTOLS’ Paul Cook. Comprised of 45 iconic 7 inch KRAFTWERK single covers from all around the world, the exhibition showcased the band’s “analogue past dreaming of today’s digital present”.

Indeed on 1981’s ‘Computer World’, they predicted the world we live in today… home computers, internet dating, Big Brother surveillance and mobile devices that can add up, play tunes, compose songs AND control your day.

The Blitz Club’s legendary DJ Rusty Egan spun the appropriately themed gallery soundtrack featuring KRAFTWERK plus a variety of classic and new acts influenced by the Düsseldorf quartet such as ULTRAVOX and SIN COS TAN. Amusingly, there was even room for SEÑOR COCONUT whose Latin-tinged covers of ‘Showroom Dummies’ and ‘The Robots’ have to be heard to be believed!

Onlookers mingled and viewed the sleeves which were slightly scuffed and showed their age. But their impressions of yesterday’s tomorrow still possessed a thoughtful Walter Gropius chic and a Gilbert & George art school demeanour, from ‘Autobahn’ to ‘The Telephone Call’. As The Vinyl Factory themselves said: “Kraftwerk acknowledged that urban life was alienating yet celebrated the joys of modern technology. Their wistful melodies of contemporary reality were ironic but also a prediction of times to come.”

Everybody has their own particular memory with a slice of KRAFTWERK vinyl. With ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, it involved the 12 inch luminous pressing of ‘Neon Lights’. You held it up next to a lamp with your hand hovering just over the vinyl’s surface. One minute later, you would switch the lights off to play the disc and watch a ghostly hand spin round at 45RPM while the turntable now glowed in the dark!

And this is without even mentioning the all encompassing music which also marvellously featured ‘The Model’ AND ‘Trans-Europe Express’ on the B-side!

And speaking of ‘Trans-Europe Express’, one of the lesser known but no less iconic images on display at KRAFTWERK 45RPM was the Schienenzeppelin experimental propeller driven railcar which adorned the Belgian ‘Trans-Europa Express’ single sleeve and also appeared in the video. Despite being designed in 1929 by Franz Kruckenberg, its aesthetic is still vintage yet uniquely futuristic…rather like KRAFTWERK’s own retro-modernism.

For an act who were associated with being robotic, KRAFTWERK were strangely human, especially in their imperial classic line-up of Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos. One case in point was ‘Ohm Sweet Ohm’ from 1975’s ‘Radio-Activity’.

Despite its vocodered intro, as the track steadily sped up, the white noise percussion actually fluctuated while the romantic Odyssey missed a cue and the Orchestron shrilled. The track built to its crescendo over the pulsing Minimoog bass and improvised virtuoso section to perhaps be one of the most beautiful pieces of music to have been recorded…ever!

KRAFTWERK’s simplicity was at their heart and in the process, their distinctly minimal European approach even influenced a whole bunch of urban youngsters across the Atlantic as the Klingklang sound mutated into electro, hip-hop, techno and house. Every act that has ever used a synthesizer for a melody or a snap of electronic noise for a drum beat owes a debt of gratitude to them.

As Herr Hütter has even remarked: “…electro is everywhere!”

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its grateful thanks to Toby Mott and Rusty Egan

KRAFTWERK 45 RPM is at The Vinyl Factory, 91 Walton Street, London SW3 2HP until 5th October 2012. Opening hours are 10.30am to 6.00pm. Tel: (0) 207 589 0588

The commemorative book KRAFTWERK 45RPM by The Vinyl Factory is now available in a limited edition of 300 copies.

This catalogue documents the 45 singles from The Mott Collection. It also includes an essay by Toby Mott and an exclusive 7 inch single of a rare interview.

http://www.kraftwerk.com

http://thevinylfactory.com/

Text and photos by Chi Ming Lai
14th September 2012

Return To THE BLITZ CLUB 2011

21 February 2011 /

The Blitz Club celebrated its 30th Anniversary with a special reunion at its old site which is now The Red Rooms in Holborn, London.

its original soundtrack centred on the music of David Bowie but also included KRAFTWERK, ROXY MUSIC, ENO, LA DUSSELDORF, GINA X PERFORMANCE, ULTRAVOX, THE NORMAL, THE HUMAN LEAGUE, YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA, TELEX and MAGAZINE amongst others. This vibrant post-punk scene, whose clientel were dubbed ‘The Blitz Kids’ and ‘The New Romantics’, became the catalyst for several bands including SPANDAU BALLET, CULTURE CLUB and of course, VISAGE as well as assorted fashion designers and visual artists.

Hosted by its founders Steve Strange and Rusty Egan, among the special guests attending tonight’s party are SPANDAU BALLET’s Martin Kemp and John Keeble, Martin Kemp’s wife and WHAM! backing singer Shirlie Holliman, SPANDAU BALLET manager Steve Dagger and renowned photographer Peter Ashworth whose striking images adorn the covers of SOFT CELL’s ‘Non Stop Erotic Cabaret’ and ‘The Art Of Falling Apart’, ASSOCIATES ‘Sulk’, EURYTHMICS ‘Touch’ and the very first VISAGE album.

Also reunited for the first time in many years were members of The Blitz Club dance troupe SHOCK including Carole Caplin, LA Richards, Tim Dry aka Tik from TIK & TOK and Barbie Wilde who appeared in ULTRAVOX’s ‘Passing Strangers’ promo video with the absent Sean Crawford aka Tok.

After an initial DJ set by Rusty Egan, PARADISE POINT took to the stage to deliver a lively performance with their bassist Roman Kemp following in the footsteps of his father Martin by playing The Blitz Club. His mum Shirlie looked on proudly. Despite at least three members of the group looking barely old enough to be playing on licensed premises, they were impressive with a polished danceable pop style that wholly suited the occasion.

Singer Cameron Jones has a charismatic confidence which should see PARADISE POINT fill the gap in the market for a smart boy band that actually plays their own instruments. During the interlude to remove the stage to reveal the dancefloor proper, both Steve Strange and Rusty Egan took to the mic to thank everyone for attending.

The old Blitz Club dancefloor filled as its original resident DJ spinned classic after classic with many songs from the original Blitz Club playlist. It was quite surreal to not only be hearing the 12 inch mixes of ‘Fade To Grey’, ‘To Cut A Long Story Short’ and ‘R.E.R.B.’ in the very place that helped inspire them, but to also be in the presence of the very people that were involved in their genesis and recording.

With the essential inclusion of David Bowie’s ‘Heroes / Helden’, ‘The Model’ by KRAFTWERK, OMD’s ‘Enola Gay’, JOY DIVISION’s ‘She’s Lost Control’ and a bit of Bryan Ferry et voila… this was the perfect combination to celebrate nearly four decades of fantastically inventive avant pop music.

Next to take the decks was Princess Julia who famously appeared in the iconic ‘Fade To Grey’ promo video with Steve Strange. Again, it was surreal to see the pair standing together in the DJ booth.

Onlookers were even treated to the former Steven Harrington doing some impromptu miming over the soon-to-be released reworking of VISAGE’s ‘Frequency 7’ which now features extra lyrics borrowed from HEAVEN 17’s ‘Temptation’. This is a song which incidentally also has Blitz Club connections as it was Rusty Egan who recommended Carol Kenyon to Messrs Marsh, Ware and Gregory when the Sheffield trio were seeking a soulful backing vocalist for their then yet-to-be completed 1983 single.

Meanwhile Princess Julia’s set was varied, ranging from the not entirely unexpected like DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ to the biggest surprise of the night, FANCY’s cult Euro hit from 1983, ‘Slice Me Nice’. The various Germans and Scandinavians, who have made the journey specially to be at this reunion tonight, were particularly appreciative!

But with the landlords The Red Rooms reverting to their usual source of income as a table dancing establishment, it was time for The Blitz Club, like Cinderella, to make its exit before midnight.

The whole night was terrifically friendly with lots of great electronic pop music and many attendees got into the spirit of things by togging up as New Romantics, Peacock Punks or in the case of ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, 1950’s German bank clerks!

The Return To The Blitz Club 2011 couldn’t have been any better. With ULTRAVOX having just signed a new recording deal with Universal Music and plans also for a new VISAGE album, the legacy of The Blitz Club is alive and well! Tonight really was a Club For Heroes!

Rusty Egan’s DJ setlist

THE KNIFE Pass This On
THE STOOGES I Wanna Be Your Dog
THE BLUE NILE Headlights On The Parade
THE HUMAN LEAGUE Being Boiled
TOM TOM CLUB Genius Of Love
KRAFTWERK Neon Lights
DAVID BOWIE Sound & Vision
IGGY POP Sister Midnight
KRAFTWERK Trans Europe Express
DAVID BOWIE Fashion
GINA X PERFORMANCE No GDM
SIMPLE MINDS Changeling
LIAISONS DANGEREUSES Los Ninos Del Parque
BLONDIE Heart Of Glass
SHOCK R.E.R.B.
ULTRAVOX Visions In Blue (EMP 09 Remix)
ABC Tears Are Not Enough
YOKO ONO Walking On Thin Ice
BRYAN FERRY Let’s Stick Together
DAVID BOWIE Ashes To Ashes
DAVID BOWIE Boys Keep Swinging
SPANDAU BALLET To Cut A Long Story Short (Long Mix)
HUMAN LEAGUE The Sound Of The Crowd
OMD Enola Gay
SOFT CELL Tainted Love
THE CURE In Between Days
JOY DIVISION She’s Lost Control
DEPECHE MODE See You
ULTRAVOX Hiroshima Mon Amour
VISAGE Mind Of A Toy
DURAN DURAN Planet Earth (Night Version)
IGGY POP The Passenger
ASSOCIATES Club Country (12″ Version)
DAVID BOWIE Heroes/Helden
KRAFTWERK Das Modell
VISAGE Fade to Grey (Club Mix)

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Richard Price
24th January 2011

A Short Conversation with RUSTY EGAN

2 April 2010 /


A gathering of romantics old and new at Raffles in Chelsea saw the launch of ‘The Face – The Best Of Visage’, a new compilation by the electronic supergroup.

Rusty Egan, VISAGE’s drummer and the DJ of the now legendary club The Blitz was present to spin some electro tunes and give the welcoming speech. Telling the story of VISAGE and the New Romantic scene, he recalled how he also gave SPANDAU BALLET one of their first gigs and played DEPECHE MODE’s debut single ‘Dreaming Of Me’. He also reiterated how in that era, the UK produced the best music in the world and that 700,000 units sold of the recent ‘Ministry Of Sound – Electronic 80s’ compilation almost thirty years after that classic era was proof of that!

He finally thanked Universal Records who have released the album and interestingly said that the UK Music Industry needs to “find more acts like LA ROUX”!

Featuring new remixes of ‘Fade To Grey’ and some original 12-inch dance mixes, ‘The Face’ is a fine collection of VISAGE’s singles output. However, in a repeat of an error on previous collections, the album version of ‘Night Train’ appears to have been featured instead of the John Luongo single remix.

Formed in late 1978 as a reaction to the shortage of new electronic dance music to play at The Blitz, disillusioned ex-RICH KIDS members Midge Ure and Rusty Egan recruited its figurehead Steve Strange to front the project under the name of VISAGE.

They recorded a cover of the Zager and Evans one hit-wonder ‘In The Year 2525’ as one of several demos which were subsequently offered to EMI and turned down!

The demos though soon caught the attention of producer Martin Rushent who had an office above The Blitz. Working for Warners subsidiary Radar Records, he was intending to launch his own Genetic Records imprint through them. With their own bands on temporary hiatus, ULTRAVOX’s Billy Currie and MAGAZINE’s Dave Formula, the late John McGeoch and Barry Adamson (who left shortly after but later returned as a ‘hired hand’) were soon recruited and together at Rushent’s incumbent Genetic Sound Studios in Reading, they started recording an album.

The first track from those sessions ‘Tar’ was released as a single on Radar in Autumn 1979 but within days, Warners pulled the plug on the label and plans for Genetic Records became stillborn. This move was extremely short sighted on Warners part as Rushent had been in discussions with several acts about signing them, apart from VISAGE, it was rumoured that JOY DIVISION, ULTRAVOX and SPANDAU BALLET were also waiting in the wings.

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Despite this set back, several positives emerged from this period; at Rusty Egan’s suggestion, Midge Ure joined Billy Currie in a re-launched ULTRAVOX… we know what happened there! And Martin Rushent, encouraged by all the synthesizer technology he saw being used in his studio, bought a Roland MC4 Micro-composer and Linn Drum Computer.

Working initially with his old mate Pete Shelley from BUZZCOCKS on his seminal ‘Homosapien’ album, he then ended up producing a struggling band called THE HUMAN LEAGUE, the rest as they say, is history…

Meanwhile, VISAGE was put on hold while a new deal was brokered by ULTRAVOX’s new management team Morrison-O’Donnell with Polydor Records. During breaks in their day job, Ure and Currie continued to work with the others to finish the album, with Ure taking the helm as producer.

Needing one more track to complete it, Currie brought in an instrumental he had written during his time as a member of GARY NUMAN’s live band in 1979 with fellow keyboardist Chris Payne called ‘Toot City’. With Ure adding a lyric and melody line, the subsequent track became ‘Fade To Grey’, released in December 1980 as VISAGE’s second single and becoming a massive hit in Europe. It reached No8 in the UK chart but more importantly, was No1 in Germany, then the biggest market for English language music outside of the USA.

With all the other members of VISAGE signed to other labels, it was left for Steve Strange alone to promote VISAGE and appear with a young lady nicknamed Princess Julia in the now iconic Godley & Creme directed promo video for ‘Fade To Grey’. Other acts from The Blitz like SPANDAU BALLET and CULTURE CLUB may have had greater success, but VISAGE truly encapsulated the New Romantic aesthetic; the beauty of the synthesizer played with symphonic classical overtones fused to the electronic dance beat of Neu Europa and visually styled like a cross between the Edwardian dandies and Weimar Cabaret.

Other hits like ‘Mind Of A Toy’, ‘Visage’, ‘The Damned Don’t Cry’ and ‘Night Train’ affirmed that VISAGE were as important a part of the ‘Synth Britannia’ landscape as GARY NUMAN, THE HUMAN LEAGUE, OMD, ULTRAVOX, DEPECHE MODE and SOFT CELL.

The eponymous first album particularly captured an exciting era in the development of pop featuring an early use of the Fairlight CMI to produce the realistic sound effects to link the album tracks together while the second VISAGE album ‘The Anvil’ is still an underrated synth classic.

But once Midge Ure left in mid-1982, it was never the same again although the first post-Ure single ‘Pleasure Boys’ possessed an aggressive New York disco edge that was certainly a more exciting proposition than the disappointing rock-orientated direction which was eventually pursued on the swansong ‘Beat Boy’ album.

However, the VISAGE legacy still endures in this modern electro-pop era with KELLY OSBOURNE’s ‘One Word’ and KYLIE MINOGUE’s ‘Like A Drug’ being the most obvious (and some would say blatant) musical pastiches of ‘Fade To Grey’ itself. Meanwhile in an episode of BBC drama ‘Ashes To Ashes, the real-life Steve Strange can be seen performing ‘Fade To Grey’ at The Blitz… a bit of artistic licence went on there though as the original incarnation of VISAGE never actually played live.

But with classic electro-pop back in vogue three decades on, life can sometimes feel like you’re in your own episode of ‘Ashes To Ashes’! With Rusty Egan playing SOFT CELL’s ‘Say Hello Wave Goodbye’, TUBEWAY ARMY’s ‘Are Friends Electric?’, OMD’s ‘Souvenir’ and a number of VISAGE tracks later on, it seemed to confirm that!

Just before he hit the decks, Rusty Egan took time out to speak about being an electro pioneer and his return to DJ-ing:

‘Fade To Grey’ is not only the best record of that New Romantic era but it’s also up there with ‘I Feel Love’, ‘The Model’, ‘Don’t You Want Me’, ‘Blue Monday’, ‘Enjoy The Silence’ etc. So 30 years on with new electro acts like LITTLE BOOTS and LA ROUX plus this ‘Ministry Of Sound – Electronic 80s’ compilation, it’s suitably apt that this new VISAGE collection ‘The Face’ has been released. How does it feel now looking back to have had an active part in such a pioneering, and in retrospect, culturally influential period?

How does it feel? I’m proud to have been part of something that was pioneering.

It’s difficult to be pioneering when people aren’t that welcoming to different new sounds, new ways of doing things. Not only did ‘Fade To Grey’ sound and was recorded technologically different, we also made a video pre-MTV which was also an award winning video. So the sound and the visual side, the artwork, the video and music all encompassed what the 80s were about. It was about visually stunning and if possible, thoughtful music. Now all the technology is here, you can do it with your eyes shut! But then, it wasn’t!

When was the moment that you decided you wanted to make electronic pop music and ‘downed sticks’ to get a drum machine? Did Midge Ure’s acquisition of a Yamaha synthesizer while you were both in THE RICH KIDS in 1977 play its part?

No, there was a couple of years of punk which Midge Ure and myself weren’t too impressed with in terms of the clubs and the environment in Thatcherite Britain, it was horrible in Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool! It was depressing and THE RICH KIDS were trying to be positive, so y’know, you’ve got talent, you don’t need money etc! So we were just trying basically to grasp the good in life, trying to be positive in a very negative time.

What were your favourite electronic records of the time that inspired you?

Obviously GIORGIO MORODER and for me, you could go into a disco and you could forget the grey, horrible environment as that beat “doo-doo-do-do” went on and on, and the lights flashed, reality soon hit you as you came out of a club! And again, you didn’t know what instrument was playing ‘cos it wasn’t a band. So a band was guitar, bass and drums! A record that you danced to, you didn’t care what it was as it had the beat! You didn’t go, “oh he’s not playing the bass”… it was just a good bassline. It wasn’t about musicians, or musicianship!

Alright, so that ‘muso’ aspect never bothered you, that dilemma about what was programmed and what was actually ‘played’?

NO! I saw drummers like Billy Cobham and I thought “F*CK THAT! I can’t do that!” And then I thought, nor could Ringo and he sold more records!

The eponymous debut was a great success but the follow-up ‘The Anvil’ is still a greatly underrated album, I love it! The title track should have been a single and there were some fantastic tracks on it like ‘The Horseman’ and ‘Again We Love’. Do you think it deserved more recognition, especially as it was musically a more sophisticated record?

Well, what originally started out as five musicians and a singer to make music to be played in the club where I was the DJ, having had such worldwide success with ‘Fade To Grey’, by the time we got to ‘The Anvil’, my very good friend Midge Ure was now fully encompassed in ULTRAVOX. And ULTRAVOX’s managers were in fact the management of VISAGE. And their priority was ULTRAVOX so ‘The Anvil’ album didn’t have what they considered to be the lead single. It had ‘The Damned Don’t Cry’ and ‘Night Train’ but they didn’t get the thumbs up. So we did the best we could on that basis.

For me, ‘The Anvil’ (the song) was the lead track, ‘The Anvil’ in German (‘Der Amboss’), the 12-inch remixes, all that which I did with John Luongo was for me, the single. But the record company didn’t support that! They were pushing for another ‘Fade To Grey’ so they were going for ‘The Damned Don’t Cry’!

Photo by Sheila Rock

You played on a number of other records, most notably ‘Yellow Pearl’ by Phil Lynott which was co-written by Midge Ure and the ‘Top Of The Pops’ theme in the early 80s. But one of my favourites is the lost cult classic ‘R.E.R.B’, the B-side you did for SHOCK’s ‘Angel Face’ with producer Richard Burgess back in 1981.

ISN’T IT FANTASTIC? YEAH!

It is! Any regrets that you didn’t keep that track for a VISAGE album?

Well, R.E. is Rusty Egan, R.B. is Richard Burgess. And he produced SPANDAU BALLET’s first album and was in the group LANDSCAPE. Basically, we wanted to produce together a sound and we got a Roland, one of the ones with all the components, I mean it was massive! I think YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA had one! Anyway, we just played around with that and we came up with that track and it was the beginning of what never happened because then Richard had a success with ‘Einstein A Go -Go’ and Spandau had a success. So again, success sometimes separates you from possible good!

You’re DJ-ing again and have been playing some of the old tunes from The Blitz days. Who of the current generation of electro pop acts float your boat and are any going to be in your DJ set?

Oh yeah, there’s quite a few in there, I’d have to stand next to my laptop and go through my bag of tunes but SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO with Beth Ditto ‘Cruel Intentions’, fantastic! I love THE ADMIRALS, they’re German! There’s also LA ROUX ‘In For The Kill (That Doesn’t Sound Like A Screem Mix)’, ‘Hiding All The Stars’ by CHICANE with GARY NUMAN, ‘I’m In Love With A German Film Star (PET SHOP BOYS Remix)’

Speaking of them, on the B-side of ‘Night Train’, ‘I’m Still Searching’, did you and Steve Strange invent the PET SHOP BOYS?

Ha! Ha! Yeah, that was just me and Steve actually! There was no-one else around as the band were all gone by then! MAGAZINE were busy, ULTRAVOX were busy! So we had to keep knocking up B-sides! I like ‘Motivation’ as well. But ‘I’m Still Searching’, does it sound like PET SHOP BOYS? Well!! Were they around at that time? I don’t know much about them!

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Rusty Egan

Special thanks to Paul Piggott at LaDigit

‘The Face – The Best Of VISAGE’ is released by Universal Music Group

http://rustyegan.net

https://www.facebook.com/rusty.egan/

https://twitter.com/DJRustyEgan

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
2nd April 2010

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