This one springs off the last published entry that I did after going on a Lungfish binge, and an observation I had connecting similarilities between that mysterious, cult post-hardcore band — whose entire discography was released on the well-known Washington DC label Dischord Records — and Simple Minds, the world renowned Glaswegian post-punk/pop band who hit “super-stardom” in the 1980s. You might find it of interest to go read that entry first before digging into this one.
If someone were to ask me on the spot what my favourite, influencial band from the 1980s was — and to be honest, that would depend on what day of the week you asked me — I’d probably surprise a lot of folks and state Simple Minds. This “surprise” might be likely because a lot of folks I know don’t really much about them, except for their standalone track immortalised in the John Hughes film The Breakfast Club (1984) for which they contributed their Keith Forsey penned track “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” for, or their string of hits from the mid 80s, mostly centering around the 1985 album Once Upon A Time, which is one I don’t really listen to as they entered their “stadium rock” area and from there never really had any connection to their material from thereon in. In fact, for a number of my “favourite” bands I don’t like all of their albums. If anything it shows a band exploring evolution of sound, trying new things, adapting to triumphs and loses — even if some of a band’s material to a listener like me would be disappointing.
Anyway, like most people discovering Simple Minds, for me it was based on their more well-known, aforementioned output when I was young, but in the late 1990s when I moved to Vancouver and started taking advantage of its indie record stores and mining the bins in thrift shops and flea markets, I came across some other records by Simple Minds that at the time I never really was aware of. Pretty soon I was the owner of used copies of the band’s albums Real To Real Cacophony (1979), Empires And Dance (1989), Sons And Fascination (1981), Sister Feelings Call (also 1981) and New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84) (1982). They were all probably purchased each for a few dollars each. No-one wanted these records at this point as 1990s indie and post-rock was in full bloom, and the whole post-punk revival that was yet to take shape at the turn of the millenium was still a bit further away around the corner.
Acquiring and listening to these records at the time was like discovering long lost treasure, and if anything it was like my musical DNA was already in line with the style and concepts that Simple Minds were doing at the time — foreward thing synthesizer post-punk/pop with interesting contributions from all the players and an interesting mix of angular and textural sounds. As much as they were pulling from what was going on in the UK at the time, they were also pulling influence from music in other countries, perhaps Germany (Berlin-school synth, electronics, krautrock) and what countries like Italy were producing with artists experimenting with electronics around the same time. There was a very wide, pan-European curiousity to their music — especially in the lyrics of singer Jim Kerr around this period — that saw a band observing big themes and the soundtrack that would go with that.
There’s an article I uncovered somewhat recently through the UK news outlet The Guardian which gives some insight to the band’s mindset around that time — when the preceding album Empires And Dance was released — which is an interesting read.
Out of this batch of albums that I discovered, over the years it’s Sons And Fascination that has resonated and stood the test of time for me the most, along with it’s counterpart of additional material, Sister Feelings Call, that was released at the same time. I think with this album the band dialed in the monstrous beast that is their rhythm section of Derek Forbes (one of post-punk’s great and underrated bass players) and Brian McGee — who would leave the band around this release to be followed by a succession of drummers before settling on Mel Gaynor in 1982.
Over top of this the synths are textured with some cool sequencing work, the guitars scratch away over top — or with some phasing, psychedelic patches. It all sounds to me like a very futuristic album, albeit in a gritty, highly urban sort of way. And of course the voice of Jim Kerr navigating through these audio intersections on lofty topics such as the state of Europe, travel, and other broad themes. Tracks like “Love Song” and “Sweat In Bullet” I suppose became the bigger singles from these recordings, and showcase the band’s chemistry as described above quite accurately.
Promo videos of these tracks are included below, including the one for “Love Song” where the band — stylishly dressed in dark clothing — crashes a late night, hole-in-the-wall disco where Kerr hijacks the DJ booth and the rest of the band manage to break out in a fight with the other patrons in a giant showdown. Or the video for “Sweat In Bullet” where the band performs at night in what looks like a lush, tropical courtyard at some holiday resort (?). For whatever reason there’s extra added cowbell on the audio track in the video, which is mirrored by the fact that short-term Simple Minds drummer Kenny Hyslop spends most of the video banging on a single cowbell while what looks like chewing on a piece of gum.
Some of the slower tracks — such as “Seeing Out The Angel”, “This Earth You Walk Upon” and “League Of Nations” — seem less in line with their UK peers and seem to pull more from the German school of atmospheric electronics, such as Tangerine Dream or similar.
However, probably the first song that really pulled my attention from these recordings is the instrumental track “Theme For Great Cities”. I’m not sure why Kerr sat this one out but perhaps there was some artistic concensus to let it be instrumental. Maybe it was strategic to play as an opening piece at the time for Kerr to walk out on the stage, or at least to give him a bit of an intermission for those lengthy, packed out concerts. The track dramatically alternates between two sets of chort progressions in this piece, intersecting in tonally different keys. The guitars rhythmical chug out a 16th note rhythm that would sound more in place with a noise-rock band than a synthesizer post-punk band, allowing for keyboardist Mick MacNeil’s keyboard parts to shine through.
The result is something that sounds edgy, looking forward and as if cutting through rain-soaked streets in bustling city nightlife. Even the drum pattern and the way it’s recorded sound a bit ahead of it’s time, with a style that would precede pop music’s obsession with “Amen-break” based drum patterns that would come later in the decade and into the 1990s.
This track sort of took on a “second life” as we entered the 1990s, with a surprising number of trance – house – “Eurodance” versions of the song — the majority of which to me sound cartoonishly comical against the original (I’ve included one below from 1994) — but if anything show how forward-thinking the track was that it took on new life with the burgeoning rave scene that starting picking up steam in the late 1980s.
“Themes For Great Cities” is the opening track from the companion album Sister Feelings Call — or does it open the actual album, Sons And Fascination? The confusion for me that lies here is as to which of these two concurrent releases this track was released on, for you see, my version of Sons And Fascination is the Canadian pressing of the record from the time, which totally shuffles the track listing about. The official version — the UK version — is absent of this track, putting “Themes For Great Cities” on the UK version of Sister Feelings Call supplemental album whereas the Canadian pressing of Sons And Fascination — the flagship release of the two — puts “Themes For Great Cities” as the second track of side A of that release after “Love Song”, and is not on the Canadian Sister Feelings Call release.
For all them Americans a compilation album of their material around this period came out in the US, called Themes For Great Cities 79/81 that includes tracks of these two releases, and albums that came before.
And coming to the close of this entry, with a lot of major label releases — especially released back in this time period —many records I have are Canadian pressings I attained from when I was back living in Vancouver. Another example of pressing differentiation is my copy of Travelogue by The Human League. On this Canadian version, the popular track “Being Boiled” is called “Voice Of Buddha” — apparently due to “censorship” or whatever. This Canadian version even has a different cover and completely re-arranged tracklist, so when I finally moved over to the UK and people kept mentioning The Human League‘s classic track “Being Boiled” for a short time I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about!