A.I.

Altered Images have played locally live twice in the past week, in Bristol on Sunday 20th and Stroud on Friday 26th. 

 

I missed both, but thankfully Mike is here to give us the low down on last weekend's show. Take it away, Mike!

Firstly an admission – Clare Grogan is great. 

Her career is great. 

Her films are great. 

So what I’m about to write may include negatives but they aren’t aimed at her – 

it’s more of the state of gigs we go to at the moment and 

the choices us as punters have to make now we are ‘a certain age’.

Many of you will know the back story here. Altered Images split up in the mid 1980’s shortly after the album ‘Bite’ and had a long hiatus until Clare was offered gigs on the ‘80’s circuit which developed in the early 2000’s. She has been plying her trade with a younger band and this has even resulted in new music – ‘Mascara Streakz’ an album released in 2022. This month Altered Images (or as I call them AI) are touring ‘Bite’ at ten venues- Bristol being the second after an opening night at Brighton.

When we get to the venue the crowd is sparse. Bristol O2 Academy capacity is about 1700 and I would say there are about 450 people there? You know attendance is low when they cordon off the upstairs and it still feels...erm...draughty. My mate Jon had been to the previous night in Brighton and as it was a smaller venue it looked reasonably busy and a tight intimate atmosphere.

My heart always goes out to the band when this happens – who did the booking? Did AI’s management really think that they were going to anywhere near sell out this venue? Has an AI song been used in a film that the TikTok generation has seen hence the expectation of masses of teenagers descending on O2 Academy in anticipation of ‘Insects’? 

Anyway the show is a game of two halves – the first half ‘Bite’ – played in order. Bite is a short album only consisting of 8 songs and TBF it is pretty consistent all the way through. Clare comes on and her voice is strong and we are transported back to 1983, legwarmers, deeley boppers and Les Dawson on prime time television. AI perform 'bite' go off and come back again to do a 'greatest hits' set. The band is a young band – I have seen AI 3 times in recent years and I would imagine none of them have seen a deeley bopper in their life, let alone a Rubik’s Cube.

 

Thanks, Mike! It sounded - and looked - like a great night, all round.

So with half a set comprising the entirety of the Bite album played in sequential order, how to approach today's Dubhed selection? Not as tough as it first seemed.

 

Several tracks from Bite appeared on my previous A.I. selection I Could Be Happy (Last Goodbye) back in July 2021, so I started by removing any 'duplicates'. There were three singles from the album, so I plumped for the 12" versions for all. 

 

Note for purists: the 'extended version' of Don't Talk To Me About Love is from the 12"/80s compilation and the expanded edition of Bite, both released in the early 2000s and about a minute and a half shorter than the version on the 12" single in my collection.

The half-dozen 'greatest hits' got largely the same treatment. The 12" mix of I Could Be Happy appeared on the previous A.I. selection, so I've opted here for the rather wonderful version from 2022's Clara Libre EP. 

 

Assuming that a few of you may have the spectacular comeback album Mascara Streakz, I've included radio edits of the three singles featured in the set; I bought the digital format of Mascara Streakz which came with these as bonus tracks.

See Those Eyes is the Razormaid edit by Joseph Watt, not massively different from the original Dance Mix by Martin Rushent but reintroducing Clare's vocals which are mostly absent from the dubby latter. However, the US version is missing the fun studio dialogue intro of the original 12" so I've tacked it on.

 

And how else could the set end, but with Happy Birthday? Again, I've gone for the full-blown 12" Dance Mix. Over familiar yes, but no less joyous than when I first heard it forty-odd years ago.

 

This one's dedicated to Mike, with thanks again for the review, but also for Brian, who I know will be very happy to hear Clare's dulcet tones this fine October day.

 

1) Bring Me Closer (Extended Version) (1983)

2) Another Lost Look (Album Version) (1983)

3) Love To Stay (Extended Version) (1983)

4) Now That You're Here (Album Version) (1983)

5) Don't Talk To Me About Love (Extended Version) (Edit) (1983)

6) I Could Be Happy (Cuban Version) (2022)

7) Mascara Streakz (Radio Edit) (2022)

8) Dead Pop Stars (Single Version) (1981)

9) Double Reflection (Radio Edit) (2022)

10) See Those Eyes (Dance Mix Intro / Razormaid Remix) (1982) 

11) Glitter Ball (Radio Edit) (2022)

12) Happy Birthday (Dance Mix) (1981)

 

1981: Dead Pop Stars EP: 8 

1981: Happy Birthday EP: 12

1982: See Those Eyes EP: 10

1983: Bite: 2, 5

1983: Bring Me Closer EP: 1 

1983: Love To Stay EP: 3

2002: Class X Volume Nineteen: 10

2005: 12"/80s/2: 5

2022: Clara Libre EP: 6

2022: Mascara Streakz (bonus tracks): 7, 9, 11

A.I. (56:15) (KF) (Mega)

You can find my previous Altered Images selection, I Could Be Happy (Last Goodbye) right here.

 

 

Photos of Clare by Mike at O2 Academy, except for the 'shoes' pic headlining this post and my Dubhed selection. Both are snippets of a photo of Clare on stage at The Sub Rooms in Stroud on 26th October, taken and tweeted by FromTheMoshPit aka @DazKamera.

Some Days Are All Mondays

...but if all your Mondays are soundtracked by Blondie, who's complaining?

On Sunday 8th August 1999 around 6.00pm, my friend Stuart and I were sitting on Jones Beach, prior to going into the snappily-titled Coca Cola At Jones Beach Theater to see Blondie live in concert. According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, Jones Beach is found at 1 Ocean Parkway in the hamlet of Wantagh, in the town of Hempstead, in Nassau County, on Long Island, New York, in the United States Of America. Fortunately, we didn't have to give that mouthful of directions to a cab driver as we hopped on the Long Island Rail Road from NYC, then a short bus ride to reach our destination.

 

Stuart and I were supposed to have gone to Iceland. Earlier in 1999, we both found ourselves single, approaching the last year of our twenties and at the end of the millennium so we decided that we were going to go on an adventure together. Although we didn't know what the future held, it still felt like it was a 'now or never' opportunity before marriage, kids and other seismic life changes made a 'boys' own adventure' logistically or financially out of reach.

 

Iceland had long held an appeal, not least because we shared a love for The Sugarcubes and Björk. As it turned out, return flights and a few days in Reykjavík was going to set us back around £1,000, so it was already financially out of reach to us in 1999. New York, however, wasn't so a flight was duly booked and off we went.

I would say that neither of us had really planned the trip, to the extent that I'd only booked accommodation for the first night, figuring that we could decide where we wanted to spend the rest of our stay once we were there. I didn't have access to online booking back then and I remember phoning to book the Chelsea Hotel, that legendary haunt of writers, artists and actors. Imagine my surprise when, after a long flight, transfer to New York City and walk to the hotel, the reception staff were not expecting us. After much back and forth, it transpired that I'd actually booked the nearby Chelsea Star Hotel, which was an entirely different proposition and a story all by itself. Suffice to say, we found ourselves sharing a bed in the "Absolutely Fabulous"  themed suite (for "suite" read "box room") for one night only.

 

Apart from a vague idea that we'd like to go to a gig during our stay, we'd not made any plans prior to our trip (see a pattern emerging here?) and it just so happened that Blondie were in town near the end of our stay as part of their mammoth No Exit world tour. Tickets were $29.00 (about £18.00 back then), so it was a done deal.

You may have spotted the phrase "rain or shine" on the ticket beneath the date and time. The Coca Cola At Jones Beach Theater (these days the even more snappily titled Norwell Health At Jones Beach Theater; sponsors, eh?) is an open air ampitheatre with a policy that the show must go on, whatever the weather. Fine for the band performing on stage, no so great for the audience. Looking at my photos of Stuart and I on Jones Beach, I can confirm that Sunday 8th August 1999 had neither rain nor shine, with nondescript white sky and moderate temperature. According to Wiki, the ampitheatre has a capacity of 15,000 but I don't recall the venue feeling particularly packed so I'm guessing it wasn't a sell out.

 

Unsurprisingly, the gig was very heavily weighted towards their hugely successful comeback, No Exit, with 7 songs (half the album) in a 17-song set. The rest was made up of classics and big hits, with inevitably several omissions. Sunday Girl, (I'm Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear, Union City Blue and Denis were all left out, although the latter is understandable as whilst it reached #2 in the UK, it wasn't a single in the USA.

 

Not that we cared at the time as Blondie were of course "absolutely fabulous", despite it being an early evening outdoors gig in broad daylight. Debbie Harry looked and sounded fantastic, as did the rest of the band, and though we were largely unfamiliar with the No Exit songs, they seemed to slot in well with the classics. I particularly remember thinking that - Debbie Harry's singing notwithstanding - the performance of One Way Or Another almost sounded like Pixies. Opening with Dreaming and Hanging On The Telephone was topped only by closing with Call Me and Heart Of Glass around an hour and a half later. A brilliant, unique night and a fantastic memory of a wonderful trip to the Big Apple.

 

I didn't immediately rush out and buy No Exit on my return to the UK and, twenty-three years later, I still haven't bought the album. Today's selection is a recreation of the 8th August 1999 setlist, with radio edits and alternative versions of several of the No Exit tracks. It's not a representative Blondie 'best of' - JC and Walter nailed it with their Imaginary Compilation Albums over at The Vinyl Villain back in 2018 - but as today's all Monday, I can't think of a better soundtrack.

 

1) Dreaming (Album Version) (1979)

2) Hanging On The Telephone (Album Version) (Cover of The Nerves) (1978)

3) Screaming Skin (Radio Edit) (1999)

4) Atomic (Single Remix By Mike Chapman) (1980)

5) Rapture (Single Version) (1980)

6) Nothing Is Real But The Girl (Boilerhouse Mix) (1999)

7) Under The Gun (For Jeffery Lee Pierce) (Album Version) (1999)

8) Night Wind Sent (Album Version) (1999)

9) Boom Boom In The Zoom Zoom Room (Live In The Studio) (1999)

10) Rip Her To Shreds (Album Version) (1976)

11) Forgive And Forget (Pull Down The Night) (Album Version) (1999)

12) The Tide Is High (Single Version) (Cover of The Paragons) (1980)

13) Maria (Radio Version) (1999)

14) One Way Or Another (Album Version) (1978)

15) No Exit (The Loud Rock Remix - Radio Edit ft. Coolio & The Loud Allstars) (1999)

16) Call Me (Theme From American Gigolo) (Single Version) (1980)

17) Heart Of Glass (Long Version) (1978)

Some Days Are All Mondays (1:08:58) (GD) (M)

I Could Be Happy (Last Goodbye)

What an emotional rollercoaster the Euro 2020 final was. I think Altered Images have said it all...

 

1) I Could Be Happy (1981)

2) I Don't Want To Know (1983)

3) Change Of Heart (1983)

4) Love To Stay (1983)

5) Stand So Quiet (1983)

6) Leave Me Alone (1981)

7) Thinking About You (1983)

8) Who Cares? (1981)

9) Last Goodbye (1983)

1 dance mix by Martin Rushent, 12" single A-side

2 bonus track from the cassette edition of the album Bite

3 produced by Mike Chapman, from the album Bite

4 single version produced by Mike Chapman, from the album Bite

5 & 7 produced by Tony Visconti & Altered Images, from the album Bite

6 produced by Steven Severin, bonus track from the cassette edition of the single Dead Pop Stars

8 produced by Steven Severin, from the B-side of the single A Day's Wait

9 produced by Mike Chapman, from the B-side of the single Don't Talk To Me About Love

I Could Be Happy (Last Goodbye) (35:58) (KF) (Mega)