Neil Young‘s unreleased 2001 album Toast will be officially released in July.
Recorded at Toast Studios in San Francisco (hence the name) around the turn of the millennium, Toast features the brilliant Crazy Horse. Neil has mentioned this album occasionally over the years in and 2021 offered some detail about the it: “The music of Toast is about a relationship,” he said. “There is a time in many relationships that go bad, a time long before the breakup, where it dawns on one of the people, maybe both, that it’s over. This was that time.”
You can preview ‘Standing in the Light of Love’, above. Other songs on the 7-track album include ‘Timberline’, the story of an out-of-work logger who grapples with his faith, and the 10-minute ‘Gateway of Love’. Those three are previously unreleased, while four songs from Toast were reworked and appeared on what was Young’s next album, 2003’s Are You Passionate.
Toast is available on 2LP vinyl (side 4 is etched) and CD. It’s released on 8 July 2022.
Neil Finn and Tim Finn’s 1995 album FINN, the first by The Finn Brothers (although only originally credited to ‘Finn’) will be reissued as a 2LP vinyl set in July.
New Zealand’s most celebrated musical siblings put out this wonderfully quirky album to much acclaim from critics and longtime fans who’d followed the pair’s work since their time together in Split Enz and Crowded House.
Released by Parlophone in the UK, the first single ‘Suffer Never’ actually sneaked into the top 30 singles chart, in all likelihood because if you bought both CD singles at the time (guilty as charged) you got an amazing collection of demos including some Crowded House classics like ‘Four Seasons In One Day’ and ‘Weather With You’ (from Woodface) and ‘Catherine Wheels’ (from Together Alone).
Second single Angels Heap didn’t quite make the top 40 (it got close, peaking at #41) but again delivered a fascinating collection of demos; four this time: ‘It’s Only Natural’, ‘There Goes God’, ‘How Will You Go’ and ‘Chocolate Cake’.
The singles were brilliant collectibles, but the album – co-produced by Neil, Tim and Tchad Blake – stood on its own as an organic, semi-lo-fi masterpiece, with some magical songs like opener ‘Only Taking Sense’, the hypnotic ‘Mood Swinging Man’, the McCartney-esque piano ballad ‘Last Day of June’ and nostalgic ‘Angels Heap’ with its warm acoustics and close harmonies.
Tim Finn: “Making this record felt like freedom. Neil, myself, and Tchad Blake carved out a space that (to quote Nabokov) was pure “aesthetic bliss”. We took a few half-written songs, a T-Chest bass, and an ancient Chamberlin into an Auckland studio and a few weeks later came out with a finished album that was unlike anything we’d done before.”
FINN comes with a bonus LP of demos and a signed print when ordered from the official shop (click image to enlarge)
Neil Finn: “From the first day in York St studios with Tim and Tchad we felt free to make any kind of sound we fancied, there was no template to follow for a Finn Bothers record. We just wanted to play everything ourselves. The old Chamberlin keyboard I had just shipped back from LA played sampled loops and orchestra sounds with actual tapes. I really wanted it to be a big feature of the record but the first time I started playing it and before we realised, all the tapes unspooled out off the back and ended up on the floor. It seemed to be a pre-emptive humbling, like a symbolic trial sent by the universe. Tim and I are not renowned at all for our practical Mr Fixit skills, but we spent the best part of the first day on the floor delicately untangling and restoring the tapes into place and voila… it worked (most of the notes anyway) the Chamberlin was back and ready to play a pivotal part in the sound of Finn. Mood Swinging Man, Where Is My Soul, Angels Heap all dressed up with its wonky, exotic textures. That small victory set us on the path to discover other unexpected talents and find new ways of approaching arrangement.”
Remarkably, this album has never been issued on vinyl and so this forthcoming 2LP set – remastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road – is its debut on the format. The bonus LP features ten demos (which also see their commercial debut on vinyl). Nine of them are from the CD singles (no ‘Chocolate Cake’, so draw your own conclusions on that) plus an unreleased song called ‘Four Stepping in 3/4 Time’. It’s worth noting that the late Paul Hester features on the demos.
Ed O’Brien from Radiohead (who worked with Neil on his 7 Worlds Collide project) has contributed sleeve notes for this gatefold 2LP set. The records have been pressed on 180g vinyl at The Vinyl Factory.
FINN is released on 2LP vinyl on 29 July 2022 via Needle Mythology. If you are wondering about a CD edition, the label say that “a vinyl replica CD of the expanded, FINN will be on sale a few months after the vinyl release – for no reason other than, an unforeseen hold-up on the paperwork for this reissue”.
Warning: In case it’s not obvious, this review contains spoilers about the ABBA Voyage live show!
It has been interesting to watch ABBA build their brand over the years and decades. After the group went their separate ways in 1982, the marketplace slowly became flooded with cheap-looking compilations with names like ‘Golden Hits’, ‘The Story of ABBA’, ‘Hits Hits Hits’, ‘Absolute ABBA’ and similar. The last thing the individual band members were worrying about at that time was ABBA’s legacy (busy as they were with their various projects, like Benny and Bjorn’s musical Chess, created with Tim Rice) and so there was little in the way checks and balances when it came to any kind of ‘strategy’ with the group’s recorded output. If you were willing to write a cheque, it seemed as if anyone could license ABBA’s hits for a compilation. Too much product, poorly presented, put ABBA in rather a bad light. That shoddy compilation on the shelf in Woolies screamed ‘bargain basement’ which was not a good look..
Change came about in the early 1990s, after Polygram acquired Polar Music. Polar was a tiny Swedish label founded by Stig Anderson and Bengt Bernhag in 1963. They had hit the big time with ABBA and the band’s global popularity, but being a tiny label with no international experience, their (sensible) model was to license the release of ABBA’s albums out to other labels around the world. Polar were guilty of licensing out the studio recordings for those post-split compilations, but the licenses were eventually allowed to expire in the early 1990s to clear the decks for the one compilation to rule them all: ABBA Gold.
The executives at Polygram recognised that a single CD collection, containing all the hits, simply – and professionally – packaged, had strength and appeal. It didn’t hurt that the tide was also turning in terms of people’s perception of ABBA. Erasure had a number one single in the UK in the summer of 1992 with their ‘Abba-esque’ EP (issued three months before ABBA Gold) and in 1994 two films (P.J. Hogan’s comedy-drama Muriel’s Wedding and Stephan Elliott’s The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) enjoyed international success while making significant use of ABBA’s music. As the US embraced Grunge and the UK was gearing up for Britpop, it would be an exaggeration to say that ABBA were cool again, but it was no longer socially unacceptable to say that, hey, you quite liked ABBA and to point out that Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus knew how to write a pop song.
It was the 1999 musical Mamma Mia that took everything to the next level. Nearly a quarter of a century later, the so-called jukebox musical is still running in the West End of London and has played in more than 50 countries around the world. It spawned two films, the first of which is thirteenth highest-grossing movie of all time at the UK box office! Mamma Mia has generated literally billions of dollars of revenue. ABBA were not only popular they were now a money-making industry.
The four members must have been delighted with this success, but they were well aware that there was one significant problem. As we moved into the new millennium, the now ABBA-hungry general public were getting very used to seeing their heroes, the artists they loved in the 1970s, play live. The likes of Paul McCartney, The Who, Elton John and The Rolling Stones were more than happy to charge top dollar to play stadiums and arenas around he world and transport fans back in time for a big nostalgia trip (plus a few tracks from ‘the new album’ of course…). Even Queen – who like ABBA have undertaken some significant brand-building in the last 20 years – have managed to put on sellout live shows, and that’s without their frontman, Freddie Mercury!
However, ABBA were adamant. They had, and still have, no interest in playing live again. What many people may not realise is that even in their heyday ABBA toured relatively infrequently. Remarkably, given the level of their success in Britain (they topped the UK singles chart nine times), between winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 and calling it a day in 1982 they only played live to a paying audience 15 times in the UK! This was largely because they considered themselves a studio band, and the promotional video became their preferred way to get in front of the record-buying public. There were practical matters too; Agnetha, in particular, did not enjoy the challenge of touring while bringing up small children. 45 years from their heyday, all four members are in their Seventies and have concluded that no one wants, or needs, to see ‘old ABBA’ on stage, least of all them!
Of course, that didn’t stop the demand; the pleas from the fans, and offers from promoters, to reform and tour. So around six years ago, the idea was touted that some kind of live show might be possible without needing the the band members to be there in person. Instead, ABBA ‘avatars’ – some kind of digital version of the group – could perform their songs on stage in front of a live audience. ABBA weren’t entirely convinced – they thought the idea was “extremely vague and imprecisely described” – but admitted that it came with a “strong urge to pursue [the idea] and to see where it would lead”.
While artists had been represented as holograms in the past (American rapper Tupac Shakur appeared in this form a decade ago at the 2012 Coachella festival, 16 years after his death) what became known as the ‘ABBAtars’ would not be holograms; they would go way beyond that. ABBAtars would be highly detailed, digital recreations of Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Frida, rendered in three dimensions and brought to life by precise control over the lighting and the environment. The challenges were enormous; the biggest one being that the technology didn’t exist and it soon became clear that this was not a show that could be presented in existing venues. ABBA Voyage would require a purpose-built arena – people would have to travel to this one venue to experience the magic.
There was much research and development and producers Ludvig Andersson (Benny’s son) and Svana Gisla (not Benny’s son) brought in Industrial Light and Magic, the motion picture visual effects company founded by George Lucas in the 1970s, to work on the project. This eventually resulted in 100 “magicians” and “brilliant scientists” from the company spending five weeks in Stockholm working directly with the four members of ABBA to bring the ABBAtars to life via motion capture suits and other associated technologies. £140m has reportedly been spent on this project. Could they do it or would the ABBA gravy train come to a grinding halt and pull into the sidings at a station called White Elephant (and Castle). The risks were enormous.
Waiting for the show to begin
I attended the first public performance of ABBA Voyage at the end of last week and can report that it is a truly spectacular evening that absolutely delivers as a stunning live spectacle. The ABBAtars are staggeringly good, confirmed by the reaction in the crowd which included incredulous, involuntary gasping, thunderous applause, a lot of screaming, tears, people looking at their partners or companions and laughing with ‘can-you-believe-what-we-are-seeing?’ excitement (the only other time I experienced this level of love-in-the-room was when the pixel-free Kate Bush walked on stage at Hammersmith Odeon in August 2014).
ABBA Voyage is like some kind of wonderland. For 90 minutes you believe the unbelievable. I was concerned that I might have to work hard to enjoy the evening, but actually the suspension of disbelief is easy. Why? Because ABBA in their prime are standing right in front of you. Your brain might be trying to tell you it’s not real, but your heart, your databank of emotions – love, joy, regret, sadness – are tripping on overload. The soundtrack to your life is there flashing before your eyes. The evening will move you both emotionally (take a hanky) and physically (take your dancing shoes).
The ABBAtars just look so real. Bjorn on the left with his guitar, Benny on the right with his piano and Agnetha and Frida in the middle. They move around each other, put their arms across the other’s shoulders. Hair flies in the air, skirts blow and flutter. It seems inconceivable – and ultimately becomes irrelevant – that we were witnessing images on a 65million pixel flat screen. I’m still not sure I believe it. When the show starts the lighting in the 3000-seat arena drops very low – but not so low that you can’t see the other people you are sitting amongst. This sense of a communal experience – laughing, singing and crying and dancing to ABBA with other people – was very important to producer Svana Gisla, and I can understand why. Total darkness is too isolating. It’s these kinds of details that make all the difference.
If you are thinking it all sounds a bit sterile, it isn’t. All the music is played totally live by the in-house band. Sometimes, they are highly visible towards the lefthand side of the stage, slightly below where the ABBAtars are situated, but then at other times the focus is completely on ABBA and the band are all but hidden away, like an orchestra in the pit at a West End musical. As for the vocals, these are sung by ABBA and so are not live, but they do sound like they have been newly-recorded – they haven’t just pulled out the multi-tracks to access the vocal stems. Maybe there’s some blending of new and old, it’s pretty hard to tell to be honest, but the main point here is that while they sound great and are accurate renditions of the songs you know and love, it’s not like someone’s popped a CD of ABBA Gold on, in the background.
The show is sequenced and structured very carefully. The build up and the start of the show is naturally very exciting and it delivers as the pulsing synths of the title track from 1981’s The Visitors (yay!) starts playing as beams of light silhouette the four members of the group. There’s also a massive screen that wraps around nearly half the walls of the arena which sometimes echoes the role of the screens that you might see at a traditional concert, showing you ‘close-ups’ of the ABBAtars on stage.
For a few songs, the ABBAtars aren’t present at all on stage, but rather we see video-style projections of them around the massive seamless screens. This first happens for the performance of ‘Knowing Me Knowing You’ and later for ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ which sees the group in their ‘TRON’-style outfits (as seen on the packaging of some of the limited editions of the ABBA Voyage album last year). At first, I was slightly disappointed and thought this was a bit of a cop out – we’ve paid to see the ABBAtars after all – but I reflected later that this was actually a canny move. The producers, and director Baillie Walsh, effectively drip-feed the ‘magic’ of seeing those ABBBtars ‘in the flesh’. Controlling the pacing and turning the tap on and off, to make sure we don’t get bored looking at them. It’s an interesting thing to consider. Neil Tennant (or was it Chris Lowe?) of the Pet Shop Boys once said that the most exciting thing about a concert was when the act first walks on stage and after that, it’s all down hill. He has a point, to a degree. There’s a reason Pink Floyd used all those lasers in the 1990s and U2 and Roger Waters make use of spectacular visual effects these days – just looking at four people on stage, even if they are amazing ABBAtars, might get dull for the duration. Hearing the songs performed live is important, but so is visual stimulation and ABBA have always been a visual band, with their memorable and iconic promo videos.
So every now and again, a song is accompanied by animation (‘Eagle’ and ‘Voulez-Vous’ for example) or having the ABBAtars on the big screen rather than actual size “on stage” (reminder: it’s all a screen!). There is a breathtaking moment between ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ and ‘Summer Night City’ which sees a transition between big screen video and band-on-stage that rather messes with your mind.
The producers also respect the ‘reality’ of the performers on stage (I’m talking about the ABBAtars). So for instance, after a brilliant ‘Dancing Queen’ leads straight into the show-closing ‘The Winner Takes It All’, the band are all still wearing the same outfits, because that’s exactly how it would be in real life, if there was no opportunity to change. The animations/projections, as described above, also help to that end, allowing the performers time to change costumes ‘off stage’ (there is a knowing joke about this during the show) making sense of their new garb when we see them again. Clever stuff, since while the technology could support costumes changing at a click of a button in front of your eyes, that would shatter the suspension of disbelief.
The show is brilliant in terms of lighting and effects. We are rarely sitting there in the arena simply looking through empty space at four figures on stage. There’s all sorts of textures and layers in the room which lift the experience and no doubt have a part to play in enhancing the appearance of the ABBAtars. There’s dry ice-style glowing columns, warm sparkly light beads and the like, and after a while you struggle to establish what’s real and what isn’t.
Negatives? There’s a few things where you just shrug and go with it. ‘Young’ ABBA singing ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’ and ‘I Still Have Faith In You’ doesn’t make any sense, but because those songs happen to sound like lost ABBA classics in the first place, they get away with it. The massive screens, which ‘film’ and project the ABBAtars as they perform, occasionally make ABBA look less ‘real’ than the figures we can see directly ‘on stage’, although this does vary. I thought when the band were wearing very sparkly, sequinned outfits for ‘I Still Have Faith In You’ they looked much better on the ‘big screens’ than for some of the earlier songs at the beginning. The good news is that the arena felt relatively intimate, rendering the screens inessential when the ABBAtars were performing and anyway, it’s hard to take your eyes off those figures standing right in front of you. I would love to return and see how the ABBAtars stand up to the scrutiny of being much closer, perhaps standing towards the front or even from a different angle (I was fairly much facing head on).
During the show, each member of ABBA has a little solo spot where they talk and engage with the audience. It’s very well done, but perhaps the producers might have predicted more whooping and cheering than they had allowed for, since there was plenty of times were a real live performer would have paused to let the noise die down, but of course the ABBAtars don’t do that, which means they carry on talking and you miss bits of what they say due to the crowd eruptions. There’s a fun section where Bjorn reminds the audience that the UK gave Waterloo ‘null points’ during the 1974 Eurovision Song Content, followed by a film of the performance at the time. I was sure this might segue into the ABBAtars dressed up as they were in 1974 to ‘carry on’ playing the song, but that didn’t happen. It felt like a missed opportunity, to recreate a little bit of history. Maybe the producers thought that would be too gimmicky.
It will be interesting to see whether the setlist (see below) remains rigid or whether they will tweak and experiment with the songs included. There were plenty of big hits AWOL including ‘Money Money Money’, ‘Super Trouper’, ‘The Name of the Game, ‘I Have A Dream’ and ‘Take A Chance On Me’. One suspects, given the investment, that they must have created ABBAtar performances for at least some of these numbers.
The purpose-built venue is spacious inside with easy access to refreshments and facilities
Beyond the specifics of the show, the whole wider experience is smooth and effortless. The ABBA Voyage arena is purpose built near Stratford in East London and is literally right next to Pudding Mill Lane station on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) train network. This is now a clean and modern area of regeneration (thanks to the ‘London 2012’ Olympic Games). I arrived at 7.15pm, half and hour before the show was due to begin and while there were plenty of people around, it was not rammed inside, the facilities were excellent and numerous enough that there was no queue for either bar or the toilets. So none of that hell of some famous concert venues where you are 15 deep waiting to buy a drink while the act plays your favourite song. These things matter more as you get older! The show also finishes early enough (9.30pm) that no one is going to be panicking about missing the last train home.
To summarise, ABBA Voyage is a journey you need to experience. The technology delivers wonderment and the show is a crowd-pleasing triumph. I was too young to see ABBA live in the 1970s, but weirdly I think this new show must be better than that because it delivers the same concert experience with an extra layer of pure magic.
“I think that might be the best thing I’ve ever seen” said a woman to me on the train as we chatted about the show afterwards. For once, the marketing hype – “a concert like no other” – is spot on.
Prince and The Revolution’s 30 March 1985 live concert from the Carrier Dome, Syracuse – which was part of his 1985 Purple Rain tour – is issued on 2CD+blu-ray and as 3LP vinyl set.
The Lickerish Quartet / Threesome Vol. 3 (CD edition)
Two years after ThreesomeVol. 1The Lickerish Quartet (ex Jellyfish) bring us the third EP in the ongoing series. The music is great, but this release schedule is hard work. Vinyl not out until 24 June.
After all the hype and planning, ABBAVoyage, the ‘concert like no other’ opened to the public yesterday. I was there and there is a lot to talk about! Full SDE review coming very soon…
Paul Weller’s Will of the People
This week, the reissue of Paul Weller’s 2008 album 22 Dreams was officially confirmed. News of this 2LP vinyl reissue has been allowed to leak into the public domain via a listing on Amazon UK back in April and SDE duly reported it to fans.
The link was eventually removed, because it seems as if the plan was to announce this on Weller’s birthday which was on Thursday, 25 May. That’s what happened, in the end, although the cat was already out of the bag.
However bizarrely, in another twist, when the Amazon product listing returned, in the ‘product description’ section was details of a yet-to-be-announced Paul Weller collection called Will of the People. Now removed, this text described the collection as a follow up to the 2003 Fly on the Wall compilation which gathered B-sides and rarities and was issued as a 3CD clamshell box package and as a 3LP vinyl set.
Will of the People will take the listener through “a similar mix of rarities, this time spanning the period 2002 to 2021”. The collection has been “compiled by Paul Weller himself and Paul has provided artwork ideas and sketches for the design”.
Presumably it will be issued on both CD and vinyl and the release will include sleeve notes from writer and broadcaster John Wilson. More news on this when we have it.
Congratulations to Claudia Brücken and Susanne Freytag of xPropaganda. Their album The Heart Is Strange entered the UK charts at #11 yesterday which is very impressive! Different times, and different band of course, but it’s worth reflecting that this does surpass the chart peak of Propaganda’sA Secret Wish which reached #16 in 1985.
As is sometimes the case, once we’ve finished shipping pre-orders of an SDE-exclusive product like the blu-ray audio edition of The Heart Is Strange, the SDE shop has a small amount of leftover stock, which is down to cancellations and contingency. Therefore, if you missed out, you have a small window of opportunity to snag a copy of the limited edition blu-ray with Atmos and 5.1 mixes and the 2CD set with instrumentals (which is now deleted). Head over to the SDE shop or use the buttons below. Strictly limited to one per customer for each edition, and read the notes below with regards to blu-ray and EU shipping.
TECHNICAL NOTES: This blu-ray audio requires a blu-ray player. Decoding the Dolby Atmos mix requires a Dolby Atmos-certified soundbar or a Dolby Atmos-compatible AV Receiver/Amp. The Dolby Atmos mix will ‘fold down’ to 5.1 or stereo if a Dolby Atmos decoder is not detected.
EU SHIPPING NOTES: If you are ordering from the EU please be aware that that goods may be subject to import VAT when they arrive from the UK. The prices the SDE shop charge do not include VAT.
Restored documentary delivers pristine pictures and a fun global jaunt
Around The World is a film that follows The Police on their 1980 (and later, 1981) world tour at a time where, in the words of guitarist Andy Summers the group had “just about enough popularity to get booked around the globe”.
Issued in 1982 on VHS (and later on Laserdisc in Japan), the documentary has now been ‘restored and expanded’ and issued on blu-ray and DVD (both for the first time), within specific combo sets (LP+DVD, CD+blu-ray and CD+DVD).
In his excellent notes in the booklet, Summers writes of various challenges, including an almost drug bust, confrontations with the local law enforcement, illness and more, and so depicts a more troubled tour than we actually see in the film. Around The World, for the most part, is a travelogue set to music, embracing some well-worn documentary tropes and indulging in shots of Bullet Trains in Japan, Rickshaws in Hong Kong and a rather unfortunate and ragged-looking snake-in-a-basket in India!
It’s no less fascinating for all that and watching the band play live at arguably their peak (there was some later overdubbing of these performances), in sometimes sweaty and cramped venues, is the core appeal of this film. Today’s World Disco in Hong Kong, is crazy, with fans almost eyeball to eyeball with the three musicians on stage. Not all the audio is live, since the filmmakers couldn’t resist the opportunity to shoot some on-the-hoof promo videos (with the band lip-syncing to the studio tracks) in various locations such as the subway in Hong Kong (‘So Lonely’) and on a cable car in South America (‘When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What’s Still Around’).
‘Message in a Bottle’ as performed live in Hong Kong on Around The World
Around The World is at its weakest when it indulges in some forced set pieces such as Andy Summers trying his hand at Sumo wrestling (resulting in a bad case of the flu); a topless Sting pulling a Rickshaw up a hill; what can only be described as a comedy ‘skit’ on Camels in Cairo; and a very unfunny Jools Holland (interviewing the band towards the end of proceedings). The moments that stand out are the real ones, such as the Indian ladies and dignitaries in Bombay who seemed thrilled to welcome The Police to the Time and Talents Club for a charity concert (where they played a version of ‘Can’t Stand Losing You’ that Stewart Copeland told SDE was “maybe the best one on record”) and the blonde kid in Australia who, when asked by a local news reporter what he likes most about The Police, earnestly says “their music”. There’s also an amusing encounter in Hong Kong where a tailor doesn’t like the idea of adding zips to the lapels of Andy Summers’ jacket (we see the zip-laden garment later on!).
In Cairo, we get a sniff of Spinal Tap (that mockumentary was three or four years away at the time of filming) as Stewart’s brother Miles, who managed the band, grapples with red tape and the challenge of getting their gear out of customs and ready in time for the concert (“obviously we need the lights!” we hear him say, exasperated) but again, that’s a rare peak into the mechanics and frustrations that go with a world tour. Around The World prefers music, performance, off-stage japes and the texture and colour of capital cities and their residents.
The picture quality is now stunning, although Andy Summers last year told SDE “It’s taken forever got get it sorted, because of issues like restoring 16mm film and getting the extras up to 4K level”. The credits on the blu-ray actually confirm that the negatives were scanned at 2K, which is HD blu-ray quality but not 4K.
The Police live on stage (click image to enlarge)
In terms of this being ‘expanded’ there are welcome “complete” live performances of ‘Walking On The Moon’, ‘Next To You’ (both from Kyoto) and ‘Message in a Bottle’ and ‘Born in the 50’s’ (both Hong Kong) in the bonus section of the blu-ray/DVD. Also, let’s not forget that depending on which package you buy you get a CD or vinyl LP of live performances (the CD has a few more songs). What’s interesting, is there are numerous tweaks and edits, mostly small and largely inconsequential, although that doesn’t include the omission of a performance of ‘De Do Do Do De Da Da Da’ in France, almost certainly because Sting gets annoyed by what someone in the crowd does (spitting?) and shouts “You fucking bastard! I’m going to get you” during the performance of the song! Trying to ‘get’ one of your fans is not a good look these days, one presumes. Kudos to Thepolicewiki.org for some forensic work on this issue and a full breakdown of the changes!
The Police Around The World is ultimately glossy, but a lot of fun. You don’t learn much about the personalities of the members of the group and all the tension and stress of a global tour is hidden under the surface. 40 years on, the film is now a historical document and that fact that it exists in the first place, and has been restored to modern standards in both video and audio, is excellent. Most of all, it reminds us just how ferociously good Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland were, together as a band in 1980. You can’t help but agree with Copeland when he told SDE that “We were always a very guerrilla band, so we were psychically equipped to play weird places”. Highly recommended.
Talk Talk’s 1982 debut album, The Party’s Over, is to be reissued on coloured vinyl for its 40th anniversary. The album features the singles ‘Mirror Man’, ‘Talk Talk’ and the band’s first top 20 hit, ‘Today’.
The Party’s Over was produced by Colin Thurston, who’d produced Duran Duran’s first two albums before working with Talk Talk on this album.
This 40th anniversary vinyl does not offer any bonus content, but is pressed on white vinyl. It’s released on 15 July 2022 via Parlophone Label Group.
Depeche Mode fans are in shock with the announcement late yesterday that band member Andy Fletcher had died, aged only 60. No cause of death has been released.
In a statement, the band said:
“We are shocked and filled with overwhelming sadness with the untimely passing of our dear friend, family member, and bandmate Andy “Fletch” Fletcher.
Fletch had a true heart of gold and was always there when you needed support, a lively conversation, a good laugh or a cold pint.
Our hearts are with his family, and we ask that you keep them in your thoughts and respect their privacy in this difficult time”.
A founding member of Depeche Mode, and keyboard (and bass) player, Fletch along with Martin Gore and Dave Gahan was one of the three original members still in the group. Their last album was 2017’s Spirit.
With the early departure of Vince Clark (in 1981) and Alan Wilder quitting in 1995, that now only leaves Gore and Gahan to fly the flag for Depeche Mode. With this devastating news, questions will be asked over the band’s future, although it’s true that Gore and Gahan come up with most of the material, these days.
In a dark Thursday, Yes drummer Alan White also passed away at the age of 72. In a six-decade career he had played with some greats, including two Beatles (John Lennon and George Harrison). White joined Yes in July 1972 and so was the longest continuously serving band member.
Rest in Peace Andy ‘Fletch’ Fletcher and Alan White (and Ray Liotta who also died yesterday aged 67).
Excellent price in the UK for a quality vinyl reissue. Nirvana’sNevermind has been newly remastered from the original analog tapes and packaged in a premium ‘tip-on’ gatefold jacket for the first time. This comes with a bonus 7″ single featuring ‘Endless, Nameless’, ‘Even in His Youth’ and Aneurysm.
Kirsty MacColl /Tropical Brainstorm blue vinyl LPBlue vinyl LP
Great deal in America for the forthcoming super deluxe which is out at the end of next week. This expanded set includes rarities such as piano demos of the album and the audio of the BBC Sounds For Saturday concert, broadcast on BBC in 1972 and a 5.1 mix of the album by Greg Penny.
Crowded House/Dreamers are Waiting blue vinyl LPblue vinyl LP
Superb 2CD deluxe with a bonus disc of an alternative version of the album and the non-album singles. Nice packaging with slipcase, oversized booklet and War Is Over If You Want It poster!
Click voucher on product page for a great half-price deal. The bonus CD on this remastered Nevermind 30 has selections from 4 concerts on the Nevermind tour from Amsterdam, Netherlands; Del Mar, California; Melbourne, Australia and Tokyo, Japan.
“Back to basics”, with Ed Buller twiddling the knobs
Suede will release their ninth studio album, Autofiction, in September.
The album sees the band apparently ditching the grandeur and concepts of the last two records and going ‘back to basics’, with frontman Brett Anderson describing Autofiction as “our punk record. No whistles and bells. Just the five of us in a room with all the glitches and fuck-ups revealed; the band themselves exposed in all their primal mess.”
You can preview the first single ‘She Still Leads Me On’, above. The song is written from Brett to his late mother and lyrically Autofiction is described as “one of Anderson’s most personal records yet”. The album was recorded in Konk studios in North London. Ed Buller returns as producer after Suede worked with Alan Moulder for the The Blue Hour.
Standard formats for the album are CD, black gatefold vinyl and indies grey gatefold vinyl. The official artist shop (US fans have their own shop) offers a clear vinyl variant, signed bundles and a deluxe box set that gathers CD, clear vinyl along with “stencil, postcards, poster and signed setlist”. Not quite as impressive as 2018’s The Blue Hour box, it has to be said, which offered exclusive instrumentals on CD, a unique song on seven-inch and a DVD with band commentary.
Cover art to store exclusive ‘She Still Leads Me On’ EP
An exclusive 12-inch EP of ‘She Still Leads Me On’, is available on all bundles in the Suede shop (although not in the US). This includes non-album bonus tracks ‘The Prey’, ‘Days Like Dead Months’, and ‘The Sadness In You, The Sadness In Me’. SDE has been advised that if you ordered the bundle yesterday after the 12-inch sold out you will still get the 12-inchEP for the sake of fairness, etc. So that’s very good news!
Released last week, the fourth in the Now That’s What I Call MusicYearbook series focuses on 1981. Watch as SDEtv explores the three physical editions of Now Yearbook ’81.
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Various Artists
Now Yearbook 81 - deluxe 4CD set in hardcover book
Moonage Daydream is a new film by Brett Morgen that will be in Cinemas worldwide, in September. It’s a “a genre defying immersion into the art and sounds of David Bowie“.
The David Bowie Archive granted Morgen unprecedented access to their collection. They presented Morgen with over five million assets, including rare and never-before seen drawings, recordings, films, and journals.
The audio should be good. Tony Visconti and sound mixer Paul Massey remixed and translated Bowie’s original stems for a theatrical environment that will be presented in 12.0, 5.0, Atmos, and 7.1/5.1.
July sees a clutch of Elton John remastered vinyl reissues including a 2LP edition of his 2005 album Peachtree Road, a stereo release of 1968’s Regimental Sgt. Zippo and his first album of the 1990s, The One.
Regimental Sgt. Zippo is the ‘album that never was’ for Elton John. It was recorded in London in 1968 and was supposed to be his debut album. For reasons unknown, it was never released. During the research for the Jewel Box collection, the original running order was located and this album was issued last year, in mono, for Record Store Day. It has now been newly mixed into stereo and will be issued on black vinyl. There’s also a CD edition that contains both the original mono mixes and the new stereo mix.
The new 2LP vinyl remaster of Peachtree Road (click image to enlarge)
Peachtree Road was issued in 2004 and was self-produced. The vinyl wasn’t issued until 2005 at which point the rather dull original cover art was superseded by the image you see at the top of this post. It also became a special expanded edition, with three bonus tracks from the musical Billy Elliot, including ‘Electricity’, which reached #4 in the UK charts. The new 2LP vinyl replicates this original version.
Finally, The One was issued in June 1992 and followed his The Very Best Of compilation. It features guest appearances from Kiki Dee, Eric Clapton and David Gilmour, and reached #2 in the UK album charts. The title track preceded the album and was a top ten hit in June of that year. For this new remaster, the original running order, which was squeezed onto two sides of a single album originally, has been expanded to 2LPs in a new gatefold sleeve.
All three vinyl reissues (and the CD of Sgt Zippo) are released on 8 July 2022.
With perfect timing, as the ABBAVoyage concert experience is about to open in London, a new ‘complete’ ABBA albums box set is issued with both CD and vinyl formats available. This 10-disc package has been updated to include their chart-topping Voyage album and also features a bonus disc of non-album singles and B-sides.
The Police drummer reveals how The Beatles have inspired the band to finally open the vaults on their unreleased material. John Earls asks the questions.
In August 2021, The Police guitarist Andy Summers unexpectedly revealed to SDE that the trio were finally looking at letting their unreleased music see the light of day. There was, Andy explained, a “10-year plan” for The Police’s back catalogue to be overhauled and reissued.
One of the band’s releases Andy mentioned as being restored was Around The World. By The Police’s standards, it’s a lost treasure: a fun and enlightening tour film of their 1979-80 tour which captures the electric power of their gigs at the time when they really were taking over the world. Alongside concerts in Japan, Greece and Australia, Around The World sees The Police play in countries rarely visited by touring rock bands at the time, including India, Hong Kong and Egypt, with suitably touristy capers included in the film too.
Released on VHS in 1982 and laserdisc in 1996, the film had been ignored since. Restored by Andy, it finally arrives on DVD and Blu-Ray today, alongside a new live album from the tour, also titled Around The World. SDE talked to The Police drummer Stewart Copeland about his memories of the film – and found out a wealth of new information about that promised reissue campaign, as Stewart explains why he, Andy and Sting have completely changed their mind about the value of reissues at last.
SDE: Hi, Stewart. How does it feel to have Around The World coming back out into the world?
Stewart Copeland: It’s long overdue. When Around The World first came out, nobody saw it, so it disappeared. It was Andy Summers who rediscovered it. He did a lot of the cleaning up on it, so Andy gets a lot of credit for bringing it back to life. It’s an adventure, that film. It captures the band at a very interesting place. I thought we got better and better, even into the last albums. Right at this point shown in Around The World, we weren’t yet an arena or stadium band. We were still hungry, still co-dependent and there’s an energy to the performances in there, as well as those incredible locations we had on that tour. It’s a fun movie.
There was no record industry in India, Hong Kong or Egypt to speak of. Miles persuaded us to go there just for the adventure
Stewart Copeland
What was the thinking behind making the film?
I think the BBC might have had something to do with it, but maybe I’m confusing that with another Police film that’s probably out there. My brother Miles had the crazy idea of taking the band to literally conquer the world, as opposed to figuratively conquering it. That was an incomplete mission for us at that point. Miles had this wild idea of going to these photogenic, crazy places. He wasn’t picking new ‘markets’, because they weren’t markets at all – there was no record industry in India, Hong Kong or Egypt to speak of. He persuaded us to go there just for the adventure. In Miles’ mind, it was for the shots and the photos, the concept of The Police Around The World. For Miles, it was sexy marketing-wise, creating new markets by doing cool stuff. For us, it was just a great adventure, playing to new people from different cultures and lighting them up regardless. That was very exciting for us. Miles and I had grown up in what was then called the third world (Stewart grew up in Egypt and Beirut), and he had the sensibility to pull it off. Miles knew how to deal with promoters in Cairo or Mumbai, whereas Jake Riviera or any other rock & roll manager wouldn’t know how to do that. It wouldn’t even cross their mind to try. Miles had that inspiration.
What were your own favourite memories of that tour?
I was glad we got to play Mumbai. That was the show where we played to the audience who had the least expectations, who knew the band the least. They had no idea about any of our songs, they were just people who swarmed over to storm the gig without tickets. They didn’t know who we were but, man, what a cool show that was. To light them up without any cultural stature on our part, with no status or preconceptions, was very exciting.
Andy says in the sleeve notes that the show in Mumbai is where The Police played their best ever version of ‘Can’t Stand Losing You’. Do you agree?
It’s maybe the best version that we recorded. It was a great song that closed the show and rocked the house every night, so I’m not sure if Mumbai was the best time we ever played it, but it was pretty good and maybe the best one on record. ‘Can’t Stand Losing You’ was always a barnstormer. The middle part of it when we played it on that tour was a jam that turned into another song on our next album, Reggatta De Blanc.
The blu-ray+CD combo of Around The World
How exciting was Japan? You all look so damn cool playing So Lonely in the Japanese subway.
Japan was always a lot of fun. They were the most attuned to rock music. They knew rock and pop and were following western culture, even though their own culture had no overlap at all. Western bands playing Tokyo was an eye-opener because, although it looked like Manhattan for its buildings and architecture, the food was so different. Back then, you wouldn’t know if it was hot or cold, meat or fruit, soup or something to dip your fingers in. It was a completely alien culture, but completely fascinating. India looked like another planet, but there was a lot of cultural overlap. Their lingua franca was English, and England had learned a lot from India without knowing it. India felt more homelike.
How would you have fared against the sumo wrestler who pummels Andy in the film?
I’d have taken him easily. I don’t know what we were thinking. Why did we send a guitarist in there, for God’s sake? If you want to collect your money from a club owner, you send the drummer.
Did you enjoy being filmed, having all those adventures documented?
Mostly. One adventure – the sumo wrestling – not so much. Andy caught a horrible flu which put him down for a couple of weeks. Being naked in that cold environment for the sumo wrestling was a great idea that made for a great scene in the film. Andy stepped up to the plate, but he paid the price for it. In India, Athens and everywhere else, the adventures were great, but that one was quite dour.
We were always a guerrilla band, so we were psychically equipped to play weird places
Stewart Copeland
What do you remember of the show in Cairo? Andy writes well about how chaotic it seemed.
It was adverse conditions, with the PA, the electricity and all the other conditions around the show not what we’d find at Madison Square Gardens. But we weren’t playing Madison Square Gardens yet either. Cairo was fairly chaotic, but we were always a three-piece garage band and adversity was what we did, back to filling in when The Snivelling Shits couldn’t make a gig in Birmingham in 1976 and we could. We were always a very guerrilla band, so we were psychically equipped to play weird places. As there were only three of us, it wasn’t a complicated show. It wasn’t seven guys on stage all needing soundcheck. For us, it was just two amps and a drum set and we could rock. By day in Cairo, we were galloping around the pyramids on horses which was, wow, what an adventure! You can’t do that in Manchester.
Having the film come out again is great, partly because it’s nice to have an unusual Police release. Andy told us last year that Around The World would be part of a “10-year plan” of The Police going over your catalogue. What else will be coming out?
We’ll tell you in due course, but we’ve had a kind of epiphany. We’ve been very stingy, and that’s worked to our benefit. When we did our reunion tour in 2007, we’d left everything on the shelf untouched, unscratched and unbesmirched. When we went back out there, we were pristine. We had a good feeling about that. We’d all been off to conquer our own worlds in our own way, never looking back. In my case, I had to downplay The Police. I was a hired gun film composer, not even an artist. I was a craftsman in the employ of directors, and directors don’t want to hire a rock star – they want to hire someone who’ll work for him or her. I enjoyed that work, I wanted that career, so I was ready to get rid of my snakeskin trousers and be a professional. It was all absorbing.
When we came back for that reunion tour, nobody was more surprised than us at the interest, that stadiums were selling out around the world in seconds. It blew our minds. It made us appreciate the value of our stinginess, because we’d been pristine. But I’m a fan of those who came before me. A lot of my friends are in bands who would have been 16 back in our day – Foo Fighters, Primus, Rage Against The Machine, Tool, Pearl Jam. They’re all really interested in our past and I’ve learned from those guys, who treat me like a Beatle. Now, above me, there are the actual Beatles, before whom I bow and scrape, as I properly should.
We didn’t want you to see behind the curtain. We don’t want you to see us in our underpants, the imperfect versions of ourselves that it took to get us to perfection. But that’s wrong and I now see that’s wrong
Stewart Copeland
The Beatles’ ethos is that their fans want to hear their demos. We’d thought in terms of “What’s out there is perfect. We got it to perfection and released that. That’s the deal.” We didn’t want you to see behind the curtain. We don’t want you to see us in our underpants, the imperfect versions of ourselves that it took to get us to perfection. But that’s wrong, and I now see that it’s wrong. When The Beatles released the Get Back film and their demos, I want to see that film and to hear those demos. It doesn’t diminish their importance, their stature or any aspect of The Beatles by seeing what it took to get them to the incredible material they produced. It doesn’t diminish them even slightly to see their demos. This is a new philosophy for us, that’s beginning to take hold in The Police. We’ll see how that works out.
I gather from Andy that there’s a Reggatta De Blanc boxset on the horizon. Can you say when that will be released?
Yes, there might be. We’ll let you know when stuff comes out. But first, we’ve got to find it and curate it. We’re still doing all of that. Andy and I live near each other, a few miles away, but we’ve all got our lives. The three of us are deeply attached to each other, but we aren’t in touch every day, and we have different visions we’re engrossed in. Coming back to The Police business is interesting, but it’s not the most exciting thing for us to do. I say that with respect to those people for whom it is really interesting. I’m appreciative of that interest, and we really need to do better with regard to looking at this stuff.
To further those Beatles comparisons, they’ve had Giles Martin do new mixes of their albums. Would you be interested in having a specialist mixer do 5.1 surround mixes or Dolby Atmos mixes of The Police’s albums?
We’d certainly have to find a third party if we were to look into that. We love each other at the dinner table, and at all times when we’re not trying to make music together. We love each other on stage, when we’re in front of an audience and getting that response. That’s an amazing response and you can’t ignore it. But, when we’re not on stage and we’re in the band room, that’s when it gets very tough for us, because music has a purpose in each of our lives. For absolutely honourable reasons, we just have different perspectives on music: how to do it, what its value is, what it should be. We don’t want to get back into that warzone when we’re getting along nicely, so we’d have to find a third party to deal with all that.
Could there be a 4K physical or streaming release of Around The World? Andy had said he was restoring it to that level.
That’s all technical, so I don’t know, sorry.
Now Around The World is in sharp definition on DVD and Blu-Ray, 48 minutes in, during ‘Shadows In The Rain’, we get to clearly see the infamous “Fuck off you cunt” message aimed at Sting written one word each on four of your drums. How do you feel about that message now
It wasn’t a message to Sting. The truth is, that was a jocular moment during soundcheck. We were fiddling over Andy’s foot pedals. While I was waiting for the crew to get their act together, I was sitting at the drums when the record company guy came over, seeing his opportunity to get some albums signed. He took off with his signed albums and I’m left with his Sharpie. Writing “fuck off you cunt” with it on my drums was a moment of self provocation. The nihilism in that statement, under any circumstances, there’s a certain joy to the magnitude of the fuck offedness of it. It’s almost Wagnerian in its fuck offedness. It was an entirely cheerful “fuck off you cunt” and, if it was directed at anyone, it was probably at myself. There was no hostility to that statement on my drums at all. But you know what? Let’s not spoil a perfectly good myth.
What else are you working on?
I’m doing a show I’m hoping to bring to England next summer, The Police Deranged For Orchestra. I spent 20 years as a film composer, which gave me an involuntary education on how to use orchestra. It’s Police songs fully arranged for orchestra. I took Police songs I’d used in the Super-8 film I made, Everyone Stares, in 2006. For the film, I cut Police songs up and lobotomised them from the masters to suit the film. I liked that, so I’ve combined my orchestra chops and derangement chops to make this show. I’ve played about 10 shows so far, with national symphonies, the Cleveland Orchestra and Seattle Symphony, and I’ll be doing shows in Europe. I’ve got three soul sisters singing and it’s a really popular show. We do two-and-a-half hours rehearsal as it’s all on the page, and those orcs are really good at playing what’s on the page. It burns the house down every night.
Nostalgia has a connotation that’s not great for some, but it’s great for me. During the reunion tour, we learned that those songs are so much more powerful than better newer songs because they have an emotional impact. ‘Message In A Bottle’, ‘Roxanne’, ‘Can’t Stand Losing You’: they burn down the house because of the profound emotional baggage they carry. During the derangement of ‘Roxanne’, where I hide that hit and then reveal it, that’s powerful. I’m also playing my Satan’s Fall oratorio with a choir and orchestra in the States. My opera, The Witches Seed, premieres this summer, with some songs contributed by Chrissie Hynde. That’s a fun project, taking place in a quarry in the Italian alps. I’m playing with my jam band, Oysterhead, in Atlanta. What else? Oh yeah, I just won a Grammy.
Of course, congratulations for Best New Age Album Of The Year Grammy for Divine Tides. How pleasing was that?
The best thing is that it was for New Age. How about that? “Rock drummer is now a new age god”. Technically, I’m a punk rock drummer as of 1976, with all my leather, spiky hair and bad attitude. So, it’s “Punk drummer wins New Age Grammy”. That’s even better. I’ve finally got to tick that box.
If you had to choose, are you punk or new age?
I’ve got to choose? In my 70th year, I’m going to go with new age.`
Thanks to Stewart Copeland who was talking to John Earls for SDE. The Police’s tour film Around The World is released by Mercury Studios today. It’s available as CD+DVD or CD+blu-ray combo sets and as an LP+DVD edition.
A Swing Out Sister 8CD box set will be released in July called Blue Mood, Breakout and Beyond.
The box set will feature the group’s first three studio albums, It’s Better To Travel (1987), Kaleidoscope World (1989) and Get In Touch With Yourself (1992) and the Japan-only live album Live at the Jazz Café (1993).
Additionally, there will be four discs of bonus content: three CDs of remixes and a final disc collecting B-sides.
I spoke to band members Corinne Drewery and Andy Connell along with producer Paul O’Duffy about this era, and my interviews with them feature in the included booklet as they talk through the various albums (and the B-sides!).
The box set will be presented in the style of the recent Level 42 packages, although it should be noted that the artwork displayed above is only a temporary front cover and will change.
Blue Mood, Breakout and Beyond will be released on 19 August 2022 (was 29 July), via Cherry Red.
xPropaganda’s new album The Heart Is Strange is out today. Issued on ZTT, the long-player has been made available on six physical formats (some of which have sold out). Watch the video, as SDEtv ‘unboxes’ them all!
After the late February release of Peter Jackson’s acclaimed documentary, The BeatlesGet Back, was postponed, some doubt was cast over whether the blu-ray version of the ‘3-part event’ would ever see the light of day. Perhaps Disney had changed their minds and wanted to stick with just having the documentary on its streaming service?
Thankfully, that hasn’t come to pass and the entertainment giant has confirmed this week that the 468-minute film will be issued on blu-ray (and DVD) in July.
How the blu-ray 3-disc set will look (click image to enlarge)
Other than that, nothing has changed from the January announcement. Both editions will be three-disc sets with each disc containing one of the three episodes:
Part One – The band gathers at Twickenham Film Studios to rehearse for a planned concert.
Part Two – Recording sessions start at Apple Studios, rehearsals continue and the mood lifts.
Part Three – The Beatles perform on the rooftop of their Apple offices.
The HD blu-ray edition features the Dolby Atmos mix, 7.1 PCM and 2.0 PCM stereo sound, while the DVD offers 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby Digital. These also have English SDH, Spanish and French subtitles.
The Beatles Get Back will be released on 11 July 2022. Existing pre-orders on Amazon should be fine, although there are no DVD pre-order links that I can find…
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John Lennon
The Beatles Get Back 3-disc blu-ray collectors set
Two classic albums from The Who will be issued as new half-speed mastered vinyl pressings in July.
1967’s The Who Sell Out is one of the albums in question, which is mildly surprising, given that this album was reissued just over a year ago, when a 2LP vinyl edition with bonus tracks was offered. This time it’s strictly a single LP, ‘album-only’ affair, but of course this has been cut at half-speed by Miles Showell of Abbey Road for optimum/superior sound. If you’d like an in-depth explanation of the half-speed mastering process, check out this SDE post.
The 2LP half-speed mastered vinyl pressing of Tommy (click image to enlarge)
The Who’s ‘rock opera’ Tommy, from 1969, is the second of the two albums to be issued as a half-speed mastered vinyl pressing. Like The Who Sell Out, Tommy was given the full reissue treatment but this was way back in late 2013. The album mastering is courtesy of longtime Who engineer Jon Astley (as is The Who Sell Out), but again, this has been cut at half-speed by Miles Showell.
Both releases are packaged in original sleeve and come with OBI-strip and certificate of authenticity. The Who Sell Out and Tommy are issued as half-speed mastered vinyl pressings on 8 July 2022.
Next month, The White Label Auction will see rare vinyl test pressings sold off to the highest bidder in aid of recorded music charity The BRIT Trust.
‘White labels’ are so-called because they are vinyl test pressings of an album with no sleeve/label artwork; they literally have a white/blank label. Normally only a small number (perhaps 5 to 10 units) are produced for artists/management to listen to and approve for large scale vinyl pressing.
A number of the UK’s major and independent record labels led by Universal Music UK/UMC (including A&M, Chess, Island Records, Motown, Polydor and Virgin), Sony Music Entertainment UK (Columbia), Warner Records (Atlantic), BMG, Cherry Red, Cooking Vinyl, Domino Records and others, have joined forces to pull together an extensive selection of white-label items for auction.
The Cure white labels are signed/annotated by Robert Smith (click image to enlarge)
Among the discs that fans will be able to bid for are various recordings released/reissued in recent years, including some that are artist-signed and annotated by Robert Smith (The Cure – Acoustic Hits, Disintegration, Pornography, Seventeen Seconds, and Head On The Door), Dio (Holy Diver), Howard Devoto (Magazine – Correct Use of Soap), and Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys (OMD – Souvenir and OMD).
The auction is hosted live onside and online by Omega Auctions, the music memorabilia and vinyl records specialists, and funds raised go to music industry charity The BRIT Trust, which since 1989 has donated around £28 million to charities and causes that promote education and wellbeing through the power of music and the creative arts, such as the BRIT School and Nordoff-Robbins music therapy.
