#Rusty Egan

[sowhatifiliveinfukuoka]

Record Mirror

Sine Of The Times (1981-06)

[jazznoisehere]

Visage, 1979.

Dave Formula, Barry Adamson, Billy Currie, Steve Strange, Midge Ure, Rusty Egan, John McGeoch.

[theunderestimator-2]

Bette Bright with Glen Matlock on bass at the Music Machine in London, as captured by Mick Mercer in 1979.

Bette Bright released a series of new wavey-pop/reggae singles, mostly covers of 60’s girl group songs, between '78-'79 with The Illuminations, a backing band that at the time included Henry Priestman, formerly of the Yachts, Rusty Egan, a former member of the Rich Kids and the DJ at the new romantic temple Blitz, along with Glen Matlock, already an ex-Pistol and a former Rich Kid as well.

"This was around the time that Blondie broke big in the UK, so suddenly lots of singles were being released by women who sounded like Debbie Harry for a quick cash-in, but I don’t think that this was the intent with this one. Also around this time... Bette appeared on the cover of Record Mirror. She also toured around this time and was certainly starting to grab an increasing amount of people’s attention, it now only seemed to be a matter of time before she would finally have some chart success. This was followed in November 1981 by the album “Rhythm Breaks The Ice”, also featuring a few original songs, but it wasn’t a hit. By this point, Bette had started to date Graham “Suggs” McPherson, the frontman of Madness, and in 1981 they got married. They have had two children, and almost 40 years later they are still together..." adamnostalgia.wordpress.com/

(via)

[spilladabalia]

Visage - Fade To Grey

[sk8rambler]

i have no words..

[jaynedolluk]

Got the latest issue of Classic Pop which had a fantastic piece on The Blitz nightclub (to tie with the new compilation curated by Rusty Egan based on the music he used to play at The Blitz). Plus they had pieces on New Jack Swing and the best 20 comeback singles (Ordinary World by Duran Duran was at No 1)

Also got Uncut as they had a big feature on one of my all-time favourite bands, Royal Trux as well as a little piece on the Cornish folk scene and a review of the new documentary on Anita Pallenberg, Catching Fire.

[yellowsnow77]

Rusty Egan presents Blitzed!

Estamos a 7 de enero y las novedades musicales siguen de vacaciones. Así que no me queda más remedio que empezar este 2025 con una de esas recopilaciones que tanto me gustan en las que se repasa un momento concreto de la historia de la música. Esta vez me voy a finales de los setenta y principio de los ochenta para acudir al Blitz!, el club que llevó la modernidad y el colorido a una Londres que,…

[kitkatt-0]

Hear me out, a Hercules au where Pearl is Meg and sings I Won’t Say I’m in Love about Rusty. With the coaches singing as the muses.

TELL ME THATS NOT HEAT

[irregularcollapse]

TIME FIC TIMEFIC MADAME PHLEGMATIC of FiCs IF YOU PLEASE

Yes angel! You move me, Sail ♥️

Chapter 2 of my time slip fic in the next is underway! I think I need to revisit my plan for this one and tinker with it a bit. But I’m excited about introducing Gale and picking apart Bucky like he’s a rotisserie chicken.

“American?”

He asks it growled, rough as the way he’s manhandled Bucky since they collided. He’s a bit rough all over, dirty like Bucky probably is from a day of marching and all the sweat and dust. Bucky swallows, blinking up at him, and the reply rasps out all apologetic.

“Yeah. Yes. Sorry.”

There’s high color in the guy’s cheeks under the smears of grime, and his hair is bright and golden even though it’s matted and stringy. He has a cut on his cheek, rusty smears and flecks of blood dotting his face in splatter. Only when he grunts wordlessly and snatches at Bucky’s collar—the pistol doesn’t waver—does Bucky consider that the blood might not all be his own.

“Whoa,” Bucky warns again, scrabbling as much as a gun in his face will allow to keep the guy from choking him out as well, but a hand locked around his attacker’s wrist doesn’t stop him from yanking at the necklace unsettled from under Bucky’s t-shirt.

He isn’t trying to strangle Bucky instead of shoot him; he’s reading the tags. It’s weird enough that the falter and halt trips through Bucky’s insides quick—he’s still holding the man’s arm, but he can’t make himself do anything else.

“Egan,” the man murmurs, and weirder still is how he isn’t pointing the gun any more and is instead clambering off of Bucky and pushing himself to his feet. He keeps his fist around the necklace, twisting and yanking, already staring back through the trees he’d burst through as he huffs out, “Up, c’mon,” and Bucky’s choice becomes following the order or being throttled by his grandad’s dog tags. Once he’s on his feet, the tags become a leash, the guy not letting go but already starting to lope away, his clear urge to run cut into Bucky’s skin with how tight the chain pulls.

“Fuck, man. You alright?”

The question’s maybe halfway sincere, because there is a story to be pieced together from the gun and the blood and the dirt and the wild, animal edginess in this guy’s movements, and though there’s nothing but flitting panic in Bucky’s mind, he knows it can’t be a happy one.

(For this WIP ask game!)

[spilladabalia]

Fade to Style

New Romantic '80s vs Swinging '60s

Visage - Fade To Grey

[sk8rambler]

happy birthdays, alex and glen !!

[scotianostra]

Happy Birthday James “Midge” Ure born October 10th 1953 in Cambuslang.

Born to a working class family Ure attended Cambuslang Primary School and Rutherglen Academy in Glasgow until he was 15 years old. For the first 10 years of his life he lived in a one-bedroom tenement flat. After leaving school Ure attended Motherwell Technical College and then began to work as an engineer, training at the National Engineering Laboratory (NEL), in nearby East Kilbride.

Midge started playing music in a Glasgow band called Stumble in 1969, before joining Salvation, a Glasgow-based group that became the bubblegum band Slik in 1974. Upset in the change of direction, Ure left the band to join the Rich Kids, a punk-pop group led by former Sex Pistol bassist Glen Matlock. The Rich Kids only released one album, 1978’s Ghosts of Princes in Towers, before breaking up later that year. Ure spent a brief time with the Misfits (not the American band) before forming Visage with drummer Rusty Egan and vocalist Steve Strange; he left the group to replace Gary Moore in Thin Lizzy, who had left in the middle of an American tour. After the tour was finished, Ure fulfilled an agreement to join Ultravox as the replacement for John Foxx.

Once he joined the band in 1980, Ure helped make Ultravox a mainstream success; during this time he also worked as a producer, making records with Steve Harley and Modern Man. In 1982, Ure released a solo single, a cover of the Walker Brothers’ hit “No Regrets”; it climbed into the U.K. Top Ten. Ure and Bob Geldof formed Band Aid, a special project to aid famine relief efforts in Ethiopia, in 1984. The two wrote the song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and assembled an all-star band of musicians to record the single; it sold millions of copies over the 1984 holiday season.

In 1985, Ultravox was put on hiatus and Ure began to pursue a full-time solo career. Recorded entirely by Ure, his 1985 solo debut, The Gift, launched the number one single “If I Was,” as well as the minor hits “That Certain Smile” and “Call of the Wild.” The following year, he recorded the final Ultravox album; in 1987, the band broke up and he began recording his second solo album. The resulting record, 1988’s Answers to Nothing, was less successful than The Gift in the U.K., yet it charted in the U.S., which is something Ure’s previous album failed to do. Three years later, Ure released his third album, Pure; while it didn’t do any business in America, the album featured the Top 20 British hit “Cold, Cold Heart.” He attempted a comeback in 1996 with Breathe, which went ignored by both the American and British markets. Four years later, his score for the Jon Cryer drama-comedy Went to Coney Island was issued by the Evenmore label.

Ure’s recording activity during the 2000s began with Move Me, which featured some surprisingly hard rocking material. A few years later, he published an autobiography, If I Was, and then, with Geldof, arranged the Live 8 concerts.

Following the release of the covers-oriented 10 IN 2008, Ure participated in an Ultravox reunion and continued to record as a solo artist. Fragile was issued in 2014, and featured the Moby collaboration “Dark, Dark Night.” In 2017, he collaborated with composer Ty Unwin on the album Orchestrated, which featured orchestral reworkings of Ultravox songs, as well as songs from his solo career.

In 2020 Midge released an album Soundtrack 1978-2019, he was one of the lucky artists to have completed his tour promoting this in February that year.

Midge has recently revealed why he turned down an offer to join the Sex Pistols, telling The Telegraph that he considered that taking up the invitation from the band's manager Malcolm McLaren would have been like "joining a slightly edgier Bay City ­Rollers". He received the offer to join the fledgling punk band back in 1975, while on a visit to McCormack’s instrument hire shop in Glasgow.

In an interview published in the Telegraph he said;

"I was stopped in the street by the Clash’s manager, Bernie Rhodes, who then introduced me to Malcolm McLaren, I didn’t know who either of them was, but they literally asked me to join the Sex Pistols without even asking what I did. To me it would have been like joining a slightly edgier Bay City Rollers, so I turned them down.

Last October Midge celebrated seven decades of music with a concert at the Royal Albert Hall.

Concerts coming up for Midge are, 24th October: Tvonica Culture - Zagreb , 31st October: Stadfeestzaal - Aarschot, Belgium with Lena

Lovich, before 27 dates in Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales ending in December, he then travels to United Arab Emirates for a gig in February, March sees the hard working Scot play 11 nights in Sweden and Germany.

Midge Ure is one of Scotland’s all-time most successful musicians. He is married with four daughters and lives in Somerset.

The video is Midge, with Pilot,s David Paton from a Live Hogmanay show in 1995.

[stillunusual]

Censored (issue #5) YEAR: 1978 CREATED BY: Tom Coutts and Ian Bruton LOCATION: Birmingham SIZE: A4 WHAT’S INSIDE…. In the annals of punk and post-punk outside of London, England's second city is often overlooked in favour of trendier places like Manchester and Liverpool, but the fifth issue of Censored fanzine really demonstrates the vibrancy of the music scene that existed in Birmingham back in February 1978 (sarcastically dubbed as "the sound of spaghetti" – a nod to Birmingham’s Spaghetti Junction, which opened in 1972).

The zine includes an enticing list of upcoming gigs at Birmingham's premier punk venue, Barbarella's, and a four page feature dedicated to the "Birmingham bands of 78".

Many of these names – Blonde Trash (recently disbanded), Demolition, Empees, Heavy Petters, Indirex, Model Mania, The Pseuds, Rudi & The Rationals, Scent Organs, Spoons, Swell Mob, Thrillers, TV Eye – never made a splash outside of the midlands, but some of the bands covered were destined to have a greater impact….

The Killjoys featured Kevin Rowland and Al Archer, who would later form Dexys Midnight Runners, and Ghislaine "Gil" Weston, who later joined all-female heavy metal band Girlschool. The Prefects were already attracting the attention of BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel (who particularly enjoyed their five second classic "I've Got VD") and were a precursor to Robert Lloyd's future with The Nightingales. Swell Maps, the experimental DIY ensemble who existed in various forms between 1972 and 1980, had already released their classic single "Read About Seymour" and would become highly influential in the post-punk era. Spizz Oil, who started off as Spizz 77 and changed their name every year until they split in 1982, were still in their early days but would go on to release the awesome "Where's Captain Kirk?" (as Spizz Energi) in 1979. Suburban Studs were a local punk band whose one and only album "Slam" also gets a two page review in the zine. Roots reggae band Steel Pulse were about to release their first single for Island Records - "Ku Klux Klan" - which was followed five months later by their brilliant debut album "Handsworth Revolution". Veteran rocker Steve Gibbons also gets a mention for his years of hard work which had "put Birmingham back on the rock map".

Looking beyond Brum, Censored commemorates two landmark events in the history of punk - the end of Mark Perry's Sniffin' Glue (the final issue came out in September 1977) and the recent break up of the Sex Pistols. Tom Coutts reviews one of their final gigs in the UK - at the Lafayette Club in Wolverhampton on 21st December 1977 - and clearly thinks the band was past its sell-by date, partly as a result of stalling creatively after they replaced Glen Matlock with Sid Vicious.

Censored also checks in with Rich Kids, the "power pop" band formed by Matlock (with Steve New, Rusty Egan and Midge Ure) after he was booted out of the Pistols. Coutts and Bruton rave about Rich Kids' eponymous debut single (released on red vinyl by EMI - the record label which had previously signed and then dumped the Pistols) and a recent Birmingham gig, convinced the band were destined for greatness. Sadly, that didn't happen – internal conflict over synthesizers versus guitars would soon fracture the band, with Egan and Ure heading in the direction of synthpop….

The Clash receive a glowing live review for a barnstorming set at Barbarella's, confirming their continuing top-tier punk status. There are also reviews of gigs by Jamaican deejay Dillinger and various local bands.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the zine is buried at the back: a prediction from somebody called Mark Wilson, who muses that 1978 will mark the start of punk's transformation. He foresees a split between bands softening their sound into pop and those moving into more experimental, avant-garde directions - citing The Fall, Suicide and Talking Heads as future torchbearers. It's a moment of clarity that's also reasonably accurate in retrospect.

Singles reviewed include “What Do I Get?” by Buzzcocks and “Shot By Both Sides” by Magazine - one of the very first post-punk records.

Click on the title above to see scans of all the zine's pages….

my box of 1970s fanzines flickr

[libertineangel]

Holy shit fuck damn apparently I just missed one of the coolest nights I've ever heard of

Had no idea it was happening until I saw a post on Reddit a moment ago but a few days ago a club in London put on a benefit night raising money for UNICEF in Gaza, whole host of DJs including fucking Paul Simonon, Jerry Dammers, Suggs, Paul Cook, Glen Matlock and Rusty Egan

God I can't believe I missed that, would've been there in a fucking heartbeat, advertised time was 8 hours long and I'd've been there every damn minute

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Photo of Grace Jones, Drury Lane Theatre, London, England, 10th October 1981 by David Corio

* * * *

The haters of Madonna are saying No Band on stage is just Karioke

I have posted many times the Malcolm McClaren Keynote " Karaoke Culture "

Having seen Grace Jones in 1981 and the songs of her Nightclubbing album were all in my Club for Heroes DJ Sets. Chris Blackwell came in many times asking me what is this song ?

"Private Lives" by "The Pretenders" "Nightclubbing" By Iggy Pop "Warm Leatherette" by The Normal and his own Roxy Music Love is the drug 12" were all big tracks. Seeing Grace jones performance her clothes her stage show and the stage set of 26 TV's . TV's later I bought them all for the stage set of The Playground Club with a Video Mixer Bruno. We showed Videos and mixed the audio like they were records. Madonna presented a stage show and Like Grace Jones the performance and the performers was not about a band it was about Madonna. Who wrote all her music and who . Grace Jones was before Madonna and before Lady Gaga as a performer and she continued the concept that the Drag Queens used lip sync to old songs that I saw at ROMY HAAG club in Berlin . A floor show was not about who could sing , it was about the whole show , costumes and dancers lights and costumes. Madonna carried that on with her own music in sound and vision.

I was there it was amazing , Inspirational and this review By Paul Morley mates with Trevor Horn of her Hampton Court 2022 says " ‘pop music has been tattooed with Jones’s influence for 45 years.’"

[Rusty Egan]