Another early 80's band that I enjoyed a good bit, although the "psychedelic in thier moniker is meant largely to be ironic. Good UK post-punk/hard rock, better than (I think) they are remembered, but we'll see.......
The original lineup was vocalist Richard Butler, bassist Tim Butler, saxaphonist Duncan Kilburn, drummer Paul Wislon, and guitarist Roger Morris.......shortly thereafter, they added guitarist John Ashton, while ousting Wilson as Vince Ely took over on skins.
Never huge in the US, I know for a fact that they made at least a couple of more albums than the three I have here, however, tried to locate em through my buds, and the Bay, and stood no luck thusfar......but these first three albums, in particular the second one, were a fine part of my earliest-adult soundtrack, some really good and unique music for that era and scene which I am so often unnecessarily hard on.
Album #1, a self titled effort from 1980......the postpunk/post-new wave sounds come CRASHING through, was this to be the music to fill the existing void that would become the "music of the 80's".......well, no, but they did give us three pretty good albums (and for all I know, maybe more as I've not heard a thing off anything past album #3.
The first album tries a LITTLE hard to be "weird", not that I have in general a problem with that......there are some fine, interesting tracks here ("Imitation of Christ", "Blacks/Radio" and more), this is a hard album to explain, I really do think that they had psychedelic INTENTIONS, but thier jangly/rough post punk guitars do not exactly fit THAT mold, in the end, creating a new sound.....I rank this a three star album. You may love it to the rate of 5, or dislike it down to 1.......it's that polarizing.
Maybe not so for the second album, "TalkTalkTalk"........for me, one of the top albums of 1981, weird, melodic, anti-melodic, rocking, and bizarrre all at once, an essential album of that period, and should you require but one album, THIS is the one for you.......leading off with the very cool single "Pretty In Pink" (from the movie of the same title), the Furs add just the right touch of sarcastic irony to the song, completely changing its meaning......it's a wonderful single, and the album is crammed with great stuff, ("Mr Jones", "Into You like a Train") especially my favorite single of 1981, "Dumb Waiters"......."Dumb Waiters" is indeed a great one, with it's grating saxaphone, buried vocals, and of course it's complete list of disjoined lyrics (small sample: "Dunno how I got in here it's making me insane, have another cigarette have another cigarette, in a room where lovers moan, talking on the telephone, they have got it in for me, yeh I mean it honestleeeeeeeeeey!", the whole song is a creep-out, freak-out fest that I happen to love. Would be a three star album for "Dumb Waiters" alone, as it is, 4 stars.
To be fair, they HAVE relesed, since then, at least four more studio albums, it has just never happened that I was in a position to hear them.......NOT saying they suck, just that I never heard of em, if one of em really stands out, or a particular single or two does even, hell put it up here and lemme hear it......either way, I'll always be a huge fan of "TalkTalkTalk' and in particular "Dumbwaiters"......
If there is more stuff I need to hear to get a complete picture, DO NOT dick me around, but you know these ears are always open (UNLESS ya try to dick me around!)
PSYCHEDELIC FURS-01 India/02 Sister Europe/03 Imiation of Christ/04 Fall/05 Pulse/06 We Love You/07 Wedding Songs/08 Blacks/Radio"/09 Flowers/10 Susan's Strange (Bonus)/11 Soap Commercial (Bonus)/12 Mack the Knife (Unreleased B Side)/13 Flowers (Demo)
TALKTALKTALK-01 Dumb Waiters/02 Pretty In Pink/03 I Wanna Sleep With You/04 No Tears/05 Mr Jones//06 Into You Like a Train/07 It Goes On/08 So Run Down/09 All of This and Nothing/10 She Is Mine/11 Mr Jones (single Version)/12 So Run Down (Early Version)/13 All of This and Nothing (demo)
FOREVER NOW-01 Forever Now/02 Love My Way/03 Goodbye/04 Only You and I/05 Sleep Comes
Down/06 President Gas/07 Run and Run/08 Danger/09 No Easy Street/10 Yes I Do/11 Alice's House (Early Version)/12 Aeroplane (non LP B Side)/13 I Don't Want To Be Your Shadow (Non-Lp B Side)/14 Mary Go ROund (Unissued Version of "Yes I Do")/15 President Gas (Live, Non-Lp b- Side)/16 No Easy Street (Live)
Again, here's the skinny.......I have only these three albums, there are a handful more.....I was THINKING I had a live boot (COULDA SWORN SO), but cannot find it........and I have never heard anything off of the post-"Forever Now" releases.......If you have any, love em or hate em, or any boots/rarities, this is a band in which I am fairly lacking in knowledge in, and if I missed anything important, catch me up.......THIS IS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR THOSE WHO ARE ALWAYS WANTING LINKS REPOSTED WHO THEN LEARN MY "YOU DO SOMETHING FOR ME FIRST"-POLICY-some Psychedelic Furs would certainly grab my attention from someone who wanted a repost of a Spiritual Beggars post from three years ago or some such.......I know it sometimes may sound selfish, but it is not, I have EVERYONE'S best interest in mind, yes, myself, but also you, the regulars, the lurkers, but above and beyond all the BLOG ITSELF.....it's not "mine", it's "ours", and the more you can contribute (so many great oones have done so)k the better the blog can be, for a longer and longer time.Thanks again, BigScottM 62