Wow! I’m envious. I’ve only known about them for a couple of years. My favorite of their songs is “Tarred and Feathered,” and the video is just unhinged:
The keyboardist, William D. Drake, is fabulous, and can be bonkers too (though more serious as well):
Tarred and Feathered is excellent.
They certainly give off a vibe that they are in another world, like if somebody said they’re from the next dimension over it’s kinda believable.
I wonder if maybe this conversation should be moved to the “Talkin’ about music” thread?
It’s the only song I know of where the lead singer, Tim Smith (RIP), slaps himself on the head and says “Ow,” then ends the song with a sigh.
I like the makeup too. I guess that was their trademark.
Your wish is my command 
Handy, thanks 
A group of musicians from several metal (?) bands did a cover of T&F. It’s pretty neat. Tim Smith’s brother Jim is one of the musicians.
Wow.
I’m so sharing that with my friend, he’ll love it - thanks
2022 has been a good year thus far for seeing synthpop artists.
Earlier this year I saw a-ha, and they were great. Recap:
A few weeks back I saw Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. While I had already bought tickets long before, in June 2021, they did a live-streamed benefit show for their road crew from the O2 in London. They looked and sounded great there so my expectations were high for this show and they did not disappoint. Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys sound just as good now as they did in the 1980s. Andy still does his wonderfully dorky “Trainee Teacher” dance moves. The crowd was on fire the entire time. I don’t think I sat down the entire show. They played for nearly 2 hours with a good mix of older and newer songs, including a couple deep cuts from some of the early albums.
Here’s a snap from that show:
And, yes, the saxophone was absolutely taken out for the If You Leave and So in Love sax solos.
Setlist:
Then, last night I saw Howard Jones with Midge Ure opening. This was my second HoJo show. The first was in 2020 just weeks before the pandemic lockdowns began. Recap:
The tickets I got included a meet & greet package so I got to be one of a small group who got shuffled into a room to get a few seconds with Howard to get a picture taken, have the briefest of conversations, and have him sign something (not having the foresight to bring a CD with me, I had him sign my lanyard). He was extremely nice and even complimented my TR-808 shirt that I was wearing telling me how he still has his 808. I wish I could have spent more time nerding out with him about synths and drum machines, but these things don’t ever really allow for that.
As for the show, it was pretty great. Midge Ure sounded excellent. He performed mostly Ultravox songs and a couple solo songs — and of course Visage’s Fade to Grey. His crowd banter was great with him cracking a joke about how he sounds like Groundskeeper Willy (“but not really”) and how his most streamed song on Spotify by millions was of course the one he didn’t write (The Man Who Sold the World).
Here’s Midge with Dan Burton as “the other half of the band”:
Worth calling out Dan Burton was actually on loan from HoJo’s band and did double duty as Midge’s keyboardist and Jones’ keyboardist and drummer. He definitely worked hard tonight. Much props.
Howard Jones was of course great. He’s such an amazing talent; a talented singer and prodigious pianist. His voice sounds just as good as ever. The previous show of his that I saw touring as The Howard Jones Trio was very stripped down but this show was totally synth pop with a few acoustic versions to change up the pace a little. While Howard Jones Trio guitarist Robin Boult was on hand, bassist Nick Beggs (of Kajagoogoo) is sidelined due to COVID until later in the tour. That was a bummer as he’s an incredibly good bassist. But the show must go on and it was a blast. Howard even broke out the keytar for a few songs. I’d definitely see him again given the opportunity.
Setlist:
About the only downside was the casino crowd at the show. Lots and lots of drinking and drunken shenanigans in the crowd which kinda sucked. Seats had almost sold out before the show so at least people who were there were there because they wanted to see Howard, not just because the venue comped a bunch of tickets to folks.
Coming up:
Not really synthpop but still relevant, I’ll be seeing Kraftwerk in July.
To close the circle and see some contemporary synthpop, I’ll be seeing CHVRCHES in September. (They originally weren’t coming to PNW but added more dates here recently and I got tickets as soon as they went on sale.)
In October I’ll be seeing New Order co-headlining with Pet Shop Boys — twice in the same week, but at two different venues. (Partially hedging against possible border closures since one show is in Canada, and the other is it’s fucking New Order and Pet Shop Boys both of whom I’ll happily see twice.)
Just wanted to complain about some Ticketmaster fuckery.
Mrs. Ficus is a big hair metal enthusiast. When it was announced in late 2019 that Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Poison, and Joan Jett were embarking on a tour it was basically an imperative that we get tickets for their stop here. We actually scored pretty good seats in the first few rows on the edge of stage left and paid a princely sum for them but it seemed worth it for the experience.
After 2 years of delays the tour is finally starting and pictures are flooding in — and it looks what Ticketmaster calls a “stage” ends up being completely obstructed unless you’re dead center.
Here’s a picture for reference:
If you’re on the outer edges of one of the left/right sections and in the first few rows you literally cannot see the stage — all you can see is the big ass screens in that area. What the fuck?
We ended up getting shittier seats in the stands and far away from the stage so at least we can see and we’re going to sell the other tickets. I’m sure we’ll make our money back but the whole thing really sucked. Why would we think when we booked the tickets that’s what shows as “stage” actually isn’t?
Anyway, the moral of this story is fuck Ticketmaster.
I guess Ticketmaster is a monopoly now? I haven’t been to a concert in years, and I kinda miss them. Last one I saw was Annie Haslam and Renaissance, at a small local venue, and that was years ago.
At first I thought you were talking about Blue Öyster Cult. I guess it was the umlaut that confused me. And as Professor Peter Schickele mentioned on one of his PDQ Bach albums, “an umlaut is just a colon that got drunk and fell over.”
Yeah, Ticketmaster is the worst but they largely have a monopoly. AXS is the only real competitor and they suck too. Just not quite as much.
But this is a good primer:
And the fancy aioli on this shit sandwich is that we listed our field level tickets for sale through Ticketmaster’s app since in the hope of at least making our money back. After some fuckery with getting it to recognize our bank account and so on (which apparently is really common), the process was pretty simple. Then we realized that Ticketmaster was adding some 25% in fees to anybody that bought the tickets on top of our list price… for tickets we already bought through Ticketmaster and paid fees for. So we buy and resell tickets through their same systems and now they get to double dip on the fees? That’s just crap.
What a terrible company.
Yeah, it’s pretty crap.
When I had to sell tickets (blizzard knocked out our power and we needed to take care of things at home) I used Stubhub and listed them at cost (plus the Stubhub fee). It worked out well enough, even though there was a mixup and it was the day of the show (I had 4 tickets and there’s some weirdness between listing them as a group vs. individually). The buyer and I both contacted stubhub and they sorted it right out.
I bought tickets for Girl Talk on the secondary market through Stubhub which were transferred to me through AXS. Circumstances led to me not really wanting to go to the show. Tickets were bought pre-COVID, the friend I was going to go to the show with moved away, and I didn’t feel comfortable with a GA show after it got rescheduled for 2022. I decided to resell them through AXS since they were the issuer.
AXS actually did this right: they capped resale prices at no higher than 10% over list and didn’t charge any fees. My tickets sold pretty much right away.
AXS still kinda sucks for other reasons, but at least they aren’t Ticketmaster.
Hmm… apparently, in a post-Charlottesville/Jan 6th world, comedy songs about ridiculously-caricatured, clearly-satirized angry people are “ill-advised”.
I’ll grant that a few of them can get a bit creepy… but saying “Lame Claim to Fame” is “ominous” or “Albuquerque” is “full of anger”?
“Christmas at Ground Zero” and “The Night Santa Went Crazy” are songs he shouldn’t ever perform again, IMNSHO.
But anything else…well, except maybe “Nature Trail to Hell”…it’s kind of silly and very telling to ban them.
I’m actually a bit fond of those myself, as a counter to some of the constant sappy stuff in the Christmas season. “The Night Santa Went Crazy” feels kind of like a harder “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” to me. And “Nature Trail to Hell” is fun for Halloween.
I can see “Melanie” or “Do I Creep You Out” being a little problematic in a trigger warning kind of way. But painting his entire discography with that brush seems a bit much.
I love “Slime Creatures from Outer Space” - and I agree with your assessment.
That was … interesting. Sure, some of his songs or some lyrics may not have aged well, but it really feels like the author has a cross to bear.
