That's amazing. The album was released in 1983 but apparently forgotten by the time the CD age arrived.
Bite's great. I've got the Aussie, UK and Japanese vinyl and the expanded CD. I'm still looking for the cassette.
Altered Images I think was partially because they started as more punk. There were punks at the front yelling for Dead Pop Stars after every song. They finally got what they wanted, but it was played in a distorted dub style, with shared guest voccals from Vic Godard, as an encore. Altered Images moved from being kind of punk, almost Goth, or proto Cocteau Twins, with Dead Pop Stars, produced by the Banshees, to being ultra poppy and twee with Pinky Blue. Their real audience didn't show up that night, probably mostly too young, but their influence was clear after a few years, with Tallulah Gosh, Shop Assistants, Prmitives, Flatmates and other C86 twee groups.
True. Will check with a mate who worked for London Records, still has contacts "in the biz" and see if he can shed more light on this.
So I got a bit of info from the BBC about licensing the radio sessions for release, and it seems it will be challenging. I received a quote and it wasn't terrible. It was an upfront cost, but then also a percentage of sales after that upfront cost is paid back to me in sales. I would be responsible for paying the publishing and manufacturing the CD's as well, which adds further to the total. But the biggest hurdle is they said I would need to obtain permission from Sony for the release since the band were signed to Epic records at the time, and this may include an additional fee to Sony for that permission. Plus, I would have to pay the artist a royalty, either directly or through Sony. So even if I want to proceed, I'm again at the mercy of Sony, which means many months and challenging communication to get there. I did send Sony an inquiry yesterday and, not surprisingly, haven't heard anything back yet. I'm not going to push too hard for this right now because I'm still waiting for initial feedback on a number of titles I sent to Sony back in August, but if something develops that would be great.
^ meanwhile the market for this music is ageing pretty quick to the point that they will either be dead or not interested in buying any music anymore. Law of diminishing returns. Not sure what these companies are thinking hoarding all this stuff trying to milk it.
I might be completely wrong in this but I think it was Stephen Lironi who brought the very stylish ( imho) production to Bite. I still think it sounds fantastic and has not especially dated at all. I was discussing recently with a friend and we both distinctly remember seeing the short-lived Universal Love School on a late night tv programme. The song they played sounded like an extension of the Bite material.
I remember falling in love with Clare when I first heard her voice on the BBC World Service back in the early 80s. It took a while before I got to see her face. In those days, I have to wait for a copy of Smash Hits or NME to be able to see her face as they arrive in Singapore pretty late. When the mags finally came, I thought she looked even sweeter than she sounds!
Lironi co-wrote and produced most of Ameil's These Ties album. It's like an extension of Bite but more poppy.
Pinky Blue is by far the best album. See Those Eyes and I Could Be Happy both outstanding singles. Also Martin Rushent the genius behind Human League - Dare produced this whole album,hence why it’s so damn good.
Got my delivery of the box set today. Very happy to say the 8 minute complete extended version of Don’t Talk To Me About Love is on this set... Also the 3 actual albums have different extras, than the previous extras on the remastered discs previously released.
The original Australian Pinky Blue was different. I Could Be Happy was the extended version (which was the hit here) and they added Happy Birthday.
I received the Cherry Red Epics Years collection today and I really like the sound. Nothing hurt my ears like the previous reissues!
Hey Remy - can you please post and tell us the timing for Don't Talk To Me About Love on Disc 4. Big thanks!
I haven’t had chance to play them all yet. I did play the 12 inch disk 4 and those all sound great, no signs of vinyl rips on that disk to my ears.
