Month: March 2012

Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman talks MMXII, track-by-track

Update: click here for the full album review, and all the tracks on YouTube.

A brilliant read from the Skinny – a track by track run down of the new LP, MMXII.  If you haven’t been here before, welcome to the world of Jaz Coleman.

1. Pole Shift

I think most people will be familiar with the concept of what a pole shift is, which has happened on our planet so many times. If you look at the historian Herodotus who went to Egypt and talked to the priests there, they told him that the sun had changed from rising in the east to rising in the west four times in their history; we’re due for another one.

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Killing Joke – “MMXII” (2012) LP official track previews, and Colony Collapse in full

Update: click here for the full album review, and all the tracks on YouTube.

You can now have a taste of ‘MMXII’ via this exclusive album teaser. Understand the great washes of sound – the death disco with huge slabs of guitar that soundtrack these dangerous times – in it’s fullest by ordering the record now from http://tinyurl.com/6opbbaj.

This is the classic Killing Joke line-up, with a classic Killing Joke sound… needless to say, this is a classic Killing Joke album.

I also found a video for Colony Collapse on YouTube, and have added the videos for In Cythera and Rapture as well at the bottom of the post.

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Epitome: Sisters of Mercy – “Good Things”, 1982 John Peel session

Because out there the snipers work the ridges,
Building bombs and blowing bridges,
Out there on a darkened road,
The lines are dead and the cars explode.

But in here, there’s nothing but the good things.

This track – Good Things, by the Sisters of Mercy – is the very fabric of goth itself.  Black fabric, of course.  Fuck knows what Eldritch is trying to say here (if anything at all, but it checks all the necessary post-industrial, post-apocalyptic, death/gloom/despair, military boxes necessary for any archetypal goth epic), but man, this is my kind of song.

If you like the Sisters, you probably know the Alice EP intimately.  It was recorded before Wayne Hussey joined, and the sound was spikier, more angular, more urgent.  Good Things was never released officially, although it did appear in their debut 1982 Peel session, and this, for many reasons, is the best version.  The Sisters’ Radio One sessions (Peel and Kid Jensen) have never been released officially, but this session was re-broadcast by Radio 6 via DAB (digital radio) and was sucked up by the vast internet MP3 Hoover.

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Jaz Coleman selects his 13 favourite albums

In a funny way the two Johns – John Peel and John Lydon – were responsible for Killing Joke bursting onto the world stage in such a short period of time. John Lydon, we got a tape to him, he was friends with Youth and he became so passionate about Killing Joke and talked about it in the press a lot. We kind of got friends to stand in front of the BBC and push the first EP into Peel’s hand as he walked in, and Peel thought it was a set up or joke, a famous band masquerading under a different name, which is why he dropped by the first Peel session to see who we were. So between these two, it was only ten weeks from us getting together to the first gig selling out, it happened really fast.

via The Quietus | Features | Baker’s Dozen | Joking Aside: Jaz Coleman’s 13 Favourite Albums.

The Cure – vinyl re-releases of first five LPs announced for Record Store Day 2012

Record store day is on April 21st this year, and the Cure have announced some vinyl re-issues to co-incide, as well as a Secret 7”.  If you like the Cure and still play records, you will not want to miss this.

Record Store Day came into being in 2007 when over 700 independent stores in the USA came together to celebrate their unique culture. The UK followed suit and 2012 will see the fourth celebration of the UK’s unique independent sector. This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music. Special vinyl and CD releases and various promotional products are made exclusively for the day and hundreds of artists across the globe make special appearances and performances. Festivities include performances, meet & greets with artists, DJs, in store quizzes and many other events.

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Making Killing Joke’s video for “Eighties” – “they were a frightening band”

Cracking interview with the director of Eighties.

The utterance of the phrase “Eighties” usually serves as a catch-all for pop culture fans nostalgic for the Reagan years, but in 1984, it meant a take-no-prisoners music video that bombarded fans with their first taste of British post-punk industrial legends Killing Joke. Unleashing a treasure chest of button-pushing imagery that included burning books, dog weddings, John Delorean and melting faces, “Eighties” presented the case for revolution. The band’s volatile pronouncement to “push push struggle” translated perfectly in this darkly thought-provoking music video, and British director Anthony Van Den Ende (A Flock of Seagulls, Love and Rockets) shared his recollection of shooting this memorable clip.

via Director Recalls Killing Joke’s “Eighties”; “They Were A Frightening Band”.

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Killing Joke’s “The Death and Resurrection Show” website

I don’t know if this website is new news, but I thought it was worth posting the link for the Death and Resurrection show website I came across for the excellent background image alone, taken from Jaz’s Night of the Hunter period (Father Ted on crack?).  The Death and Resurrection show (second trailer on this link) has been on the radar for a long time – but never with a release date.  The site says “coming 2012” which is a clue, at least.

The Death and Resurrection Show is a feature-length music documentary charting the turbulent, dramatic and often unbelievable journey of the British post-punk industrial legends Killing Joke. The film brings together three decades of archive footage with two decades of never before seen new documentary footage and unprecedented access to the members of Killing Joke, their management, music producers, industry figures and associates.

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