Thursday, July 13, 2017

Robert's shirt for Designers Against AIDS


 

"Robert Smith of the Cure was one of the first artists who provided a design for Designers against AIDS to be used on tees, hoodies and sweaters to raise funds for our NGO. 

This long sleeved tee/sweater, that can be worn by both women and men, has Robert's illustration on the back, which says 'Whatever Words I Say, I Will Always Love You' and depicts him with his wife.
As is true for all our tees, it's made Fair Trade from organic cotton by Sense Organics in India and every cent (!) of the sales proceeds will benefit our work.
Photos by Kiran Gidda www.kirangidda.com" 

 You can buy the shirt at Tictail. Thanks, @thecureCZ.
Posted by Craig at 9:05 AM

Reeves' new Dirtbike signature guitar

From Reverend Guitars on Facebook:


A closer look at the all new Reverend Reeves Gabrels Signature Dirtbike. From Reeves:
"what i think is cool about this guitar is the fact that i have a whole ongoing story /reason/explanation of always having a no frills simple, fast and blue thing to zip around on that threads thru my whole life. this guitar is a continuation of that sense of freedom in the form of speed and power stripped down to its essentials. and reverend guitars matched the light metallic blue color of both of its two wheeled predecessors. to me a single pickup guitar with a trem is just like my 1966 shwinn stingray with the extension spring on the front wheel or my 1971 honda dirtbike w/the raised front fender and slightly extended fork. it's a guitar with enough agility that it will let you grab air and do wheelies and the power to leave some rubber on the asphalt in front of the neighbor’s house. and, really, that's all you need. did i mention it's blue?" - Reeves Gabrels
https://www.reverendguitars.com/gui…/reeves-gabrels-dirtbike

From Reeves on Facebook:

The Dirtbike, my newest signature guitar -- with one of its inspirations, a 1960s Schwinn bicycle. At the Reverend booth at the NAMM show opening tomorrow in Nashville.
Posted by Craig at 9:00 AM 0 comments

Roger is an executive producer of 'England is Mine'

Roger is listed as an executive producer of the new unauthorized Morrissey biopic, 'England is Mine'.

Roger at the premiere of 'England is Mine' at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on July 2nd, 2017. Thanks, @fmjews74.

Posted by Craig at 8:53 AM

Interview with James from The Twilight Sad

The Mood Swings podcast did an interview with James, and of course, touring with The Cure last year was talked about.
Posted by Craig at 8:52 AM

Reeves with Cheap Trick & Midnight Oil


@cheaptrickdaxx @cheaptrickrick

A post shared by Reeves Gabrels (@reevesgabrels) on


at BNA... "it's deja vu all over again". - yogi berra

A post shared by Reeves Gabrels (@reevesgabrels) on


Posted by Craig at 8:46 AM 0 comments

Top 50 Albums of 1987

'Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me' is #7 on Consequence of Sound's list of the Top 50 Albums of 1987:

07. The Cure – Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me

You could arguably say that The Cure’s imperial phase spanned the entirety of the ’80s— although from a US commercial standpoint, the platinum-selling, sprawling Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me was the start of the UK band’s most successful era. Not only did the album spawn the top 40 hit “Just Like Heaven”, but it featured The Cure’s most colorful, pop-oriented work to date: the gallant, horn-driven strut “Why Can’t I Be You?”, wriggling funk jam “Hot Hot Hot!!!”, and the sax-burnished, effervescent “Hey You!!!” Yet Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is also notable for how it distills and amplifies The Cure’s strengths — disorienting psychedelia (“The Kiss”, “If Only Tonight We Could Sleep”), manicured ballads (“Catch”), and humming gothic rock (“How Beautiful You Are”) –with bold, dramatic poise.

Last Seen: In 2016, The Cure celebrated 40 years together by embarking on a well-received, career-spanning world tour.
Posted by Craig at 8:34 AM

The 10 Most Unexpected Albums Of All Time

Team Rock asked Hundredth what their 10 most unexpected albums of all time were, and 1 of their picks was 'Disintegration':

Chadwick: "The Cure is probably my all-time favourite band and I am fascinated with their journey. Robert Smith has crafted many moods through many albums but to me (and many other Cure fans), Disintegration is the most prolific, and at the time, unexpected.

Coming from the 1987 Double LP Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, which is basically an amalgamation of everything The Cure had been up to that point, Smith wanted to write a masterpiece before turning 30 and he stunned Cure fans with Disintegration. An ebb and flow of distaste and dissatisfaction built upon a slight shimmer of hope. A curveball that I think solidifies The Cure as one of the most versatile bands ever."
Posted by Craig at 8:25 AM

The Cure's Pornographic Cure

Pop Matters takes a look back at 'Pornography':

Pornography, the Cure’s 1982 album, positively drips with dreariness. And yet, it wouldn’t be fair to pigeonhole it as just an exercise in eerie pathos. Otherworldly, meditatively mercurial, spiritually harrowing—these ideas encapsulate the complex compelling nature of the album because it’s so much more than just the ponderously murky, suicide-inducing effort it’s often made out to be. It clashes with nuanced contradictions; it’s at once sparse and dense, clamoring and quiet. It gives rise to the paradoxical idea of poetic cacophony. Discordance never sounded so sublime.

To be sure, Pornography might have veered recklessly into the terrain of overwrought kitsch, like much of the gothic output of the ‘80s. Think Sisters of Mercy, whose fog-shrouded songs, while worthy in their own way, too readily date themselves, and are too eagerly branded as the genre’s emblematic aesthetic. The Sisters’ signature sound features vocals that are garishly grave and music that is by turns cheaply cinematic and self-consciously sepulchral—all ornamented with lyrics that tediously indulge tropes.

On the other hand, Smith was able to rein in such horrid histrionics and curtail genre gimmicks and craft a remarkably mature post-punk classic. Pornography is frequently cited as the paradigmatic album of ‘80s goth, and indeed, no other album of that genre can hope to measure up to its gorgeously grandiose gloom. The album itself is surprisingly compact, with a total of eight songs clocking in at around 30 minutes. Its brevity lends it its gravity. All of the songs are imperative inclusions in order to sculpt cohesiveness and give the album a thematic seamlessness. For me, six are absolute stunners, while two are merely “very good”. So I will touch on those six, keeping in mind, nonetheless, the necessary nature of the others.

Read the full article at Pop Matters.
Posted by Craig at 8:24 AM

Most Influential 80s New Wave Bands

The Cure were included in Baeble's Beginner's Guide to the Most Influential 80s New Wave Bands:

During the early 70's at a middle school in West Sussex, the founding members of The Cure began to meet at a local church hall, practicing their favorite songs. After winning a recording contract, and failing to keep it afloat, The Cure finally found their footing with their debut album Three Imaginary Boys in 1979 under a new record label.

After their 1982 release Pornography, the band's future was questionable. Sure, they had a growing fan base, but they struggled to convince others their smeared lipstick and disheveled black hair was a good idea. A defining moment in their career was the 1985 release The Head on the Door, which gave the world the band's infectious hybrid of optimism and sarcasm with songs like "In Between Days" and "Close to Me." With a world tour and success in the US, The Cure was making a name for themselves.

Success only continued with the release of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. The eclectic album featured "Just Like Heaven," the band's most successful single. With that single, The Cure was solidified as New Wave legends, continuing to make influential music with albums like Disintegration and Wish, amongst others.

Today, bands like The Smashing Pumpkins and Interpol have cited The Cure and frontman Robert Smith as their biggest influence. Paul Banks, lead singer of the latter was quoted saying, "The Cure is the band that all of us in Interpol can say influenced us...They're legendary."
Posted by Craig at 8:20 AM

Saturday, June 10, 2017

Greatest & Acoustic Hits vinyl on June 30th

Non-picture disc versions of the recent Record Store Day 'Greatest Hits' and 'Acoustic Hits' vinyl releases will be out June 30th. Both are up for pre-order at Amazon US - Greatest / Acoustic. Other pre-order links can be found at Super Deluxe Edition.
Thanks, Andreas, Craig and Benj.
Posted by Craig at 1:24 PM

How America Fell In Love With The Cure

From Observer:

"By 1987, The Cure had been leading the British post-punk scene for over a decade. But here in America, unless you were a devotee of independent record stores and college radio, the legendary group was still something of a well-kept secret.

That all changed 30 years ago today.

Soon after The Cure released their ambitious double album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me on May 25, 1987, their infectious singles like “Just Like Heaven” were dominating U.S. radio.
“I’m a sucker for short and sweet hit pop songs [like ‘Just Like Heaven’]. And ‘Why Can’t I Be You?’ does the trick for me [too],” says guitarist for Bauhaus Daniel Ash, whose post-Bauhaus band Love & Rockets also enjoyed the after-effects of Kiss Me in 1989 with their smash hit “So Alive.”

Partially recorded at the famed Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me interjected the dark tones of their earlier work with elements of bleeding edge R&B, Prince-esque funk grooves, warm jazz and dreamy psychedelic pop that caught fire on such prominent American radio stations as Los Angeles’s KROQ and New York’s WLIR."

Read the rest at Observer.

Some more articles celebrating the 30th anniversary of 'Kiss Me' at Bible Urbaine and Frankenpost.
Posted by Craig at 12:59 PM

Lol will be in San Diego today


Posted by Craig at 12:23 PM

'Cured' paperback out in the UK

Posted by Craig at 12:19 PM

Tom Sheehan interview in Classic Pop

Posted by Craig at 12:18 PM

SUE readers rank all 225 Cure songs

Slicing Up Eyeballs recently conducted a poll of their readers, asking them to rank their top 25 Cure songs, and the results have now been posted:

#225 - Why Can't I Be Me?
#200 - Return / The Reasons Why (Tie)
#150 - Gone! / Stop Dead / Where the Birds Always Sing (Tie)
#100 - Last Day of Summer / Wrong Number (Tie)
#50 - M
#40 - Three Imaginary Boys
#30 - Prayers For Rain
#20 - A Letter to Elise
#10 - A Night Like This
#1 - A Forest

Read the complete list at Slicing Up Eyeballs.


Posted by Craig at 12:15 PM

Curespottings & Covers updated

The Curespotting and Cure Covers pages have been updated.
Posted by Craig at 12:10 PM

Saturday, May 20, 2017

So what has Robert been up to lately?

Well, if you believe "the fucking internet', he's been buying guitars and writing lyrics.

A post shared by Custom77 Guitars (@custom77) on

Posted by Craig at 5:34 PM

More 'Cured' events in June

From Loltolhurst.com:

Jun 10, 2017 (11am) - San Diego, CA
Vinyl Junkies Record Swap
Casbah San Diego
2501 Ketner Blvd
San Diego, CA 92101
Tickets are $3 at the door

Jun 20, 2017 (6pm) - Berkeley, CA
Mad Monks Center for Anachronistic Media
2454 Telegraph Ave,
Berkeley, CA 94704

Jun 21, 2017 (5:30pm) - San Francisco
VIP Evening with Lol Tolhurst
This event is limited to 40 people and will include a spoken word performance, question and answer session and the chance to get a photo or an autograph. Address will be provided to ticket holders 24 hours prior to the event. Buy tickets here.

Jun 21, 2017 (8:30pm) - San Francisco
VIP Evening with Lol Tolhurst (late)
This event is limited to 40 people and will include a spoken word performance, question and answer session and the chance to get a photo or an autograph. Address will be provided to ticket holders 24 hours prior to the event. Buy tickets here.
Posted by Craig at 5:20 PM

Perry talks about 'Wish'

Posted by Craig at 5:15 PM

The Cure's 'Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me' Revisited

From The Quietus:

"It would have been at some point in late 1987, my senior year of high school, and it would have been in one of the two English literature courses I was taking that year. (Because I sure as hell didn’t want to do phys ed classes after I didn’t have to any more.) I had heard this song 'Just Like Heaven' on the radio and was randomly enthusing about it, because it was really good and all. I remember my classmate Susan Orozco - who regularly preferred to dress all in black, like a small coterie of people at our high school - saying in response “Yeah, but I think they sold out.” My reaction was essentially confusion - the class was about to start and I just wasn’t sure what to make of it. What was there to sell out from? And if it sounded this good, why complain?

A couple of years back I celebrated The Head On The Door’s 30th anniversary for tQ and so here I am again a couple of years later with the next album along the way. So I won’t try to add anything further to the potted band history I already gave in that feature, except to note an extension. After that album’s well-deserved success in the UK and elsewhere (especially on incipient alternative radio in the US) the temporarily stable lineup of Robert Smith, Simon Gallup, Lol Tolhurst, Porl Thompson and Boris Williams, spent 1986 dealing with retrospection colliding with the present. The Standing On The Beach singles collection - easily one of the best of its era, hands down, a perfect illustration of just how Smith and company’s pop instincts had been on since the start - served as both a good reason to hit the road some more and create a great concert film in The Cure In Orange while they were at it. "

Read the rest at The Quietus.
Posted by Craig at 4:35 PM
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)