Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.music Subject: Re: Siouxsie & The Banshees info request Message-ID: <1172@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Sat, 6-Jul-85 15:52:40 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1172 Posted: Sat Jul 6 15:52:40 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 7-Jul-85 06:09:43 EDT References: <1600@dciem.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 69 > A friend and I are both interested in getting some albums by Siouxsie And > The Banshees, but we've heard very little of their music so we don't know > where to start. We'd be grateful if somebody who is familiar with them > would send me or post a list of their albums along with some comments on > each. > > I've heard their "Hyaena" album once, and I was very impressed. My friend > got interested after hearing an album that he thinks is made up of songs from > older EP's, plus a bit of previously unreleased stuff. He can't remember the > name of it. [JEFF RICHARDSON] "Hyaena" is their latest album. The album he is probably referring to consisting of singles is called "Once Upon A Time". The "Once Upon A Time" Banshees video collection contains most songs from the album plus "Red Light", a classic dirge-drone tune that uses a Polaroid camera as a rhythmic "percussion" instrument (and it's cheap---I picked it up for $20: 9 videos!) I'm not aware of any album that contains unreleased stuff, though there is a double 7" by Siouxsie and Budgie called "Wild Things by the Creatures" which is supposedly unfindable (if anyone knows where I can find a copy PLEASE let me know!). If you shop smart at record stores, a few of the older Banshees albums (most notably their best albums, "Kaleidoscope" and "Juju") are "cutouts" that should cost no more than $3.99 . Geffen Records, their new label, bought rights to the old albums and they are now pressing them, so many overpresses of the old albums on the old label exist and are available. (This includes the live album "Nocturne", which is of varying quality.) A brief and incomplete discography and recommendations: (*) = recommended highly (X) = track is on "Once Upon A Time" THE SCREAM: Hong Kong Garden (X) (**) Helter Skelter (*) Mirage (X,*) JOIN HANDS: Lord's Prayer (*) Playground Twist (X) KALEIDOSCOPE: Happy House (X,*) (****) Christine (X,*) Desert Kisses (*) Paradise Place (*) Red Light (*) JUJU: Spellbound (X,*) (***) Arabian Knights (X,*) Night Shift (*) Monitor Halloween KISS IN THE DREAMHOUSE: Slow Dive (*) (*) Painted Bird HYAENA: Running Town (*) (**1/2*) Dear Prudence (*) Dazzle (*) Swimming Horses Suffice to say "Kaleidoscope" would be on my desert island list if I had to make one up. They started out as a seminal punk band and literally defined the dirgy neo-psychedelic punk sound made famous by the Psychedelic Furs and such on albums like "Kaleidoscope" and "Juju". They really have been as good a band as "Hyaena" would indicate. (Note that their guitarist for those albums was John McGeoch, who had been the guitarist for Magazine prior to that and that's another band worth checking out: sort of jazz-punk with tinges of electronic noodling, with a heavy influence from Roxy Music. Also the guitarist on "Hyaena" is Robert Smith of the Cure. The Cure are sort of contemporaries of Joy Division and Siouxsie & the Banshees with a flair for aural texture ("Seventeen Seconds" album). -- Like a turban (HEY!), worn for the very first time... Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr