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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
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> 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