Posts Tagged ‘the Commotions’

LLOYD COLE and the COMMOTIONS – ” Collected Recordings 1983-1989 “

Posted: December 18, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Lloyd Cole is working on new box set and a follow up to this year’s Lloyd Cole and the Commotions box – Collected Recordings 1983-1989 – with a similar set that focuses on his solo work issued the 1990s.

The singer-songwriter told his fans via Facebook yesterday that he has “started work listening to almost 30 year old cassettes for box set #2 – first four solo albums + lost fifth + lots of demos… including 2 from 1988 in Glasgow with Blair [Cowan].”

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Cole had a very productive first half of the nineties; Lloyd Cole, the highly regarded first solo album was issued in 1990 and followed in 1991 by Don’t Get Weird On Me Babe which saw Lloyd Cole broaden his canvas with some lushly orchestrated songs on side one. 1993’s pithily titled Bad Vibes arguably contained a career highlight (So You’d Like To Save The World) but that did nothing to help Cole’s downward spiralling commercial fortunes, something acknowledged by album closer Can’t Get Arrested. Like Lovers Do was a welcome top thirty UK hit from 1995’s Love Story but this ultimately proved to be something of a ‘blip’. LC would release no further long-players until the new millennium with the The Negatives band/album.

Lloyd Cole’s indicates that this box will include a “lost fifth” album which presumably would/should have been issued between 1995 and 2000. Instead we had to make do with 1998’s The Collection.

There were some great singles in this period such as She’s A Girl and I’m A Man, Downtown, Baby, and Morning Is Broken. However, a look at the chart positions (when they did chart) is rather depressing since LC didn’t have any top 40 hits in the UK at all in the 1990s apart, from the aforementioned Like Lovers Do (and even that ‘hit’ peaked at a modest #24).

Lloyd promises ‘lots of demos’ on the new box and we really must applaud his openness in terms of sharing his plans with fans, to the extent that he’s even posted a previously unreleased demo of Lloyd Cole album track A Long Way Down on SoundCloud. You can listen to this below.

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With the albums remastered, the unreleased album and demos fans can look forward to at least a six-CD box set. If Lloyd chooses to echo Collected Recordings set and include a DVD of promo videos and TV appearances that will add a seventh disc. It’s probably unlikely that the economics of this project would allow it to go beyond that, but nothing is obviously confirmed at this early stage.

There is clearly no release date at this early stage, but hopefully this project might reach fruition towards the end of next year.

LLOYD COLE and the COMMOTIONS – ” Collected Recordings “

Posted: December 20, 2015 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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A NEW SIX DISC DELUXE EDITION BOX SET, which was released on 29TH JUNE, COMPILES ALMOST ALL OF THE BAND’S CATALOGUE WITH A PLETHORA OF PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED MATERIAL. THE COLLECTED RECORDINGS 1983 – 1989

LLOYD COLE AND THE COMMOTIONS Formed In 1982 and split in ’89, after just three studio albums and nine singles to their name features seminal 1983 debut album RATTLESNAKES alongside the more commercially successful EASY PIECES (1985) and brooding 1987 swansong MAINSTREAM. With the inclusion of a disc of b-sides, another of demos and rarities, a DVD featuring the quintet’s promotional videos and BBC TV appearances and a 48-page hardback book by journalist and broadcaster Pete Paphides, the box set provides a thorough – almost definitive – guide to one of the most confident and interesting groups of the 1980s.
Born in Derbyshire, and studying at Glasgow University, Lloyd Cole formed The Commotions with keyboard player Blair Cowan and guitarist Neil Clark (later drummer Stephen Irvine and bassist Lawrence Donegan, previously members of The Bluebells). On the verge of issuing independent single DOWN AT THE MISSION (first official release on this box set and sounding drastically different to everything around it) The Commotions signed to Polydor in 1984. Verbose first single proper PERFECT SKIN (with “She’s got cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin / And she’s sexually enlightened by COSMOPOLITAN” a rather uncommon expression of an idealised aesthetic) was an immediate – perhaps surprise – hit.

With a tight sound (some would say uptight) where not a note would be wasted – roughly translatable as POSITIVELY FOURTH STREET filtered through Leonard Cohen, The Velvet Underground, Television and a stack of old soul singles – Lloyd Cole And The Commotions offered a peculiarly sophisticated take on erudite pop songwriting in the post-new wave era. Intricate guitar lines and clever lyricism marked out both bands, but if a handy cliche for The Smiths was that a rain-sodden Morrissey walked back street alleys with an unlikely fancy for Oscar Wilde, then for The Commotions it might have been that Cole was tucked up in Undergraduate basement digs with an espresso, cigarettes and Sunday afternoon study pile. Candid footage from the time (not included here but available on a previously released concert DVD) shows Cole walking through a train station with that most rock ‘n’ roll of accessories – a briefcase. The band’s flawless debut RATTLESNAKES journalled a wilfully bohemian life lived in the halls of academia, and in the coolest bars off campus. More specifically a love life lived there, and littered with references to classic 20th-century writers, the hippest silver screen figures and pop icons (the title track’s “She looks like Eva Marie Saint in ON THE WATERFRONT / She reads Simone de Beauvoir in her American circumstance” and the mentions for both Norman Mailer and Arthur Lee during ARE YOU READY TO BE HEARTBROKEN?).
Cole’s cutting wit and penchant for melody ran deep in everything subsequently released, including singles FOREST FIRE (a slow-burning epic), BRAND NEW FRIEND (broadsheet reader soul), LOST WEEKEND (Iggy Pop’s THE PASSENGER as received in the hash / coffee bars of Amsterdam), and MY BAG (drug-fame-city-beat poetry). Second album EASY PIECES (seemingly much more accomplished – but with lesser material than RATTLESNAKES) and the final effort MAINSTREAM (dark, often self-scrutinising) achieved higher chart positions than the 1984 debut – but neither are recalled with quite as much fondness. Says Cole: “1984 was our year. Everything seemed easy. Everything went wonderfully. After that being Lloyd Cole And The Commotions became increasingly difficult. But I’m really glad we made the music we did. I can’t imagine a band I’d rather have been the singer in”.

In this fascinating extended new edition of The Mouthcast – recorded via Skype to Cole’s home in Massachusetts – he discusses RATTLESNAKES in depth, and looks back at the difficulties during the making of follow-up EASY PIECES and the band’s swansong MAINSTREAM. He reflects on the band’s success, and explains why his facility with words was akin to having “a six pack”…