[Pearls Of Passion] DELAY - Wasting My Time

I guess we all know this... a short melody that you can't get out of your head again. At times it is rather annoying, cause it is mostly some dull bubblegum radiostuff, but on rare occasions, it is simply a magnificent pleasure. One of those occasions happened to me back in 1994, I think it was on the legendary Radio FFN Grenzwellen show (more on this at a later date), when Ecki Stieg played a song that started with a killer synthline + that synthline continued throughout the song: 'Wasting My Time' by Swiss band DELAY. Formed back in the early Nineties, Delay made themselves a name in 1994 with the 'Working In The Factory' Maxi-CD (it includes 'Wasting...' as well) and later with the 'Underdogs' album. Delay continued to release albums (all recommended) throughout the Nineties before they split. Andy Prinz moved into the trance direction and is still producing various projects + is working on a wide range of audioservices.

[Pearls Of Passion] THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS - There's A World

When being asked about the most unique voices in music, one person that I immediately come up with, would be Richard Butler of The Psychedelic Furs. The band started in the punk days back in England. During the eighties, they had quite a few hits in the USA as well (they were well respected on college radio) including anthems like 'Heaven'; 'Ghost In You' or 'Love My Way'. Back in 1986, John Hughes did one of his legendary teen-movies 'Pretty In Pink' - the title being the title of a 1980 song by Psychedelic Furs, who decided to rerecord the song for the movie. A few albums followed until the band came to a hiatus in 1991 recording one (so far?) last album 'World Outside'. A massively underrated album, it includes one or their most beautiful singles 'Until She Comes' (at least a number #1 on the US Modern Rock Charts) and today's choice: 'There's A World'.

Why this was never rerleased as a single is totally unbelievable + unexplainable - it must be one of the strongest songs the band, a beautiful arranged mid-tempo classic, that should have been massive and today being known as one of their classic hits, for sure you'll find me still humming along though... 'I can't wait, say goodbye before you break...'.

After his time with Psychedelic Furs, Butler formed a new band called Love Spit Love - but that is another story (and it is likely one of their songs will be featured as well later) - Psychedelic Furs have regrouped/reformed since and up to this day continue to tour - in the next few day, they'll start a new tour in the US (first night: Fort Lauderdale, 26th May).

[Pearls Of Passion] THE MISSION - Butterfly On A Wheel

Pearls of passion? Yup, exactly, a new section - to be honest, I am really sick of all those labels of bands... is it pop? is it goth? is it punk? You get it... for me, it is always about the music and the songs and if a song sounds great to my ears, my only label is 'perfect pop' for it + such songs, are the ones we talk about here in 'Pearls of passion'.

The first one I chose is by the legendary THE MISSION and was officially released on 1st January, 1990 - it fits perfectly as a starting point, cause it was basically the first single to be released in 1990. And what a song it is still, it wasn't without a risk, as the song was quite different to previous singles by The Mission. After wrapping up their tour for the 'Children' album with some massive arena gigs in England in Winter 1988, the band took a short break + started writing and recording a new album. During those months, they played a few gigs (some benefits, some gigs as special guest of The Cure and a tour of the Scottish Highlands). The Mission already tested a few of their new ones (the later anthem 'Deliverance' was already played in late 1988) + among them was 'Butterfly on a wheel'. The song up to this day is a fave of mine - be it on the record or live, a mesmerizing track with beautiful syntharrangement that melts perfectly with the guitars and drums. It is one of those tracks, which says instant classic but has enough depth to stay in your ears forever without ever getting sick of listening to the track - 'Butterfly' was one of the most successful singles for the band reaching No 12 in the UK Single Charts (totally unthinkable today...).

Back to the future - The Mission have split (finishing with 4 shows in London 2008) and Wayne Hussey is currently doing some solo acoustic shows, which I can't recommend enough + you can almost always be sure that 'Butterfly on a wheel' is still part of his set and hasn't lost anything in all those years.

Vikersund 1990

With the yearly skijumping season coming to an end this weekend in Planica with the world championship in skiflying, I thought it would be a good idea to go back to the first flying world championship of the 90es. Welcome to Vikersund (Norway) and the flying competition on Vikersundbakken. In quite difficult conditions at times, the competition was really open, as at that time, there was a rule, every jumper had 3 tries and the best 2 were counted and lead to the world champion. Vikersund had in retrospect many interesting points:
The winner of the competition was Dieter Thoma (Germany), who had previously won the 4-Hill-Tournament, so his victory wasn't the biggest surprise. Silvermedal went to the legendary Matti Nykaenen, who won medals in all 5 skiflying world championships he took part in (from 1983 - 1990), making him the most successful athlete in skiflying up to his day. It was the last medal he won + his last Top 3 position in a competition. Third place went to Jens Weissflog (his last medal for German Democratic Republic), who missed silver by just 1.5 points (in distance, a good meter in 2 jumps). Thoma and Nykaenen both managed to fly 171m in one round, which at that time was the hill record on Vikersundbakken.

And to get back into today's life, it should be noted, that Japanese Noriaki Kasai already took part in the competition 1990 - he'll be a competitor tomorrow in Planica again, which is enormous - 20 years... Miran Tepes, who finished 15th in Vikersund, works for the FIS as assistant race director in all World Cup Skijumping competitions.
Both, Weissflog (ZDF) and Thoma (ARD), work as skijumping experts for German TV.

Larry Cassidy (Section 25) R.I.P.

I had planned the start of this blog totally different with an article about sports, but sometimes certain situations in life make a change of subjects inevitable.
While checking some blogs yesterday, I stumbled over a report on John Robb's (important music journalist -> for those who don't know his name)blog : Larry Cassidy R.I.P. - and I couldn't believe my eyes... just minutes later a friend of mine send me an email confirming the sad news...

Larry Cassidy was the singer and bassplayer of legendary Blackpool band SECTION 25. And what has all this got to do with Teenage 90es you may ask? Indeed... way back in 1991 (or very early 1992) I listened to a radiospecial about Factory Records done by Paul Baskerville, who did an interview with Tony Wilson (head of Factory) about a just released compilation 'Palatine' and among the tunes featured (described by Wilson as 'early techno') was a song that completely blew me away - 'Looking From A Hilltop' by Section 25 (it is still one of my all time top favourite tunes). It took me quite a bit of time to find out more about the band - remember, this was pre-internetdays and the band had split up by then... and all through the years I slowly built my collection on Section 25 - going back to their early punk/postpunk days and songs like 'New Horizon' or 'Dirty Disco'. People who know me, knew my joy, when it was said by the start of the new century, they would record again. Unfortunately things came to an abrupt ending, when Jenny Ross (Cassidy - Larry's wife) died after a battle with cancer in 2004. Somehow a few years later with a new lineup, the band continued and even played shows and released new albums on LTM Recordings. They teamed up for a few shows with Peter Hook (New Order / Joy Division). The last news was, that the band were re-recording and re-imagining some older songs for a new project called 'Retrofit' that was supposed to be out later this year.
Then yesterday those extremely sad news arrived and of course my thoughts are with his family in this difficult time. Unfortunately Section 25 never really got the attention they deserved + they left behind some great material and a great spirit with their songs.
Do me a favour and put on a Section 25 record (or at least play a clip on youtube), it would mean a lot - Larry, you'll never be forgotten, wherever you are...

Nothing Can Stop Us...

Valentine's Day... what a nice day to start a new blog... No need for flowers, though.

I guess for almost everyone, teenage years mean a lot - they form an important part of your life. As I was born in the second half of 1976, my teenage years almost clashed in with the start of a new decade. So this is basically part of my story and my life from 1990 to 1996. This is about things which meant a lot to me back in those days + most of them still mean a lot to me now - music, movies, tv, sports, whatever - main emphasis will be on music, because music simply means the most to me. Hopefully you enjoy all those stories + links to follow and have a pleasant stay over here...