This past week saw pioneering British synthpop group Heaven 17 do something it never had done before: perform a live concert in the United States. Specifically, Martyn Ware and Glenn Gregory brought their live show to New York City’s Highline Ballroom on Wednesday night. Check out the setlist and video.
Heaven 17 has long been more of a studio entity than a live vehicle. The group, which formed in 1980, didn’t perform live until 1997. And now, 36 years after the release of their debut Penthouse and Pavement, Martyn Ware and Glenn Gregory finally will bring H17 to America for a pair of long-awaited concerts next month.
This week’s new releases include expanded reissues of Peter Gabriel’s ‘So’ and Heaven 17’s ‘The Luxury Gap,’ plus a new live CD/DVD set from The Mission, the previously unreleased original demo tape from Rites of Spring, a new album from XTC’s Andy Partridge and Peter Blegvad, and vinyl release from The B-52s and Ultravox.
Vince Clarke and Martyn Ware teamed up in the late ’90s to record a pair of atmospheric albums under the moniker The Clarke & Ware Experiment. Now, a dozen years later, they’ve paired those two albums with eight CDs of unreleased material to create a limited-edition box set called The House of Illustrious.
Duran Duran next month will receive its first-ever double-disc best-of, the 34-track ‘The Biggest and the Best,’ which covers the years 1981 through 1989, collecting 20 of the band’s Top 40 hits as well as some “key album tracks” — while also omitting some pretty sizable hits from the band’s early ’90s renaissance.
As part of EMI Music’s ongoing Electrospective campaign designed to celebrate the history of electronic music, Mojo magazine recently convened a roundtable discussion of the genre featuring, among others, synthpop pioneers such as Mute Records; Daniel Miller, Heaven 17’s Martyn Ware and OMD’s Andy McCluskey.
This week’s round-up of Slicing Up Eyeballs headlines includes news about Talking Heads, Public Image Ltd., Pulp, Squeeze, Joey Ramone, Dalis Car, Heaven 17, Husker DU’s Grant Hart, Morrissey and Howard Jones — plus a new The Smiths box set giveaway.
Synthpop pioneers Heaven 17 — Martyn Ware and Glenn Gregory — will follow up last fall’s first-ever front-to-back performances of their1983 album ‘The Luxury Gap’ by mounting a nine-date U.K. tour this October and November that’ll find the group playing the record in its entirety each night.
This week’s new releases include new 2CD best-of sets from synthpop masters Heaven 17 and The Specials’ Terry Hall, plus The Wedding Present’s archival 2CD release ‘Live 1990’ and a new 2LP, heavyweight 180-gram audiophile vinyl reissue of the Red Hot Chili Peppers breakthrough smash ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik.’
This week’s round-up of Slicing Up Eyeballs headlines includes posts about Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore and Vince Clarke, The Lucy Show, Simple Minds, Paul Weller, Throwing Muses, Elvis Costello and OMD, plus the opening of voting in the 2011 installment of the Slicing Up Eyeballs Readers Poll.
Pioneering synthpop outfit Heaven 17 is treating fans to a free digital EP featuring a new acoustic recording of its 1982 hit ‘Let Me Go,’ plus live recordings of ‘(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang”‘and ‘Penthouse & Pavement.’ The ‘Rarities 2011’ EP is available as a free download in exchange for an e-mail address.
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