Released 41 years ago today.
My favourite bit of this video? – (apart from Jim just dripping ultra cool sex god vibes) – the moment Jim and Derek almost crash into one another and have a cheeky wee exchange of grins and giggles – around the 1 min 45 second mark.
Enjoy!
Today is a very exciting day! I get to hear the long mystical Glasgow Apollo gig that SM did in September of 1981. I am really looking forward to this one. I have already heard just a little bit of it (In Trance As Mission and some of Changeling) and I plan to devour the rest shortly, even if only as a brief taster.
I’m sure someone will end up putting it up on YouTube and when they do, I’ll share it here.
Until then…I’m off for a listen and a TARDIS trip! Jim…in them boots! Sweet baby Jesus and the orphans! 💕💕💕
UPDATE: OMG – ‘Seeing Out The Angel’ and ‘Sons and Fascination’ are both WONDERFUL at this gig! So…I am going to post one song here.
Enjoy!
This is my medicine. This gorgeous creature. These rare ones from the Mojo spread are wonderful. I have a lot to thank Tom Sheehan for. Tom capturing Jim in front of a Canadian flag back in 1982 changed my life immeasurably some 34 years later. I will be forever thankful.
The other by Peter Anderson is a great action photo.
On the morning I was travelling down to England, I had this thought in the shower (I tend to have a number of thoughts in the shower…not all of them clean. Lol). I was thinking about how Graeme Thomson had referred to Jim (and his performing style back in the day) at the reading/conversation with John Dingwall at the Mitchell Library as “feline”. And I had these images in my head…
And then these words came to my head. And I kept saying them over and over so I wouldn’t forget them and then, once I was out of the shower, I could write them down. Of course I forgot and only remembered once I had got to England and had nearly arrived at my friend Ruth’s house. Lucky my phone has a little notepad app. I quickly typed it out…
Hypnotising: Like a swaying cobra ready to strike if you’re caught not paying attention.
L. Read, June 17th, 2022
That photo by Peter Anderson….that’s the cobra coiled in the wicker basket, the music working its magic to have him swaying out of the metaphorical basket to hypnotise the crowd. Jesus! He’s divine…
I’ll enjoy my Covid induced fantasy. Thank you! 😜😉
I’m grappling with whether I should just put the whole Mojo article up but I think I better wait until the next issue is available. In the meantime, apart from the article itself, and the piece on the new album (and Jim calling his dad a count – minus the ‘o’ – I love it when it’s used as a term of endearment. Lol) these photos, along with Jill’s magnificent cover photo, are my faves.
Oh…there’s a point. I’ll post Jill’s words from within the opening pages of the mag. She said a very lovely thing. Read below.
I haven’t made a single Priptona Art piece in 2022. And they weren’t exactly regular prior to that but I guess there must be SOME truth about ‘the muse’ – and mine for visual art, at least, is very obviously a young Jim Kerr. (Sorry, Jim. Just call me a superficial count! Lol)
I worked on this a while. I’m quite rusty and not sure it’s entirely what I want…but hey, it’s not off for display in the Kelvingrove so hey ho…
Just so I wouldn’t be down on missing the gig at Freiburg tonight….I have these.
He’s beautiful! Good night.
I know I shouldn’t…but HOLY SHIT…Jim Kerr in 1981 is the most beautiful, most extraordinary thing I have ever seen in my life. (I still love you, Jim! I would NEVER say ‘no’ – not in a bajillion years! … this is why he hates me – I’m ssooo fucking superficial!)
THIS FOOTAGE IS JUST GOLD!
Look. At. Him!!!
Divine. Just divine…
I have no other words…
Some new prints from Virginia arrived today (Middle and right – silver framed. There’s one other not pictured – it’s in landscape ratio and so in the frames on the other side of the room).
I’d be happy to gaze upon his beautiful smiling face for eternity. Past or present. Twenty-three or sixty-three.
That colour one of him looking to camera was one of the first photos I got from Virginia when I could only get a few tiny 6×4 inch photos. It was coming up to Glasgow with me with the rest of the small array of 6×4 photos I had. They were taken when the van was broken into on the move up here some two and a half years ago.
Replaced at last.
The one next to it (Arthur’s Seat/Edinburgh 1981) was another I had in 6×4 also, I think.
Anyway… on with study and trying to complete another assignment…
A feature on Magazine in Mojo magazine….mmmmmm!
It’s a great article. I have to admit that the timing of the band kind of imploding…of McGeoch joining The Banshees and Howard getting ready to quit the band in 1981 in retrospect looks INCREDIBLY fortuitous for Simple Minds joining Virgin…esp. in light of what Simon Draper says in the article …. and the undertone of “we still need a ‘Magazine’ on the label…mmm…well, Bruce Findlay’s banging on the door, desperate to get the Minds away from Arista, ah…why not?” Just my take on it – the subtext, if you will.
Anyway, I think this article is well worth the read.
P.S. I’m with Barry Adamson – Secondhand Daylight is MY favourite Magazine album too. It’s the one I play the most. Permafrost is one of the most erotic, darkly sexual songs I’ve ever heard. It’s braw!
I follow Etienne’s account on Facebook as well and I shared this photo on my feed with this comment:
I know Jim was sick at the gig but it is still one of my most favourite bootlegs of them all. And I love all the photos I’ve ever seen from this gig. I don’t think he even looks sick – not in the true definition of the word – but in the modern day definition of “sick”? Definitely! Sick and sexy AF! Wh’d have guessed he was puking his guts up that night? I don’t think it’s at all detectible in this image. I do think I detect it in the audio of the bootleg though.
For over 40 years this man has been the most incredible performer.
And the gig in question…
AKA Fiddle Merchant. Some of the negatives I got to view on that first visit to Virginia’s (some four and a half years ago now) were wonderful to see. Actually, all of them were. But it was hard to see much detail in viewing them under magnification.
But once they had been scanned and printed, the detail in many made it a brand new experience seeing them. Take these three, for example. I have A LOT of photos of Jim that are favourites. Most can be viewed and enjoyed on an individual, photo-by-photo basis. By this trio is my favourite in sequence.
Photo one, the focus is on what’s in his hands. What is it he has? Has it got his name on it? I still am not sure what it is. It looks like it’s a key fob, but if so, why would he have his name on it?
The second photo, his focus has waned a little. Perhaps he’s now a little bored? Or his mind is adrift on something?
The final photo, I get the impression Virginia might have seen what I saw in frame two and tried to grab his attention with an “Oi, Jim!”
Whatever finally got his attention to look down the lens…I love it. And I love that his name is clearly visible in what he’s holding. I love those boots. OMG, those boots. And the jeans, and the white shirt.
A Glaswegian Stanley Kowalski. Or is that KERRwalski? “Stellaaaarrrrr!!”
Brooding and beautiful. I love these three.
