Flicking through the latest copy of Record Collector when I see this. Nice one, Ricky! See you on Saturday. šā¤ļø šš»

Flicking through the latest copy of Record Collector when I see this. Nice one, Ricky! See you on Saturday. šā¤ļø šš»
Sarah was invited in to perform and talk on Womanās Hour on Monday. Speaking about her childhood and the inspiration that the women in the Pentecostal Church, and the gospel music itself had on her – as well as the inspiration of Mahalia Jackson on her singing. Sarah also performs Iām On My Way. Sadly the performance has been edited on the ālisten againā BBC Sounds listing of Womanās Hour.
You can listen to Sarahās conversation with Emma Barnett below.
There is a path that leads me here to this post. A path that was an unexpected but wonderful stroll. The stroll continues, still. Iām not sure how much of this I can explain. Best to keep it a bit cryptic and vague. We love ambiguity – aināt that right, Jim?
Suffice it to say one thing led to another.
There is a Sons And Fascination link here. Or should that be āSons And Fascist Nationsā? An explanation of that in due course.
A couple of my most prized possessions in my Simple Minds collection are copies of albums produced for the overseas market. One album released for the U.S. market via Stiff Records was titled Themes For Great Cities and was a compilation of tracks from Real To Real Cacophony (Premonition) to several tracks from Sons And Fascination/Sister Feelings Call. The other is a version of the Sons And Fascination album released by Virgin Records for the Central American market.
There are patterns on the cover. The artwork by the one and only Mr Malcolm Garrett, with photography by Peter Anderson. You can see shapes and a figure. I could see a figure on these covers.
Then there is the reissue of I Travel by Virgin Records in 1983 which bares a photo of Jim, taken by graphic designer Garry Mouat, on stage in motion as if marching. āIn central Europe men are marchingā always springs to mind seeing that cover. What I never really took in is what appears in the overlay of the photo of Jim and I didnāt see it properly until Malcolm was kind enough to show me thisā¦
I did see that something was overlaid on the photo of Jim but what I didnāt know was that it was a variation on the figure seen on the Stiff Records āThemesā release and Mexican version of SAF.
I also missed the very obvious figure on the Sweat In Bullet sleeve art. Mostly due to the fact the figure has the head of a photo of Elizabeth Taylor.
And soā¦why did I alter the title of the album to āSons And Fascist Nationsā earlier, I hear you ask? Well, hereās the thing. In talking to Malcolm about the album cover photoshoot with Sheila Rock and asking him about the cars, we got to talking about other art relevant to the Sons And Fascination period. He told me about certain things that inspired some of the cover art. This included him telling me about the image above and that it was inspired by similar figures like it that had appeared in a book he had seen. The book in question is called āMostra Della Rivoluzione Fascistaā. Issued in 1932 to be a compendium to an exhibition on Fascist propaganda – a ācelebrationā of the 10th anniversary of Mussoliniās march on Rome. Seemingly exhibited in a building erected specifically for this solitary purpose – also known as the āMostra Della Rivoluzione Fascistaā. The exhibition proved so popular that it extended beyond its initial intended six month run and ran for two years. It was seen by almost 4 million visitors by its close towards the end of 1934.
You can view selected pages of the book by clicking HERE
I will state here Malcolmās initial reluctance to have me write and publish this post and he had approval of this before posting. And I do understand the reluctance. You wouldnāt want to be seen condoning Fascism! But itās about art and the aesthetic and not the political. Well, that is how I see it. This post nor we as individuals are condoning Fascism! But when it came to the use of the āMarching Menā (as they have come to be called during our conversations) and the line in I Travel āin central Europe men are marchingā (long since changed by Jim since he now always sings āall over men are marchingā). It conjured up the exact imagery used on the Virgin released I Travel cover.
I missed the image of the Marching Man on the Sweat In Bullet cover, yes, and I donāt see the link quite as obviously as with I Travel but listening over some of the lyrics then⦠it could be āambition in motionā or to āgrow in sizeā or to āgrow more / take moreā that makes it fit?
Either way, all four covers featuring the Marching Men are striking and impressive. And they certainly make a statement.
Another short point – as I was researching to do other posts that were SAF/SFC themed, I shared an article from New Sounds New Styles printed in 1981. Ian Cranna interviewed Jim for the piece. Check out the magazine layout! Guess who was behind the layout of New Sounds New Styles? Yes! You got it!
By this point, the band had only appeared on the back cover of their albums. On Life In A Day they were on the back cover and also on the back of Empires And Dance. Inner sleeves too. But only the inner sleeve of Real To Real Cacophony. Not up to this point on the FRONT COVER of an album. Not until Sons And Fascination. They were reluctant and the images of them are somewhat obscured but the images reflect the movement and motion of the music contained within. The ātravelogueā musical sensibility of the album. It was a masterstroke. Perfectly encapsulating the audiovisual.
I find the whole aspect of the cover art for the Sons And Fascination/Sister Feelings Call albums and singlesā¦ermā¦fascinating. And if I do then I thought others would too.
Below are a couple of YouTube clips showing footage of the Mostra Della Rivoluzione Fascista, including a modern day (in Italian) look back at the exhibition as well as footage from the time of a visit to the exhibition from Mussolini himself!
A massive thank you to Malcolm Garrett for allowing me to tell the story of the Marching Men images and what inspired them into being.
This is the last place I am mentioning it, strangely enough. Ā So, I will just copy the rest of my blurb from posting about it on Facebook…
It might be a strange one to give away as it is so personalised… but there’s no point in me keeping this copy. I already have a matt finish copy of it on display on my wall. The gloss version became surplus to requirements. I just held on to it.
But, now I’ll put it up for grabs. Across social media. And anyone else who wants to shout about it. All likes, shares, etc, will be put into a draw and one will be chosen at random.
To give it plenty of time, I’ll end it at 11pm BST on Friday evening (it’ll be a Good Friday for someone, I hope you’ll feel!).
Good luck!
Like and share away!
Winners are grinners!
You can like or comment here on the blog, or just enter through my social media profiles, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (you can find the Twitter and Instagram links at the end of this post – when looking at the post directly, rather than at the siteās home page).
It was such a great day today. The weather conditions were perfect. Temps in the high teens, cloudy with a light breeze. Unlike last year when I was a disorganised idiot and turned up 5 minutes before race time, I got there in plenty of time this time.
There didnāt seem to be as many people taking part this year as last year but hopefully we raised just as much. Hopefully more! I certainly raised far more this year. Current total is at Ā£282 (the Just Giving page can take donations until July 20th!), which is beyond my Ā£250 target, and over FOUR TIMES as much as my tally for last year (a meagre Ā£68!).
I did my 10km in 1 hour 39 mins – not exactly Steph Twell (10km in 31 min 8 sec!!! FUCK OFF PT1!) or Eilish McColgan (10km in 31 mins 16 sec! FUCK OFF PT2!) but I at least did the course! And did the full 10km, and not just piked out at 5km.
I had my usual Simple Minds mix on Spotify as my race companion. The mix started with Oh Jungleland – which was kinda a little bit…Grrrr! Seeing as I had initially signed up doing this yearās Race For Life in Glasgow but by April I knew that wasnāt going to be and gave Race For Life a call to see if I could switch it to Luton. Fingers crossed next yearās can happen in Glasgow.
At about the 2.5km point Lostboyās The Wait Pt1 and 2 played and I really picked up the pace (the course narrows and is a bit of a bottleneck between the 1km-3km mark, and it makes it difficult to pass people and get a pace on – esp. as we all set off and there are so many more 5km participants at the start) and started to pass quite a few people.
A couple of versions of Four Letter Word (the Planet Funk track that came out earlier in the year – Jim on vocals) played, live versions of Sheās A River and Donāt You, Promised You A Miracle, the acoustic version of New Gold Dream and then THIS…I LOOOOOOVE this live version of Glittering Prize. I think it might be my favourite live version. I just find it the most uplifting, most positive…life-affirming version. Itās just glorious. And you can just hear how completely āin itā Jim is that night.
So after it played once, I hit the rewind button so it played again. And when it was done, I played it AGAIN…and then AGAIN. Four times over. It took me from the 6km mark to the 9km mark.
So, weāre all done for another year. And I am happy with my effort and absolutely OVER THE MOON with all you guys for helping me raise such a fab amount of money. THANK YOU! You guys rock!
Stay tuned because, honestly, a promise is a promise and I have NO INTENTION on reneging on that promise. On Tuesday, all you £10+ donors are having your names put into a draw for the Somebody Up There Likes You print. The winner will be drawn on FB Live and announced over my social media.
Once again, thank you all for the donations. Letās do it again (hopefully in Glasgow!) next year šššš
The stories Alice has of his drinking days. How he ever survived, I donāt know. The man must have had (still has, though he obviously stopped drinking LONG ago) a cast iron liver.
Iāve got to say, I am looking forward to October and the gig at the O2 in London.
If I ever did have one in the first place…it has currently been extinguished.
Oh, beautiful Sarah, you keep shining your brilliant light, though…
Wow! What a story, Lesley OāToole! Your first professionl journalistās interview being granted by Jim…and from there?! Iāll let Lesley tell the story herself in these two wonderful posts shared on Instagram.
Thank you for sharing the story, Lesley.
I always get very, very excited when previously poor quality video clips of Simple Minds TV performances seemingly get aired by the TV channels concerned…archived and preserved wonderfully and those clips get shown again to then be uploaded to YouTube in improved quality.
Most things back in the late 70s/early 80s were still shot on film rather than video so the are preserved well.
Take last week, for example. A clip of SM on Folllies (yes, I subsequently learned the show is spelled with THREE Lās) performing Factory was uploaded to YouTube in FANTASTIC condition. I watched it over and over. Not the BEST performance by the boys of the song…but just such precious footage…and Jim is just captivating and glorious. Just wow!
And it just makes me want to make art. Soak up every detail. Capture the best stills from the clip and experiment and just make things. Yeah, it probably just gives me the ultimate excuse to ogle. Lol
But I like to think it inspires and gets me being creative. Ignites the spark again.
It also allows me to make art whilst not having to spend a small fortune, or fear infringing photographerās copyright.
And how I still wish, that just for ONE SHOW, Iād be allowed to take my uber semi-pro cam with me to shoot a bunch of really great photos of my own that I could use. Dream, dream, dream…
Playing…playing…playing…