This week I will be somewhat cheating, as I did a lengthy post about this song for MMM barely six months ago. I wanted to post about it last week, as the song was my earworm over the previous weekend and I was just feeling a lot of love for it. But Empires That Dance had just brought out their version of Someone Somewhere In Summertime and what with it being Valentine’s Day and all….
So here I am this week, still thinking about and loving Careful In Career.
One thing I will say is that during my choosing of the six tracks that I chose for the Son/Sister anniversary celebration on Pulse 98.4 with Ronnie McGhie, Careful In Career only just missed the cut.
Also, the piece of “fan art” I did for the song is still one of my most favourite pieces.
Sorry it’s so short and sweet this week. Uni study and the excitement of the tour recommencing and the imminent trip to Paris are all dominating my thoughts at the moment. I hope to do a more substantial post next week – no promises though!
It’s a belated Happy 38th Anniversary to Sparkle In The Rain. The anniversary was actually yesterday and there was celebration at Casa Read by way of this beauty getting a play on the old turntable.
A favourite track? Well, during yesterday’s airing of the album, Waterfront was sounding particularly good. And it was one of the first songs that I remember clearly sticking out at me, making me aware of this “Simple Minds” band that was around.
But…having said all that, I still get flabbergasted by the majestic sound and “OMG WTF is that?“ time signature to White Hot Day. Enjoy!
I listened to this over again early on Sunday morning. I love how clearly Jim’s voice comes across on this recording. I don’t know who was responsible for recording it? Frank, mabbies? Seeing as it’s a soundboard recording…? Dunno. But I am sssoooo very thankful it exists! I mean, Newcastle from the week before is great too! Both audio and video. And it’s great that we have the footage of them on The Tube as well, but I love having those contrasting things. Having several shows to listen to and reference compounds how truly great they were (still are, but you know what I mean) live.
Everything about what they are at this point is audible. And…here we go, brace yourselves! Jim… this mix, it’s like he’s singing right in your face. I’m laying in bed, earphones in and it’s just a swoonfest with this. He’s gorgeous. The whole New Gold Dream period is just… SUMPTUOUS!
Anyway, before I use every superlative in the English language and wax myself into a lyrical frenzy, I’ll go.
That cost a bomb. A few little unseen treasures from various publications. Sadly music magazines are notorious for not always giving photo credits, but I will try and credit those who took these gems, if published.
This one is a small little inset. A clipping from what I think might be a Dutch magazine. Taken in 1982 by the look of things. I love Jim in this photo.
This one is fabulous! And I wish I knew who took it. looking like it is probably from around early 1980.
This one is not in the best of condition. It had already been scanned out of the magazine it appeared in. So now it is a scan of a scan. To me it looks like it could be backstage at Kant Kino, so it might have been taken by Holgar Rabe. I know it ain’t the clearest photo but I felt it interesting enough to share, despite its low quality. Again, it would be early 1980 – around March.
I have some magazine and newspaper articles to scan and share. Some will be in Dutch and from the 1980s. Others will be in English and from the late 1990s, middling 2000s and the early 2010s.
I’ll scan and post them in the coming days and weeks.
There have been some other great reviews coming in for Graeme Thomson’s Themes For Great Cities book.
Firstly, Classic Pop magazine gave a glowing review. And recently, both Uncut and Electronic Sound magazines have reviewed it. The Electronic Sound review is succinct yet wonderfully positive. The Uncut review gives the book an 8/10 and its opinion of Graeme Thomson as a writer is wholly positive, but the rest of the review is rather backhanded and quite dismissive and scathing of the band. Almost as if the reviewer wondered why Thomson had bothered to waste his talent and energy in telling the Simple Minds story? Well, that’s how the review read to me anyway.
See what you think…
I still think my own review is the best of the lot of them so far. And I don’t usually plug myself with this much bravado! You can read my review HERE – and don’t forget that I am running a competition to win one of two copies of the book. Check the review post for details! The comp closes on Sunday, January 23rd.
Graeme himself was pretty awed by my review, as you can see below… I admit to being quite stunned by his reaction to it. And very humbled. A few tears were shed.
Early days of 2022. Early days of Simple Minds. One of the very first Kerr/Burchill compositions. The bane of my amateur drumming life. My hi hat playing sucks ass. I have no rhythm. I found Glittering Prize easier to play along to than this. I doff my cap to you, Mr McGee.
I’m now under the impression that Jim’s haircut at this point was a stroke of genius – even if it did end up in later years having him likened to Edmund Blackadder in the first series of the show. Lol. The proof of its genius is that we are here some 43 years later still discussing it. Kudos, Kerrmeister. Kudos!
Got to admire that gorgeous lullaby keywork from Mick on this as well. And Charlie with full-on rock two chord riff.
I always forget to praise Derek. Sorry, Dan. Lol. I think possibly because you are actually the most ubiquitous of all.
“This is a fast story”, author Graeme Thomson says at the beginning of the book and keeps reminding us a few more times further in.
It’s a story of the formative years of two pals from Toryglen, their school chum down the road, the keyboard player from the Chinese restaurant and the bass player that was meant to be a guitarist.
The focus is as one would hope – primarily on the music and the band itself. The meeting of five incredibly creative and gifted men and how those quite different young men come together to produce the alchemy that results in the early music of Simple Minds. We learn most about their creative and working lives. There is little about their individual backgrounds, only vaugaries that are relevant to the telling of the overall story.
Although the story is heavily focused on Jim Kerr, Charlie Burchill, Mick MacNeil, Derek Forbes and Brian McGee, we also hear from others deeply involved in the story (if not necessarily within the band itself or the creation of the music). Jaine and David Henderson, Bruce Findlay, John Leckie, Simon Draper, Steve Hillage and Pete Walsh get mentioned and/or spoken to at length.
Graeme Thomson has been meticulous without dragging out the pace of the story. As he continues to reiterate through the book it is a fast story. Like the five men that feature most strongly within the story, there is not an ounce of fat on it. Nothing lags. Nothing is protracted. Succinct, yet never lacking in detail. If I had got around to writing a book about the band I love, then this is EXACTLY the book I hope I’d have written.
Along with content from interviews conducted with the primary band members, there is also input in the form of small “bridge” chapters from Bobby Gillespie, James Dean Bradfield and Ian Cook. There is also a dedicated “Q and A” interview chapter with art designer Malcolm Garrett.
Some never-before-seen (even by me!!) photos are contained within the two sections of photographic content within the book. A number of wonderful photos by Virginia Turbett are within. Rare gems from John Leckie and Carole Moss can also be found within.
There are things that I have questioned or pondered within my time as a Simple Minds fan that are discussed in the book. For instance, was the Life In A Day album already too “old” by the time it was released? Was Jim Kerr’s pudding bowl haircut a work of genius? Is Real To Real Cacophony one of the best albums they ever made? Is there anything that you cannot like about Empires And Dance? Why didn’t Grace Jones ever record a Simple Minds song? (Love Song gets singled out as the prime pondering here.) Can I ever stop my mind from wandering off to the object of my sexual desire when discussing Jim Kerr’s “Archimedes moment”? I may be the only person who grapples with that notion to be honest, but I am happy to keep on pondering it. “Eureka!”
If you want the WHOLE story of Simple Minds then this isn’t the book you want. But actually it IS the book you want. It is exactly the book you want! Because without this beginning, then there would be no “whole story”. This book is about the building blocks. That sandpit on the Toryglen building site where Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill met as eight year old boys is such a fantastic serendipitous metaphor for the whole story of Simple Minds. Getting a gang of workers together. Gathering the materials required. Assembling the parts. Laying the foundations and by album number six, having a cathedral to wow yourself (and others) with.
For the ardent Simple Minds fan, the book actually contains few new revelations. I don’t want that to be a disappointment to the ardent fan because Thomson tells the story so well you will find it utterly enthralling all the same. The retelling is compelling.
For anyone who is newer to the Simple Minds fold, or came to Simple Minds from the point of Once Upon A Time and hasn’t really explored their back catalogue extensively, I implore you to read this book.
For the diehards – YOU NEED THIS BOOK! It is a fast and exhilarating ride. The book jumps off around the time of the recording of Once Upon A Time. That’s a different tale to tell then.
I honestly have not enjoyed a book like this since I read The Complete David Bowie by Nicholas Pegg. With Pegg’s book it was the telling of the Hunky Dory/Ziggy Stardust/Aladdin Sane years of the Bowie story that struck a chord most. The telling of Bowie’s meeting with Tony Defries and the MainMan years in particular. It made me “want in”. I wanted to be part of it. It fed the hunger of the dream to be in “the thick of it”. To be right in the cogs of that working machine.
I am feeling the same with how Graeme Thomson tells the Simple Minds story here. He takes you right in. I can feel myself in the recording studio. At Rockfield, walking about those barns and inside the studio, at the mixing desk. Watching John Leckie orchestrate these young guys as they get to grips with how to write songs and produce music that confounds and mesmerises, enthrals and bewilders.
To experience the “coming of age” of these young men, from the evolution of Jim Kerr as songwriter and stage performer, to Mick MacNeil finding his feet as a musical architect and composer, working alongside Charlie Burchill, it makes you appreciate more than ever what actual musical juggernauts both Burchill and MacNeil are. Also just what a bedrock the rhythm section of McGee and Forbes were together.
A tale told with utter distinction. I genuinely have not wanted to put this book down for a single moment since it arrived. Hide yourself away. Devour it at will. Gorge upon it! You won’t be disappointed. It is a feast. Then play those first six albums again with new ears and a newfound appreciation of the astonishing band Simple Minds are.
I have two copies of the book to give away. If you would like to win yourself a copy of “Themes For Great Cities: A New History of Simple Minds” by Graeme Thomson, simply answer the following question: In the book Jim Kerr tells of his “Archimedes moment” when writing the lyrics for which song? (Hint – search this website to find the answer.) Leave your answer in the comments section of this blog post. You’ll find the comments section at the bottom of the post titled “leave a comment” (you may have to scroll past the existing comments to leave your own unique comment. Fresh comments will provide me with details to contact the winners). If you have trouble with the comments section, you can also enter via the “contact me” form found HERE. All successful entries will go into the draw to win one of two copies of the book. The competition closes on Sunday, January 23rd, 2022 at 23.59 GMT. Winners will be notified shortly after. The competition is open worldwide. Good luck!
This arrived in the post this morning. I am literally like a kid at Christmas!!! So very excited to be reviewing the book for the blog. The review will be up on the blog VERY soon. As will be details of a giveaway of copies of the book!
Exciting times. Keep an eye out for the review and more details on the giveaway shortly.
“There’s no place like home.” A much used quote lifted from The Wizard Of Oz. But it rings true. And it certainly seemed to have rung true on the nights of November 18th and 19th, 1982.
Simple Minds had just returned to Glasgow after another whirlwind stint of touring to the far reaches of the globe (yes, GLOBE – no “flat earth” conspiracy theorists here! Have ANY of these flat-earthers NEVER been on a plane? How do they explain the curvature of the earth and the horizon? I digress!) – heading back to Australia, New Zealand and Canada directly after the release of New Gold Dream.
I was looking into fanzines on eBay last night, after having seen an enquiring post on my FB feed about a certain Scottish produced fanzine. I thought I’d have a hunt around the interwebs and see what I could find. I decided on eBay first and got caught up looking at fanzines on there. One in particular caught my eye. One called Deadbeat. I looked at the listing of every issue and viewed the images, trying to scan and find more info on the fanzine production itself more than anything.
No one was then more surprised than me to find within the shared images of one listing of the magazine – THIS! A review of Simple Minds playing Tiffany’s in November, 1982. It’s unclear as to whether the reviewer is at the first gig or the second, but regardless of that it’s a glowing review.
The only error in the review is that they say Mike Ogletree is on drums. And it wasn’t until I was listening over the bootleg last night did I think to myself “Naw, pal. That ain’t Mike, that’s Mel.” Mike’s last gig was in Toronto about 10 nights prior to this gig. So in actual fact, it was Mel’s first or second night at the kit – depending on which night the reviewer was there.
They wax lyrical about Jim. Such praise! Excited at my discovery of this review last night I did a very rare thing (these days) and posted it to SMOG first with a link to Art & Talk’s upload of the November 18th gig to YouTube. In my post on SMOG, in reference to the lashings of praise heaped on Jim, I said “anyone would think I wrote the review! Lol.”
It is true though – anyone WOULD think I had time travelled and gone and reviewed it for the fanzine. It is wonderful to see such praise given to His Kerrness though. And it’s certainly nothing I wouldn’t have done myself.
A companion piece for me are the photos I have from Virginia of them playing the second night at Tiffany’s. My favourite photo of the set? One of Jim on the stage – looking pretty fucking sensational, I have to say in signature white collared shirt, shiny tailored trousers and black wee “ballet” shoes. And in the bottom left corner of the frame you can see his brother, Mark, looking as though he would rather be anywhere else than watching his big bro up on stage. Lol. Poor Mark! It’s not in the ones I have posted above, but you can view the particular photo I am referring to on Virginia’s site HERE
Lastly, here is the link to the first of the two Tiffany’s gigs that A&T uploaded. Oh, for a night at Tiffany’s! This is the next best thing…
P.S. Artwork used for the YT ident, eh? *wink* Thanks A&T!
