Keep it simple

David Bowie is credited with saying that the 21^st Century began in the 1970s. Looking at the way history has gone that statement is hard to argue with as musicians and producers are still plundering the vaults of 70s and 80s artists well into the second decade of said century, with arguably little if anything original emerging despite the vast leaps in available technology.

With the 70s spawning both the arty creativity of the Roxy Music / Brain Eno school of music and the compulsory boogie of the disco dinosaur it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the early 1980s saw bands combining both in the wake of the initial punk explosion as they sought to ride further on that high energy wave. The need to dance while using your head created a crucial niche in the post punk landscape that was neatly filled by bands like Japan, Gang of Four and the main subject of this post: Simple Minds. That connection was brought full circle by Talking Heads when they enlisted Brian Eno to produce the monumental Remain in Light album, but I digress.

Simple Minds started out as a fairly non-descript punk rock band called Johnny and the Self-Abusers in Scotland’s largest city of Glasgow, led by Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill. Life in Glasgow back then would have been, umm, challenging to say the least, so music was really the only way out, unless you wanted to play football (which Jim is also quite good at apparently).

Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill first met at their local pre-school and have maintained a friendship and creative relationship throughout their lifetime. That’s a remarkable feat in itself, but their peak as a unit came in the short period between 1979-1982 when they included Mick MacNeil, Derek Forbes and Brian McGee in the line-up. The sort of driving futuristic grooves they produced on the four albums they recorded during that time have never been equalled. It was the result of the individual talents of the band members hooking into the zeitgeist of the time, producing music without second guessing themselves. That sort of thing doesn’t happen every day. (You have to have a zeitgeist to start with, but I digress again).

Along with Dave Allen from Gang of Four / Shriekback, Derek Forbes is one of the few British bass players that could swim in the same liquid funk pool as the likes of Bootsy Collins and Tony Fisher in the States. His bass lines were so deep you could dive into them and still not reach the bottom. I’d challenge anyone with a pulse to sit still through tracks like Sweat in Bullet and Love Song off the Sons and Fascination album, but his earlier work on Real to Real Cacophony and Empires and Dance also has to be felt to be believed.

Couple that bass playing with the drums of Brian McGee and you have a rhythm section that functions like a high performance machine. One of their songs isn’t called Factory for nothing. With the epic length of some of their songs, Mr McGee sounds like the sort of guy that could lay down a pounding hypnotic beat forever if he had to. No flash rolls, no solos, just powerfully intricate patterns that eliminate all idle thought processes and make you focus entirely on the rhythm.

Charlie Burchill’s guitar playing and Mick MacNeil’s keyboards round out the sound. To say they found their own sound on their instruments would be a massive understatement. The combination of atmospherics with impressive technique is what separated them so far from the hideous synth-and-over-flanged-guitar pack in the early 80s. And live they had the skills to jam. A Flock of Seagulls anyone? Comsat Angels? The Fixx? Not ringing any bells. That’s because those other groups were shite in comparison. They had more Max Factor than X factor. Musically Simple Minds had the X factor in spades.

The last element of Simple Minds is Jim Kerr. His lyrics and vocals functioned in the space between the guitar and keyboards and acted like another atmospheric instrument. There are no sing along choruses or even coherent verse lines in the songs on those albums. That freed your mind to be the passenger while your body was pulverised into submission by Forbes and McGee. Then Charlie and Mike walk in to tease your imagination and take you to foreign lands mentally. Jim supplied the travelogue, like a half-heard bus tour guide speaking in a foreign language you half understand. Live his presence added to the mystique by stalking the stage like a slightly bewildered time traveller, responding to the sounds in unpredictable ways and generally being spontaneous and magnetic.

That brings us to the albums. Real to Real Cacophony is their second album and it is the raw form of their next two efforts. There are a few dull patches on this album but they simply serve to highlight how brilliant the rest is. There are a few abstract punky pieces to try and process through the first half of the LP and then they suddenly hit you with the pounding grooves of Premonition and Changeling. There is no looking back and you are in totally unfamiliar but enthralling territory. Like a trip through the back streets of a strange city – a wild ride that’s over too soon.

That effect is even more pronounced on Empires and Dance. That album basically is a sonic trip through a collection of interesting European cities complete with soldiers, lonely people and millionaires, all underwritten by a cold and distant feeling of paranoia and powerlessness. This is one impressive album. It’s probably their highest artistic achievement. I Travel is a punishing dance track and is the first indication of the how lethal the Forbes and McGee combination had become in the one year gap between this and the previous album. The epic grooves reach their peak on This Fear of Gods and Thirty Frames a Second. All resistance is now futile.

Sons and Fascination then takes us to the States where things are warmer but the people are just as messed up. Greyhound buses, dangerous strangers and the absence of anything approaching love seep out of the songs, but the grooves pull you into the confusion, they never chase you away. You are up for the fight and by the end of it you are justifiably exhausted but hungry for more. There is a partner album called Sister Feelings Call that is basically an extension of Sons and Fascination. I think of the two as a double LP. This album has a neat connection to the pre-punk creative powerhouse Gong (who are the subject of the next post), in Steve Hillage, who produced these two albums. On paper it’s a strange combination but if you look deeper there are obvious connections. It highlights the point made earlier about groups at this time looking beyond the obvious to expand their musical range.

 The next album, New Gold Dream was the last made by this line up and the writing was starting to appear on the wall. Brian McGee was on his way out and Jim was developing the grandiose sense of self-importance that would turn them into a stadium rock band by the mid-80s. The music was lighter and the grooves more summery. It is still a great record, but it hasn’t aged as well as the others. Too much reliance on synths in the sound, not enough slamming beats. Hunter and the Hunted is one of their best tracks though so don’t get me wrong. There is brilliance included. It just doesn’t transport you in the same way the others do. In terms of looking beyond again – that track features a keyboard solo by jazz giant Herbie Hancock. That should give you an indication of how seriously they were being taken musically at the time.

So how does all of this relate to The Hopkinsville Goblins? The recipe of Sons and Fascination can be heard in places on Posts From Planet Earth. That’s not saying they can be directly compared. My little guys would never be that arrogant. They just do what they like to do. And they do like to draw connections between what they do and earlier sounds to prove that the best bits in music transcend time. Those bits transcend because they dive into what people respond to on a primal level. The Rhythm. Chuck in some extra blues flavour and added guitar spice if you want. Mix it up and see what comes out. Is it Michelin star or fast food? The proof is in the tasting. That’s creativity without second guessing. Chuck away the book and use The Force.

So what are you waiting for? Forget about chasing that Pokemon - just go to one of these sites below and check out the pig friggin’ album already! And while you’re at it get those Simple Minds albums. Your life will be poorer if you don’t.

Find it on Amazon, I-Tunes, Spotify, Deezer, Google Play and Bandcamp, or from any of the purveyors of fine sounds listed on this site.

Or try before you buy on Soundcloud or Youtube.