RhoDeo 1551 Aetix

Hello, last week i saw episode 2 of Tripped, a wonderfully insane new British series, its about switching dimensions and it goes too far explaining it here, but should you come across it, it gets a big thumbs up from me. Anyway this episode one of the deadbeat leads drops in at a dimension where he was a megarockstar that mysteriously died 4 years earlier. One of his cult history claims was that his gran offered him a choice when he was 10, either a guitar or a transformer and he chose the guitar..our deadbeat however admitted having had the same choice and decided upon the transformer and thereby a huge dimensional gap opened up betweem him and that other version of him. I guess our lives have plenty of moments where our path in live diverges, a good thing we aren't aware of them, many people have a hard time chosing as it is. (The Germans have an excellent saying "Die Qual der Wahl" wich translates as the agony of choice.)


Today's artists started of in Dublin with musical friends who's choices lead them to become one of the most famous rockbands of the planet, still going strong. However today's artists path gave them plenty credits from the musicscene, not so much sales , and alas too few people have ever seen their live shows. They were more interested in remaining aggressively idiosyncratic, developing their own unique brand of transgressive, avant-garde performance art and a wildly anarchic take on post-punk rock. Much of their work was outstandingly original, and yet it has remained criminally ignored and rarely heard, largely due to the near-total unavailability of their back catalog. Here today for you all to N'Joy

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

The group was led by the theatrical singer/songwriter Gavin Friday (born Fionan Hanvey in 1959), who as a teen fell in with a group of like-minded individuals who dubbed themselves the Lypton Village. While some of the social club's members, including a pair of youths named Paul Hewson and David Evans -- later known as Bono and the Edge -- went on to form the superstar group U2, the remaining members founded the less-commercial Virgin Prunes, taking their name from the local slang for so-called "outsiders" and "freaks," a recurring lyrical theme. In the early 1970s, where every member received a new identity and where they could escape from dreary and predictable Dublin life and be anything they wanted to be.

Friday and Guggi first gave the teenage Hewson his alter-ego and now-famous moniker (taken from "Bonavox", a hearing-aid shop on Talbot Street in Dublin City Centre), later shortened simply to "Bono". Known for their outrageous and controversial stage performances, led by theatrical singer/songwriter Friday, the band began playing small shows in Dublin, gaining them a cult audience and ridicule from the culturally conservative community.

Friday and fellow vocalist Guggi, along with third vocalist Dave-iD Busaras, guitarist Dik Evans (brother of U2's The Edge), bassist Strongman (Trevor Rowen, brother of Guggi) and drummer Pod (Anthony Murphy), completed the original lineup. Pod left the group and was replaced by Haa-Lacka Binttii (né Daniel Figgis). With Binttii on drums, tape loops and keyboards, the band secured a deal with Rough Trade Records. They released their first single, "Twenty Tens" on their own Baby Records label (distributed by Rough Trade) in late 1980, followed by a second single, "Moments and Mine", in early 1981.

Two other tracks recorded with Binttii were released during 1980 before conflicts with other members forced him out of the band. "Red Nettle" was included on NME compilation C81 and "Third Secret" appeared on Cherry Red compilation Perspectives and Distortion. Work had already started on the project "A New Form of Beauty" while Bintti was with the band, but after he was replaced by Mary D'Nellon (drums), some of his tracks were rerecorded and his name was not included in the credits.

"A New Form of Beauty" was a project that originally contained four chapters and was released in various formats - 7" single, 10" single, 12" single and a cassette. All four parts appeared on an Italian version of A New Form of Beauty, which was released as a double album, although with a different track listing to the cassette version.

In November 1982, the Virgin Prunes released their debut album ...If I Die, I Die (produced by Colin Newman of Wire) as well as Heresie, a French box set. Commissioned by Yann Farcy after seeing them perform at the Rex Club in Paris, Heresie was based on a loose examination of insanity. In 1984, both Guggi and Dik Evans, unhappy with the music business, left the band. This forced drummer D'Nellon to switch to guitar and allowed Pod to return as the band's drummer. The Virgin Prunes started to record but abandoned the album Sons Find Devils, which has never been released.

A retrospective video titled Sons Find Devils was released in 1985; this video had nothing to do with the unreleased album of the same name. In May 1985, rarities compilation Over the Rainbow was released.

In July 1986, the band, now a four-piece, finally released a new album, The Moon Looked Down and Laughed (including recordings of music written for Sons Find Devils). Later that year, Friday left the group. His departure was confirmed in the liner notes of the band's 1987 live album The Hidden Lie, which contained a short statement confirming the band's breakup.

After disbanding as Virgin Prunes, D'Nellon, Strongman and Busaras formed an offshoot group called The Prunes, which released three albums between 1988 and 1990 (1988's Lite Fantastik, 1989's Nada, and 1990's Blossoms & Blood. Dik Evans played on Lite Fantastik while 17-year-old Justin Kavanagh (aka Valley Limberg) from the Dublin hardcore band Mutant Asylum (now a member of Paranoid Visions along with his cousin Cormac Figgis, aka The Master Switch) took the helm as guitarist for "Blossoms & Blood". In 1993, Kavanagh went on to form Gormenghast and Snifferdog. Binttii's youngest brother, Jonathan Figgis, was the boy who appeared on the cover of the second Virgin Prunes single, "Moments and Mine".


Friday went on to have a reasonably successful solo career in both music and film, while Guggi remained an influential artist in Dublin and Busaras continued to record as a solo artist in Ireland. After 20 years of self-imposed seclusion from the rock world, Dik Evans gave an overview of he and his brother The Edge's early years in U2 for the December 2005 issue of Word Magazine.

Daniel Figgis later became a composer and multimedia producer and curator, becoming composer in residence with Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown, Dublin. One of his compositions, "Post Production", a 23-section suite for four musicians, was performed at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City in December 2006. In 2008, the Arts>World financial centre commissioned Figgis to compose and perform the sole European commission to celebrate their 20th anniversary of arts programming. His multi-disciplinary festival, "Snakes & Ladders", appeared on Broadway on 8 January 2010 at Symphony Space.

The Virgin Prunes discography was remastered and reissued on Mute Records in 2004. The set of reissues included ...If I Die, I Die, The Moon Looked Down and Laughed, Over the Rainbow, Heresie and an album of selections from the A New Form of Beauty series. In 2006, Busaras, Guggi and Friday contributed a track to the sea shanty collection Rogue's Gallery, appearing in the track listing as Three Pruned Men.

On 4 October 2009, three original members of the band - Friday, Guggi and Dik Evans - performed two classic Virgin Prunes songs, "Sweethome Under White Clouds" and "Caucasian Walk", at Carnegie Hall as part of "An Evening with Gavin Friday and Friends", to celebrate Friday's 50th birthday.

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

New Form of Beauty captures very closely the controlled and often anarchic art damage that the band was doing in a live setting early on. Industrial sounds wrapped around more conventional guitar, bass, drum, and keyboard trappings, singers Gavin Friday and Guggi were both outrageously androgynous, utterly captivating frontmen. Collected here, via Mute, in wonderfully remastered CD form, are the original 7", 10" and 12" singles. Only "Sweethome Under White Clouds" -- in a different version -- ended up in the band's later catalog. Basically, this is the sound of tension, intensity, off-the-rails eroticism, pagan spirituality, and an utterly twisted sense of the perverse as wrapped into a post-punk aesthetic. The band's influences range wide and far from folk songs to Throbbing Gristle to the dynamics of bands like Joy Division, PIL, and even Germany's Can, though the Prunes' sonic approach was utterly unique. It is nocturnal always, often nightmarish, like the nether soundtrack to a carnival sideshow, it is, to borrow from Jean Dubuffett, art brut , outsider art of high poetic and aesthetic quality even when it is falling apart. Highly recommended for its excess as well as its achievement.

Virgin Prunes - A New Form Of Beauty  (flac 274mb)

01 Sandpaper Lullabye 3:03
02 Sleep Fantasy Dreams 2:45
03 Come To Daddy 10:00
04 Sweethome Under White Clouds 6:33
05 Sad World 5:29
06 Beast (Seven Bastard Suck) 10:38
07 Abbagal 5:19
08 Brain Damage 3:44
09 No Birds To Fly 7:10

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

If I Die, I Die is the Virgin Prunes' proper debut album. The first three (of seven) parts of a conceptual work entitled A New Form of Beauty, issued as 7", 10", and 12" singles preceded it in the same calendar year. Produced by Wire's Colin Newman, the album's 14 tracks are the epitome of post-punk adventurism. Here, tribal drums and edgy, spooky, detuned guitars and bouzoukis cross paths and meld with synthesizers and primitive drum machines in an onslaught of off-kilter creativity where everyone from the Fall, PIL, New Order, Siouxsie & the Banshees, and even Bruce Springsteen are called in for reference in a brew that is dangerous, primal, and excessive. Two androgynous frontmen in the foppish Gavin Friday and alluring Guggi create alternate ambiences from warped yet sweet Irish balladry to shrieked poetry. And while the set is messy to be sure, it is far from off-putting. In fact, it is easily the band's most consistent and enduring effort. The albums opens with the haunting, nocturnal minimalism of "Ulankulot," an intro with tom toms and drifting keyboards layered carefully in the background, wordless chanted backing vocals and an electric bouzouki courtesy of guitarist Dik. It immediately gives way to its antecedent "Decline Sand Fall." It's the same tune, only Friday is out in front of it digging deep into the temporality of childhood and what remains of it. Its effect is startling, nocturnal, and tense. In "Sweethome Under White Clouds," the theme is given dimension as Guggi and Friday wail like muzzeins over a reverbed guitar coming from the netherworld and augmented by a soprano saxophone and a synth bassline. "Pagan Lovesong," the album's proper single, is one of the most angular cuts on the set. Here, the Prunes employ a riff straight out of early Gang of Four, chant their refrains, and swirl the keyboards and drum machines à la Devo yet keep everything so gothic and strange; it's not only compelling, it's infectious. The rest of the album follows suit, with the raucous new wave of "Baby Turns Blue," and the mainstream rockist "Ballad of the Man" that sounds like a wrong-speed outtake, Springsteen's The River and the Mott the Hoople version of "Sweet Jane!" This is a wonderfully confounding and sometimes campy and often disturbing exercise in unfettered creativity that has stood the test of time very well. It is the most necessary Virgin Prunes record of all and captures best what they were capable of when focused.

Virgin Prunes - If I Die, I Die (flac 367mb)

01 Ulakanakulot 2:26
02 Decline And Fall 4:52
03 Sweethome Under White Clouds 4:44
04 Bau-Dachöng 5:51
05 Pagan Lovesong 3:28
06 Dave-Id Is Dead 4:18
07 Fádo 2:00
08 Baby Turns Blue 3:43
09 Ballad Of The Man 3:33
10 Walls Of Jericho 3:09
11 Caucasian Walk 4:43
12 Theme For Thought 5:44
13 Chance Of A Lifetime 2:55
14 Yeo 2:17

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

The sound of 1986's The Moon Looked Down and Laughed is the sound of a band being pulled apart by the differing ideas of its members. This is easily the tamest Virgin Prunes record on the market and the band's nadir. There are more conventional song structures here, on cuts like "Heaven," "Just a Lovesong," and "Betrayal," but they are unfocused, utterly forgettable melodically and even atmospherically. Atmosphere was always the Prunes' strong point. David Bowie's early-'80s work seems to be a strong influence here, and where previously Gavin Friday had been able to carry a song by the sheer force of his voice, his overly enunciated and exaggerated vocal gestures here just water down the proceedings further. But the real tragedy here is the lack of wildness and adventure. The record sounds tired and uninspired, leaving the band to whimper itself out of existence rather than roar.

Virgin Prunes - The Moon Looked Down And Laughed (flac 344mb)

01 Heaven 3:43
02 Our Love Will Last Forever Until The Day It Dies 8:28
03 I Am God 3:28
04 Alone 3:47
05 Sons Find Devils 4:59
06 Uncle Arthur’s Lonely World 3:23
07 True Life Story 3:26
08 The Tortured Heart 3:20
09 Betrayal 4:04
10 Just A Lovesong 3:01
11 Deadly Sins 6:15
12 Day Of Ages 3:17
13 The Moon Looked Down And Laughed 4:25

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx

Over the Rainbow is a double-CD odds and ends compilation of Virgin Prunes singles, B-sides, compilations and rare tracks assembled in gloriously remastered audio by Mute. This version differs from the original LP and the double-LP versions considerably. For starters, the original compilation contained only CD one of this set, which features the band's first A-side, "Twenty Tens," as well as Rough Trade's (C812) track entitled "Red Nettle," and "Pagan Lovesong Vibe-Akimbo" form the 12" version of the single. Also included are a pair of cuts -- "Mad Bird in the Wood" and "Jigsawentallama" -- that were released on flexidisc with the Dutch magazine Vinyl.and a couple of other Rough Trade comp cuts. The original CD issue of Over the Rainbow also contained the studio tracks from Hérésie. This one, with a different cover (the "Baby Turns Blue" single sleeve) removes those -- because first the band's own label, Baby, and now Mute have released both live and studio Hérésie cuts on their own in another package -- and add more rarities to the mix. Included here are "Third Secret" from the Perspectives & Distortions: Cherry Red Rarities comp, "The Faculties of a Broken Heart" from the limited-edition Baby Turns Blue 12", "The Happy Dead," which was recorded for the soundtrack to the New Form of Beauty film but was never released, "White History Book," set on tape during the Moon Looked Down and Laughed session but went unused, the A-side of the band's second single, "In the Greylight," "Revenge" from the Virgin Prunes EP, and "Love Lasts Forever," a single from the New Rose label in 1984. Sure, it's for fanatics, but it's also of real interest to anyone wanting to check out the glorious monstrosity that was the Virgin Prunes.

Virgin Prunes - Over the Rainbow (A Compilation of Rarities 1980-1984)  (flac  521mb)

01 Red Nettle 2:18
02 Twenty Tens 2:26
03 Pagan Lovesong Vibe-Akimbo 6:49
04 Moments’n’mine 4:27
05 Mad Bird In The Wood 4:19
06 The Children Are Crying 5:11
07 Jigsawmentallama 6:19
08 King Of Junk 2:49
09 War 2:02
10 Greylight 4:21
11 White History Book 3:44
12 The Faculties Of A Broken Heart 5:04
13 In The Greylight 2:45
14 The Happy Dead 13:38
15 Revenge 3:34
16 Third Secret 4:13
17 Love Lasts Forever 11:24

xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx