Friday, April 4, 2014

Roger at Adam Donen's album launch tonight

A few photos from Perfect.Murder.

Roger on Elegant Workflow podcast

I don't think I posted this last year, so here's an interview Roger did for the Elegant Workflow podcast back in July of 2013. (Thanks Perfect.Murder)

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Robert dedicated 'Shake Dog Shake' to Andy

From Andy Anderson on Facebook: "Robert Smith, had dedicated Shake Dog Shake, to me, at the RAH on Saturday night, I didn't hear him say it, because I was sitting halfway back in the Box (my choice, so I could take some photo's) but the folks I was with, told me. I'm very honoured by that big time, and always will be. I met Robert after the show, for a quick chat, and it was like no time had passed between us at all." See/hear it here.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

What the RAH shows were all about

Wonderful post from Reeves on Facebook:
"last weekend, thanks to the teenage cancer trust (tct), roger daltrey and royal albert hall – where i played two benefit shows for great audiences with my bandmates in the cure -- i had the wonderful opportunity to visit with two groups of teenagers from all over the u.k. who are at different stages in their fight with cancer. some are just beginning the fight... others are victorious and already giving back energy to their brothers and sisters in battle.
on saturday afternoon, i was invited to watch the tct gang perform 2 songs they had written about their time with the disease. it was an incredibly moving experience, made more powerful by their joy, bravery and determination in the face of the big C.
that is why we were performing... that is what put the fire and heart in our performances.
we played for all those that were there, all those we met and those we may never meet.
thank you teenage cancer trust for the honour and opportunity to help in some small way.
TCT's website"

Autographed Simon Bass up for charity auction


For more about Michael, his story, and other ways to support him, check the Ride For Michael website.

Congratulations to the winning bidder! £2,751 raised to support Ride For Michael. Well done!

5 Reasons We Love The Cure

From Timeout London: Five Reasons We Love The Cure

1. Robert Smith isn’t as miserable as everyone thinks.
Often pegged as the lord of indie gloom, Cure frontman Robert Smith has written some of the most heartrending break-up songs of all time (‘Disintegration’, ‘Pictures of You’, ‘In Between Days’). Surprisingly, though, cheerful Bobby’s love life is pretty sorted: he’s been married since 1988 to his childhood sweetheart Mary Poole. They’re officially the world’s cutest goth couple: he was Tim Burton’s inspiration for Edward Scissorhands, she apparently ‘used to dress as a witch to scare little children’.

2. Age hasn’t mellowed him.
By the time they reach their mid-fifties, most rock frontmen have cut their hair and started dressing at least vaguely sensibly. Smith’s world-famous barnet – greasy, backcombed and thoroughly frazzled – is more out of control than ever, and he’s still rocking the lipstick and eyeliner look that he made de rigueur for sensitive teens in the ’80s. He’s 54. Star.

3. Their first proper frontman was Peter O’Toole.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the late star of ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ but a ‘demon footballer and Bowie fan’ from the band’s home town of Crawley. He sang with them for a few months in 1977 then went to work on a kibbutz in Israel, leaving Smith in charge. The rest is goth-pop history.

4. They had the best band nicknames.
Laurence ‘Lol’ Tolhurst met Smith when they were both five years old, and went on to play drums and keyboards for The Cure for 13 years. Which means that for more than a decade, a key member of the UK’s mopiest pop group was called Lol.

5. They never leave an audience wanting more.
The Cure’s 32-song Bestival set in 2011 lasted two-and-a-half hours.Their last few tours have seen them perform three albums back to back, plus encores. Okay, their tickets aren’t cheap – but you can’t deny that you get plenty of Bob for your buck.

Mojo's 20 Great Post-Punk Tracks

'Jumping Someone Else's Train' is #16 on Mojo's 20 Great Post-Punk Tracks list. (Thanks Luis)

Robert responds to the Guardian's response

Posted by @thcure overnight:

LAZY NONSENSICAL CONTENT ASIDE; WE WERE DRIVEN TO REACT TO CAROLINE SULLIVAN’S ‘REVIEW’BY THE BLATANT DISHONESTY OF HER ACCOMPANYING COMMENT "I have it on good authority that the band have read the review and liked it." IT WAS SIMPLY TOO MUCH TO IGNORE…

HAVING EXPOSED THE LIE, WE FIGURED WE WOULD AT THE VERY LEAST GET SOME KIND OF A HANDS IN THE AIR “IT’S A FAIR COP GUV” FROM HER FOR ATTEMPTING SUCH A BANAL SELF SERVING DECEPTION… WE THOUGHT THERE MIGHT EVEN BE A FAINT CHANCE THAT SHE WOULD BE MOVED TO APOLOGISE TO HER READERS FOR MAKING STUFF UP!

BUT AS COMMENT BY COMMENT SHE DIGS HER EVASIVE HOLE A LITTLE DEEPER, IT WOULD SEEM WE HOPED FOR TOO MUCH…A SHAME. WE ALWAYS THOUGHT THE GUARDIAN AND ITS JOURNALISTS VALUED TRUTH?

“OK, Robert. Buy you a drink?”... gulp!!! HONESTLY? ummm… WE WOULD PREFER YOU JUST REVIEWED WITH A TAD MORE UNDERSTANDING AND HONESTY AND CONSIDERING LINES LIKE “Not as scary […] as Robert Smith in full fig” MAYBE THREW A FEW LESS STONES? OR MOVED OUT OF YOUR GLASS HOUSE?!!

"Rock is about grabbing people's attention." REALLY? THAT’S WHAT WE ARE SUPPOSED TO ‘BE ABOUT’? YOU THINK THAT’S IT? IT WOULD EXPLAIN A LOT

WE WILL NOW DRAW A LINE UNDER THE ‘SAD BITTER JUNK REVIEW’ EPISODE, AND SLIP BACK OUT INTO THE WORLD WITH A SHAKE OF THE HEAD AND A SMILE…PREFERRING THE OLD GOTH DISNEY DICTUM TO ROCKER SIMMONS’;“WE ARE NOT TRYING TO ENTERTAIN THE CRITICS;WE’LL TAKE OUR CHANCES WITH THE PUBLIC”

Articles about this: Noise 11 / CMU / Music Feeds / Tone Deaf / VVN / Gigwise / Paste / Spin / Stereogum / Consequence of Sound / Pitchfork / Holy Moly

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

The Guardian responds to Robert's comments

From The Guardian:

Why the Cure's marathon gigs might not be the best way to play

The Cure have announced their unhappiness at our reviewer saying they played too long at the Royal Albert Hall this weekend. But, she says, brevity is a virtue

Read Caroline Sullivan's original review here

In the run-up to the annual Teenage Cancer Trust gig series at the Royal Albert Hall last week, the charity’s website noted that the Friday and Saturday headliners, The Cure, would be playing three-hour sets, with no support act. In the event, they were onstage for around three-and-a-half hours, slotting in 45 songs each night. That’s pretty remarkable (though their 50-song, four-hour show in Mexico City last year is the one to beat), bespeaking a fan/band relationship where the passion has only increased over the years. Going by reaction on Twitter, many people considered it one of the best shows they’d ever seen, and reacted angrily to reviews in the Guardian and elsewhere that suggested there could be too much of a good thing.

'Stop Dead' in London (2nd night)


Stop Dead - London, Teenage Cancer Trust 29-Mar-2014 from itsaperfectday on Vimeo.

New Robert interview with NME

From NME:

The Cure's Robert Smith reveals new album details – and says '4:14 Scream' is 'a terrible title'

Frontman says album will be a mix of brand new songs and material left over since 2008

The Cure frontman Robert Smith has revealed that the group's next album will be a mix of brand new material and unused material from 2008's '4:13 Dream', their most recent record.

Smith wanted that album to be a double, but a single album was eventually released.

Speaking to NME following the group's performance for Teenage Cancer Trust at London's Royal Albert Hall on Saturday (March 29), Smith said of the album: "There’s new stuff that we’re doing with this line-up and stuff we finished with the old line-up."

Asked why it's taken so long to release the tracks, Smith said: "Honestly? Just pure bloody mindedness. I was so fucking angry that [the label] wouldn’t release a double album that I wouldn’t give them the other songs."

The album also follows the solidification of a new line-up of The Cure, featuring Reeves Gabrels of David Bowie's Tin Machine on guitar. Smith said that the new line-up was the catalyst for adding new material to the '4:13 Dream' leftovers.

"A lot of stuff happened, unfortunately, with the last line-up of the band," said the frontman. "People forget sometimes that even when you get older, when you play music with people, there’s a very intense relationship there and when that breaks down then it’s very difficult to just pretend it doesn’t matter. The last line-up, there were a number of reasons why I felt unable to complete what we were doing. It was impossible to just get another line-up and bang out the songs we didn’t release; it would have been wrong."

Reflecting its turbulent origins, the album is tentatively named '4:14 Scream', but Smith believes it's "a dreadful title. Andy who does our covers has done a really great album cover for it, a kind of pastiche of me doing a scream, so maybe we'll keep it. It’s one of those reverse psychology things, where it’s so bad it’s good."

In addition to the new album, the band have said that they will also be releasing a series of live concert DVDs this year, and are planning on taking another 'Trilogy' style tour on the road later this year. The original tour took place in 2002 and saw The Cure headline a string of festivals and gigs in Brussels and Berlin in which they played the albums 'Pornography', 'Disintegration' and 'Bloodflowers' in their entirety. The second tour under the title in 2011 called 'Reflections' saw 'Three Imaginary Boys', 'Seventeen Seconds' and 'Faith' performed in full.

Interesting about Andy's album cover for 4:14. So something like the photo Robert posted here?

Monday, March 31, 2014

"AS CLEARLY AND SUCCINCTLY AS I CAN..."

Robert has a LOT to say today! Official site updated with response to the ridiculous negative spin that the online music sites put on his XFM interview, and lots more. This is just a portion of it. Please go read the entire post. Thank you, Robert!

"I HAVE LITTLE DESIRE TO BE DRAWN
AND LITTLE CONVICTION IT REALLY MATTERS THAT MUCH...
BUT ON THE BACK OF THE WEARY AND EVER MORE NEGATIVE INTERPRETATIONS OF MY SHORT POST SATURDAY RAH SHOW CHAT WITH XFM
I WILL TRY TO EXPLAIN A VERY SIMPLE CHAIN OF EVENTS AS CLEARLY AND SUCCINCTLY AS I CAN, GIVEN A NUMBER OF GENUINE CONSTRAINTS…

AS CLEARLY AND SUCCINCTLY AS I CAN": I THINK '4:13 DREAM' IS AN EXCELLENT CURE ALBUM, AND ALL THE B-SIDES ARE FAB… BUT THE CULMINATION OF THE PROJECT WASNT QUITE WHAT IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN, AS 16 OF THE ORIGINAL 33 SONGS WERE 'LEFT ON THE SHELF'...

AND MY PLAN THIS SUNNY SPRING MONDAY AT THE END OF MARCH IS TO GET TO THE POINT IN THE NEXT MONTH OR THREE WHERE WE CAN RELEASE:

1)A LTD EDITION '4:26 DREAM' DOUBLE CD ALBUM OF 26 SONGS (ALL REMIXED) - IE. 'THE ORIGINAL 4:13 DREAM SESSIONS CONCEPT ALBUM' (INCLUDING THE 'INSTRUMENTALS WITH WORDS') - OF WHICH 10 TRACKS OR MORE WILL BE PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED…

2) A LTD EDITION '4:14 SCREAM' SINGLE CD ALBUM OF 14 PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED SONGS - ALBEIT SOME OF THEM MAY ALSO BE ON '4:26 DREAM'… BUT THESE '4:14 SCREAM' VERSIONS WILL ALL HAVE WORDS AND VOCALS…

AND I WILL BE OVERCOME WITH AN IRRESISTIBLE URGE** TO FINISH SOME (ALL?!!) OF THE OTHER OUTSTANDING CURE PROJECTS
LIKE 'LIVE IN PARIS 2008' AND 'REFLECTIONS 2011' AND 'SUMMERCURE 2012' AND 'LATAM 2013' (AND 'RAH TCT 2014'?!!)


…AND CREATE SOME NEW NEW MUSIC WITH THIS CURRENT CURE LINEUP...

PS
"AS CLEARLY AND SUCCINCTLY AS I CAN":
I STILL PREFER PHYSICAL RELEASES TO VIRTUAL… gulp!
PPS
*"Having said all that, I have no idea… I really don't. I'm really bad at planning long-term stuff." - ME, AT THE WEEKEND…"

Articles about this: Rockadia / Contact Music / Mashable / Uncut / 411 Mania / The Guardian / Exclaim / Pitchfork / Rolling Stone / Spin / Music Times / Stereogum / Digital Spy / XFM / Slicing Up Eyeballs / Consequence of Sound / Musicfeeds / Gigwise

Epic Cure smackdown of UK press!

From The Cure on Twitter just now:

“I have it on good authority that the band have read the review and liked it.” Caroline Sullivan… WHAAAT?!!
SHE WAS COMMENTING ON HER OWN GUARDIAN ‘REVIEW’ OF OUR EPIC 45 SONG 213 MINUTE FRIDAY RAH TEENAGE CANCER TRUST SHOW
TO BE CLEAR – AND ON THE BEST AUTHORITY - THE BAND HAVE INDEED READ THE REVIEW - BUT DID NOT LIKE IT!

THE REVIEW WAS – TO PUT IT POLITELY - LAZY NONSENSE… swampy… numbing… yet to work out how to build up a show… GULP!!!
BUT WE NOW KNOW WHERE WE HAVE BEEN GOING WRONG ALL THIS TIME: Condensed into 90 minutes, this would have been one of the gigs of the year
WE PLAY TOO MANY SONGS! DOH! BUT… IS IT NOT VERY OBVIOUS THAT WE PLAY OUR OWN SHOWS (AS OPPOSED TO FESTIVAL HEADLINES) FOR FANS OF THE BAND?
THAT IS WHY WE PLAY A MIX OF SONGS, AND WHY WE PLAY FOR AS LONG AS WE DO…

WHEN WE GO TO SEE AN ARTIST WE ARE FANS OF, WE DON’T WANT THE PERFORMANCE TO END… THAT’S WHAT BEING A FAN MEANS… ISN’T IT?
WE HAD TWO FANTASTIC NIGHTS, PLAYING TO GREAT CROWDS FOR A WONDERFUL CHARITY… THE GUARDIAN ‘REVIEW’ WAS SAD BITTER JUNK
PS. AS FOR THE TORYGRAPH HACK… sigh… ONWARDS

Roger announces Picture of Dorian Gray ballet

From Roger on Facebook: "I am very proud to announce in association with Les Saisons Russe our production of The Picture of Dorian Gray - The Ballet. We have been working on this project for two years ago and today at the Russian Embassy in London we finally made the story public. We hope to bring Dorian to life at the premiere in Spring 2015 in Moscow."
Read more details on his Facebook. And here's the Russian press announcement.

Harry & Jason at RAH on the 29th

Harry (Cured70) with Jason Cooper before The Cure's RAH show on March 29th.
(Thanks Harry)

'2 Late' in London (2nd night)


2 Late - London, Teenage Cancer Trust 29-Mar-2014 from itsaperfectday on Vimeo.

'Harold & Joe' in London (2nd night)


Harold and Joe - London, Teenage Cancer Trust 29-Mar-2014 from itsaperfectday on Vimeo.

Souvenirs from the RAH shows



(Thanks @guillaume_g_z)

Robert at RAH on Saturday

From Peter van Leeuwin: "Me (on the left) and my friends with Robert (in a jolly mood) backstage at the RAH on Saturday."

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Roger NOT playing at Bernhard Suite in London



The Cure at RAH for Teenage Cancer Trust

New Robert interview!

From XFM (you can also listen to the full audio interview there):

Robert Smith: "I don't feel the urge to beat people over the head with new material"
30th March 2014, 15:21

The Cure's frontman has been telling XFM that the band's two shows at London's Royal Albert Hall in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust were "pretty sensational"… but that his plans for the rest of 2014 are still up in the air.

It was reported earlier this year that fans were likely to get the follow-up to 2008's 4:13 Dream - a series of songs that were recorded over six years ago but which remain unreleased.

"We're in a weird kind of predicament," Smith told XFM's John Kennedy after coming offstage at the Albert Hall last night (Saturday 29 March). "I've finished singing and mixing an album that was made by a band that no longer exists. So I'm trying to be convinced  that I should release what is the second half of an album that effectively came out in 2008.  It's a bit of a sore point, to be honest.

"It's not really new, I just never sang it. I couldn't be bothered. I didn't think the words were good enough, but I've re-written it. We're playing in May in American and then I don't think we'll play again until late September. So it'll probably come out in that summer 'dead air' period for albums."

Robert revealed that the album was likely to be released on the Fiction label - which was the original home to The Cure between 1978 and 2000. "It seems like a nice way of squaring the circle. It's an album that is really different to anything else we've done. People who want to hear it will hear it and those that don't, don't. They'll just keep dancing to Close To Me and Love Cats."

"Having said all that… I've no idea. I'm very bad at planning long term. I'm at an age where I'm enjoying what I'm doing. I don't feel such a strong urge to beat people over the head with new stuff.

The Cure performed over two nights in aid of the charity, which helps teenagers and young adults come to terms with being diagnosed with cancer and the extensive treatment that goes with it. Each show lasted over three hours and featured 40-plus songs, some of which have rarely been performed live.

"I like dipping into the history of the band. I'm so enthralled by digging out songs we've never played before. They're like new songs to me."

The frontman also paid tribute to Roger Daltrey and his work with Teenage Cancer Trust: "I'm utterly amazed at what he does. The time he puts in, keeping it going. It really is staggering. It's a totally different vibe to anything else we do, it really is."
(Thanks @SleazyMartinez)

Notes from the audio interview:

- Says the next Trilogy shows WILL happen, but it might not be this year. Is enjoying playing these big shows with the band. Feels like they are getting better with every show.

- Says the current lineup will be recording this year. Wants to record as a live band, like last album.

- Not in the interviews, but told to John, Chris Parry was in the audience last night. With his son, who is RS's godson. (Thanks Martin)

Articles about this: Express / Music Times / The Guardian / CMU / The 405 / Clash / Contact Music / TV3 / Metro / Gigwise / Slicing Up Eyeballs / Music Feeds / Pitchfork / Consequence of Sound 

Robert & Andy Anderson at RAH aftershow

Robert and Andy at the Cure's aftershow at the RAH on March 29th. Photo from Tomgmoyse.