Hopes are stirring of better times ahead after one of the first Dundee “gigs” in almost 18 months.
Beat Generator Live welcomed former Big Audio Dynamite mainstay Don Letts last Friday for a spoken word visit as part of a tour to promote his new autobiography There And Black Again.
Although there was no live music at the North Lindsay Street event, gig-starved fans were delighted to spend the evening in the presence of the influential sample pioneer, DJ and filmmaker.
Best known to punk followers as The Clash’s video director and the co-founder of BAD along with the Rock The Casbah firebrands’ Mick Jones, London-born Letts, 65, was the first in a series of bookings at BGs, with live music set to return at the upstairs venue on August 20 when Johnny Cash tribute Jericho Hill are due to appear.
Live music come-back
With an easing of physical distancing restrictions on the way next week, Scotland’s beleaguered live music circuit finally looks primed to kick back into gear.
However, one art-pop legend who’s put his Courier Country return on hold is Marc Almond. The Lancashire-born songsmith had been due to play a rearranged show at Perth Concert Hall next April, but that’s now postponed along with various other solo gigs, with no rearranged booking confirmed as yet.
Venue operators Horsecross Arts say they’re working with promoters to try and find a new date, but an awkward scramble for availability looks ever more likely after Almond, 64, confirmed he’s recently completed work with his long-time writing partner Dave Ball on a new, remotely recorded album, with a tour also on the way.
New album
The fifth Soft Cell LP, which is entitled *Happiness Not Included, is due out in the spring and will be the Leeds synthpop pioneers’ first in 20 years.
A spokesman for the duo said yesterday that the new material is very much classic Soft Cell, “that distinctive and striking balance between light and shade, hope and despair, the personal and the universal”.
Lyrically, the album’s key theme is said to be changing perceptions of the passing of time, with Almond exploring the disappointment of a future that seemed possible back amid the idealism of the 60s and 70s failing to materialise as inequality and injustice have persisted down the decades.
With a nod to its creation under lockdown conditions, the opus has been described by ex-Grid leader Ball, 62, as a series of “science fiction stories for the 21st Century”, with its production work being handled by Grammy winner Phillip Larsen.
The spokesman added that it was the band’s supposed farewell show in front of 20,000 fans at London’s O2 in 2018 that was the impetus for making *Happiness Not Included. “What they had planned to be the end instead became a brand new start,” he declared.
Soft Cell’s history
Initially formed in 1977, Soft Cell released their first self-financed EP in 1980 before securing a UK number one the following year with their classic electro reworking of the Gloria Jones northern soul anthem Tainted Love, selling more than a million copies.
They had further hits with the likes of Bedsitter, Say Hello Wave Goodbye, Torch, What and Soul Inside before amicably splitting in early 1984.
The duo reunited for a series of live shows on 2001, going on to release their fourth studio album Cruelty Without Beauty the following year, plus the acclaimed singles Monoculture and The Night.
Soft Cell’s only scheduled Scottish date as things stand is at Glasgow’s O2 Academy on November 10, but as well as a potentially rearranged Perth show, Almond fans further east can also look forward to a likely appearance from the singer on the bill at Rewind Scotland — which has already been postponed twice — at Scone Palace next July.
