“Life In The So-Called Space Age”
This post is for MMN.
This is the only photo I have of The Hanged Man live. Click on it to get full size.
Where and when was this taken? The year was likely 1992 or 1993 (certainly prior to May ’93, when I left Australia). As for the venue, I have no idea. It may have been taken during the “Roberts Amazing Love Affair” concert in June 1992.
Matthew: please theorize in the comments. And send Craig a copy, since he looks pretty cool in this shot 🙂
The new Alphaville album is out, and it’s called Catching Rays On Giant:
It’s been seven years since Crazyshow – their last new material – and the current version of the band itself has changed as well. Of course Marian “I am Alphaville” Gold is still running the show (writing, singing and producing) so I’m pleased to say the sound that is Alphaville remains.
So what is that sound? Unfortunately there is no video of the first single, “I Die For You Today”, in album-version, but here’s a video of the radio remix.
The album version is better. I don’t think the beats work in that remix. It worked well enough apparently, since the song got to number 5 on the German charts!
Despite being 26 years older, Marian’s voice hasn’t changed much. His songwriting is as good as ever, and after only a few listens I found the album had grown on me in a big way. Of course Alphaville has always been on ‘heavy rotation’ in all my music players, so this isn’t surprising.
My favourites on the album so far include “The Things I Didn’t Do”, “Call Me Deep” and “Carry Me Down”. The latter is unusual in that it is the first Alphaville song in 26 years not sung by Marian Gold.
So all in all, I’m giving this one two thumbs up after a week of solid listening. Is it the best Alphaville album? No, but then I doubt they can ever beat the 4CD’s of Crazyshow. But it’s not the worst either, it’s just another in a relatively long line of very good albums from one of my all-time favourite bands.
File this in the “who knew” section…
Australian actor Noah “I look just like Nick Cave” Taylor had, as one of his first roles, the lead in the video clip for the Alphaville song ‘Romeos’
It’s a cute video and he is great (and young!) in it. Watch it here.
I’d never seen the video, but I have certainly heard of Noah Taylor. I can still remember him hamming it up as a Nick Cave wannabe on some SBS music show (the one hosted by the Chinese girl) back in the early 90s. A lot of my girl friends back in high school had a bit of a crush on this guy as well, although I suspect that was due to his resemblance to Nick! A glance at IMDB shows that he’s been associated with a few Nick Cave projects over the years, not the least of which is an appearance in a music video (at 1:38).
Speaking of Nick Cave, his performance as Freak Storm from the 1991 film Johnny Suede (yes that’s Brad Pitt) is (of course) on youtube for all the world to see whenever they like. He’s rakishly thin, and I’m guessing it was during one of his drug periods. I remember seeing this film years ago, and actually taping (onto an audio cassette) this song. I still have that tape somewhere…
And since we’re on the topic of movies about singers… the best ever is (of course) Velvet Goldmine. This is a film in which not only does Obi Wan portray (a parallel world) Iggy Pop, but Johnathon Rhys Davies portrays (a parallel world) David Bowie (who may be alien!) whose moniker is itself a physics in-joke. See this video for proof. The film is fantastic on so many levels, and since we have it on DVD and I haven’t watched it in ages I may have to see it again this weekend. Oh yes, it’s also a not-crappy (cough, Batman) Christain Bale film 🙂
This post has been all over the place, and it all started with Alphaville videos. I will end with one as well. It’s a ‘fan video’ of a non-single. But Return To Paradise is just a beautiful, beautiful song. If you have a few minutes free in your day, I recommend you listen to it (make sure you read the lyrics in the info section next to the video) and see if you love it too.
Hrm… does 3:12 in that video remind anyone else of Iridis Alpha?
(Yes, this post was all over the place!)