Wednesday 16 September 2009

John Foxx



My first foray into the realms of electronic music began with Gary Numan with the songs Cars and Are Friends Electric when I was ten. I bought or was bought every single and album up until She's Got Claws when I either stopped buying due to the fact that the single was pish or because Numan had came out as a Tory. It would be quite a few years until I could listen to him again after that revelation.

I think that Numan mentioned Ultravox and John Foxx somewhere as I remember asking an older friend about them and him playing me some stuff and me quite liking this strange vocal delivery The music seemed darker and more forboding than that of Numan's. I remember buying a double pack single by Ultravox which contained the tracks Slow Motion, Quiet Men, Hiroshima Mon Amour and Dislocation. However I'm sure that that was after I already had the John Foxx solo singles Underpass and No One's Driving and the album Metamatic.

My dalliance with Foxx and Ultravox pretty much stopped there. I decided to dig out Metamatic which I had replaced on cd a few years ago, recently and was quite amazed that, although it does not sound cutting edge these days it has not dated as badly as some other stuff from that era.

Was it just me, or was John Foxx quite a scary looking bloke back then? The only thing which scared me more at this time was the Parkerilla album cover which I remember seeing in the record dept of Lewis' store in Glasgow around this time.

John Foxx - Underpass

6 comments:

davyh said...

I like(d) him a lot; partly for the sound he made and partly, if I'm honest, because he left Ultravox! And took the ! with him!

We used to sing this at school...'Ner ner ner nerner, ner ner ner nerner - UNDERPANTS!'. Oh, how we laughed.

Hope you are keeping well. The weather here continues inclement.

drew said...

I'm fine thanks for asking, however have to go to Birmingham with work from Sunday 'til Friday for work. Not looking forward to it and neither is L.

Weather here has been rather good this week.

davyh said...

Boo Hiss to long working weeks away from the beloveds say I - it's a year almost since I did my first Sun-Fri in Zurich thing, but I still feel the pain when I think of it.

Take lots of music, have hot baths, go to bed early x

Mondo said...

I always got him mixed up with matey from the Psychedelic furs - and always thought he was set for bigger things

PS We also used to chime in with 'Underpants'

davyh said...

Damn, I thought I invented that.

Unknown said...

Ultravox were amazing! I went to see them at glasgow Apollo 1977 or 78, they played with Doll by Doll. The place was empty but they were great. He's one of those people who deserve much more credit that they get.