Weird Scenes Inside The Goldmine
Someone shouted, “a parachute is coming down!” We responded by turning in the direction she pointed. Just at that moment the sky we were facing flashed. I don't know how to describe that light. We wondered if a fire had been shot in our eyes. It's hard to remember which came first the flash of light or the sound of an explosion that roared to the belly. The next moment we were on the ground. Soon I noticed that the air smelled terrible. Then I was shocked by the feeling that the skin on my face had come off. Then the hands and arms too. all the skin on my right hand came off and hung down grotesquely. What we saw under the table was frightening. Hundreds of stream. I couldn't tell if they were people were squirming in the men or women. They all looked alike. Their faces were swollen and grey, their hair was standing up. Holding their hands high, groaning, people were rushing to the river. We sat down and a stranger wrapped my naked shoulders in a psychedelic fur.
"Psychedelia was all very well but you have to look at it quite realistically and from that point of view it's quite easy to parody. The thing we learnt in the States is that the name itself has to get it together, which is not true the band. We spent far too long talking about what the name meant and not enough about the album or the music. The word psychedelic has a very different meaning there. It relates much to drugs, LSD, mescalin, that sort of thing. I think a lot of people thought we were sort of manic Roky Erickson. They thought we were acid heads who had actually managed to get it together which is not true at all." Duncan Kilburn (keyboards and saxophone).
A recent paranoic report released by the National Institute on Drug Abuse in the United States declared that marijuana poses greater health risks than previously thought. It suggested that daily marijuana smoking may lead to lung damage and fanciful flights of the imagination. Yet regular use by high school students has almost doubled in the last four years. A survey showed that at least 43 million Americans of all ages had tried the drug. Contrary to expectations the last and first Furs album sold over 75,000 in the USA after thy pushed their wares round the country as the last decade came to a close. Now doctors are worried that the record, which contains lyrics close to sacrilege "Jesus is a woman too, he looks like all of me and you, your money talks and all your friends will laugh at her pathetic tits," from "Imitation Of Christ" could pose a threat to the mental balance of the nation's youth.
"If there's one thing I do feel it’s that people take rock too seriously, especially the press who I don't really care about. I've just been to see my sister in “Wot No Pyjamas?", that's why I'm late. Has anybody got a cigarette?" Richard Butler (vocals, lyrics). A new Furs' album, produced by Steve Lillywhite, will be released soon. Sharper, with every glistening angle in focus, it leaves behind the distorted landscapes they once explored on "Flowers.” "See the people dead in cars, see the bodies bleed/I know he's so dead and gone I think that is free His body is upon the wall his teeth are sharp and white/we cut his eyes with razor blades and out of him comes foul white light" replacing it with a new personalized introspection tinged, some say, with C&W. "It's mostly country and western we're doing now," Richard drawled. "This stuff has a Sixties feel like the first album, but different. You know I was influenced by Tammy Wynette and Hank Williams I never really liked punk rock." Parody again?
"Oh yeah, we never do anything else. No really, this new stuff is far more positive. It's easy to slag things down. We're not the new Barron Knights, you know." Listening to the demo, which includes "All Of This And Nothing", "Into You Like A Tram", and "Two Into One", there's not a shit-kicking tune amongst the lot. In fact they come nearer to U2 if anything Lillywhite has gone for his usual drums up front, crystalline guitar, grandiose opus technique and both Richard and Duncan admit that while they know very little about the current "scene", they do like U2.
"I would say the new songs are more about people," Richard went on. "They're about girlfriends, hot-rodding, surfing, that sort of thing. There's even more of a theme on this one (the last contained a strangely ambiguous thread revolving round the decline of Sixties' optimism), but I wouldn't like to say what it is." Just what the world needs, another sodding enigma. "We're not interested in trying to push back the frontiers of rock. We just want to make our type of music. You know there were things ten years ago that sounded like PiL. and personally I think they sound like a lot of horrible noise."
Sweeping from coast to coast the Furs chanced upon American TV personalities who dragged them before the seething masses and asked them penetrating questions. "They asked me how I got my hair like this and if it is true that when we first started out we couldn't play our instruments," Richard recalled. "To which we replied," said Duncan, "that's right, we couldn't play I'm not sure we can now. It was nice that people picked up on us as a dance band though. You know we made #39 in the Billboard disco charts."
Have they made their shot for the Dance Orientated Rock tag with which they've already been categorised? In future every record will be covered by a suitable moniker depicting the contents; ie, POR, Psychedelic Orientated Rock, COR: Clone Orientated Rock, etc, so that we all know EXACTLY what we are consuming. "No, not at all," Richard states emphatically, "I don't think we should all dress up in pretty clothes and forget what's going on, but then again I don't see the point of becoming obsessed with doom."
At the end of this month the group will be effectively premiering their new album at the Marquee. In an uncompromising stance they plan to play only the songs from their new work, principally to test them out on a fickle London crowd with a view to pulling together their Mark II set, shortly to be touted round the country. "I hope people will bear with us. It was a difficult decision but I think it's a good idea," says Duncan. "I hope it will surprise a lot of people because there seems to be a lot of confusion about what we're doing. Things should become more apparent soon."
By now the effects of the CBS tea had begun to take hold again. Suddenly there was another huge roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like Bruce Springsteen double albums, swooping and screeching round the tape recorder, which was going at about a hundred miles an hour with the buttons on record. "Holy Jesus! Who is this band?" someone muttered.
