News

Date: October 18th, 2008 10:40:22 p.m.

ALBUM PROMOTION

Thursday, 2 October 2008

The Remastered Definitive Editions of both Vienna and Rage in Eden were released on September 22nd (and a week later in the UK) to very favourable reviews - the Sunday Times called Vienna a "Must-have reissue" and Record Collector rated them 3 and 4 stars out of 5, respectively.

Midge has been on the promotion circuit for both the remasters and his own new covers album, 10 (see below), appearing on BBC Breakfast, The Five Thirty Show, ITN Music, Loose Women and an Abbey Road acoustic session for Absolute Radio.

On 2nd October 2008, Absolute Radio took over Studio Two of Abbey Road, highlighting this extraordinary place by broadcasting from there throughout the day. The broadcast included exclusive interviews with Noel Gallagher, Kaiser Chiefs, Starsailor, Midge Ure and Giles Martin, son of legendary Beatles producer Sir George Martin. Rather unexpectedly, Billy Currie, Midge's former bandmate in Ultravox, accompanied him on grand piano for an intimate acoustic version of Vienna.

Midge also played solo acoustic versions of If I Was and No Regrets in the session.

Courtesy of Emily Power for Absolute Radio, we are very pleased to be able to show all the photos from this session in our Media Archive. For a short time, the audio and video from the session can be viewed at Absolute Radio's website, along with their report on the day.

Buy Vienna at Amazon.co.uk
Buy Rage in Eden at Amazon.co.uk

MIDGE AND CHRIS YOUTUBE CLIP

Friday, 3 October 2008

On the 3rd of October, a short video appeared on YouTube, entitled simply 'Ultravox??'. This was shot recently and shows Midge in his garden studio, at a keyboard - with Chris Cross running through sounds for Western Promise, The Voice and Vienna.

MIDGE RELEASES COVERS ALBUM

Friday, 10 October 2008

When Midge released his cover of the Walker brothers hit No Regrets in 1982, he always said that one day, he would like to record a full album of songs that influenced him at various points during his life. Twenty-six years on, that day is finally here.

10 is an interestingly eclectic mix, from David Bowie's Lady Stardust to Cilla Black's Alfie to Phil Lynott's hauntingly beautiful Song For While I'm Away. The full track listing is as follows:

1. Alfie
2. Man of the World
3. Goodbye to Love
4. Day After Day
5. Let the Heartaches Begin
6. My Mind's Eye
7. Song For While I'm Away
8. Nevermore
9. To Sir With Love
10. Lady Stardust

Released on Hypertension on September 29th in the UK and October 10th in Europe, 10 was recorded during Midge's year-long stay in Canada and mixed by Brian Tench back in the UK. Ultravox fans will recognise Brian's name as a mix engineer from various releases - he also appears in photos in both Ultravox's Set Movements and Midge's The Gift tour programmes.

The iTunes version of the album contains three extra live tracks. If you want a physical copy of the album, you can always purchase the extra tracks individually at iTunes:

1. The Man Who Sold the World
2. Little Girl in Bloom
3. Song For While I'm Away

Buy 10 at Amazon.co.uk
Buy 10 at iTunes

TO SIR WITH LOVE VIDEO

Wednesday, 15 October 2008

On 1st September Midge debuted a rough version of a promo video for To Sir With Love on BBC Breakfast, featuring a new use for an Apple iPhone. We spoke to the video's Director Lee Curran, who had this to say about it:

Well when Midge called one day saying he needed a video made for a BBC Breakfast slot in the next few days we only had a day or so to sort something out. The BBC needed a 40 second clip to show for part of the interview. Although that doesn't sound that much, it is in fact in a short time to come up with the idea, then film and edit as well as get it to London in the time given. It's quite a task. We met in a coffee shop, and Midge had an idea of using the iPhone in some way, so with his idea we set about recording the video the very next day in my kitchen in Bath.

Shooting on DVCAM 16x9, we had to shoot the close up of Midge's eyes, mouth and moves across his face. That footage was then digitized into Final Cut pro, edited and then downloaded to my iPhone. It was then played back using a monitor next to the camera, so when we re-film the iPhone being used, Midge can see what the scale of the phone is to his own face. Sounds easy right? Mmm. Well it was pretty easy really, once we got into it.

The advantage of using the iPhone is that it has its own speaker, so you can hear the playback and with Midge and myself directing where the phone is placed and is moved, it sort of comes together in the edit. Luckily I didn't edit the promo, Midge did that at his house on his Mac Pro laptop. One thing you don't hear in the finished film is the directing and shouting from behind the lens and behind the phone... all looks so nice :)

Lee has kindly provided us with photos of the video shoot, two of which are above. You can view them all in our Media Archive. 9 2008 Lee Curran.

The To Sir With Love video can be viewed in full at midgure.com.

MIDGE GUEST VOCAL

Friday, 17 October 2008

In April this year, Midge performed a guest lead vocal on an excellent track called Smile, on the album Colour by Andy Hunter. It's an upbeat track and is reminiscent of Midge's collaboration with Jam & Spoon on their track Something to Remind Me from the album Tripomatic Fairytales 3003.

As with his debut album Exodus, Andy wanted to use a number of guest vocalists to express his ideas, which led to a call to Midge. Andy says:

For the track Smile we needed a new direction with it and a voice with a lot of character. Robbie had already worked with Midge a number of times before and suggested that we try and get him. He agreed to do it, wrote the chorus for us and it worked really well. It was great to work with someone like Midge with so much history and experience. He seems a busy man and it was hard to pin him down for two days to do it!

Buy Colour at Amazon.co.uk
Buy Tripomatic Fairytales 3003 at Amazon.co.uk (marketplace only)
Buy Tripomatic Fairytales 3003 at Amazon.de (EUR 5.88)

BILLY CURRIE NEWS

Friday, 17 October 2008

It is now possible to license a range of Billy's compositions for audio or audio-visual productions, through Production Music Online. So far there are thirteen beautiful tracks available from Billy. You can listen online - search for 'Billy Currie' once you get to the site's main page.

Billy is also writing and recording a new album, due for release either in November or early 2009 - it has no title as yet.

Courtesy of billycurrie.com.

BILLY WALKS THE PENNINE WAY

Friday, 17 October 2008

Billy walked the Pennine Way from Hawes to Edale in six days in August, for Macmillan Cancer Support. He says:

Had a great walk down, not up, the Pennine Way.

Waked the stretch from Hawes, North Yorkshire Dales, all the way down to Crowden near Glossop in Derbysire. Through Ribble, Malham, Cowling & Hebden Bridge. In 6 days. First walk was 15 miles, 2nd 17, 3rd 19, 4th 15. A bit over the top really.

The walk over the Pennines from Standedge to Crowden was really exceptional because I could look down & across to Huddersfield. I was brought up there and I have not seen it from that angle before. It was the west side near Netherton. Netherton is were I lived for the first 15 years of my life. Beautiful Countryside!

I looked down on Digly Reservoir, were my dad was born. My mother was born in Mossley, Lancashire. A few miles away. When I was a kid we used to drive across the Pennines here to our relatives in Mossley & Stockport. The snow blizzards sometimes were incredible.

I still have the remains of a huge blister on my foot from the walk. It's fantastic walking but next time I will practise, warm up, with a ruck sack on my back because let's face it, there is walking for 19 miles a day, like I did sometimes, and there is walking with that bag on your back. A big difference. Three of the guys had been walking for 9 days before Dave and I joined them. Its the 3rd & 4th day when you loose the will to live. Dispiriting is nearly the word. I got through it!!!! Fantastic! Great BUZZ!!!!!

Well done, Billy!

You can still give a donation to Macmillan Cancer Support by clicking here.

Courtesy of billycurrie.com.

WARREN CANN NEWS

Friday, 17 October 2008

Wildfires have been raging in California, helped along by the Santa Ana winds. Around 1,200 residents were evacuated - including, on Monday morning, Warren and his wife Alison. He took this amazing photo on the way out - the fire looks a little too close for comfort.

Warren would like you to know that they are safe and well and are now back at home. :o)

JOHN FOXX NEWS

Saturday, 18 October 2008

John Foxx has been very busy recently, what with live shows in such diverse locations as Durham, London, Barcelona, Genoa and Japan, and new CDs such as Impossible and Neuro Video (available at live shows only for now, to be made more widely available soon).

As well as all this, remastered double-disc editions of The Garden, The Golden Section and In Mysterious Ways were all released earlier this month. Between them they include a total of sixty-seven tracks, of which eighteen are previously unreleased. These were all complemented by a brand new compilation album called Glimmer.

Lastly, don't forget to bookmark John's MySpace page and MySpace blog, along with his new official YouTube page for videos.

Buy The Garden at Amazon.co.uk
Buy The Golden Section at Amazon.co.uk
Buy In Mysterious Ways at Amazon.co.uk
Buy Glimmer at Amazon.co.uk

JOHN FOXX MAILING LIST

We feature some John Foxx stories on this Ultravox list, but tend not to duplicate everything sent out by our sister site, Metamatic. If you would like to keep up to date with ALL the John Foxx news as and when it happens, send an email to subscribe@metamatic.com to be added to Metamatic's mailing list.

MIDGE URE LIVE

Midge Ure is currently performing a rolling set of live dates which are constantly updated, so to keep up to date with these, please keep checking the News page on his website.

FORUM FUN!

Don't forget that Ultravox.org.uk has a thriving Forum - so if you haven't already, go to the Forum summary to join in the fun! If you're in a hurry, you can also go straight to the active topics in the last 24 hours. News stories often break here first, before being sent out to the mailing list - so it's worth checking out. See you there!

NEWS ARCHIVE

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