Feline

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Legal matters ensued with the result that a further single be released to terminate the contract. So we handed them a song that they had previously refused when we were originally seeking a record deal several years previously, Strange Little Girl. We then signed to Sony ,CBS. We decided to attempt an album which would marry various European influences and references. Spanish guitars, synths, electronic drums. Completely different from anything we had done before and since.’ The following blog-piece written around the 30th anniversary of the album, courtesy of Owen Carne, is worthy of bringing up the agenda once again… The Strange Circumstances Which Lead To) Vladimir & Olga (Requesting Rehabilitation In A Siberian Health Resort As A Result Of Stress In Furthering The People’s Policies)

a b Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19thed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p.535. ISBN 1-904994-10-5. He and I worked very closely together when I was head of production for the band. His opening catch phrase was always ‘Hello Boy’ (which I adopted and use to this day). He was both a great boss and friend, great fun to be around and, god, we got up to some seriously silly pranks on tour. Off tour he was quite a private person and lived alone in Ingatestone. It was a real sadness when Bill was diagnosed with a inoperable brain tumour just after he attended my wedding and he died a couple of years later aged 50. I truly miss him very much as he was my mentor to become a manager as his approach, knowledge, manner and humour were all top drawer. There were three singles released from Feline: the first was " European Female" which reached No. 9 in the UK Singles Chart in January 1983, and was followed by a remixed 7" version of "Midnight Summer Dream" in February (which peaked at No. 35 in the UK). The third and final single released was "Paradise" (released in July 1983) which reached No. 48. [6] Reception [ edit ]

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Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge. Train home sans underwear which was now hanging from a tree on the hotel forecourt, I didn’t have any spare pairs on me as I was going home after the gig due to the day off. Freezing my balls of (literally) as the zip on my jeans had been broken during the previous night’s fracas, so I had to go all the way home with my hand in front of my fly! Vladimir Chronicles". www.stranglers.net. Archived from the original on 23 September 2011 . Retrieved 12 January 2022. There were certainly a few other regulars on the scene but the following list is a fair proportion of the “hard core” fans on the Feline tour : With a zeitgeist catching ‘All Roads Lead To Rome’, keys wizardry of ‘Blue Sister’ and grand closer ‘Never Saying Goodbye’ dazzling with its mix of instrumentation and sounds to startling, sometimes almost jarring, effect it was the band at their most experimental.

To say it must have been a surprise to those at their new home would be an understatement but they, as did the fans, released that this was one band unafraid of moving forward and so it was with ‘Feline’. Now re-released in gorgeous red and translucent marbled double vinyl, this 40th anniversary edition provides an ideal opportunity to reacquaint yourself with this, to some, seismic shift in their path. Even today, Feline remains a controversial and divisive album among Stranglers aficionados, with similar numbers either declaring it a triumph or decrying it as a low point in the catalogue. If you’ve heard the album, you’ll know which side of the fence you are on… When the gig was over we filed out into the night with no idea of the repercussions to come although it was obvious there would be some. As it turned out the actions of a few nutcases would rebound on the band big time. Meanwhile, Greenfield’s condition gave him a highly idiosyncratic approach to making music. “He couldn’t improvise,” says Burnel, “and if we wanted any last-minute changes to the setlist, he’d just freak out.” However, Greenfield’s devotion to creativity was such that he thought nothing of taking three days to learn the electronic pattern on the song Genetix, note by note. “He ‘programmed’ himself,” smiles Burnel. “People thought it was a sequencer. It was a human being.”

Suddenly finding ourselves without a gig to go to we went, with our White City hosts Spence and John, to see The Alarm at the famous Marquee, Wardour street. Not as good as the Stranglers but a decent gig, the Alarm were just starting to get a big reputation in those days. Afterwards we found ourselves standing at the bar with Jake Burns of Stiff Little Fingers and chatted with him over a pint or two. TVS Studios, Gillingham October ’82 While EMI was preparing the band’s final contractual releases, the group became the focus of interest from various record companies eager to sign up such a proven and established act, as JJ recalls: ‘When we left EMI, everyone was after us. I remember going on Richard Branson’s boat in London as he wanted to sign us to Virgin. We eventually plumped for CBS and they put a lot of money behind the release of Feline.’

This was the band’s seventh studio album and the first since moving to Epic Records, reaching #4 in the UK Album chart. Feline is now available, courtesy of BMG, on limited red and pink transparent double vinyl and 2CD edition both featuring a wealth of bonus material from this era of the band. Musically, the new material was a radical departure from the band’s previous albums as it featured both acoustic guitars and electronic drums. JJ recalls their musical aim for the album: ‘We wanted to marry Europe together. We aimed to put north and south together, the north represented by synthesisers, vocoders and electronic drums and the south by acoustic guitars. We ended up with a sound which was unique at that time. No one had married electronics with acoustic guitars at that point. In fact, people didn’t even use acoustic guitars much in those days.’ Jonesy had to go home to work and Krista went to sign on. She phoned us up later at Spence’s place to tell us she’d heard the gig was off! I phoned up the band’s hotel and spoke to JJ who confirmed it, he sounded tired and angry both with the idiots who caused the trouble and with the band themselves for trusting the nutters at the front to behave without the bouncers. So now they are banned from Hammersmith Odeon… By then, Dave Greenfield’s glorious baroque playing was all over the charts. Before his death from Covid in May last year, the keyboard wizard had spent 45 years in the Stranglers, appearing on 23 top 40 singles and 17 top 40 albums as they established themselves as one of Britain’s most enduring bands. Next month, some of his final recordings will appear on the band’s 18th album, Dark Matters, which Burnel calls “our first genuinely grownup album”. The album contains untypical, beautifully raw ruminations on depression, ageing and mortality. Most of it was put together after Greenfield’s death, a process that singer-guitarist Baz Warne, a genial and open Wearsider, found cathartic. “We opened up a huge well of emotion,” says the 57-year-old.

Warne watched all this from afar at home in Sunderland. He was a childhood fan who was “Bonnie Baz” in Wearside punks Toy Dolls before joining the Stranglers in 2000. It has not always been easy. “The week after joining, I was singing to troops in Kosovo, a war zone,” he says. “I had hair and a waistline before I joined the Stranglers.” Not that there haven’t been highs, such as “an unforgettable day at Glastonbury in 2010, when we played to 80,000 people – apparently more than U2.” With the release of their seventh album on new label Epic Records, legendary punks The Stranglers wanted to shake things up a bit, exploring new sonic territories and pushing their own boundaries. Originally released in January 1983, FELINE is The STRANGLERS’ seventh studio LP and was their first for then-new label, Epic.