Purple Pain... our history with Prince

Urban Fox's entire back catalogue is steeped in Prince's influence so Thursday 21st April 2016 was a sad day indeed.  One of my first ever conversations with Urban Fox's chief lyricist, Doug, was about Prince.  It didn't go very well to my memory as I decided to sing 'Six O'Clock already I was just in the middle of a dream, Woke up this morning couldn't have sworn it was judgement day'.  However, we got over my little indiscretion and Doug made me a mix tape which had 'Little Red Corvette' on it. '1999' with it's heavy synths resonated with what I was into at the time (1982)  because I was all about Depeche Mode, ABC, Human League et al.  'LRC' was just out of sync with my music taste at the time.  When I heard it again on Doug's mix tape in 1987 it stirred something inside.

Little Red Corvette - Prince

I'd bought Alexander O'Neal's 'Hearsay' on the back of the single 'Criticise' which was the best thing I'd heard for ages.  On Doug's tape there was a song 'Saturday Love' by Alex and Cherrelle which led to me discovering more and more Minneapolis.  The 'Purple Rain' album, Alexander O'Neal's first album and eventually, after some prompting from Doug, Morris Day and the Time.

It wasn't until 1991 that we started writing songs together but in those initial sessions when we wrote 'Neon City' and 'Without you' it was clear Prince's influence, energy and ethos would be ingrained in Urban Fox's songwriting.  We recorded versions of The Time's 'Jerk out' and 'Blondie' with a Geordie version of 'Yount' for good measure.

Jerk Out (Live)

More Prince influenced Urban Fox songs followed with 'Midnight Rain' and 'Used, abused and confused' but the most outward reference to the the Purple genius was in 'Minneapolis Blue'.  It was written in September 1995 by Doug (Words and Music) and told of a failed romance set in Minnesota.  We re-recorded it in the form it was meant to exist in last year (click below to listen)

https://soundcloud.com/urbanfox93/minneapolis-blue

In 1996 I started listening to a lot more Prince, namely 'The Gold Experience', 'Sign o' the times' and 'Diamonds and Pearls'.  However, I went back to 'Purple Rain' which I listened to every day for about a month whilst I was writing the first few songs on our album 'Magic'.  It's where 'One more Sunrise' and 'When the rains come down' came from.  It was the song 'Gold' which grabbed me most around that time and made me stop trying to come up with deep involved music (which I almost always failed at) and start writing uplifting, simple but joyous and mood creating music.  It's one of those where you go 'How the hell did that only get to number 10' in the chart?

Gold - Prince

The album shaped the future of Urban Fox somewhat. We stopped being so introspective (the Citadel EP and 'Chiseaux' cases in point) and started to look at what was happening around us. I tried to bring more major scales into the music and the results were positive.  'World for our Children' was one of the best songs we'd ever written and came from a place of social awareness.  Prince said that the key to longevity was to learn as much about music as possible and although I'd been trapped in a Gary Numan loving synth bubble for a few years, I started to embrace the electric guitar and started producing songs like 'Chapter IV' and 'West End (my best friend)' with our bassist/guitarist Ian.

Loads more Prince-esque lyrics followed including 'Boy meets girl', 'Last bus blues' and 'Ghetto Hope'.  Thankfully we've only ever covered one Prince song, 'When Doves Cry', something that will never be repeated!  And to this day, he's still (indirectly) influencing what we're doing as there's a track on the new album called 'What would Morris do?'.

I'm going to sign off this blog by dedicating a song to him.  It was one we wrote in tribute to Luther Vandross but it just seems so appropriate right now.  The song is called 'Lost a Friend'.  Thank you so much Prince Rogers Nelson for everything - the songs, the music, the memories, the love, the everything.

https://soundcloud.com/urbanfox93/lost-a-friend

Magic - Pulling at the threads

It feels strange to pull at the threads of something that's perfect and complete.  By perfect I mean 'as I wanted it'. Even though that's not strictly true, there's loads about it I'd change.  But 'Magic' as an album worked like no other in Urban Fox's back catalogue.

Every band member had input into the creative process by means of a set of lyrics here, a guitar riff there or an idea that set a song rolling.  'Magic' was full of atmosphere but in the days of analogue (well, digital was around but we couldn't afford digital) it was more atmospheric, muddy, hissy and a bit crackly in places.  Using a four channel desk connected to a one track tape machine meant everything that could be sequenced was, and everything that couldn't be sequenced was played live.

The atmosphere behind 'Magic' (Yamaha PSR-90)

A great example of that is right at the beginning of the album where the first minute and a half of the instrumental Magic (a prelude) was played live before the sequenced part kicked off and live playing continued over the top.  Once the music was done, it was  bounced to another one track with vocals dubbed over the top. Every track was sung start to finish in one take (as was everything pre-1997), no retaking a note in the chorus or punching in to correct the awful 'sacrilege and larceny (fear) became a part of me' in 'Magic' the track.

Written in 1996, we obtained new technology in 1999 and attempted to go back and update the main tracks.  The results were cold, mechanical and empty so they never saw the light of day.  The only song from the album that we ever played live was 'I Ran', but even then it was Version 2 which was more accessible than the desolate and haunting version on Magic with Ian's original lyrics. 'I cried and I cried until I couldn't cry anymore; then I cried'.  The only other song we've got anywhere near re-doing better than the original is 'Forty Fields' and that's only because it's a straight up, out and out pop song with no complications.

Rerecording the album has made me realise why we've never really done an update sooner. One, we've never really had the technology to do it and two, the songs are really complex.  More than I realised.  You make something and while you're making it, you're inside it and you're chipping away building.  Only when you step back and look at the entire thing you tend to take it on face value and forget about all the interesting background frills that you don't notice unless you're looking for them but without them, the thing sounds kinda empty and wrong.

Pulling at the threads has opened my eyes to what makes a concept album work.  Especially one where you can identify the concept in each song.  It's in the moving bass lines which never resort to background accompaniment.  It's in the synth reeds over 'Another place to hide' and the minor 7ths and 13ths of the church organ intro to Magic.  It's in the growling polysynth underneath Darkside and the electric bass of I Ran. Signatures. Hooks. Lyrics with depth. 'Same star, different sky.' The 'boom' in boom. Squeezing everything I could out of the horribly limited PSS-790.

This was used to write: Fear, Fear 2, Impressions, Reflection, Citadel, The Message, Intermezzo, Citadel 2 & Vicious Sky

Pulling at the threads of something perfect, seems wrong and it still might prove to be wrong but stepping back inside that cathedral you built, inspecting the craftsmanship and admiring the hand carved statues you don't see from the outside, is like getting back in touch with an old friend and talking for hours.

Re-imagined so far :

1. Magic (Prelude) - Nuttall
2. One more sunrise - Hunter/Nuttall
3. When the rains come down - Hunter/Nuttall
4. Another place to hide - Nuttall
5. Boom! - Nuttall
6. Magic - Nuttall
7. Forty Fields - Nuttall
8. The pleasure behind death - Nuttall

Still to do :

9. New Fear - Nuttall
10. Goodnight - Nuttall
11. Face to Face (Version 1) - Nuttall
12. Face to Face (Version 2) - Nuttall
13. Save me - Hunter/Nuttall
14. I Ran - Forbes/Nuttall
15. Maybe - Nuttall
16. Darkside - Nuttall

Urban Fox's New Single...

'Oak Moon' is Urban Fox's longest-in-the-making album.  The writing started in January, the title coming from a festival in Scandinavia in the Winter.  The aim was to write one song a day in January, pick the best ten and record them in February to release in March.  However, after writing a song a day for the first twelve days, things ramped and life got in the way.  Those twelve songs took nearly twelve months to develop, produce and record.  Only ten made it onto the album.  Finally, here is the first single 'I don't think of love anymore', which is a stomping 80s flavoured synth blast.  A strong opening track from an album which takes a more moribund, sombre introspective look at itself. Not quite existential but full of what if's and why not's.  The ballads are sorrowful and the upbeat tracks have a hint of looking back and wondering why.

The Video is here : https://youtu.be/58GgaWB_9K4

The single cover is here :

The album cover is here :

More at www.urban-fox.org.uk

Reaching up, Reaching out, Reaching the limit

We just released our last album 'Unconventional' which incidentally is available on iTunes, Spotify and other places here :

http://bit.ly/1u9iq3j
http://spoti.fi/1nZeRtC
http://bit.ly/1wM433v

It's got a lot of good stuff, especially 'I can fall' and 'Another Prayer' which were the types of songs that spring up out of nowhere and almost write themselves.  But there were some others which took time, spend a lot of time in the 'queue' and I had to keep going back and tweaking and tweaking until in the end, they were over produced and quite dull.  I realise I'm not selling the album very well but it's how I feel about the last 8 months it took to write and record.

So it's been about three or four weeks since the album 'dropped' and I thought about not writing anything for ages - in fact, we're re-recording the 1996 classic album 'Magic' after the success of our re-release of 'Six String' (remastered) last month.  But I've decided to stop trying to write 'the best song ever' and go back to where it all started.  Not back to the beginning, but back to the albums that were the most quirky, creative and interesting.  'Magic' was like that, and one of the reasons was our ignorance.  We invented rhythms, chords, sequences - or at least it felt like that.  The lyrics were odd, ethereal almost and mostly driven by the feelings we had internally (we were 21 years old at the time) rather than how we looked at the world.  It was very personal and interior.

So a few things happened at the keyboard this morning.  Everything I felt was slow, sentimental and not at all unique (the thing that makes me go back to a lot of the stuff we wrote back in the 90s).  Then I changed tack - I started using sounds that you wouldn't put in songs (and I won't put in songs) just to get that weird atmosphere.  What's happened is really good;  you get to put notes together that don't work on a piano or a guitar, you get to hear a melodic minor scale 'clanging' when you use a reverb heavy glockenspiel, or a haunting choir voice to play a bass line.  It makes you do things you just wouldn't ever do with a basic Piano sound.

I've been listening to Alexander O'Neal's 'Hearsay' and very much enjoying the electric piano intro to 'Never knew love like this'. You get the feeling Jam and Lewis felt everything they wrote and bled emotion into the production.  Although I have only written three snippets of ideas for songs this morning, it feels very much like it's going to end up being different, unexpected, weird, experimental, ethereal, odd, quirky - everything 'Magic' was without sounding anything like it.  I'm not a fan of dredging over old ground unless it can be improved - this time I think it can.

If you want to keep up to date with everything we're up to with this new album then you can follow us on twitter at @UrbanFox1993 or at our website www.urban-fox.org.uk

We've also got videos for some of our songs on Youtube here : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyLG7idU_k-Xd68c0UaHanQ

Testing the water, ranting and Badman's song

Testing the water for future releases, my solo album 'Light is a feather' will be released into the ether through I-Tunes and Amazon (among many other worldwide digi-download sites) on 4th September.

I've set the price as low as I can because it's my belief that music should cost only as much as it needs to in order to pay for itself and the wages of those involved.  I know it's a multi-million industry but it makes me sick that there are amazing artists out there (check soundcloud if you don't believe me) who will never be paid for their genius while the likes of Rihanna squawk away with some banal psudo-music behind her. Watch Cribs and you'll throw up in your mouth at how someone with VERY little talent lives in a gold plated mansion with more bedrooms than they have real friends to sleep in them.

A song should be pleasant to listen to (see James Morrison) - it should be easy to listen to (see Depeche Mode) - in some cases powerful with well crafted lyrics (see Alanis Morrissette) and in others, simple but effective (see Erasure).  It shouldn't just have a synth riff that repeats 80 times in the first 10 seconds (see Calvin Harris). Every song you write shouldn't be about how your marriage is a nightmare (See Pink) and every melody shouldn't have just 2 notes in it (See Pitbull).  You should also be able to sing the notes in the song without pulling your trousers up higher than they go (See Pharell Williams). 

Anyway, I've set the price as low as the store allows (they've got to pay for the space I suppose) and it might generate a few quid to the 'get me some better studio monitors' fund in the process so I can make better sounding music and evolve the sound further.

The Urban Fox album 'Departure' is now fully in the demo stage.  12 songs with a bit of depth and all they need is a bit of restructuring, re-instrumentation and some carefully recorded vocal lines.
To get my voice 'in the zone' I sing through Tears for Fears' 'Seeds of love' album five times a day for a week - then I start recording.  If you see a car at the traffic lights blasting out 'Badman's song' - that'll be me.

Forever Burn

She met a man on a night out.  They got on. They saw each other a lot.  He became distant. She knew she was losing him, though her feelings for him grew stronger every day.  She knew he was the one.  The last night she saw him he'd been round her house and they'd talked.  He didn't say anything that led her to believe he was about to walk away yet as he kissed her goodbye and walked up the steps out of the front gate, she looked at the porch light and said she'd leave it switched on until he returned.  It could have been a candle or the moonlight, but this porch light represented everything she felt - a connection across time - that he wouldn't be back.

She didn't hear from him for a few days and when he finally did get in touch, he was distant, morose and apologetic.  The light still burned - outside and in.  He never really broke up with her, he just stopped calling.  She thought of going to see him, surprising him - she thought of ringing to ask what he was thinking.  She left the light on in case he returned.  For him to find his way back to her.

She never saw him again and she's married now to another man - she lives in a different country - she's changed her name - she's had another child to another man - she's still crazy - she's just as happy as she ever was.

But that light still burns.  And it will burn on forever.

New Demo...

Recorded three new demos in the last week - here is the first (unproduced as yet) with a guide vocal.

http://soundcloud.com/urbanfox93/promises-are-snowflakes-rough

The other two 'Headlights and high hopes' and the Gary Numan inspired 'The Dreamers' will be up on here (soundcloud) before you can say 'trapped in the 80's'

ciao for niao