The obligatory new Church album thread-Untitled#23

[withahip]

http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2009/04/1 ... ve-kilbey/

MAGNET: You seem like a very laid-back guy, but is there any type of competition between you and Marty about your solo records?
Kilbey: Only on a very superficial level, I guess. We both do such different things on our own. I don’t compete with anyone, really. My work speaks for itself. I’m plowing my own furrow, and no one else around these days is close.

You can tell us—yours is better, right?
Well, I prefer it, obviously, or I’d be doing his trip. But he could say the same thing. We’re not rivals. We’re two guys working on a project together, with different strengths and weaknesses. That’s the great thing about cooperation and specialization. I specialize in songwriting.

Even though I’ve enjoyed how you guys have evolved, I still go back to records like your 1981 debut, Of Skins And Heart. Songs like “The Unguarded Moment” and “Sisters” will always sound great to me. I’m wondering how you view your early stuff with the passage of time and in relation to how you guys sound now.
I think the early stuff contains the roots of where we are now. It stands up very well considering all the rotten records made back then. It’s not entirely embarrassing, but I don’t ever listen to it if I can help it.

The Church seems to get labeled as an “’80s band,” thanks to the success of “Under The Milky Way.” Considering you’ve gone on another 21 years since Starfish, is that something that bothers you at all?
Yeah, I get sick of being an ’80s band. The ’80s were anathema to us—we survived despite the ’80s, not because of them.

[withahip]

1990’s Gold Afternoon Fix and subsequent records seemed almost reactionary to Starfish—like, “OK, we had a hit, now here’s how we really want to sound.” Is that fair or merely poor speculation? 1992’s Priest = Aura, in particular, has moments that are pretty out there.
Gold Afternoon Fix was a useless mess. Priest = Aura was a masterpiece. We blew it with GAF—it was a frigging gaffe. Priest, yes, it was out there—out there in a beautiful, widescreen place. Oh, if only we’d followed Starfish with Priest. Too bad.

[withahip]

Another interview:
http://www.source.hu/church/interview.html

[withahip]

K The church obviously have a huge back catalogue of songs, when starting the tour, how do you decide what songs you are going to play? I imagine it's a very difficult process?
S It is actually. And it always leads to lots of arguments, and um, then the road crew coming with their opinions, and then they get argued with, and uh...everybody gets angry, and uh, I don't know, its just a process of like battling it out I guess, and this album, we tried to play quite a few of these new songs, and you know, of course a few old songs. But you cant play everything that people want to hear, and you cant even play all the things you want to hear because it becomes compromised, and uh, I don't know how else to do it, I mean, you cant have one person saying this is what we're going to do, and you cant have the audience telling you what to do because they don't know themselves. I mean, every time we play "Under the Milky Way" one person will come up and say I am glad you played "Under the Milky Way" , that song means a lot to me, and then another person will walk up and say I don't know why your still playing that song, you know? Why don't people just get over it and you guys should stop playing it. So its very hard, it's a hard thing, and you know, there are like 200 songs to pick from, and we can only play 15, and um, we cant go changing all the songs around every night doing different songs because the guy doing the mixing usually has things set up to work in a sequence , so we normally settle on what songs we are going to play, and then stick to that during the whole tour, and then something kinda, uh...we were doing a song which wasn't working out so we stopped doing it, and put another one in, so..

[black francis]

I've always liked Kilbey. He just seems like a decent guy.

K Actually, I recently got married, and we used that song in our wedding
S Oh, good on you. Congratulations

K The band who was playing in our wedding, called the Dollar Boys from Szeged, Hungary offered to play one song for us, that they would learn and play, and that's the song we choose.
S It's a very simple song, isn't it?
K It's a simple sound, and it sounded good
S Did they get it right?
K No (both laughing)
S But its only three chords (laughing..)
K But they tried, they really tried
S Well, that's good, and was it romantic?
K It was actually very romantic, and the lyrics were on our invitation, which I why I sent you one. I felt if we used your lyrics, we should at least send you an invitation. And we got a lot of nice feedback about that. They were saying "who is this steve kilbey?", Its very beautiful.
S laughing...that's good man. That's wonderful actually. I mean, I can't tell you how happy that makes me. I just hope its not an auspicious way to start your marriage. I hope you don't come to hate that song one day (laughing).

[withahip]

I just hope its not an auspicious way to start your marriage. (laughing).

What a prick.

[shadows on the trees]

What a prick.

I think the prick meant to say "inauspicious."

[black francis]

He still seems like a decent prick.

[shadows on the trees]

Is that the one that goes

"You are black olives
kept in the can
while the lighter skin olive
gets sun in a jar!"

No, that's from "Cebollas Curtidas."

[withahip]

I think the prick meant to say "inauspicious."

[withahip]

Finally came in. The opening track is terrible. It is a mush of sound enough to makee one take the cd out. Deadman (track 2) and Pangea are amazing. More later.

[withahip]

live web cast of tonight's Seattle show:

http://app.synclive.com/

[shadows on the trees]

From a Church concert review:

The Church and Adam Franklin (of Swervedriver fame and
also kicking it with Interpol drummer Sam Fogarino in Magnetic
Morning) prove that rockers can "mature" with dignity while not
blanding the fuck out.

Some rockers can, anyway.

[tonywojo]

From a Church concert review:

The Church and Adam Franklin (of Swervedriver fame and
also kicking it with Interpol drummer Sam Fogarino in Magnetic
Morning) prove that rockers can "mature" with dignity while not
blanding the fuck out.

Some rockers can, anyway.

Are u referring to Mac?

[tonywojo]

Are the church some kind of culty religious retro act?

Do they have a gospel backing group?