BIRD - Alive 05 CD

After the second demise of The Chameleons in 2003, Mark Burgess joins efforts again with his old friend Yves Altana.

Some gigs in 2005 result in the recordings of a rehearsal in October of 2005 in front of a specially invited audience. No new material is played on this gig; just a brief look at the past with live versions of tunes belongig to The Chameleons, The Sun and the Moon, MB & The Sons of God and Invincible.

This rehearsal, recorded in a 8 Track Equipment has been edited in a CD which is called Alive '05, and shows the live sound of the band as it is, without further postproductions. This is the tracklist

Spooks / Gethsemene / Looking Inwardly / Happy New Life / Perfume Garden / Kinks / Elected / Second Skin / Only You Could Save Me / Think (it’s gonna happen) / Dangerous / This Passionate Breed


BIRD is formed by

Mark Burgess - Bass guitar and vocals
Yves Altana - Guitarras and synths
Achim Färber - Drums




On the following note, Mark hilmself tells us about the reasons to record this rehearsal, and points out that all the benefits from the sellings of this CD will we invested in the tour they want to perform in a very independent way, without the aid of tour managements:

“Hello,

I've been asked to write a few words regarding the latest CD 'Alive 05. Originally we did plan to record a live album at a venue in the UK as a prelude to a national tour supporting the New Model Army during October 2005. However the logistics were rather complicated due to timing and finance and so in the end I hit upon the idea of inviting a number of our regular audience to one of the band's rehearsal sessions in Manchester and recording that instead.

I thought it might be interesting for people to see and hear how a band prepares for a major tour and at the same time hear the material performed in as raw a way as possible. The event was a total success and we found ourselves rehearsing in front of around 40 or so people. What was interesting for me was that I found the live rehearsal to be a completely new and unique experience and after 25 years of performing live, new and unique experiences tend to be quite rare.

What was also interesting was the manner in which we chose to record the session, totally live to 8-track equipment, no overdubs. Recording in this manner is also very rare these days, in fact bands haven't generally made a record that way since the early sixties and the result is a tension in the recordings that one doesn't generally come across, harkening back to the early days of the John Peel Sessions at the old 8-track recording studio at Langham House, where I recorded my first BBC session with the Chameleons back in 81.

We were so impressed actually that we went back to the studio the following day to record a few additional tracks, which is why you can only hear applause on around half of the tracks presented here. One other thing I'd like to mention, by buying this CD you're not only getting something special in terms of what has been captured, but you're also helping support my work in a very vital and practical way. I'm trying to remain as independent of the mainstream music business as possible. I was about to embark on a major tour without the usual kinds of help that record labels and such like are apt to provide, such as tour support. The entire tour was personally financed and the production of Alive 05 is meant to subsidise these costs. Therefore by purchasing it you are directly aiding the artists, another rarity in this business. So for that, you have my profound thanks.

Hope to see you on the road somewhere, in the meantime, take care.”

Mark Burgess November 1, 2005, Hamburg Germany..

Guaranteed not a bootleg, but a genuine, unplayed CD obtained direct from the band.

COCONUT DOG FUCK: New Project from D.Fielding

Dave Fielding, one of the guitarrists of The Chameleons, has recently created a new band called Coconut Dog Fuck.

They have released a new EP called Northern Stars, with 4 instrumental songs, which can only be bought at their gigs. They mix electric sound with trance techno rythms.



The band is formed by:
Dave Fielding - Guitars,Keyboards, Dulcimer,
Paul Didge - Didgeridoo
Ralph Harris - Percussion

Some pics from their Summer05 gigs are available in the Photoalbum by Blackout.

More information about Coconut Dog Fuck and the rest of projects by Dave Fielding on The Reegs Fan Web Site, which is managed by our friend Pedro.

MUSIC FOR ABORIGINES Biography

Andy Clegg has sent us an interesting biography of MUSIC for ABORIGINES, and some photos we proudly present here. For too long there has been a lack of information regarding this fantastic group, which was (like The Chameleons) totally underated by the entire world. Although too many years have passed since this group disbanded, let´s try to do some justice. Here is all the info for those who will be interested in knowing more about MUSIC for ABORIGINES:

In November 1979 Andy Whitaker and Andy Clegg who were friends from school, decided to get together and record improvisations in song form with verse, chorus etc. Guitar parts vocal melodies and lyrics were all improvised and recorded live on to a tape deck with no overdubs etc. The ideas were the length a typical song and were given titles and an album title. They would treat the improvisations as a finished product and would enjoy listening to them later, as if it was a new album by a new band. Gradually other instruments would be used, drum machine, keyboards, and bass.

In 1983, Dave Booth a friend of Andy Whit would join on guitar. It was at this time that they decided to give themselves a band name. Andy W came up with the name Music for Aborigines and began to choose a selection of songs from the improvised albums to play live.

They played a few local gigs using a drum machine then decided to look for a venue in Manchester for which they could sell tickets and create a live venue for bands. They discovered The Star and Garter and the venue is still hosting live music today. Their first gig at the Star and Garter was very successful. It was at this gig that Chameleons drummer John Lever who had been friends with both Andy's, advertised the gig on a Chameleons radio interview and Mark, Reg and Dave had all agreed they would help out, by collecting the tickets on the door.

In 1986 a mutual school friend of both Andy's Col Smith joined MFA on keyboards. Their next gig would be at a local pub for charity and John Lever would join on drums. As John was officially with the Chameleons, MFA needed a permanent drummer and Mike Simms who was the drummer for Manchester band BFG (who supported New Order) became MFA drummer. After many gigs, some being supported by Eskimos and Egypt and with the Chameleons at Middleton Civic Hall the band decided to go in the studio to record some demos. "When You Were A Child" and "Ragbone Man" were the first demos to be recorded in Didsbury M/C and were used to get a record deal.

Later, Col, Dave and Mike departed from the band and John Lever introduced the 2 Andys to guitarist Aky who was a member of a local punk band The Hoax that featured Mike Joyce of The Smiths on drums. Then they decided to go in suite 16 studios owned by Peter Hook of New Order where Script of the Bridge was recorded. They chose more songs to record from the improvised albums and purposely wrote new material with the intention of releasing a 3 track 12 inch single. They asked John Lever to play drums for them. Due to Aky only just joining, he only played guitar on "Sitting on a Biscuit" and came up with the idea for "The End of Tracey Smith". The 2 Andy's played all of Col and Dave's parts, initially written for the songs. The 10 songs were recorded in 2 days and 3 of the songs were chosen for the single. The majority of the songs were taken and reworked from the improvised albums created by Andy W, Andy C, Dave Booth and Col Smith.A 12" single was released. Chris Cundy (a local artist and friend of the band) created the artwork. Chris also became the creator of the visuals the band used in their live sets.

Sadly for MFA, John rejoined the Chameleons. Later when the Chameleons eventually disbanded Mark and John approached Andy W and Andy C to form The Sun and the Moon, which Aky also would be involved with. The track "Faith" would become a regular live feature in the SATM concerts and many ideas that were created through the improvisation albums became SATM album tracks.

(Thanks a lot for this biography to Andy Clegg)

New Release from DAVE FIELDING

Dave Fielding, one of the guitarrists of The Chameleons, releases a limited EP under the name of DF118. The EP is called Dragonfly´s and Butterfly´s and this is the track list:

Betrayal (Glastonbury Mix)
Stone (Hamburg Mix)
Bosnia (Middleton Mix)
Snooker Hooligan (Rochdale Mix)


It can only be purchased directly from the artist himself. The first two songs are new, but the rest of them belong to when he was in The Reegs, and they have been re-created for this occassion.

Betrayal, opens the EP with jungle ambience meanwhile Stone has hypnotic-trance rythms with a little aftertaste of Kraftwerk. The instrumental version of Bosnia explores calmer soundscapes, and Snooker Hooligan is the only rock song, with electric guitars. A work that escapes from the past and explores new ways of creating music for this artist.

THE CHAMELEONS SPLIT UP (again)

Very bad news for this Easter: The internal frictions among some members of the band, far from being solved have been growing up since the Athens Show, a Show that at first was going to be a Chameleons Show and it ended being a Mark Burgess solo gig . It seems due to different points of view in the evolution of the band and perhaps to misunderstandings and a lack of communication during the last months, Dave Fielding has taken the decission to give up the band, as he himself has estated in the official forum on April , the 18th of 2003. Acording to his words, the same resolution has been taken by Reg and John, altough they have not yet confirmed this nor deny. It is clear The Chameleons is not able to survive if any of its members is not in, so today we can assure The Chameleons have split up (again).

This is not the end The Chameleons deserve -according to many of their fans, their best album is yet to come-; nevertheless the destiny is playing tricks again with The Chameleons, a band who never got the acknoledgement they deserved from the music business. A truncated end which does not either do justice to their discography, but an end we respect very deeply, because above everything the members of The Chameleons have to feel good inside the band, and if this does not happen for whatever reason, perhaps the best decision to take is to close chapter and begin new projects.

Mark, by his side and due to other kind of problems is closing his public email address, so he won´t be reachable anymore by the general public. As he has estated on the official forum, he will pass Mik - the webmaster of the official site- all the news concerning his musical career whenever there is something to be said . We hope the storm will soon pass, but nowadays it seems the Chameleons are badly hurt, and being very optimistic, it will take a very long time to hail their injuries. Will we have to wait for another 14 years?.

Perhaps this time is forever ...

From our side, we will be right here on this lonely island, as a tribute to one of the most special bands from the Manchester of the 80´s, and hoping this small fire will give light enough to let people know, what has been, what is and what will always be the magic and evocking sound of The Chameleons.

Another Acoustic Album from THE CHAMELEONS

New Acoustic Album from The Chameleons revisiting their songs in unplugged mood. The album is called This Never Ending Now and it has been released through their own record label and it also contains a cover from a David Bowie´s song.

This is the Track List:

The Fan and the Bellows
Tears
Intrigue In Tangiers
Is It Any Wonder?
Seriocity
Swamp Thing
All Around
Second Skin
Home Is Where The Heart Is
Miracles And Wonders
View From A Hill
Moonage Daydream

Comments by Mark Burgess
Did you know that according to modern thinking in the field of quantum physics, everything that has ever happened, everything that is happening, and everything that will happen from this point on, is in fact happening in the same cosmic instant? No, neither did I, and it makes you think doesn't it? Or perhaps not. The thing is, It supports quite a few notions that I'd been arriving at for some time, and I'm not going to mention any of them, save one, the notion of the infinite moment. The dimension of space time, like all dimensions in the physical realm, is subject to the laws of gravity. We can see the effects of passing time obviously, one only has to observe the shifting seasons or the wrinkles under one's eyes, but the natural processes in motion here can actually be affected upon by tinkering around with physics, as anyone even vaguely familiar with Einstein will tell you.
What bearing this has on consciousness and its survival of physical death is another matter and one which I don't have time to go into right now. My tea's ready. But it struck me how music is a metaphor for capturing the infinite moment, how music seems to capture time as perfectly as any quantum event, metaphorically speaking. Of course, like when dealing with one's perception of reality in order to capture the kind of infinite moments we would wish to spend infinity in, one has to make the emotional connection. I know for a fact that a number of people have already connected with the material presented here, and that when they hear these moments expressed once more in a fresh, original way, by the very souls that created these expressions in the first place, they'll connect again. Perhaps you will too. It worked for me kiddo..

Mark Burgess Four O'clock in the afternoon. Where the heart is.

THE CHAMELEONS Live Performance on KEXP 90.3 FM

The Chameleons have performed during their US Tour on October, the 15th of 2009 a Radio Session in KEXP Radio (Seattle). On this session they have performed live 4 songs:

Nathan´s Phase
On The Beach
Tears
Miracles And Wonders

On the following link of KEXP you can listen to the songs and the corresponding interview

KEXP 90.3 FM - Live Performance: Chameleons, The on 10/15/2002

CHAMELEONS Live DVD Release

Cherry Red Records has released in DVD format the classic videos from the 80´s Live at the Gallery Club & Live at the Hacienda.

This is the track list from both concerts:

LIVE AT THE GALLERY CLUB:
Paper Tigers / Nathan's Phase / Don't Fall / Pleasure And Pain / Here Today / In Shreds / Up The Down Escalator / Second Skin / Monkeyland / As High As You Can Go / Things I Wish I'd Said / View From A Hill

LIVE AT THE HACIENDA:
Paper Tiger / Pleasure & Pain / Men Of Steel / Years Ago / In Shreds / Don't Fall / Second Skin

The DVD can be purchased directly on the CherryRed Web Site.

This is an excerpt available also on Cherry Red TV Channel of the highlights of Hacienda concert

Live Album from MarkBurgess & Yves Altana

Recently it has been released a new Live CD of Mark Burgess & Yves Altana called Paradyning Live In Frankfurt '96 and it contains the following songs from the previous studio work Paradyning:

1. Sin
2. Silver
3. Money Won't Save Your Soul
4. You Opened My Mind (And The Acid Kicked In)
5. Always Want
6. Home Is Where The Heart Is
7. Inhaling
8. World Without End
9. This Passionate Breed
10. Hi Joe 11.
Is It Any Wonder

Home Is Where The Heart Is and Is It Any Wonder belong to The Chamelons era, and This Passionate Breed to The Sun And The Moon; the rest of the songs are from the Paradyning album from Mark Burgess & Yves Altana.

New Live Double Album from THE CHAMELEONS

It has been confirmed by Simon Lawlor, the manager of The Chameleons, that the release date for the new album will be the 25th of March.It will be called simply The Chameleons Live and it will have more than 100 minutes of music with the following track list:

Disc One
01-A Person Isn't Safe Anywhere 02-Pleasure and Pain 03-Perfumed Garden 04-Anyone Alive? 05-Indiana 06-Caution 08-Up The Down Escalator 09-Lufthansa

Disc Two
01- Dangerous Land 02-Second Skin 03-Miracles and Wonders 04-Shades 05-Swamp Thing 06-Monkeyland 07-Splitting In Two

The first copies will have at the end of the second CD three bonus tracks recorded live in Munster:

08-Tears 09-Seriocity 10- Soul In Isolation

This work will be distributed by Universal, so it is likely it will be easily available. The catalog number is Paradiso CD002. The cover design will be made by Reg Smithies.

These are the comments from Mark Burgess included on the album:

Hello

Welcome to "The Chameleons-Live", the first definitive live album to be released since the retrospective "Live In Toronto" some years ago. The Chameleons reformation began over five nights at a small venue called The Witchwood, during the month of May 2000. At the time this was all that had been planned, but on witnessing the invasion of this small north of England town by armies of Chameleons devotees from all over the country, and indeed the world, turning our five night stand into something more remisniscent of a Chameleons festival, we quickly realised that we also owed a debt to those that hadn´t been able to take part and yet had contributed so much to keeping the spirit and the music of the band alive over the years. So we decided to go out and play a few more shows, with the ensuing momentum resulting in the band performing waht at the close of the year 2001 totalled around 67 shows: in England, Scotland, Shetland, Germany, France, Spain, Holland and the state of California in the U.S.A.

From the outset we told ourselves that a properly produced live album documenting the reformation of the band would be a worthwhile addtion to our catalogue of releases. But from the first gig until the last the group´s performances were improving and it seemed we were never quite satisfied with the results when reviewing the tapes. The Witchwood shows had been mad, frantic affairs and a period better captured on the live video "Resurrection", which we felt, coming so close on the heels of the band´s initial reformation reflects the entire spirit of the time. The audio soundtrack left something to be desired however and doesn´t really have the quality of ambience we were looking for in a live record. In addition, following the recording of "Why Call It Anything", the first Chameleons studio album in fifteen years, we eventually began adding brand new material to the sets and so we had wanted to document this too. The new songs were also evolving and improving with every performance and we felt that by attempting to capture this we would be able to offer a live album that took a step beyond the usual collection of past classics.

Recording a live album is a tricky business however especially when it´s The Chameleons because every single gig can be totally different and we weren´t able to carry a mobile recording unit with us every night. One approach was to contact Alex Staszko, Andreas Ott and others who regularly archive the band´s performances (on a none-profit making basis I should add) in the hope of compiling tracks that spanned the whole period of the reformation. Although we were very grateful for the response and the results were interesting, from a technical viewpoint the recordings were a little too disjointed and unpredictable and in the end we were forced to abandon the idea. Finally, thanks to Simon Moran of SJM Concerts we were invited to return a second time to the Manchester Academy and we were able to nail the live album to our satisfaction with the help of Alan Leach from Shed 7, who recorded and mixed the tracks alongside Ollie King at their Studio Seven in York, and John Delf our regular "Front of House" sound engineer, who alongside John Slater at "TheShed" studio in Stockport, was on hand to master the recordings. They all did a great job in presenting what I personally feel is the best live recording of the band to date and we´re very grateful.
The night wasn´t without its problems, not least when the bridge on Dave´s guitar went flying into the audience mid-way through Soul In Isolation thereby rendering the guitar totally out of tune. Sadly for this reason the song had to be omitted, but by way of recompense we´ve added a few bonus tracks at the end, which also represents an attempt to present the band in a slightly different context. As always there are some people that we feel we deserve a special mention: the band´s manager Simon Lawlor, Booma, Dougie, Will and Stan for keeping the wheels rolling, Big Tony Miller (Mr Fish) for all his running around, Shan Hira for all his help early on, Andy Moore for the lighting, and Daniela Haug, who stood in lots of drafty corridors selling merchandise on our behalf and answering a thousand and one questions from eager supporters. It is to them and to you that we wish to express our highest appreciation for making it all possible and giving us so many special nights over the last eighteen months or so.

Mark Burgess, midday, Hamburg.Germany.

P.S. Noch eine fantastische Illustrierung von Reg, oder?