New Album from THE CHAMELEONS

After some delays, the new album from The Chameleons containing new songs has been finally released through Artful Records. This is the first album in 15 years containing new songs from the band from Middleton. The album is called Why Call it Anything and here is the track list:

1 Shades
2 Anyone Alive?
3 Indiana
4 Lufthansa
5 Truth Isn't Truth Anymore
6 All Around
7 Dangerous Land
8 Music In The Womb
9 Miracles and Wonders
10 Are You Still There?

On this Amazon link you can listen to some excerps from the songs.

Album technical data:

Mark Burgess: Bass, voices, lyrics
Dave Fielding: Guitar, keyboards and backing vocals
Reg Smithies: Guitar and backing vocals
John Lever: Guitar and backing vocals

All songs written and performed by The Chameleons with additional vocals, lyrics and percussion by Kwasi Asante
Produced by David M. Allen and The Chameleons
Engineers: David M. Allen, John Rivers and Ewan Davies.
Mixed by John Rivers and David M. Allen
Recorded at Chapel, ARC and Woodbine Studios between September 2000 and May 2001.

© 2001 Artful Records LTD. ARTFULCD39

MarK Burgess Comments about the album:
Mark E. Smith once said, while discussing his band 'The Fall', that regardless of what critics might tell you a band doesn't survive for ten years in this business if what they produce is crap. Around the same time Pete Shelley from 'Buzzcocks' said that no matter how hard the struggle to establish oneself might become, if an artist makes a truly great record it will be heard. Both statements struck a chord with me at the time and now here I am, some twenty four years later, a member of The Chameleons, writing the sleeve notes to our fifth album (all the others were retrospectives and therefore don't really count). Not a prolific output compared to some I grant you but significant never the less. The fact that a few records made by four scruffy lads from Middleton, Manchester (no, that's not fair, John could never be described as 'scruffy' and besides, he comes from Tameside) could touch so many hearts and minds the world over amazes me. Especially as Dave seems to be the only universally attractive one, but they did, so there we are. I say 'amazes me' because I'm the only member of the group that wastes time thinking about stuff like that, at least openly. If you were to ask us outright (and many have tried), what lies at the core of The Chameleons all you'd probably get would be a giggle and a bewildered glance. The truth is we don't know. One might as well ask why, from all of the millions of people in the world, only a handful emerge to capture our hearts so completely. Why do we cry when we see them born? Or cry when we lose them? We can label it 'this' or call it 'that' but in the final analysis why call it anything? It just happens. In order to make things happen though, one sometimes needs help. So! Thanks to Dave Allen for all the fun and frolics; and to John down at Woodbine for helping mix the sonics. To 'Arc' and 'The Chapel' who provide the electronics; To Stany Stan the man who can for all the Rolling Rockets; To Boomer, Dougie, Will and Shan for nursing alcholics; to Simon Lawlor management for all the Gin and Tonics; and to you and others like for reaching for your pockets. Finally a very big thanks to our special guest and close friend Kwasi Asanti who provided additional percussion and some great vocals, Raster Master!

Mark Burgess, Six o'clock in the morning, Corfu, 2001

A Race Commodity

P.S...Reg! What a face! Nice one nutcase!

THE CHAMELEONS Spanish Gig

The Chameleons will be touring Spain on the following dates:

Nov. 02. Girona, Teatre de Salt
Nov. 03. Valencia, Ku Manises
Nov. 04. Palma De Mallorca, Sonotone
Nov. 08. Madrid, Moby Dick
Nov. 09. Bilbao, Kafe Antzokia
Nov. 10. Zaragoza, La Casa del Loco
Nov. 11. Barcelona, Sala Bikini


Update1: According to what Mark told us in the Spanish Tour, a brand new album will be edited by The Chameleons next year, and it will be produced by Dave Allen, the same produced as Strange Times album.

Update2: This is a review of the show in Bilbao:

Last November the 9th The Chameleons came for the first time to Bilbao, a County Town in the North of Spain. The concert, included in their European Resurrection Tour, was performed before a nostalgic and devoted audience; people in their thirties,most of them expecting to see for the first time one of the most important bands of the Alternative British Pop of the eighties. Nevertheless, the local mass media didn´t focus on the event, not even the music radio channels, in which this kind of music is almost completely absent. This and the fact that their brand new acoustic cd in 14 years, Strip, has been marketed with almost no promotion, ended in a very reduced audience; no more than 250 people attended the concert. There will be, surely, more than one fan who, unfortunately, didn´t realize that their favourite band had silently reached our town to perform one of the best concerts of the year in our country.

The building of the old Theatre Cafe Antzokia, remodelled as a pub, with capacity for 350 people where concerts are performed regularly, was the perfect place for a Chameleons concert and its acoustic and atmosphere resulted as perfect as ever. At 11:45 pm appeared The Chameleons on stage before an impatient audience which was slowly coming closer to the stage. The warm and enthusiastic welcome with which Dave Fielding,Reg smithies,Mark Burgess and John Lever were received is only comparable with the years The Chamaleons have been absent from the stages.

Without any intro and between the cheers of the audience, Reg started playing the first chords of Swamp Thing. One by one, the rest of The Chameleons joined Reg and the song grew stronger and powerful. The sound was so fluid it seemed like The Chameleons had never stopped playing together during the last 14 years. And so, one by one, with Mark Burgess in the middle,Reg and Dave by his side and John at the back, songs like "A Person Isn´t Safe ...", "Here Today", "Perfurme Garden", etc were emerging from the hearts and instruments of The Chameleons. The 105 minutes the concert took were enough to revisit the scarce repertoire The Chameleons produced in the 80´s. Their first album, Script Of The Bridge, was the work whose songs were played most. Songs like Don´t Fall, Second Skin - one of the most demanded songs -, A Person Isn´t Safe Anywhere These Days, Here Today, View From A Hill, MonkeyLand, Pleasure and Pain and Less Than Human - one of the highlights of the concert:the song fading out and the chorus of the audience emerging slowly from behind -. From their second album we could enjoy melodies like Perfume Garden, On The Beach - Strip version whose beauty is even greater than the original one - and One Flesh - the song derived towards caribean rythms -. From Strange Time, they played Soul In Isolation - John is the Boss -, Caution and Swamp Thing - the one which opened the concert. Remembering their beginnings, The Chameleons played In Shreds and Splitting In Two, song with a Punk Style closing their concerts where Mark is helped by the audience to sing and Reg takes the drums and John does the same with Reg´s guitar -.

At 1:30 am the concert ended, a magic night in which we could see how The Chameleons are still able to reproduce live all the magic their studio songs have. Those fans who didn´t want the night to end like this, could enjoy the best moments of the concert: to meet all of the members of the chameleons. Just a few minutes after the end of the show, Mark, John, Reg and Dave appeared from the backstage and talked, and signed autographs to all the fans who thanked them for their music. In short, no less than excellent for a band that has constructed like no one else landscapes of sound with the help of the guitars and lyrics and, keeping during all their works a personal style.

New Acoustic Album from THE CHAMELEONS

The Chameleons have released on June 2000 a brand new album. These are the very first studio recordings of the band after their split up in 1987.

The album is called Strip and it contains acoustic versions of early songs plus two new songs: an instrumental called Road To San Remo and an electric one called Indian.

This is the complete Track Listing of the album:

Less Than Human
Nathan's Phase
Here Today
Soul In Isolation
Pleasure and Pain
Paradiso
Caution
On The Beach
Road To San Remo (instrumental)
Indian

This CD is a torch after fourteen years of darkness to welcome the return of The Chameleons. An atypical Second Coming, because this is not the case of a mainstream group which returns only for economic interests. It is more the consecution of events which were unchained by the death of Adrian Borland, the 26th of April of 1999, personal friend of Mark and leader of The Sound, another cult group of the 80´s.

In this CD, The Chameleons re-encounter themselves as a band and set the basis for the second birth of the band. The acoustic versions have nothing to do with this unplugged fashion which wrapped the whole planet by the 90´s. The essence of their sound is still there in these strip melodies. We have to pay attention to the delicate beauty of On The Beach, the only acoustic version which was performed live in the Resurrection Tour on 2000 all over Europe.

As a prelude of what the future of The Chameleons can be, Strip includes an instrumental short song called Road To San Remo and Indian, a more conventional and electric song.

In short, not a must have CD from The Chameleons if you are not a devoted fan, but at last a fire has been lit to see the end of the tunnel for those people who have been treasuring The Chameleons trilogy as a present from God.

The following are the notes Mark Burgess has included in the sleeve of the album:

Hello
What Is It?
Well it's an album of acoustic arrangements of some earlier songs along with one or two new tunes...
But, What is it?
Well it began as a way for Dave, Reg and myself to keep busy until John could join us for rehearsals for some gigs we'd arranged to play in May, but we soon realised that what we were doing here was something rather special...
But, what is it?
Well it' a group of songwriters getting back together after a ten-year lay-off, rediscovering their own music and redefining themselves as a band...
Yes, but what is it?
Er... It's a new album by The Chameleons.... Basically! We are The Chameleons. Is this album number four? I'm not sure. Mark Burgess, 3.25 p.m., Reg's flat

Ps Additional didjeridu by traditional Didjeri Dave...

Hello again
Well here I am writing sleeve notes for another fresh Chameleons record. It started with the decision in February to play a few gigs together in May 2000. For valid reasons I won't go into here it was impossible for John to come aboard until mid April, so rather than hang around waiting until then to start something the possibility of a few acoustic shows evolved into recording an acoustic album, which is the essence of what we have here. Our friend and advisor Simon Lawlor put up the money to make and press the record and it was originally envisioned that 'Strip' as it came to be called, would be a DIY project recorded on some equipment I have a 50% share in. As it turned out though, Shan Hira at Suite Sixteen, Rochdale, offered us the use of the studio over ten days at cost and we were able to return to the studio in which we'd made our name. Shan and another regular engineer at the studio, Jonathan Barrett, then worked with us for no fee over the period in order to finish the record in time. we can't thank them enough for making it possible for us to work at S16 and for working hard to ensure that the CD sounds so great.... Nice one! We'd also like t say a big thanks to Paul Fallon of Johnny Roadhouse Music, Manchester, for the practical help and encouragement he gave us during the pre-production stages of making this record.

mark burgess