[kj] the lost KJ album

[jpwhkj at aol.com]

Fire Dances was the first KJ album that came out *after* I'd become a fan.  My first KJ gig was Hammy Palais on the Fire Dances tour.
At the time, it all felt... complete.  It felt like they had found their niche, that everything hung together... they even had the ideal font.  What could they possibly do next?
The arrival of Me Or You didn't really register.  My best mate bought it, and I suppose I must have listened to it.  He also noticed the new track they played when we saw them on 1/1/84 (again at Hammersmith Palais).  In March that year, I was listening to John Peel, and he played the new single from Killing Joke, which (he said) sounded a lot like the bands that were trying to sound like Killing Joke.  I loved it though - heavy KJ stomp but with a much richer guitar sound.  (Surely there will be an album out soon.)  I bought the 12-inch as soon as I could, and also picked up Me Or You - which I also loved.
Next there was a Kid Jensen session.  Seemed a bit odd that it wasn't Peel, but never mind.  I taped it, of course, and there were three new tracks, again all with that rich chiming guitar sound  Jaz was singing rather than chanting or shouting, again a logical progression from FD.  Blue feather was probably my favourite of the three new tracks, although the searing guitar at the beginning of New Culture made that a close second.  (Jensen talked over it though... idiot.  Peel never did that.)
Keeping up the momentum, there was another single shortly thereafter, with the same distinctive guitar sound.  Surely there will be an album out soon?
But there wasn't.  Summer turned to autumn.  Peel replayed KJ's first-ever session, and I discovered Nuclear Boy (amazing) and Malicious Boogie (er...) but aside from that, KJ seemed to have disappeared.  Autumn became winter, and 1984 became 1985.  Then, someone told me that KJ would be on The Tube.  Great!  First up was Night Time, which seemed like a strong track, justifying its use as the forthcoming album title.  Next - a shiver has just run down my spine, remembering the first time I heard it - was Love Like Blood.  And finally, what sounded like the archetypal Killing Joke stomp-number, was Kings and Queens.
When Love Like Blood was released as a single, I played it incessantly.  "Strength and beauty, destined to decay."  It seemed to encapsulate those two things, in a way that KJ had never quite managed before.  The tour (another trip to Hammersmith Palais) was amazing, but at the time I felt a little disappointed by the album - a little too polished; not quite the raw power of the Joke.  Eighties was on there, tacked on at the end, not quite sounding like the rest of the songs, and with a 1984 copyright symbol that showed its age.
And I wondered what had happened to the album that they should have released the year after Fire Dances.  Even with the Iceland trip and the band splitting up, they'd managed an album every year till then... but not in 1984.
Me Or YouEightiesAll Play RebelBlue FeatherNew CultureA New Day
Two more tracks would have done it.
Jamie
PS OK, so you all hate Me Or You.  I still love it.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist4.pair.net/pipermail/gathering/attachments/20190622/aeff3553/attachment.html>