[kj] the lost KJ album

[Paul Rangecroft]

He said 'A New Day'. But 'Birds of a Feather' would do it.

On Sat, 22 Jun 2019, 16:15 Carlos Fandango, <stronkle at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

> Add Willful Days & New Day & you have your 8 tracks
>
> Sent from my Windows Phone
> ------------------------------
> From: jpwhkj--- via Gathering <gathering at misera.net>
> Sent: ‎6/‎22/‎2019 11:05 AM
> To: gathering at misera.net
> Cc: jpwhkj at aol.com
> Subject: [kj] the lost KJ album
>
> 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 You
> Eighties
> All Play Rebel
> Blue Feather
> New Culture
> A New Day
>
> Two more tracks would have done it.
>
> Jamie
>
> PS OK, so you all hate Me Or You.  I still love it.
>
>
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