More Happy News

Today the tickets for The Psychedelic Furs' second North American tour in September to October are on sale and I just want to happily announce that I bought mine for the Portland concert. I am now officially going to see The Psychedelic Furs for the seventh time!!

I want to mention that something incredible happened at the end of my shift at work yesterday morning. The radio in the retail I work at actually played "Pretty In Pink"! And what's cool is that it was the 86 version! The radio at my work never plays The Psychedelic Furs so it was exciting hearing them play a Furs song.

Photo: Henry Diltz

Happy News

Well, it finally happened. Today The Psychedelic Furs announced more North American shows from September to October, and on September 16th they're coming back to the Crystal Ballroom!! This makes it very special for me because I saw The Furs for the first time at that same venue 10 years ago. And now, 10 years later, it will be my seventh time seeing The Furs! Plus another great thing is that the 16th is on my weekend, so I don't have to request to get the day off at work!

At the Crystal Ballroom, 2015. Photo by me.

I can't wait to see what the setlist will be like and I wonder if Richard Fortus will join The Furs again; I hope he does. The support act for this portion of the tour will be Gary Numan.

Via Facebook.

European Tour

Earlier today The Psychedelic Furs announced more shows and they will return to Europe in November. The Furs will perform in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Spain. To be honest I was kind of hoping for more North American dates but hopefully they will be added soon. Happy for the European fans who will get to see The Psychedelic Furs.

I want to mention that last Saturday morning when I got off from work, on the way home the radio played "Love My Way"! I was so ecstatic when I heard it because the radio never plays The Psychedelic Furs. Even though I have Spotify, hearing it on the radio is different. The last time I heard a Psychedelic Furs song on the radio was four years ago when one of the stations played "Pretty In Pink".

Via Facebook.

Strawberry Switchblade

Recently I got into Strawberry Switchblade, who were a new wave duo from Scotland in the '80s. I wanted to get their eponymous debut album from 1985 (their only one, actually) and so I looked at their Discogs page. The thing that surprised me was that Strawberry Switchblade NEVER got a CD reissue in the UK and Europe, and didn't get released in the US. However, the album got reissued on CD many times in Japan, where Strawberry Switchblade got more popular there. So on Amazon I bought the CD (used, but in very good condition) and it came all the way from Japan. What's really cool is that in the booklet there's a introduction written in Japanese (probably a biography about Strawberry Switchblade), and has the lyrics in both English and Japanese. I paid $61 for the CD, but it was totally worth it. It's the 1997 reissue with some bonus tracks added.

I know you're probably thinking, "what does this have to do with The Psychedelic Furs?", but the music videos for Strawberry Switchblade's singles "Since Yesterday" (the group's only UK top 5 hit), "Let Her Go", and "Who Knows What Love Is?" were all directed by Tim Pope, who did The Psychedelic Furs' iconic videos for "Love My Way", "Heaven", "The Ghost In You", "Here Come Cowboys", and "Angels Don't Cry". The "Since Yesterday" video kind of reminds me of "The Ghost In You" in a way, and what's interesting is I read that "Since Yesterday" is about nuclear war. That song came out in 1984, the same year as "Heaven", which is also about nuclear war!

It's sad that Strawberry Switchblade never got the recognition they truly deserved and I definitely recommend listening to their self-titled LP. My favorite song on the album is "Deep Water".