Ultravox

Ultravox! began life in mid 1974 with the classic band start of art school members and a Melody Maker advertisement. Dennis Leigh (John Foxx)  knew Chris Cross from living in Preston (he played in local band Stoned Rose) and moved to London around 1975 from his native Chorley in Lancashire to attend the Royal College Of Art. Chris Cross was also at the college studying.The band become a four piece when Stevie Shears and Warren Cann join courtesy of the classic Melody Maker. Billy Currie would join on violin a few months later.

Musical influences? Sound familiar in terms of what became the standard Punk terms of reference?

The Velvets Lou Reed – they taught us that music is just organised noise thereby destroying any mental blocks about musical theory etc— anyone can do it. Bowie  – He taught us the value of change–not being confined by your own past– I wish I could have a wardrobe of different bodies to wear.

The New York Dolls – They were the first to spit on the old bands–and enjoy their own identity without bowing to anything else–they stood up for trash at a time when everyone else was chromium plated–albeit chromium plated shit.

ANDY WARHOL-for being a humanoid in charge of a factory that made him images to puzzle peoples- mostly mirrors–everything new should be irritating and threatening to some existing values— forcing those who hold those values to re-eval- uate even if they finally reject

One of those Temperence Seven-type things that crop up from time to time. The Fats Waller classic deserves more respectful treatment and doesn’t lend itself easily to such juvenile behaviour but fact is it’s a compulsive song and this becomes more interesting with the addition of a fiddle and a more beaty approach as the song progresses. Melody Maker, 15.3.75

The band began to pay its dues playing anywhere that will take them.

John Foxx We … played in small places in Islington (clubs cupboard and boxes) – Some supports at the Marquee – (holding up dying dinosaurs again) -gigs in the squats in the Queens property on Regents parade – Thanks Queenie! We got together because we were bored with everything that was happening in the distant music world then London was a vacuum for live bands – the Stranglers were the only ones that survived that period -we saw them at a small club called ’Bettinas’ near Portland tube station. The Stranglers were billed as “The Stranglers from Wormley”!!! In The City 1 Fanzine, 1977

Not only does the band have rehearsal access but getting to know one Steve Lillywhite (later producer of renown including the Members, U2 etc ect) they get access to Phonogram studios and are able to record some demo tapes.

These tapes are hawked around the various record labels to little success until Island.

Warren Cann “Lonely Hunter,” “Life at Rainbow’s End,” ‘”I Want To Be a Machine” (another of our earliest songs) and “Dangerous Rhythm” were all written and performed “live” long before we had our Island Records contract. They were, in fact, many of the songs which we performed at the private “showcase” gig we did on Island Records’ own premises (their conference room, I believe) which helped us secure our deal. They’d liked the demos we gave them but wanted to see us play. We didn’t have a gig lined up so they said, “…OK, bring your equipment here and play.” Ultravox – The Story. Jonas Warstad

John Foxx  The only company that listened to us was Island records and we signed with them for very little cash in July last year. In The City Fanzine 1977

Different names abounded including the Innocents, Zips and even the Damned all of which would become name so bands in the Punk era.

While playing, members from the nascent swirling Punk gene pool check out the band including Mick Jones, Tony James and Brian James from the London SS. A happy time as Foxx recalls:

It was a lovely feeling in London then, because it was before punk – and I say “punk” not in an insulting way… it was a resurrection of good feelings among young or semi young people who wanted to make something for themselves they could enjoy. Zigzag 90, December 1978

Eventually Ultravox! was chosen – John Foxx (Singer) It sounds like an electrical device and that’s what we are. NME, 13.7.77

Warren Cann (Drummer) They [Island] wanted it to be the Zips…but since nobody liked Ultravox we decided it must be the one.  NME, 13.7.77.

At this time Dennis Leigh becomes John Foxx and Chris Allen who became Christopher St John becomes Chris Cross!

So the band is ready to take on the world after finally securing a record deal.

So 1977, and the changing tide of music in Punk rock, dawns for Ultravox! When you think about it, Ultravox/Tiger Lily had been together for nearly three years before scoring a deal with Island, renaming themselves and playing their first gig as Ultravox! to a media invite. This, closely followed by their first album and Eno’s association with its production, suggested to some a massive hype with Island looking for a replacement for Roxy Music whom they had just lost to EG/Polydor Records.

“Despite what anybody says or thinks” (I’d hinted at the possibility), “we’re not Island’s replacement for Roxy Music. We’re nobody’s replacement for anything. We started out playing because we wanted to play, had good songs and something to say.” Pete Silverton Sounds 19.3.77

Not surprisingly they are looked on with suspicion by the new punk rock writers who unaware of their Tiger Lily pedigree.

ULTRAVOX ARE a hype, right? I keep hearing it, and anyway they reek of it. Just look at their cont rived, intense-eyed, PVC punk image, and the amount of push that Island are giving them. H-Y—P-E.

Where the hype label really catches Ultravox is in the fact that their first known gig came after the Island signing: a band out of nowhere playing support to The Hot Rods in their brand new clothes, with a brand expensively packaged album. An arrogant “hello, love me” entrance with no live gig goodwill to act as a safety net. Phil McNeill  – New Musical Express 23.4.1977

Ultravox!’s first record release is one of the demo songs that got them the Island deal; a song that had been knocking about since 1975 and possibly courtesy of bassist Chris Cross and his love of frequenting Tottenham Reggae parties. The song was the lilting white reggae ‘Dangerous Rhythm’ and part of the band’s musical make before it became de rigueur to have reggae influences.

John Foxx … but that was the first white reggae, it was the first one. Find me another. That track shows a lot of individualities that are in the band coming out. Like Chris, who was brought up in Tottenham with that type of music. … I was about I4 or I5, and I used to go to parties and listen to Prince Buster. Chris was doing the same thing in Tottenham, although I didn’t know, of course. Zigzag 91

There’s no real cohesive identity running through though some songs – ‘Saturday Night In The City Of The Damned’ appear to be about the Roxy Club home of Punk Rock in London, others such as the tender piano driven ‘My Sex’ hint at what is to come that sets the band apart.

Critics, fans and even their own record label are confused by the band. So you could ask were Ultravox punk? Caroline Coon in her book 1988 – A Punk Rock Explosion from 1977 gives the best account.

Formed three years ago, as Tiger Lily. by Bradford born, ex-Royal College of Art student John Foxx aka Dennis Leigh. Changed name to Ultravox in 1976 after John had become an early enthusiast of the punk movement. They wear black plastic, the occasional safety-pin and ripped jacket, but their music is often inspired with complex textures not usually associated with M.O,R. punk. Brian Eno helped produce their first album which included the exceptional track, My Sex. They are part of the New Wave because they want to be. But their progress has been hampered by lack of confidence in their musical direction.

Like many of the bands from the time, Punk influenced the band and probably not least the rising frustration with the established music press. The single ‘Young Savage’ released in May shows the immediate influence with its frenetic pace, zeitgeist lyrics and cut up single cover. Onstage Foxx, appears punked up with dog collar, zips and armband.

In August, as a result of their continued sell-out gigs at the Marquee Club in London, they played the biggest gig of their career appearing at Reading Festival on the August Bank Holiday previewing some of the material from their forthcoming album

And then within six months a second album appears.  This is a similar situation to The Stranglers who release No More Heroes around this time comprising the rest of their early set featured on ‘Rattus Norvegicus’. However with Ultravox! the leap from the first to the second album in all regards is massive.

In short Ultravox! become post punk, synth punk, new romantic, synth rock and multitude of other things How does this happen? The answer is technology and attitude. Attitude comes from the prevailing punk scene they tour in and the gang mentality of reacting against criticism; Technology comes courtesy of three pieces of equipment.

For Ultravox!, the synth and electronic sounds opened a door to new sonic possibilities

Warren Cann (Drummer) The more we got into the synthesizers the more enthusiastic and excited by the possibilities we were. It was like a cranked up electric guitar only more awesome and complex. Ha! Ha! Hal marked our first real experiment with fully electronic instruments via the incorporation of synthesizers and a drum machine. Ultravox – The Story. Jonas Warstad

Ultravox!’s approach wasn’t as some sort of ELP style progressive keyboards but more sonic terrorism using the keyboard as violently as any punky guitar.

… but we enjoy using it because in fact it’s a lot easier to play than a guitar. Thirty-years later Foxx emphasises that they were more interested in using synthesizers as a battering ram. Something more “punk’ than guitars in that it was both basic to play and arguably made an uglier noise: “Bill was classically trained but hadn’t let this kill his originality or aggression. He was out to make synthesizers compete with the power of guitars. He went flat out to destroy and succeeded. Ha! Ha! Ha! Sleeve notes 2006

A point reiterated by Billie Currie.

l was on a mission to blow people’s heads off because people were spitting at me, laughing at me, taking the piss – l was the viola player: Can you imagine what that was like, playing viola in front of a punk crowd? So l wanted to show them just how powerful a keyboard could sound. l wanted to blow their heads off. Ha! Ha! Ha! Sleeve notes 2006

And perhaps giving a view into the later split.

John Foxx (Vocalist)…As a by-product he reinvented the keyboardists role in a band at that time. Through all this Billy was a human storm sometimes difficult to weather because of the sheer energy and invention, but always completely effective. Ha! Ha! Ha! Sleeve notes 2006

Everyone in the band was playing their part in the musical sound change

Chris became so much more than a bass player, creating some new and central ways of working on melodic parts and synthetic bass, while Warren happily made the bridge between analogue and the huge new potential of electro drums – l guess if you had to identify the transitional point, this was it.”

The more we got into it, the more enthusiastic and excited by the possibilities we were. It was like a cranked up electric guitar, only orders of magnitude more awesome and complex. To us, the public still seemed to equate synthesizers with “electronic” music, i.e. beeps and robot squawks. We thought music like this might begin to change that.

You have to start to feel for the band. Image-wise wise they jettison the glam punk image and become more urban and edgy and change how they compose.

As we worked through that phase, we began to develop past the “two and half minute/three minute single with a four bar solo” (5 bars max!) to more intricate and extended arrangements of five minutes or so “I Want To Be A Machine” and “Slipaway” were among the first of these. Naturally, this coincided with the time everyone else seemed to belatedly discover the joys of the short succinct pop song and we got slammed for not playing material that consisted of a verse and three choruses! Ultravox – The Story. Jonas Warstad

We don’t make albums for the man in the street, but for whoever wants to listen to them. We play them and feel responsible for them and make them what we want them to be, and we felt that was an accurate reflection of how we felt at the time. But I think there are very warm songs on  that, especially “‘Hiroshima Mon Amour” and “A Distant Smile”, which I think are very approachable, open songs. More importantly, l think they were completely different to the atmosphere of the times, which was what we deliberately tried to do  – make a slow, more mechanical emotional song. like “Hiroshima Mon Amour”, for instance. ‘When everything else had to be a fast three minute epic song, we tried to make something that was more dramatic and which was carefully considered, almost a gentle passive song. Zigzag 91 Jan/Feb 1979

There is of course a certain irony here. By mid-1977, music was all about short, sharp, shock MOR regulation Punk tunes with strict stripped-back guitar, bass and drums, verse chorus and angst. Ultravox! were swimming against the tide, ahead of their time. The critics didn’t hold back on how they perceived these new sounds or perceived pretentiousness.

Great chunks of it are a case study of the bad affects the mere acquisition of a synthesiser can have on a band… Here they’ve mostly rejected the possibilities of the accessible pop song, using only catch phrase choruses (often with infuriating insistence) and relied wholesale on what they probably see as the avant-garde and the more cynical soul might feel were mere noises.

If there were ever a band that cried out to be crucified on the discipline of the three minute single. It’s Ultravox! Pete Silverton – Sounds 22.10.77

The band isn’t alone in the use of synth and extended song structures. Their old friend Eno worked with Visconti to produce the epic Bowie album Heroes which came out in October 1977 and proto punks and space hippy anarchists Hawkwind brought out the classic Quark Strangeness and Charm in June 1977. The interesting thing about these two albums is their relative ease of listening and smoothness. Other more dissonant and avant garde use of electronics came from New York Punk duo Suicide and French Punk Rockers Metal Urbain. Bar these, the coast was clear.

Without doubt though Neu! 3 released in 1975 is remarkably close to the Ultravox of 1977 minus the angst

The first two tracks reveal pointers as to where Ultravox and a host of other subsequent bands got their sound from. ‘Isi’ is one of three tracks featuring some hard driving percussion (played, not programmed), minimalist electric guitar and atmospheric electronic background. Though solid, insistent rhythms are the foundation of Neu’s music, they can knock out some decent melodies too. ‘See Land’, a slower track, is a beautifully crafted example. ‘Leb Wohl’, the most languid item, sounds like the sort of stuff you hear nowadays on relaxation CDs, with its surf wash sound effect and murmured vocal.

The highlight, though, is ‘Hero’. Was Bowie listening? Were the future ranks of British new wave? From the opening salvo of guitar to the sneering vocal and crunching collision of all elements, this is hard driving, angry rock. ‘E-Musik’ provides a slower, lengthy, insidious interlude, topped off with wind tunnel and backwards effects, before ‘After Eight’ reprises ‘Hero’ with a more incendiary guitar sound. DJ Thorn – Amazon Review
 

Despite as earlier stated Ultravox! has similarities with Neu! and the two band share a similarity in sound the band saw this as coincidental.

John Foxx (Vocalist) Well, we wrote things like ‘Slip away’. before we’d even heard Neu and that. It was right at the beginning. l think you only become enthusiastic about what another band is doing if it happens to coincide with what you’re doing.  Sounds 19.8.78

The Neu! connection would grow as the band would choose Neu! producer Conny Plank for their next album.

Robin was a fan of multi effect pedals to change and layer the sound of his guitar. As such he was perfect for Ultravox who themselves were experimenting with synths, drum machines and sculpting sounds.

With Robin in the band, expectation was high in the band believing themselves on the brink of something.

Meanwhile, in the media nothing changed though as a year down the line a familiar tag remained albeit softened with praise.

ULTRAVOX. True inheritors of Roxy Music’s ice-cold surrealist mantle, except Roxy never slogged the club circuit. Can play very fast and very slow, very pretentious, but so what? Extremely unfashionable, which they don’t deserve to be. London Guide 1978 NME

ULTRAVOX – Slow Motion + Hiroshima Mon Amour “Live” (OGWT) Old Grey whistle Test 5th December 1978

The third album Systems of Romance is recorded in Koln Germany with producer Conny Plank due partly to the bands disenchantment with the UK and London and enjoyment of touring through Europe. Conny Plank was also the producer of Kraftwerk and perhaps more importantly all of the Neu! albums and his sound was essentially cloned on Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ by Visconti and Eno.

John Foxx (Singer) You know, Conny (right) was a German hippy, an art hippy, an intelligent sort of bohemian guy who wanted to discover what you could do with all this equipment, which again was totally different to that British technician sensibility. The guys who used this kind of technology best were the liberated ones, who didn’t rely on that kind of hierarchical structure in the studio. Rather than being careful with it – which is the technician’s way, and kind of understandable given how valuable the equipment is – it was a case of pushing it to its limits. ‘What happens when you distort it? What does it sound like when you push it too far?’ Factmag

He was one of the first European producers to fully exploit the possibilities of using multi-track recording facilities to create dramatic production effects and treatments that acted as musical and rhetorical elements in their own right, rather than mere gimmicks. He favoured sometimes harsh-sounding effects and contrasting audio spaces for each element in the mix. His best work stands in stark opposition to the smooth, ‘evened-out’ sound that predominated in most commercial pop and rock at that time.

Plank used radical combinations of echo, reverberation and other electronic, mixing, equalisation, editing and tape-based effects to create mixes in which every element might be given its own highly individual sound environment, and in which each of these elements might alter radically in sound several times over the course of a track. Wikipedia – Conny Plank

John Foxx (Singer) He’s really in to the effect of music, rather than what you’re playing or when you play it … In the same way, studio technology allows you to do outrageous things, because you can record them now, whereas you couldn’t in the past. lf you wanted to record a shriek that would blow people’s speakers out, you couldn’t, because it would blow people’s speakers out, but there are now ways of limiting that shriek so that it won’t damage speakers, but will make it more exciting for people to listen to. That’s the way that Conny works – he uses all the technology that’s available in order to reproduce what you do. Zigzag 91 Jan/Feb 1979

For many this is the definitive Ultravox album paving the way for Gary Numan and bands like the Horrors decades later.

Proof of the band changing was never indicated better than the cover of the album. Gone was the band shots on the front and now on the back you had the band fully jettisoning any punk fashion or look and instead favouring a looser debonair dress with no associations to any movement.

Ironically Foxx (and others in the band for the live shows) was criticised for his wearing of black clothes suggesting he was trying to adopt a uniform. When in actual fact his aim was to merge with the shadows and become less of a frontman.

I just happen to like black really, it’s as simple as that. I just like it – for one thing it merges us in with the background, almost making us disappear, which I like bec- ause I d0n’t like to inflict my own personality too much on stage.” Does this also explain the reason for not having too much lighting on stage? “Yes, and we’re not really inflicting what we are on people ….. because I don’t like larger than life personalities. The Past, Present and Future of Ultravox – Francis Drake and Peter Gilbert

Instead, the front cover featured a set of random images that you could read anything into. The singles featured the same mysterious type of covers too.

It’s a fact that despite a strong and growing fanbase and strong advertising support for the band from Island Records, they had virtually no interviews in the main music papers of the time – Sounds, New Musical Express, Melody Maker and Record Mirror and which held a monopoly of power over the press. The band’s staunchest allies had been the fanzine and in particular one – In The City – by Francis Drake and Peter Gilbert who really championed the band with two specials.

While in interviews Foxx was keen to be seen as happy that they weren’t being featured as ‘the latest thing’ you can’t help but feeling this was bravado.

John Foxx (Singer) I’d worry in case we were just another pip going through the bowels of a trend which is the fate a lot of bands suffer. Record Mirror 30.9.78

This was reiterated in more caustic comments about the popular music mags of the day his interview from In The City 1.

I’m glad you’re doing a fanzine; it’s about time the Big Three (N.M.Excess, Clowns and Melody Faker) were threatened and the only way to do it is for lots of small mags to grow up –· out of pure enthusiasm — a few of these mags will hopefully get big and good enough to take their public away from the three, while not losing sight of their ideals – just as the New Bands are kicking the pedestals from under the Dinosaur Bands …We dislike the official press because they are not reporters but gossips not concerned with the truth but only interested in selling lots of papers …The small mags aren’t burdened by huge production costs–they are founded on real enthusiasm (most Big three writers are frustrated or failed rockers who bitch like mad with jealousy when someone is succeeding where they didn’t Lets hope the new press has enough enthusiasm-—common sense–determination to threaten the Biggies. There should always be a David with en eager sling for every Goliath. In The City 1977

So why weren’t they featured more? We’ve already mentioned the initial distrust of what seemed a manufactured band. John Gill from Sounds offered his view in a rare Ultravox interview.

Ultravox exist in a media limbo. Although they constantly attract big audiences, the general media view seems to be that they are, quite frankly pretentious. Sounds 19.8.78

John Foxx (Vocalist) …romance can be very well organised, and indeed the way we live now is too organised for romance… you’ve got Brides Monthly and 19 and all those magazines and they’re all systems of romance. So we wanted to produce a system of romance that was more interesting than all of those. Zigzag 91 Jan/Feb 1979

and

John Foxx (Vocalist) I like paradoxical phrases… it’s the surrealist idea that you bring two very un-alike words together to make a kind of friction that wasn’t there before. I tend to work like that with most of the words. Sounds 19.8.78

In essence, it’s the second that makes the sense. Words and images don’t have to mean anything per se. It’s what they evoke and that can be different for different people.

Two singles were released from the album – ‘Slow Motion’ and ‘The Quiet Men’  – and despite no resulting chart hits and mixed reviews, the band were on a high playing to enthusiastic audiences and already writing new tracks for the next album.

John Foxx (Singer) The music industry is different for us because we volunteered for it, and hopefully we understand it, a lot of rock’n’rollers don’t.

In early 1977 listening to the eponymous debut by Ultravox! you would never have thought, with the exception of perhaps My Sex, that within six months the band would have accelerated past punk into post punk and beyond and helped shape electronica in modern music.

All the music on this page fits incredibly into an eighteen month span. Only one other band – The Stranglers – comes close to matching this feat of change though even they would take until 1979 to do so.

But this is Ultravox!’s story. Enjoy!

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Dangerous Rhythm / My Sex
Island February 1977

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Young Savage / Slip Away
Island May 1977

Warren Cann (Drummer) …it was our take on the maelstrom we were in the centre of. It was one of my favourite songs and, though I usually always have various criticisms and reservations about any of our recorded works, both the “studio” and “live” versions of that song are just about spot on. Play it loud! Then turn it up some more. Jonas Warstad 1997

Billy Currie (Viola and Keyboards) I guess Young Savage has this heavy Stones-y influence which is very different to punk. And there’s an almost classical orientation to it along with some great feedback from Stevie Shears. Ha!Ha!Ha! Cd Rerelease sleeve notes

John Foxx (Vocalist) [It’s] about a rum bunch of kids l knew at the time. The usual grief, trouble, arguments, disappearances. I guess they were what the press now identifies as ‘feral`. Underneath all the Olympian sneering they were surprisingly organized, energetic, ruthless and loyal – everything they needed to succeed at whatever they chose. They chose housebreaking. Ha!Ha!Ha! Cd Rerelease sleeve notes

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RockWrok / Hiroshima Mon Amour
Island October 1977

Warren Cann (Drummer) I borrowed the drum beat from a rather unlikely source—it’s the same rhythm as “Let’s Twist Again” by Chubby Checker! Just goes to show how important context can be. Jonas Warstad 1997

Billy Currie (Viola and Keyboards) l really enjoyed the arty camp vibe of ROckWrok – there’s something a bit vamp about it. It’s art and ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll but there’s nastiness there and l loved playing it live. Ha!Ha!Ha! Cd Rerelease sleeve notes

John Foxx (Vocalist) l discovered that rock ‘n` roll was black slang for sex. it seemed hilarious that the whole world was dancing to this stuff, so l wrote a literal rock song…The title was a nod to Duchamp’s Rongwrong Dada piece. lt was his first work when he arrived in New York from Europe. Ha!Ha!Ha! Cd Rerelease sleeve notes

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Live Retro EP
Island February 1978

That said, it’s an enjoyable romp through past and present with ‘Young Savage‘ being the pick from the times the band used to sell out the Marquee and watch their instruments rust from the sweat dripping off them! Nice! What a cover too! Suitably and lovingly black and white, jarred writing and an iconic picture of Foxx.

Warren Cann (Drummer) … This is my all time favourite live recording of ours and perfectly captures the energy of those Marquee gigs. Ultravox – The Story. Jonas Warstad

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Slow Motion
Island February 1978

“Slow Motion” was an extremely satisfying song to write and play live. For me, it was just one of those songs where everything seems to just fit together perfectly to form an entity greater than the sum of it’s parts. In it’s time it perfectly represented our amalgamation of rock & synthesizer, many of the ideas and aspirations we had for our music gelled in that song and we were very excited about it. Ultravox – The Story. Jonas Warstad

If the rest of their new album is this good , these lads may yet live up to all the trumpeting that Island came out with when they first signed. The whole song has an intrusively eerie feel about it , largely due to the rumbling synthesised backdrop and vocal reverb. At least it made me feel uncomfortable enough to listen to it two or three times over which is more than can be said of most of this weeks vinyl crop. You can even dance to it. David Lewis, Sounds, 19.8.78

Released on clear vinyl and on 12 inch with full page ads in the music press of the time, the record again failed to make the charts.

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Quiet Men / Cross Fade
Island October 1978

The Quiet Man was written as a stand against fashion, an obvious declaration that the band were, (are) quite happy on the outside, surveying rather than participating. Bev Briggs – Record Mirror 30.9.78

John Foxx (Singer) ‘Quiet Men’ on the new album is one of the most exciting songs I’ve written. .. l tried to write something very normal, without drama, about the Quiet Man. He’s a plural figure in the song but the idea of the quiet man who’s got a set of beliefs and operates on those, but doesn’t necessarily try to impose  them on anyone else is the opposite of what rock ‘n’ roll does to sell records.” Sounds 19.8.78

Ultravox!
Island February 1977

Punk77 says: Looking at the sleeve and the band, one could see the band in several lights. Neo Roxy Music copyists on Roxy Music’s Island label and produced by Brian Eno ex Roxy Music. Or punk destroyers of the old guard, lined up against the wall like an identity parade or firing squad, clad in regulation (very) tight PVC drainpipes, sleeveless shirt, short hair and requisite song titles.

The answer probably lies somewhere in between. Recorded in the Autumn of 1976 and released in February at the same time as Television’s ‘Marquee Moon’ and The Saints ‘I’m Stranded’, some songs you might think refer to the Roxy Club and emerging Punk scene – ‘Saturday Night In The City Of The Dead’ but were in fact written while the band were still Tiger Lily. If anything it’s a band with a lot of ideas hitting the musical zeitgeist and playing out their influences with their first album.

One single was released – ‘Dangerous Rhythm’ -a fine lilting reggae underpinned song backed with the more curious ‘My Sex’ that despite its almost melancholic sparse piano tone was a staple of their live set

Self produced by the band, with co credits to Eno and Steve Lillywhite, though most media at the time latched onto Eno and made him the producer.

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VOXY MUSIC – ULTRAVOX (Island ILPS 9449)

Nobody can be impervious to outside influences and on this album from one of Britain’s newest bands the influences are as obvious as the sleeve’s graphics suggest. But the wide range of ideas far surpasses any piracy of musical styles. ‘Satday Night In The Land Of The Dead’ is a misleading opener: for all its crashing rock ’n’ roll energy it doesn’t serve as intro to yet another new wave ensemble. ‘Life At Rainbow’s End’ follows, establishing the overall mood firmly. Billy Currie’s swirling violin offsets the intense, anguished vocals of John Foxx with occasional harshness. The last track of Side One is probably the most unsuccessful, unfortunately so because the idea of despair driving someone to want to be a machine is a fascinating one.

Side Two’s opener, ‘Wide Boys” continues the theme of ‘lads out to paint the town red ’ and is one of the best offerings, although sounding inexplicably like an early effort. ‘Dangerous Rhythm’ hypnotises throughout its off – beat and easily justifies its choice for single release, while, ‘The Wild, The Beautiful and The Damned’ is a hymn to all forms of avant-garde everywhere. Roxy Music and Bowie, consolidated by Eno’s production, have both made their indirect contribution, but a band with so much to offer are unlikely to need any musical crutches for long. + + + + Seamus Potter Record Mirror 12.3.77

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Phil McNeill  – New Musical Express 23.4.1977

ULTRAVOX ARE a hype, right? I keep hearing it, and anyway they reek of it. Just look at their contrived, intense-eyed, PVC punk image, and the amount of push that Island are giving them. H-Y—P-E.

Yet this album has had less advertising than the latest from, say, Status Quo, Supercharge or The Clash. And if you want contrived visuals — well, there’s a lot of bands getting Saviour Of The Universe media treatment (Jones, Strummer & Simenon this month) and who trade just as heavily as Ultravox on capturing the identikit Face Of ’77 look.

But if they’re good, who cares? Don’t be fooled by the opener, “Saturday Night In The City Of The Dead”, which sounds like Them – furious R&B intro’d by wailing harp – with high rise, dole queue clichés which don’t grate overmuch because of the cut up fever of Foxx’ delivery, and a gawky robotic backbeat.

The R&B/punk connotations are misleading; for a start there’s really only one other fast number. Energy and anger have little to do with the romantically bored pose Ultravox strike. Foxx puts on his Bryan Ferry voice for “Life At Rainbow’s End”, as Brian Eno gets his clanky production into stride — rhythm section mixed high and thuddy, a very non-guitar hero sound for Stevie Shears, who’s always plinking towards the periphery with attractive grey tones and true minimalist economy, and a wide range of colourless sounds from keyboards/violin player Billy Currie.

Shears and Currie, and even Foxx, are sublimated to the mood at all times – and the underlying mood of the record is the coldness of “I Want To Be A Machine? But it’s – not the coldness of a David Bowie, whose “Low” posture sends a chill up the susceptible spine because finally the calculating poser seems to be posing as something as cold – blooded as himself.

Ultravox are just playing games – though Foxx’ imagery is so clichéd (as titles like “The Wild, The Beautiful And The Damned” bear witness) that it’s possible to believe he’s actually kidding himself too, But at least he’s acting diffident, which is far more bearable than some of the self- deceptive, self-righteous, empty vessel ranting and droning that’s going down these days.

He writes a good tune, mind. Every song is memorable, and only “Lonely Hunter” is boring -and that’s saved by the intricate yet simple machinery riffs, They really do carry off the machine sound well. The only objectionable instrumental foible is Shears’ penchant for flattening notes. Oddity of the album is “My Sex”, a studiedly cold and beautiful track (incredibly pretentious on first hearing), playing on dehumanisation again. I don’t believe Ultravox, and l don’t like them – but I like their album. 

Ha! Ha! Ha!
Island October 1977

Punk77 says: While their debut failed to make any commercial headway, Ha!-Ha!-Ha! followed quickly in its footsteps in October 1977 added a more experimental synthesizers / electronic style yet perversely was punkier and more abrasive with feedback and dissonance punctuating the songs. Arguably you could say Ultravox! never bettered this collection from the up-tempo Roxy Music style Rockwrok complete with naughty chorus “Come on, let’s tangle in the dark / fuck like a dog, bite like a shark” to the sublime wistful Hiroshima Mon Amour, a song that had originally started as faster and more abrasive, before Foxx suggested slowing it down and Cann added the synthetic drums of the TR707. The song also featured CC from the band Gloria Mundi with a saxophone solo. In between, the electronic pyrotechnics of The Man Who Dies Every Day suggests where the band were going.

The cover shows the change too. Gone is the made up punky glam band shot; Now a more edgy starker punky band, with punky heads and haircuts, mirrors the sound in jagged 3D shots.

Billie Currie (Violin & Synth) We hadn’t got our own way and so with Ha! Ha! Ha! we were out to piss off as many people as possible. We knew it was going to do jack shit in terms of sales so we just left stuff in there like all the feedback at the end of Fear In The Western World. Ha!-Ha!-Ha! CD Sleevenotes

John Foxx (Vocalist) We were recording right in the middle of London. The whole feeling of [the] album is very desolate and stark. We wanted it to be like that, almost painful to listen to. It was a very deliberate attempt to make very tearing, aggressive sounds like Artificial Life, because that’s how we felt at the time. Sounds 18.8.78

Warren Cann (Drummer) …the second was progress for us and heavily laced with attitude and adrenaline. Ultravox – The Story. Jonas Warstad

As the reviews show below, there wasn’t exactly dancing in the street on its release (check out yet another of Julie Burchill’s interminably narcissistic reviews below) With Pete Silverton saying the band had

… mostly rejected the possibilities of the accessible pop song, using only catch phrase choruses (often with infuriating insistence) and relied wholesale on what they probably see as the avant-garde and the more cynical soul might feel were mere noises. Sounds 22.10.77

Instead, an element of confusion in the midst of Punk Rock with a band that sounded out of sync. I’m not sure the band cared about the reviews. I think they expected them and fully reveled in them.

While the plaudits went to bands like Magazine, Siouxsie, PIL and even Wire, this classic gem should be recognised as such and celebrated.

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WASHED UP ON A TERMINAL BEACH BY A WIND FROM NOWHERE
(JUST WHO LET J.G. BALLARD IN HERE)

HERE COMES THE APOCALYPSE! I’ve been waiting here for five years and my heels are killing me. Actually, the idea is peachy keen; glitter – from whence the new wave godheads gained their formative inspiration – incorporated into punk. At least, it might be peachy performed by the kids themselves as opposed to their uncles.

Get a load of Ultravox’s titles – they read like a catalogue from our past! “Frozen Ones”, “Fear In The Western World”, “The Man Who Dies Every Day”, “Artificial Life”, “While I’m Still Alive” – ring a bell, what?

But the chilling stupidity is never backed by action. No seedling careers of evil here. All songs share tinpot instrumentation, an edgy reggae beat and an OD of J.G. Ballard bobbing along behind a lyrical enunciation that’s an imperfect hybrid of Sweet and Roxy Music – though the over-riding iron-rule is Mrs lggy Pop’s, from “The Man Who Sold The World” through to “Diamond Dogs”.

It’s a cliché, but the reason why Ultravox tumble arse over heels is they’re too ooooooold . . . didn’t cut their fangs on “For Your Pleasure.” They got hip to the automaton trip too little, too late. And anyhow the perfect pastiche of the glitz blitz was done in 1975 with A. Raincoat’s rendition of “l Love You For Your Mind Not Your Body.”

Just take “Frozen Ones.” I’ve met more menacing fishballs than this, even if it does contain the album’s Profound Thought in “‘No one will care when we ’re gone! ” They sound quite ill from the chill, and, tend towards hysteria – especially at the end of “Artificial Life.”

There’s a contemplative tinkle of piano in the next apartment for “Distant Smile” while the saxophones of “Hiroshima Mon Amour” flounder hopelessly into what they hope is a “Diamond Dogs” workout (Bowie used a breath, dear- not a full blown belch).

And get “Fifty million people in a stare of decay? I can feel the fear in the western world! ” lf you could sonny, you wouldn’t issue this drivel. There’s also weary hints at masturbation and eyeliner (sigh) – you’re still doing things l gave up admitting to years ago. I’m an ice machine but you’re not because you brag about it too much. The real machine always does the best impersonation of a human being.

One more time. Their titles hint at something nasty; whether they know or not at what they hint wouldn’t venture to guess. I have an idea at the implications of their songs and it’s not pretty. l may be cold but thank god l ain’t old. Ha! Ha! Ha!

Julie Burchill New Musical Express 15.10.77

Systems Of Romance
Island September 1978

Punk77 says: Listening to the song structures, the band hit their aim and managed to produce something very British/European with no American influences.

The reason we like and were interested in those things [the German style of bands like Neu! etc] is because in England things seem very stale. Things seem to be imitating American styles at the time we started. We decided to make something English, related to the other side of the world like Europe. Somewhere we knew. Sounds 19.8.78

Yes there’s the Neu! sounding tracks like Can’t Stay Long with a big dollop of Hawkwind thrown in, but they are always stamped with the new Ultravox identity. In some tracks traces of Blur can be heard in the song structures like Slow Motion, Maximum Acceleration and Quiet Man. The guitar work by Robert Simon – is scratchy, feed-backed, abrasive, yet absorbed into the whole with the excellent underpinned bass, drums and matching perfectly the synth work. It’s an obvious move on from Ha!-Ha!-Ha!

Warren Cann (Drummer) on Ha!-Ha!-Ha! we tried to make a lot of the songs as unpleasant and objectionable to listen to so you were very uncomfortable. We’ve found ways to accomplish our goals by being a little more deductive about it.

John Foxx (Singer) … the ideas… [are] a lot more integrated and most of the things that happen on the album are more subtle than before. They bear more listening to. Sounds 19.8.78

Released around the same time as Magazine’s Real Life I’m at a loss why this wasn’t/hasn’t been touted more for the classic it is but I suspect it was more about Ultravox’s reputation at the time and ironically now the Midge Ure era clouding judgement (which is not to say that Ultravox incarnation did not produce anything of note).

Just For A Moment closes the album and evokes memories of Vienna as it should as John Foxx bows out of the Ultravox story.

Their second post punk classic.

‘Systems of Romance’ is a ‘stand-alone’ album, for it is difficult to place it into any given category. Its influences are diverse and it emerged out of nowhere and led to nothing, in the fact that the band split shortly after its release. Foxx’s first solo album ‘Metamatic’ was intentionally cold and mechanical and like many of his later solo albums, lacked the passion created by a band.

Foxx’s muse was at its height on ‘Systems of Romance’, A heightened awareness of his surroundings, was embroidered with Renaissance influences, creating a tapestry of beautiful words that shone and glimmered over the thick, rich sound created by his band. His words influenced many, no more so than Gary Numan, who, in my view, stole his whole act, commercialised it and made a million. Julian Cope

Like a lot of bands, the sum of the whole was greater than the parts with the tensions generated by the differences driving and shaping the creative output.

John Foxx: l think the strength of the band is that we’re all so different and we’re all interested in different forms of music. So when we do come together there’s a let of exchanges of ideas. We’re not all dedicated to the same style of music. although  we are all dedicated to the same style of music we as a band produce, if you can understand me? You see, it becomes that style because it’s a mixture of five people who have got lots of different ideas and even conflicting ideas sometimes, which keeps the whole thing very healthy.” Do the band clash very much very often? “Yes, we do, just like any! other band just like any other group of five individuals who are together in one place, we have arguments too”. The Past, Present and Future of Ultravox – Francis Drake and Peter Gilbert

By the time Systems Of Romance was released and again failed to perform, the band had finished a set of what they perceived to be successful UK and European tours they were suddenly dropped by Island at the end of 1978. Completely off their own back the band organised a tour of the US and demod some new songs including Touch & Go, He’s A Liquid and Radio Beach.

At some stage these tensions went from the positive to the negative and Foxx wanting out of the band.

John Foxx must have known at this point that he was going to quit the band. I never talked to him, as he seemed so insular and I don’t like to invade, but in the photos it was evident how apart from the rest of the band he already was, and so infinitely bored with it all. Linda Dawn Hammond Ultravox Toronto 1979

Warren Cann (Drummer) The environment of “the road” is infamous even to people who haven’t experienced it. It’s tough and extremely demanding on people’s nerves. Our relationship in the band with John Foxx had never been great and had been steadily unravelling for a long time, but this tested it to the limit. It was obvious to us that it wasn’t a matter of “if” something was going to give, but “when.” It all came to a head in San Francisco. We got into a huge row after the show and that was it. We’d had our fill of each other and decided that when we got back to London, John was going his way and we would go ours. As you can imagine, the atmosphere on the remainder of the tour was decidedly strained. Ultravox – The Story. Jonas Warstad

In fact, the band’s last gig would be at the Whiskey a Go Go in Los Angeles two days later. Foxx wasn’t the only one to leave. When Ultravox returned home they got word that guitarist Robert Simon was also leaving and staying in New York. Their search was now for a singer-guitarist. As history shows that person was Midge Ure and the second incarnation would go on to popular success with much chart success.

Currie would play with Gary Numan and Visage before Ure joined Ultravox and Cann would find himself in the Buggles hit single Video Killed the Radio Star performance on Top Of The Pops.

Robert Simon would jam in New York with the Futants before returning home to join Magazine for their Play album and later help Foxx out in his solo career. .

A number of fans of the band wished that Foxx had stayed and continued the exciting possibilities shown by Systems Of Romance but that’s the way personalities and tensions that make up bands means they have to change.

In 1979, commenting in fanzine In The City’s special Ultravox issue Past Present and Future, John Foxx seemed a lot more measured as to why he left and pointed the way to his solo work and what would be Metamatic.

I don’t think I’d form another band again, I don’t want to work with a band anymore because it’s not necessary…

That’s what I am really pleased about nowadays, the fact that, that kind of technology is in the hands of almost everybody … but there hasn’t been anything like that up until now. Now you can buy a synthesiser for a hundred odd pounds and you can hire a good tape recorder for something like, twenty or thirty pounds a day … You can actually make a record and have it pressed for something like £50 for a hundred copies. Then you can put it out through the shops. I think that is very exciting because it opens up all kinds of possibilities… Just one man and his ideas, and his imagination working away with a machine. It’s very exciting and it’s got limitless possibilities.”

… Because bands quite often stay together in a very cynical way because they know they are making money and they are a proposition that will make money and they probably don‘t even like each other very much. But they still stay together and their music becomes just a shadow of what they started out to be, but it still works financially. I’ve never wanted to be in that position, so l left before it got like that, so that I could honestly enjoy what I’m doing …

l never left Ultravox because we weren’t successful. In fact, it would have been wiser financially for me to have stayed with the band but again, I’ve always thought that it’s not just being successful, financially, that matters. It’s what you have to do to become successful. I’ve got no objections to being financially successful but I’m very concerned about what I do to become that. There are a lot of things I won’t do and there are a lot of ways of living that I’m not interested in and the band was becoming one of those things …

Indeed he would go onto pursue a solo career doing exactly the above, hitting the charts with Underpass and is still recording today.

And so we leave the story of Ultravox here. A band always ahead of their time musically, often misunderstood and who made some fantastic music. Tim Lott’s comment for the Sounds review of RocKwrok below seems prescient though it would take much longer!

… and just wait a couple of years before someone comes up with a retrospective saying how misconstrued this band were.  Tim Lott Sounds 22.10.77

Last word to Mr Foxx

John Foxx (Singer) The whole point is to have some kind of adventure. That’s what was missing from our lives when we started the band. The excitement in what we do depends to a great extent on taking chances, which means doing something we believe in and following it through whether or not people accept it. We might even fail in our own eyes, but it doesn’t matter as long as we’ve tried. NME 13.7.77