Crocodiles

Product Information

Matrix / Runout (Side B, ' ̷B̷ ̷E̷ 84' is hand-etched - variant 3): R/S Alsdorf 58175 B3X ̷B̷ ̷E̷ 84 Released in early 1983, the more radio-friendly " The Cutter", became their first top 10 single, [23] climbing to No.8, while the parent album Porcupine (Feb. 1983), hit No. 2 in the album chart. Now firmly established as a chart act, further hits followed with a one-off single, the dance-oriented " Never Stop" (No.15), and the epic " The Killing Moon", a preview from the new album featuring a dramatic McCulloch vocal, which became the band's second UK top 10 single at No.9. [18] Ocean Rain [ edit ] Bell, Max (2003). Crocodiles (CD booklet). Echo & the Bunnymen. Warner Strategic Marketing. 2564-61161-2.

The only new single to be included on Echo & The Bunnymen’s singles compilation Songs To Learn & Sing, Bring On The Dancing Horses is a Russian proverb, a rough translation of which suggests that when things fall apart, why not have a bit of the circus in there as well? Like Seven Seas, it’s the Bunnymen at play with both words and melody. Schofield, Deborah (29 July 2002). "20 years on, it's still a Womad world". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 15 February 2023. Oh, dear. The song itself is a perfect union of East and West, L Shankar’s strings igniting Mac’s pleas to “Spare us the cutter” on a melody that is relentlessly spellbinding. a b Harrison, Andrew (2004). "Echo & the Bunnymen: (various reissues)". Blender. ISSN 1534-0554. Archived from the original on 16 February 2009 . Retrieved 5 May 2010.In December 2010, Echo & the Bunnymen went on tour playing their first two albums Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here in their entirety. [40] After extensive consultation with their clients, Smith and Duval were "embedded" in Buxton with the band in the week leading up to the concert, and they were given a completely free hand to structure, shoot and edit the project. Smith and Duval shaped the first part of the film around the differing characters of the four band members, filming both the town and the musicians, but using unusual shooting angles and perspectives. This material was then assembled into an impressionistic sequence of seemingly disconnected images, which are gradually revealed to be a montage of the activities of the band members as they prepare for and head to the show. Their 1980 debut album Crocodiles went into the top 20 of the UK Albums Chart. After releasing their second album Heaven Up Here in 1981, the band's cult status was followed by mainstream success in the UK in 1983 when they scored a UK Top 10 hit with " The Cutter", and the album which the song came from, Porcupine, hit number 2 in the UK. Ocean Rain (1984), continued the band's UK chart success with its lead single " The Killing Moon" entering into the top 10. [8] In the book The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds by John Higgs, Bill Drummond says that he saw the face of "Echo", an imagined giant rabbit, in the cover design. [16] Releases [ edit ]

On top of all this was McCulloch’s sombre, plaintive voice; a cosmic lounge style that owed plenty to Jim Morrison but also was perfect at delivering his lyrics filled with achingly romantic surrealism. “Villiers Terrace” uses such oblique poetry to give a perfect description of the hometown scene at the time. ‘There’s people rolling round on the carpet, mixing up the medicine’, indeed. After they released a self-titled album in 1987, McCulloch left the band and was replaced by singer Noel Burke. In 1989, de Freitas was killed in a motorcycle accident. After working together as Electrafixion, McCulloch and Sergeant regrouped with Pattinson in 1997 and returned as Echo & the Bunnymen, before Pattinson's departure in 1998. The band has done some touring and released several albums since the late 1990s to varying degrees of success. [8] History [ edit ] Early years [ edit ] Crocodiles is the closest that the Bunnymen ever came to a "conventional" post-punk record. In particular, whereas the album repeatedly hints at the Neo-psychedelic ambitions that would soon dominate the band's sound, most of the record is far less lush than its successors. This is most obvious in Will Sergeant's guitar playing, which is more angular and less atmospheric than on subsequent releases. Crocodiles also places a stronger emphasis on Les Pattinson's pulsing bass and features a relatively straightforward production. As for the vocals, Ian McCulloch's wavering baritone is immediately identifiable for anyone familiar with the band. The only peculiarity here is a handful of energetic vocal melodies where McCulloch employs an unusually "shouty", punkish style. All things considered, nothing on Crocodiles is atypical enough to confuse newcomers in search of something resembling Ocean Rain, but the album clearly dates itself to the earliest years of the post-punk revolution. Fletcher, Tony (1987). Never Stop: The Echo & the Bunnymen Story. London: Omnibus Press (published 16 November 1987). ISBN 0-7119-1121-5. Fast-forward a year to what is arguably Echo & The Bunnymen’s magnum opus, Ocean Rain – indeed, the promo campaign was anchored by a quote from McCulloch, never a master of the understatement, describing it as “the greatest album ever made”. Most of it was recorded with a 35-piece orchestra in Paris, augmented by further sessions in Liverpool and Bath.Tangari, Joe (2 March 2004). "Echo and the Bunnymen: Crocodiles / Heaven Up Here / Porcupine / Ocean Rain / Echo & The Bunnymen". Pitchfork . Retrieved 5 May 2010. Sweeting, Adam (31 October 2003). "Echo and the Bunnymen: Various". The Guardian . Retrieved 10 October 2015. Dimery, Robert, ed. (2006). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (revised and updateded.). Universe Publishing. ISBN 0-7893-1371-5. It’s all about the irresistible chemistry between McCulloch and the camera. By the end, we’ve been transported from the sound studio to a garish set straight out of Star Trek, where the Bunnymen are hunted by a couple of women in lurid space suits. Who said they don’t have a sense of humour?

Their fifth studio album, the self-titled Echo & the Bunnymen (1987), was recorded with Palmer, but when de Freitas returned in late 1986, it was largely re-recorded. [28] Released in mid-1987, the record sold well (UK No.4), and was a small American hit, their only LP to have significant sales there. It is also significant as the final album to be recorded with the original lineup. Echo & the Bunnymen’s 2014 release was produced by Youth, formerly of Killing Joke, who also plays bass, and Andrea Wright. Ian McCulloch wrote several of the songs on bass guitar; four of them were finished in a day.Very similar to Echo & The Bunnymen - Crocodiles. However, this version has an alternate barcode format with leading "0" printed on the tray card. We had this mate who kept suggesting all these names like The Daz Men or Glisserol and the Fan Extractors. Echo and the Bunnymen was one of them. I thought it was just as stupid as the rest. [11]

Featuring a gobby frontman with the theatrical nous of Jim Morrison, a Frank Sinatra croon and Leonard Cohen’s melancholic sensibility, Echo & The Bunnymen forged grandiose soundscapes out of punk energy and pop poetry to leave an indelible mark on the 80s… Ian McCulloch had an idea for The Cutter, played it for producer Ian Broudie and asked him to pretend he’d been the source. Why? “Because if I showed it to Will (Sergeant) and that, they’d say they didn’t want it. There was a lot of hiding stuff because I couldn’t be doing with them thinking there was a one-man conspiracy going on.” McCulloch claimed Porcupine was “a classic autobiographical album, the most honest thing that I’d ever written or sung”. The band’s lighting engineer, Bill Butt, was delegated to direct. He wanted the video to reflect the frigid feel of the album and originally plumped for Scotland as the location, but the paucity of snow meant Reykjavik was the second choice.

Like Porcupine, the making of the album proved to be a difficult and protracted process. Early sessions with Gil Norton took place at the famous Cologne studio of German producer Conny Plank, but both band and label were unhappy with the results and these recordings were shelved. They began re-recording material from the Cologne sessions with Laurie Latham in Brussels, but the sessions were grueling, with Latham spending up to a month on a single song, and tensions within the band were being inflamed by McCulloch's increasing alcohol use, and the star treatment he was being accorded. The 80 Greatest Albums of 1980 What came out of all this was, arguably, the greatest year for great albums ever". Rolling Stone. 11 November 2020 . Retrieved 12 November 2020. However, their plans were thrown into disarray when Pete de Freitas was killed in a motorcycle accident on 14 June 1989. [27] De Freitas was on his way to Liverpool from London to take part in the group's first rehearsal with Burke, when his Ducati motorbike collided with another vehicle on the A51 At Longdon Green in Staffordshire, killing him instantly. He was 27 years old and was survived by his widow and their infant daughter, who was born in 1988.