Entertainment For Lively Minds
Bill Nelson - A Lost Cultural Icon?
Posted by Humphrey Plugg on 22 November 2010 - 2:17pm.
The OP in the discussion on the Clash states:
They (The Clash)produced some good songs, but then so did Be Bop Deluxe, and no-one regards Bill Nelson as a cultural icon.
Is that true? Is Yorkshire's first guitar hero and electronic pioneer just a footnote in pop history? Or an artist who is waiting to be rediscovered?
Anyway, here's one of my favourite BN songs, from 1979/80 (obviously not the original video)
- More from Humphrey Plugg.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Bill Nelson
Do You Dream In Colour is great.
Remember Peel playing this..
and at the end saying, "Well I do actually, but mostly in flesh pink."
Droll or what?
Bill Nelson/Be Bop Deluxe
I loved Be Bop Deluxe, though I lost track of Bill Nelson from late 70s onwards. Am I alone in considering 'Maid in Heaven' from 'Futurama' to be a perfect pop record? Crisp & concise. Not a note wasted.
Jimmy Saville/Legs and Co
Surely a marriage "maid in heaven"? Ain't Youtube wonderful?
That is two and a half minutes of magic
and deserved much more recognition than it received at the time.
the music wasn't bad either
oh yes
I've got a lot of good stuff in the bank with Bill Nelson ... a lot of good stuff.
I do, however, think it's a real shame that he decided (or was compelled) to retreat to the comfort of his home studio. For years, all he has produced is a succession of meandering instrumental albums and half-baked demos (under the guise of 'capturing the moment').
His audience has shrunk to a hard core of a few hundred folk who attend the annual 'Nelsonica' convention and who lap up whatever he puts out. There are worse ways to make a living, I suppose.
I stuck with his solo career until he did the
Demonstrations Of Affection box when I decided it was too much trouble searching through the volume of music to find the bits I liked.
I still listen to BBDL and Red Noise though, as well as the early solo stuff but he does seem to have lost his way a little in the last 20-odd years.
I'm not sure if he's a
I'm not sure if he's a cultural icon but I think he's great. I ripped my vinyl copy of "The Love that Whirls" onto iTunes and it sounds good. Pity about the often pretentious song titles, but that sort of thing hasn't put me off Bowie, Simple Minds, Stereolab....
Home studio...
....I agree with DC Eisenhower, it's a shame he seemed so very, very far from the mainstream. I also loved the production work he did (see below) why not much more???
Fan Club
I was member of the Bill Nelson fan club in the early 80s. For about £3-4 you got this:
Permanent Flame
The Beginner's Guide to Bill Nelson
UK: Cocteau JEAN1 in 1983
7" single boxed set, includes blue pin, biography, & discography up until "Flaming Desire"
all singles feature picture sleeves:
Touch and Glow/Dancing in the Wind/Love Withour Fear
as Red Noise: Revolt Into Style/Stay Young/Furniture Music
as Be Bop Deluxe: Panic in the World/Maid in Heaven/Electrical Language
Rooms With Brittle Views/Dada Guitare Do You Dream In Colour?/Ideal Homes/Instantly Yours/Atom Man Loves Radium Girl
A fantasic package and the tunes still more than hold their own today.
By the wonders of spotify
I can't quite recreate that compilation but here's a sampler of BBD/RedNoise and his early 80s solo stuff
http://open.spotify.com/user/boychild/playlist/4Lm3vqdhkpKxIDOjX0iXX0
Be Bop Deluxe
were the first band I ever saw live (they were supporting Cockney Rebel on the tour that launched 'Judy Teen' into the charts and Steve Harley into overdrive) so I retain a soft spot for Bill Nelson. He's rather "Done a Frank Zappa" by creating a sort of cottage industry around his work, although I have to admit I don't keep up with him as closely as I did, err, back in the last century.
(Jeez - did I ever think I'd catch myself saying [adopts old codger voice] back in the last century?)
I was a big fan ...
up to the Red Noise period, then as DC Eisenhower says, for whatever reason, Bill Nelson went into his home studio and seldom emerged with anything listenable. I believe he lost or never received his Be Bop Deluxe royalties due to the usual manager/record label it's-all-been-eaten-up-by-the-overheads/taxman scenario. Had to sell his mansion.
I still have all the Be Bop Albums tapes playing on the cassette player in my 20-year old Volvo.