1990. Went to Curve's first ever gig. A dingy Swansea bucket-hole on the Marina; stuffed full of black-clad 'Quite like The Cure', frail boys with tear-stained Smiths Meat is Murder t-shirts, floppy fringed ravers still dancing off the effects of the XTC and amyl from the night before. I didn't like Curve but it was the time in my life when I went to everything. I'd seen them on Snub TV and people were about to go ape about them. It was hanging about in the air; the NME on the long slope down, clinging manly to Ride and the rest, looking for girls in the smoke of Slowdive. Curve were gonna be massive, already the Best Band Ever and we resented ever minute for reasons that none of us could quite grasp. Maybe it was because they seemed like a Goth Darling Buds to us hardcore experimentalists (we were into Cranes).
My mate N was the first person ever to dance to them - more a Charlie Brown bounce and flap, more a dance ember but, still, the honour is his. Later, as they finished, we approached the stage and drunkenly harangued them for being on TV with no record deal, accused Toni Halliday of sleeping around (not with us) and of being over 30 : "We know your Tori Amos secrets! Our bands gonna blow you away!"
Our band - the immortal Ix Tab - had one practice then I had to sell my bass amp for kebabs and Revolting Cocks records.
Curve went on, sold eps like hair dye and then made the unfortunate mistake of releasing an album.
2 comments:
as a "wish I had the cheekbones to be goth" american high schooler, I gotta say that the vision of toni halliday in the horrorhead video permanently changed my hormone levels for years to come. thank you dave kendall. (cranes, slowdive, darling buds, and ride were all ace as well)
heath - http://justforaday.blogspot.com/
curve were pants - introduced to each other by Dave Stewart (not all polymaths have chins you know) with journo friends aplenty. Their debut EP was sent to me by a record plugger and followed up agressively (quite rare in those days , especially after the Gloria Estefan incident - into the light - not bad for a cripple...)
I saw curve in Windsor (Old Trout RIP), and again saw them at the Slough festival (highlights of the day - the Fall's dustbowl and the girl from slowdive's black and white dress).
I think I used the word turgid in my response sheet, if I didn't I bloody well should have done.
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