Pictures of interest: Electronic & Pet Shop Boys

L-R: Chris Lowe, Bernard Sumner, Johnny Marr, Neil Tennant.

As you could probably guess, I really love this picture. It's a picture of Electronic (a duo comprising of Bernard Sumner from Joy Division/New Order and Johnny Marr of The Smiths). They're in the middle, the two men standing either side of them are Pet Shop Boys. As you could probably guess - one of my absolutely favorite groups. I love this picture not least because I'm a big fan of these four muscians and all the various musical projects they've been part of (which is a huge body of work). It's also one of the few pictures of Electronic with Chris Lowe. Last night I also finally discovered the origin of this picture, thanks to the excellent new Uncut special magazine on The Smiths which I thoroughly recommend. It was taken backstage at the Cities In The Park festival of August 1991 in Heaton Park which was in memory of Martin Hannet. Electronic played at the second day of the festival and they were joined onstage by Pet Shop Boys for a number of tracks. There was another backstage picture that the magazine had used though - but it was obviously from the same night. I had never seen that picture before so I think it was a rare shot. Anyhow I just really love this picture!

Pictures of interest: Joe Strummer (101er's days)

An utter non post I I know, but I just really loved this picture of Joe Strummer which is from prior to finding fame as lead singer of The Clash. Before being one of the forerunners of punk rock Joe was in a pub rock group called the 101'ers. I don't know the exact date this was taken but it was sometime between 1974-1976 (as they were the years the group was active). I'll admit they're not the style of the music I usually listen to (they mostly played covers of old rock songs such as Route 66, Johnny Be Goode and that sort of thing) but they were actually a good band. I absolutely love the live version of Maybelline that was released on 2005's Elgin Avenue Breakdown (Revisited) though. Anyhow, just thought I would share this!

Pictures of interest: Paul Simonon of The Clash with David Bowie

Seeing as its release week for The Next Day I decided to feature David Bowie in the first post of this series This is Paul Simonon - bassist of The Clash and David Bowie. This picture was taken in 1982, backstage after The Clash's performance as opening act for The Who at the Shea Stadium in New York. It was one of a few links shared between The Clash and David Bowie. My most favourite of these links has to be CBS telling The Clash that Bankrobber sounded like David Bowie backwards and as such they were dubious to release it as a single). But I digress, I just thought this picture was incredibly cool as it represents two iconic British artists.