THE HALF-DOZEN OR SO MOODS OF ULTRAVOX

THE HALF-DOZEN OR SO MOODS OF ULTRAVOX

FEATURES

by

J. Kordosh

Onstage, the amazing Ultravox. Right in front, on the edge of the area called the pit—not, unfortunately, in my honor— myself and the affable photog Bob Alford. Affable Bob’s busy at his trade; I can afford to sit and blow smoke.

Ultravox are blowing smoke, too. Literally. The show opened in a swirl of the stuff and intermittent haze continues apropos of nothing. Behind them is what I’ll call The Set. The Set is a construction of pillars and slabs, made out of plywood and light metal, that bears a vague resemblance to the Parthenon. You can see it for yourself on the cover of Quartet, or on an Ultravox T-shirt, or on an Ultravox tie ($10 at Ties-R-Us). What does The Set represent? “It doesn’t mean anything,” Midge Ure is to reveal later. Which certainly explains why Ultravox is having it lugged around with them over half the world.

The Set and The Smoke combine with The Sound (syntho) and The Sight (four fellows wearing baggy, black naugahyde pants) to create The Mood. It isn’t so much a show as it is an upper-case Mood, not to be confused with the mood of an Ultravox record. Onstage, they’re inhumanly dour, while on record they’re merely thoughtfully despondent.

The head Moodie is, of course, Midge Ure. Midge is a competent guitarist and an undistinguished singer, as we like to say over here at your favorite charity. But he’s also a showman and—as a showman—he’s some kind of guitarist and singer. Seeing him move is a fascinating, if rare, event. Perhaps the most intriguing Voxxer is Billy Currie, who leaps to the fore every now and again to scrape his fiddle, an inexplicable leer On his face. “Weird looking guy, huh?” says Affable Bob, who I really shouldn’t say ought to know.

Since we can all agree that an art/rock event of this magnitude isn’t something to be described, but—rather—something to be forgotten, let’s go backstage and learn more about these cats. I rea//y do like their records, sort of. Well, Vienna, anyway. OK, “Modern Europeans,” definitely. I listen to it every now and...heck, whenever I interview ’em.

Midge and Chris Cross are the honchos

in Ultravox, and are also partners in the video directing biz pioneered by Albert Schweitzer not so long ago. Midge is a fastidious-looking guy, with his neatly trimmed mustache and pointy sideburns. Cleanshaven and clear-eyed, peacockish Midge was wearing a black shirt, black pants, and—uh—black boots when we met before the show. He speaks with the charming Scottish brogue most people associate with a dwindling supply of Dilithium crystals.

Chris is a real contrast to Midge, which means that his hair was mussed, and that his shirt was dark green. Very, very dark; almost black. I tell you, it almost hurt my eyes to look at that blaze of color.

But never let it be said that I’m clothesminded about music. Ultravox don’t make the kind of hit-yoU-over-the-head records some Styx I could mention specialize in. “We sort of deal in atmospheres more than heavy social statements,” explained Midge, blithely ignoring light social statements. “The songs we write are a bit bizarre because we don’t deal with the basic subjects. They’re not all love songs and they’re not all songs about being out of work and not having any, money. The songs we write are more like clues to a storyline. There’s key bits that indicate what the song’s about, but don’t tell you what it’s about.” Well, that must be why Rush are big Ultravox fans.

Ultravox also have very definite ideas about what I’ll call the unbelievably mediocre state of pop music. “It’s very derivative, a lot of the stuff that!s out. Even a lot of the stuff that’s being hailed as very trendy in Britain right now is very—Americanized,” said Midge. “Americanized,” added Chris. “It’s basically American disco/soft so-ul stuff that has been bastardized somewhat by the British. And they’ve come up with, like, a new, fashionable version of it. And Culture Club is just that—it’s just nice, easy listening music. It’s good stuff, but it’s disposable fashion music-, really. And the whole thing will disappear when a new fashion comes along. And that’s not just Culture Club I’m talking about. Duran Duran—they’re really big now, but in six months they’ll be as dead as a doornail. Adam Ant—nobody wants to know him now [in Britain]. It just happens really fast. It’s fashion music; when the fashion dies, thdir music dies with them.”

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Sorry about letting Midge go on there, but the gentleman was making plenty of sense, plus he slammed three acts for me. If I remember, I’ll use Chris as the Designated Hitman later on when I get to the obviousbut-necessary Journey aspersion.

But I know what a few of you are thinking. You’re thinking, “Oh, yeah, well what makes you guys in Ultravox think your faces ain’t funky? Especially after Mr. Kordosh told us all about your concert, nyah nyah.” Gosh, Midge, how can you handle that one?!

“We’ve never stated that we’re anything but a rock band,” the Scotsman said with aplomb, and also with Chris Cross. “People tend to make too much of the synthesizer element; the electronics. We’re probably one of the first bands to use synthesizers, but it’s still a basic guitar and bass and drums band. With a bit of violin thrown in. Whether it’s bass guitar and drums or bass/synth and a drum machine, it doesn’t matter.” Except to the Rhythm Section Union, I guess.

Besides those credentials,though, U-Vox is sort of a de jure rock band ever since George Martin handled the production of Quartet. Martin, you’ll recall, produced a slew of discs a long time ago for a very popular—albeit lou^r-case—quartet currently under attack in the sensationalistic press. (The Love You Save is one example of this type of scurrilous, totally unwarranted slander,. Boy, the things that people do for money.)

In any case, Martin is a big name (six whole letters) as a producer. I wondered who thought of him, since Ultravox handled their own production on the two earlier discs.

“It was our manager,” Midge said. “We never would have thought of him at all, probably because he’s such a god-like character. We thought it was impossible.” Well, they secured Mr. Martin’s services through the undeniably clever means of asking him if he’d be interested. “It turned out that he’d actually seen us,” laughed Midge. “His daughter had taken him to one of our concerts in London, like, the year before. He knew the Vienna album, and the single, of course. And he thought well of it. He was right in the middle of doing Paul McCartney and we just had to negotiate the time.”

Hmmm, “doing” Paul McCartney? Oh, Tug Of War\ Silly me. Now, at the time, Ultra-V didn’t know if Martin would embrace them warmly or take their tapes over to Paul and Linda’s for a good laugh, but the band has nothing but praise for the redoubtable Mr. M. “He worked a lot on the vocals, which was good for me,” Midge recalled, not kidding. “I hadn’t worked with anyone in that sense for five or six years. Otherwise, he just sort of sat back and let us get on with it, which was great.”

One good thing about using Martin: it softened Ultravox’s image as fuehrers of their own fate. Seriously, these guys control anything that has to do with Ultravox at all, and I’m going all the way down to tour posters and overpriced ties. Naturally, Chrysalis sort of smiled and patted ’em on the head when they hashed out their initial deal, but after the European success of “Vienna,” began to get the idea that the band knew what they were doing. (The record company’s choice for a single had been “Passing Strangers.”) Now they sit in on marketing meetings and whatnot. “We’ve got a real fanaticism about being in control of everything we do,” Midge said. “It’s not that we’re interested in the business end of it, the money and all that stuff. But when it comes to talking about what magazines we want to be in, We’ve got our own definite ideas.” Or, if they didn’t before, they sure as heck do now.

Ultravox is doing pretty well, as you might’ve guessed, but no matter how Well anyone’s doing in the Biz it doesn’t matter until they’ve pulled the old “Conquered America” skit. And they’ve got plenty of American fans. But, to be perfectly coarse about it, so do I, and .they’re both fine people. Can UV pull it off here in the land of record-buying, uh, fools?

“We don’t particularly like the way American music’s been going for the last 10 years,” Midge noted.

, “It’s disgusting. Frankly, I’m worried,” I admitted with some candor.

“ ‘Mr. Roboto,’ ” said Midge, almost on cue.

“ ‘Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto,’ ” I sang, having the unbelievable misfortune to know the lyrics.

“Now that guy’s sick,” Midge answered. “The sad thing is that Styx sounded like Styx: they had the ‘rock’ thing, they were good at it. But it sounds like they heard all these bands were coming out qf Britain and Europe, using different instruments, and they said: ‘Shit, this is getting out—let’s write ‘Mr. Roboto!’ I saw the video and I couldn’t believe it. ”

“I haven’t seen the video.”

“Oh, the video’s funny. Oh, je§z. It’s real long; it’s about seven minutes long! It’s all robots and futuristic scenes and things.” Important topics, to be sure.

“American bands: it sounds like all their morale’s been kicked out within their first year of signing [to the record label], and all their songwriting is dictated by the company,” Chris said.

Interesting idea, although I’d say it has more to do with brains than morale. I halfsuspect Ultravox can make some inroads in the USA, especially with their artfully cryptic live show. Even if it doesn’t mean a damned thing, which it probably doesn’t, it’s got that aura of deepness a lot of rock or HM hacks strive for. Like, the Pink Floyd Big Idea Syndrome, which has been known to enamor hapless Americans for years without relief.

And, speaking of healthy Americanism, Chris pretty much wrapped it up when I asked him how they came up with their name. “At the time, everybody [in the U.K.] was anti-everything,” he said. “So we said we’ll give ourselves a name that sounds just like a product.” To sum it up, I guess, Ultravox is ultra-bright. ^0