Next week we’ll be running two features on John Foxx. He’s not a mainstream Echoes, artist, but he’s a musician whom I’ve admired for nearly 30 years now. We almost never do two part features, but John just has too many good things to say and I also wanted to give a retrospective profile and focus on his recent album, Tiny Colour Movies.
I’m listening back to a 1982 interview that Kimberly and I recorded with Foxx in London. It’s striking how consistent his viewpoints have remained over the intervening 24 years and how cogent and informed his thoughts on electronic remain. He is one of the truly intelligent artists in contemporary music, who can draw interrelationships between all kinds of music, art, literature, architecture, history and pop culture. You can read a lot about him on his website. And he still looks like he could front a rock band.
Also a salute to Maxell cassette tapes. Even 24 years later, this interview sounds as pristine as when I initially recorded it for Totally Wired in 1982, with the caveat that, of course, it is a cassette..
A little tidbit I’d forgotten about: The bass drum kick heartbeat that forms the musical center of Ultravox’s My Sex was lifted from a Brian Eno session with Phil Collins. This was when Collins was a drummer and not a singer.
John Foxx’s Two Features, Metal Beats to Ambience Discreet and Tiny Colour Movies will run next week. Check the Echoes website for more details.