From B to J

During a check on my favorite artists I ran into a music video of David J, reminding me of the fascinating artist and songwriter the man is.

The song brings up memories of Bound for Hell, which he wrote for the self-titled Love & Rockets album. Although this album divided not only the band’s 2 main songwriters, but also their fan base, I still love it. Exactly because of its playfulness, its fooling around with pop music. Subsequently they defined… pop music. And does ‘Roll On’ on the Daniel Ash album ‘Foolish Thing Desire’ bring up memories of ‘Motorcycle’ on L&R? (anyone saying “The Jesus & Mary Chain”?)

I have mostly known David J as the coolest bass player around. I found out only last year that he had composed the music for the V for Vendetta song This Vicious Cabaret, using Alan Moore’s lyrics. Following is not an official video, but pastes imagery of the (great!) movie on top of the (great!) song:

Fairly intrigued I bought me the full (mini) CD. Now, that’s what I call (avant-garde) CABARET! My edition also holds the demo version of the main song, which is truly great (knowing that it’s the result of a 1 night effort).

It all started with Bauhaus. And it’s quite fair to say that also Peter Murphy (I’m a huge fan!) and Daniel Ash are fascinating artists and songwriters, that have helped defining the face of music. If you want to know more on the forming of, the history of Bauhaus and the subsequent paths of its members, there’s this illuminating book Dark Entries (Bauhaus and beyond). It goes back to the days of various bands, of David J playing bass, his brother Kevin (Haskins) on drums (flower pots?) and Daniel on guitars. With Peter they came to be the legendary Bauhaus (1919).

Of course, over the past 25 years the guys have kept creating new, distinct and fantastic work, have reformed a couple of times, even put out a new Bauhaus album. Too much for one lousy blog note…