News Archive - June 1997
June 26th
For those still waiting for the 5 Swing Live CD,you should be receiving it soon.A few people have reported getting them last week,and The Cure mailing service sent out an e-mail a couple of days ago which announced they were shipping.
a few other things:Roger has been in the Cure chat room the last couple of days,and once again said they are planning a few theatre/club shows in the U.S. to promote the new singles album this fall.He also said Robert is busy right now working on the lyrics for the new songs.
June 20th
Just a reminder that MTV's Week in Rock will have highlights from the KROQ Weenie Roast this weekend.You can catch it Friday,Saturday and Sunday at 6:30 pm eastern/5:30 pm central each day.
Note:I just saw the report,and The Cure are shown for about 5 seconds doing "Just Like Heaven". So unless you want to see Robert's new haircut,you can miss this.
Here's an interview with Robert that was in the San Jose Mercury News (6/19/97):
CHECKING IN WITH THE CURE'S ROBERT SMITH
by Brad Kava
The most shocking thing about the Cure's Robert Smith offstage is how normal he seems. And how nervous.
I caught up with Smith by phone the day before he left England and again backstage at Live 105's BFD show at Shoreline Amphitheatre, before his band went on to a blazing 90-minute set laced with rarely played oldies. "This seemed like such a good idea two days ago," he said backstage, "but now I'd rather be anywhere else. My hands are clammy. I'm a fish out of water here. I'd rather be out there," he added, pointing to the audience.
The guy who wears thick Edward Scissor hands makeup on stage with his hair moussed straight up, is almost unrecognizable in his civvies. He is no more the character he plays (on record and in concert) than Johnny Depp is the man with shears for fingers.
Facing an audience "doesn't come very naturally to me," he says. "It's a strange paradox. I get very self-conscious when I walk out on stage. As soon as I start playing and singing, I can't believe what I've just done. There's a sense of ego there I haven't really got in normal life. I'm not a loud person at all. I don't care if people pay attention to me or not."
Smith 38, describes himself as "split down the middle" and says he has been since high school. "I was a strange mix. I was into football (soccer). I was on the football team. Off the field, my friends were into music. They thought I was weird because I played football. My footballer friends thought I was weird for hanging out with my music friends. I guess it's the same today.
Smith has been married for nine years. He spent the last six months off the road, and speaks of that time in a way that reminds me of the song "Friday I'm in Love" with its recounting of life by days.
"In January I went over (to New York) and did (David) Bowie's 50th birthday show. That was unusual, full stop, for me. I spent February on a walking holiday in the north of England. March, I was in the studio mixing live stuff.
In April I did a lot of visiting, house calls, re-establishing links with family and friends. May, I was writing all last month. We're going to do a singles album. We haven't done one since 'Standing on the Beach.' I was going over all this archival stuff. I want to get a book finished of the last 10 years.
This month I've spent trying to write words and doing gardening. My garden is mostly weeds. I pull them out."
Smith says his dark image is an exaggeration. "Most of the time I lead a normal life. A relatively normal life. I've not worn black as often as I've have, but everyone latches onto the other side, which is more visually striking. I will be arriving in California in shorts. I think I've performed in shorts."
Smith played in hockey shirts on much of last year's U.S tour. (Not that he's a fan-they're just comfortable, he says.) The San Jose Sharks provided shirts for the whole band, which they still wear.
He says he once met members of the Pittsburg Penguins in a bar and was unimpressed. "It was a surreal experience. Ever since then, I've thought of hockey as that: big dangerous blokes who have had one beer too many."
Once he warms up on stage, Smith takes great pride in what the Cure gives its fans. He plays for three hours or more and varies the sets night to night, knowing that his fans often follow the band from city to city. Last tour, the band played 170 over the course of 18 months, completely changing the set from the beginning to the end of the run.
On the tour before that, the "Wish" tour, it had to be the same night to night, to be in sync with the sound and light crew and their computers. Smith said it got boring quickly. This time, he made everyone work manually each night, leaving room for spontaneity. "It was a victory over technology."
He did only two shows this tour, for Live 105 and KROQ, because the stations were loyal to the band in the early years. "I have no good, sound, commercial reason for doing it. I only told the others in the band that we were going last week. I thought it would be a good, strange holiday to spend a few days in America. That's why you are in a group, really."
Smith says he was deeply moved by the thousands of fans who turned out for a 3-hour-long autograph session at Tower Records in Campbell before his show last August. "I try to remind myself before each show of what people have done to come and see us. A lot have traveled a long way and each of them made the effort to buy tickets. At that signing the strength and emotion really rubbed off."
June 18th
From Allstarmag News :
The Cure Record Tracks For Singles Package, New Album Also, Possible Small Club Dates In U.S.
The Cure is slated to enter a London studio in a few weeks to begin recording two tracks for a forthcoming singles collection and material for a new album. The not- yet- titled singles collection will primarily feature their hits from 1986, most likely starting with their Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me album and going through today.
The collection, which will include two new songs, is due in October on Fiction/ Elektra. While in the studio, The Cure will be recording for their next studio album, which is tentatively due the first quarter of 1998. The group's last singles package, Standing On A Beach: The Singles, released in 1986 on Elektra, was included in Rolling Stone magazine's top 200 most essential albums list recently.
According to a source, there is also talk of the group doing three to four small club dates in the U.S. to promote the singles compilation.
June 17th
Yes,the rumors you heard over the weekend are true.Babble is back,and yes,Nancy is still running it.Be sure to go to http://www.insane.net/babble/ for all the info you need about subscribing.
June 16th
Matt Gruber posted the following to descent:
i was one of the unlucky ones who was not able to go to the weenie roast yesterday, but i listened to the radio instead. it was there that i heard Robert say that in rehearsals for these two shows they rehearsed two of their new songs. The reason they did not play them, according to robert was that he did not want to have to explain to the audience that they were new and tell them that this was the new direction the band was going to be going. so i guess we will just have to wait. it doesn't sound like it will be too long of a wait though. as he was saying good bye to the audience (it was broadcast live on the radio) robert said that he will see us again in a couple of months. that sounds pretty positive.
Now in Friday's chat,Roger said they weren't playing any new songs because they didn't have lyrics yet.
June 15th
The Saturday night chat was much better than Friday's.Lot's of good info passed on.I've got the edited chat log posted. Here's a couple of things passed on: No European dates this summer because they want to work on the single and album,new "Best Of" album will be out in Oct. , new single should be out July or August,the Live 105 show will be cybercast on June 28th,the band plan to have another big chat while in the studio this July,they also plan to turn the Curevision on while in the studio,many hints about another tour,the 5 Swing Live cd's started shipping on Friday.
June 14th
Well,the best laid plans...needless to say,the Live 105 show was not broadcast over the internet as promised.It seems that all the king's horses and all the king's men,just couldn't get the damn ISDN line together again. :(
The show was videotaped and there are plans to put a copy of it up soon.Check the InterNetwork page for details.
And the Cure Chat was chaos as usual,with nothing of importance said by Roger,Perry,Jason,Simon or Robert.They say they'll be back before tonight's show in Irvine between 9 and 11 pm pacific time.
I've put together an edited version of the Chat Log here
June 7th
KROQ Weenie Roast tickets went on sale today Sat. (June 7th) at 9am,and were sold out in 9 minutes.
The Cure on PBS's On Tour Series
As many of you know,the Las Vegas show of the Swing Tour was filmed for a PBS series called On Tour.Well PBS has finally put it on their schedule.
From Chart Attack:
On Tour TV Show To Start This Weekend
An ambitious undertaking that is being dubbed "A World-Wide Pop Music Extravaganza", the new TV series called On Tour begins airing this Saturday, June 7th on your local PBS station in Canada and the States. A 26-part show produced by Sunshine TV, in association with KCET-TV in southern California, it basically highlights live performances form over 100 artists, including No Doubt, Beck, Cranberries, Fugees, Goo Goo Dolls, Smashing Pumpkins, Blues Traveler, Joan Osborne, Devo, Cibo Matto, Bad Religion and truckloads of others. The only Canadian filmed live for the whole series was Amanda Marshall, whom you can watch on the first show this Saturday. Check local listings for times and PBS channels.
And here's the schedule from PBS:
Episode 1-Sting,Steve Earle,Nil Lara,Amanda Marshall
Episode 2-No Doubt,A Tribe Called Quest,Spearhead,Phunk Junkies
Episode 3-Metallica,Devo,Satchel,Melvins
Episode 4-Beck,The Refreshments,Lustre,Cibo Matto
Episode 5-Holiday Special Blues Traveler,Me'shell Ndegecello,Rickie Lee Jones,Rusted Root,Nil Lara,Medeski Martin & Wood,Super 8,Left Over Salmon,Sun Volt
Episode 6-The Cure,Morphine,Dogs Eye View,Scheer
Episode 7-The Fugees,G.Love & Special Sauce,Four Tops,Low & Sweet Orchestra
Episode 8-RATDOG featuring Bob Weir,Mickey Hart's Mystery Box,Hot Tuna,Alvin Youngblood Hart,Flying Karamazov Brothers,Samba Nova
Episode 9-Smashing Pumpkins,The Verve Pipe,Satchel,Lustre
Episode 10-Reggae Sunsplash Common Sense,Big Mountain,Dennis Brown, Capleton,Judy Mowatt,Sugor Minott,Skool Band,Tommy Cowan
Episode 11-Cranberries,Tears for Fears,Marry Me Jane,Jann Arden
Episode 12-Bruce Hornsby,Meat Loaf,Los Lobos,Maria McKee
Episode 13-Holiday All-Star Special Bush,The Cure,Goo Goo Dolls,Meat Loaf,Seven Mary Three,Smashing Pumpkins,Sting
So it looks like The Cure will be on the weekend of July 12th and Aug. 30th. (Of course you should check with your local stations to make sure,as some stations will not be carrying the series,and others will be showing it at different dates and times)
June 2nd
Got this in the mail today,thanks to Rena for the info:
I just heard Jed the Fish on KROQ announce that Kevin and Bean will be giving information on how to buy Weenie Roast tickets this Thursday at 7:15am.
June 1st
A very Happy Birthday to Simon Gallup who turns 37 today.