The album more or less bombed. Admittedly, some of their synth settings are a little dated to the modern ear, but this nonetheless represents the definitive Thompson Twins sound, and to the less condescending, Into The Gaps appeal is far greater than mere nostalgia. The Human League Thompson Twins' Tom Bailey, Altered Images. And where did you get those hats? And that's what we live for.. Find Tom Bailey tour schedule, concert details, reviews and photos. With Thompson Twins, Tom Bailey made the Hot 100 eleven times between 1983 and 1989, but he hasn't performed a single one of those hits - "Hold Me Now," "Lay Your Hands on Me" and "King for a Day" among them - since 1987. Was Bob Dylan Good in the Eighties? Ive been playing that occasionally, but its often met with bemused looks, because people dont know it that well! Additional Tom Bailey press photography by James Cumpsty / Steve Dykes / Nick Caro / Rosaline Shahnavaz. Tom Bailey (Thompson Twins) performing Sister Of Mercy live at The Tivoli, Buckley in North Wales on 5th June 2015. Palace on July 24, 2022 in Perth, Scotland. At that point, I saw all sorts of creatures gently moving away. If any one person can be identified as the Thompson Twins founder, Tom Bailey, a British vocalist and pianist, fills the bill. He was named Record Producer of the Year in 1999. Also learn how He earned most of networth at the age of 67 years old? When you're actually doing it, you think it's good and that's alland you're more worried about your chart position next weeknot the one in 40 years' time. 56 in the UK and spent four weeks on the chart. I mean, nobody had any money. Tom bailey of The Thompson Twins performing one of the biggest hits of the 1980s "Hold Me Now" live in Tucson,AZ for the Lost 80s Live show on 08-19-2016 Indeed, according to that Face article, two audience members, Leeway and Jane Shorter, subsequently joined the band to add percussion, though others insist Leeway met Bailey because both were teachers and Shorter, significantly, also played saxophone. It was his first interview in more than a decade and came on the eve of his return to live performance after a 25-year break to explore dub, World beats and a life away from the limelight. The 1980s were an era of musical explorations spawning a new sound heavily driven by synthesizers. The Invisible Man briefly disinterred their Eastern influences, too, nodding to the production techniques of William Orbits Strange Cargo project, but elsewhere things were tamer. Whatever Happened to The Thompson Twins? - CultureSonar "We actually decided, well, this is an interesting emotional subject. However, the albums impact was greater in the UK, thanks to the success of Love On Your Side in early 1983, which made No.9 and opened the LP with its unforgettable, niggling riff. It was an incredible time for the trio who toured behind the record. [2] The band had originally planned to record it with producer Alex Sadkin and engineer Phil Thornalley - both of whom they worked with previously on Quick Step & Side Kick - but at the time both were otherwise engaged in finishing off Duran Duran's Seven and the Ragged Tiger album in Australia. Tom Bailey To Play The Thompson Twins''Into The Gap - Forbes 17 talking about this. } With Currie now a full-time saxophonist and percussionist, and Matthew Seligman on bass not to mention Thomas Dolby popping up on three tracks Thompson Twins expanded their horizons on Set, aided by producer Steve Lillywhite, who helped leave their earlier squat sound behind. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. This inspired the most personal song, Long Goodbye, with its poignant theme Ive seen my future die, my whole past as well but though such candour might have explained the records title, it was largely absent elsewhere, and those lines might worryingly soon describe the bands status, too. Their tour, a tastefully spectacular high-tech affair, has been going down like gang-busters across the country. Almost 40 years since they last toured Australia, Thompson Twins' Tom Bailey is headed to Australia to perform the band's seminal album, 1984's 'Into The Gap' in full as well as their other hits. Nothing but perfection from both performances. Then, 10 years later, right at the end of the Twins, his Industry And Seduction sat alongside numbers by Brian Eno, Moby and David Bowie on the soundtrack to Cool World, an album that proved far more memorable than the movie. Which one of you is Thompson? Tom Bailey (author) - Wikipedia On the Thompson Twins: We lasted until 1992. Tom Bailey (born 1961) is an author, editor, and former teacher in the Creative Writing program at Susquehanna University.He has published two novels, a collection of short fiction, and two textbooks on writing short stories. Future Days, meanwhile, was tiresome, You Killed The Clown was a sappy ballad, Tokyo was basically patronising, and the best one could say of Emperors Clothes (Part 1) was that Part 2 never turned up. Alongside his wife. The latter published his short story, Snow . It kind of characterized our feeling then, that we have to do everything possible to make it kind of foot-tappable and sing-along-able, but have a kind of style and a meaning at the same time. 17558 fans Top tracks. It was written and produced by Alannah Currie and Tom Bailey. It's the better part of nostalgia. The Twins third album found them reinvented, with Bailey having perhaps ruthlessly split the band, only to reform it with Currie and Leeway. When I saw them perform they had 7-9 people playing instruments live, with singing live without backtracking tape in background. There were hints, too, of Primal Screams Screamadelica in You Kill Me, while the title track leaned on mystical influences collected during a trip to India, with extensive use of tablas and Baileys melody mantra-like. Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. Thompson Twins' Tom Bailey Tour Dates & Tickets 2023 | Ents24 He has also been widely published in anthologies and literary journals including New Stories From the South and DoubleTakes. That record is considered the Thompson Twins' most popular and commercially successful work, especially in the U.S. Enormous stingrays, sharks, barracudas He said: Thats the trick. Theres something peculiarly unpleasant about us Brits and the way we stare out at the rest of the world, saying: Dont come here, and I thought Ill ally that to another thing thats peculiarly British, which is the absurdity of Carry On films, so I can express the strangeness of the first thing in the terms of the second. Thompson Twins' Tom Bailey tour dates 2023 - Songkick By chance, Howard Jones called me a couple of days later and said, I wanna do this tour in America. Interview - Tom Bailey of Thompson Twins. #ot-sdk-btn.ot-sdk-show-settings:hover, #ot-sdk-btn.optanon-show-settings:hover { And the record will be released as Tom embarks on his most intensive schedule of live dates ever. That will change on August 21 when he begins the Retro Futura tour, headlining with Howard Jones. Dont get me wrong it was great because Tom Bailey is one of the best I have ever heard or seen in concert. Recorded again in Nassau with Sadkin and with Bailey officially a co-producer it arguably foreshadows OMDs Junk Culture, released a few months later, epitomising an 80s synth-pop style that was only forsaken once indie music gained a once-unthinkable foothold. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. Although theyd not been strictly unconventional for a while, now they were loosely conventional, opening with Follow Your Hearts tired transatlantic sentiments Dont let no-one else do your livin for you which set the tone for a record of bland, vaguely funky dance-pop. Listening to the cover of The Beatles Revolution they cobbled together for that show, one might have foreseen trouble ahead: like the studio version, it was bloated and unimaginative, and the album largely followed this pattern. To be fair, they had lost their way a little, having taken time off in Ireland, where theyd now settled, for personal reasons, not least the fact Currie had suffered a miscarriage the same day that her mother passed away. 17, January 05 1985", "Top Selling Singles of 1984 | the Official New Zealand Music Chart", "Top 100 Hits of 1984/Top 100 Songs of 1984", "Lazlo Bane's Guilty Pleasures the 80's Volume 1", "Scream Queens - S1E1 "Pilot" - Music and List of Songs", The Best of Thompson Twins: Greatest Mixes, Love On Your Side The Best of Thompson Twins, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hold_Me_Now_(Thompson_Twins_song)&oldid=1151326921, Articles with dead external links from April 2012, Short description is different from Wikidata, Single chart usages for Billboardadultcontemporary, Single chart usages for Billboardmainstreamrock, Articles with MusicBrainz work identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0, This page was last edited on 23 April 2023, at 09:50. Though first single Lies nearly repeated the American success of In The Name Of Love which featured on 1984s Ghostbusters soundtrack its slightly clumsily Eastern-influenced charms eluded Brits. Instead, he was interested in designing sounds to fit together and I thought, wow, thats what we were starting to do at that time, too. The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, Which leaves Alannah to field the questions, although she seems to be in a tender condition herself. It was quite fun., Why the Thompson Twins Dont Add Up, Page 1 of 4. Currie, meanwhile, if not officially a member, is thanked for playing and singing, so yes: things were always fluid. Squatting that is, moving into abandoned houses and living there communally and inexpensively was, Alannah says, a necessity, cause it was all these people who refused to get nine-to-fives to pay ridiculous rents. The important thing I have to say about that is that these songs trigger memoriesoften memories about good times as well as bad. all: inherit; background: transparent; We finally decided we'd said everything we wanted to say with music. Alex Sadkin had a degree in marine biology and he said: Come with me, but dont jump in and make a lot of splashing. Admittedly, the latter was boosted by spoken-word interventions from Debbie Harry, whose I Want That Man Bailey and Currie had recently co-written and whose Def, Dumb And Blonde album Bailey had co-produced. October 22, 2018, 12:01 am Tom Bailey Get a weekly round-up of stories from The Sunday Post: TOM BAILEY was the front man and songwriter for The Thompson Twins. I've certainly thought that the pop music thing was over, Bailey says. People were dealing with art, music, dance, he says. Thompson Twins Songs List: All Old & New| AllMusic Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Which is great, but it was just an accidental thing. Possibly such economies allowed them to head for the Bahamas Compass Studios, where they teamed up with producer Alex Sadkin, whod been working alongside Chris Blackwell on recent, Their marketing, meanwhile, was now adorned with a distinctive, cartoonish, three-headed logo designed by Andie Airfix, who also provided, among other notable work, Def Leppards, However, the albums impact was greater in the UK, thanks to the success of. It wasn't gonna be a standard rock and roll tour, that's for sure, says Bailey. (Mention is made of having had one too many Singapore slings the night before.). Interview - Tom Bailey of Thompson Twins - Cryptic Rock About the process Bailey commented: "You know what a great producer is? Thompson Twins Best Songs List: Top, New, & Old | AllMusic Tom Bailey from the Thompson Twins back with new album At least her clothes are vibrant. Adding notes and missing notes ( being that I play synth and drums) you notice all the backtracking sounds that arent being produced by the musicians on stage. You look back at it with affection or concern, depending on what it is., Portrait of members of the English New Wave group Thompson Twins as they pose backstage at the [+] Poplar Creek Music Theater, Hoffman Estates, Illinois, August 21, 1984. width: 100%; Once they were four, now they are six, although the number fluctuates to meet needs." Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. We can play them brilliantly, but if we don't make that emotional connection, it doesn't actually mean anything. Written by the band members, the song was produced by Alex Sadkin and the group's lead vocalist Tom Bailey. "Emotionally, it was written as the result of some argument that was resolved between Alannah and myself", explained Tom Bailey in an August 2014 interview with Songfacts. [9], Originally, "Hold Me Now" received a mixed response from pop music critics. Tom Bailey Pop Singer Birthday January 18, 1954 Birth Sign Capricorn Birthplace England Age 69 years old #65183 Most Popular Boost About English new wave artist who released the #1 Platinum-selling album, Into the Gap, in 1984 and was a member of the group the Thompson Twins. All change, all change. Copyright Anthem Publishing 2012 - 2023. 2023 Rolling Stone, LLC. Leeway had quit, by all accounts amicably, to settle in L.A., and though this shouldnt have affected the songs his key roles had been lighting and set design for shows Close To The Bone sounded like theyd lost their way. Dec 16 2021. Because hes a vocal specialist, and because hed recently been working with a Cuban singer, he suddenly had this idea to Latinise one of the songs, What Kind Of World? But we can't really. "I became tired of what the Thompson Twins did to my personal life": 10 [15] In addition, it topped Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play chart for a week on 28 April 1984, becoming the band's third number-one single on this chart.[30]. @TomBaileyTour. See all your opportunities to see them live below! Each member is standing on a platform, singing or playing a different instrument, a guitar or a piano for Bailey, a marimba or another percussion instrument for Currie, and a bass guitar or congas for Leeway. A love for West African music is also apparent on the dubiously titled, They share this enthusiasm with their most obvious debt, Talking Heads, whose twitchy, tense but playful artiness thrives in opener, And then there were seven. Tom Bailey of Thompson Twins : Songwriter Interviews - Songfacts But we had no idea it was gonna be so big. This subject brings Joe Leeway back from his private Idaho. Sadkin had been let go early in 1985, with Bailey taking over, and having immersed himself in the immeasurable possibilities of the eras burgeoning studio technology and with new single, Recuperating in the Bahamas as you do Bailey and the band decided to overhaul the record and roped in, Leeway had quit, by all accounts amicably, to settle in L.A., and though this shouldnt have affected the songs his key roles had been lighting and set design for shows , This, perhaps, wasnt surprising. In addition, the song topped Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play chart for one week in April 1984. Yes, I remember! he laughs. The Year of the Cat comes every 12 Years: 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023 "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" This website uses cookies to improve your experience. [3][4] Thornalley remembered going straight from the airport to the studio and mixing "Hold Me Now" - Sadkin, having made sure all was at the right technical standards, would usually sit back and let Thornalley mix while "on fire";[5] though his credit would appear on later editions of the single. Whereas on Into the Gap, we suddenly became more relaxed about balancing the synth and drum machine sound with a lot more organic material as well. It was released in November 1983 as the first single from their fourth studio album, Into the Gap. Mind you, all bands think what they do is great when they're doing it. With songwriting shared, Quick Step focused on synthesizers and dance-pop, earning a cult following in the US which in turn helped it reach No.34, to be filed alongside other Second British Invasion acts like Soft Cell, The Human League and Duran Duran. Alannah had emigrated from New Zealand, her homeland. Brighton Centre. Their locks are genuine, except for a portion of Tom Baileys red mane that is synthetic (an over-zealous female fan cut off a chunk of the real thing last year). The song, which combined familiar Talking Heads moves with a more recognisable Thompson Twins style, deserved its success, but so did the rattling, restless Living In Europe, which fared less well, perhaps thanks to bursts of PiL-like guitars. We're just rehearsing an old song. A love for West African music is also apparent on the dubiously titled Slave Trade, which pre-empts Adam And The Ants experiments in the same theatre, and Oumma Aularesso, which might give Paul Simons later Graceland a run for its money. This, perhaps, wasnt surprising. The Lewis Carol (Adventures In Wonderland) (on the B-side of Lay Your Hands On Me), The Fourth Sunday (on their post-Live Aid cover of The Beatles Revolution) and A Dub Product from the B-side of fourth single Animal Laugh; all took pop fans way off the beaten track. #ot-sdk-btn.ot-sdk-show-settings, #ot-sdk-btn.optanon-show-settings { Its been a long journey from that 70s Clapham squat to Science Fiction four decades later, but Baileys clearly not ready to settle. Although theyd not been strictly unconventional for a while, now they were loosely conventional, opening with, That theyd turned in something at best unimaginatively serviceable was particularly disappointing given that Bailey had once told, A bigger budget, however, instead provoked more back with the even older: Steve Lilywhite, whod worked on, A great improvement on its predecessor, with, Admittedly, the latter was boosted by spoken-word interventions from. And then I had to go and find musicians and dust off the keyboards and all of the things that I'd left behind so long ago. Forget it, I want it on sale now! ll change, all change. Along with success has come the financial leverage to do the sort of things that make working fun like cutting their records in the Caribbean, shooting a video (You Take Me Up) in Portugal and designing a live show thats costing them 8000 pounds a day (about $12,000) to keep on the road. 15 song set, all Thompson Twins except for 3 or 4 new songs. So that's why we did record it and finished it. (Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images), BTSs Jung Kook Is Teaching Musicians A Valuable Lesson, How A Bawdy Tom Hanks Comedy Influenced Insidious: The Red Door, World Leaders Keep Asking Taylor Swift To Bring The Eras Tour To Their Countries, Disney Shells Out $212 Million On Secret Invasion, The 10 Best Movies Added To Netflix In July 2023 (Updated), Stray Kids New Album Sold 5 Million In Just Its First Month, Mary J. Blige Turns Her Hits Real Love And Strength Of A Woman Into Two New Movies, Demi Lovato Is Re-Recording Her Hits As Rock Anthems, Which Is A Brilliant Business Move. But I remember making the logo. So, when Tom briefs his backing band that therell be new tracks in the set, its possible theyll be wondering the same thing as us: how do you go from writing one of pops most memorable string of hit singles (10 Top 40 hits in a row, from 1983 to 1985, five of them going Top 10) to writing across other genres for a quarter of a century, then back to writing pop songs again? In more recent years, concerts are the platform to sell music for an artist like Tom. For starters, despite silver-status single You Take Me Ups gimmicky harmonica and melodica which are anyway offset by lyrics addressing industrial labour its often mysterious, with former African fancies replaced by subtle Eastern flavours on Top 3 hit Doctor! This is the official Facebook page for Thompson Twins' Tom Bailey The British musician Tom Bailey, best known for his work as a member of the famed 1980s New Wave band Thompson Twins, would probably be the first to tell you that he couldnt have imagined performing his former band's songs again following a long hiatus. The moment you sing the verse, and the audience gives you the chorus back thats a fundamental part of the architecture. When we realised that we were on the same wavelength, that was the moment that the Twins came into their own and really became something. English new wave artist who released the #1 Platinum-selling album, Into the Gap, in 1984 and was a member of the group the Thompson Twins. We were interested in the idea of group rituals of that sort, and particularly how it relates to artist, performer, and audience. And of course, The Gap addresses that very issue, and we thought that rather than saying that East and West should be separated by a line of demarcation, actually where the two cultures meet is the most interesting place of all., Both Into the Gap and its accompanying hit singles and music videos catapulted the Thompson Twins to stardom, especially in the U.S. as the band rode on the wave of the Second British Invasion of America. Even then it was necessary to explain the story behind their ever-changing line-up, and those raised on the hits that followed their opening UK Top 40 strike, 1983s Love On Your Side, was the first of 10, though they saw no more after 1985 normally recall them as a trio: Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie and Joe Leeway. Familiarity breeds contempt, some say, and that may partially explain the sniffy response the Twins fourth album sometimes provokes. [12], While most of the group's previous songs have a dance-oriented sound, "Hold Me Now" has a mainstream piano-based melody but keeps the prominent bass line and Currie's Latin percussion of earlier releases. It was one of our foundational ideas. With strong roots in the European scene, an array of uniquely inventive musicians took over popular music, helping shape the era with hit songs that still resonate three decades later. Sound Design. (laughs) And suddenly you've got black, white, male, female, synthesizers, and we had costumes and video ideas. Before Fame Rejecting guitars almost entirely, Sidekicks as Americans knew it benefitted from the now absent Seligmans inadvertently persistent influence, since hed originally been hired to free Bailey from bass duties so he could concentrate on keyboards. So where are the twins? It was quite . Classic Pop may earn commission from the links on this page, but we only feature products we think you will enjoy. Tom Bailey Tells Us "Where Are They Now" - Noise11.com Bailey, although born in England, spends every summer in Auckland and was once married to a Kiwi, Alannah Currie, who was also part of the Thompson Twins along with John Leeway. Alannah dresses the part she plays onstage: big, frumpy hats, multicolored silk scarves covering her ears, and that birds nest of shock-therapy hair. Tom Bailey will perform at Friars Aylesbury this Saturday. As recently as 1980, the Thompson Twins were all living in extreme poverty on the same street in South London. We would lose money on tour in order to promote the sales of our records, now you put a record out to sell tickets. One of the leading synth-pop band of the '80s who were always on high rotation in MTV's early days, Thompson Twins were one of the most influential UK . The Thompson Twins were never two, The Face had written in 1981, but here they were half a dozen years later with just Bailey and Curries faces on the cover of their sixth album. So he got in this Cuban singer in and it added an instant feel to it.. In retrospect, its a shame that they didnt pursue this strategy further. After a while, though, he told Classic Pop in 2018, You cant just rest on nostalgia if you want to be somehow vital to yourself.. The Thompson Twins (L-R) Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie and Joe Leeway in London in 1984. . Strange Jane, later cannibalised for Play With Me (Jane) on the Cool World soundtrack, harked back to earlier times, if in less idiosyncratic fashion, and while Wind It Up packed a punch, its lyrics Wind it up, yeah, to a higher ground were painfully banal. Thompson Twins Tom Bailey- Hold Me Now - YouTube This time they pursued the ascendant chillout sound that parts of Queer had hinted at, with Tribe, Spirit and Sunray Dub again indebted to William Orbits recent work and the trance-y, breezy Beautiful graced by a laid-back Q-Tee rap and perfect for an Ibizan beach bar. Which makes it harder, but it will also make it more interesting.. Backing band of three girls were excellent too!! [13], Two decades later, the song received positive reviews from critics. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. Seeing them in 83 at Oakland Coliseum was what I was hoping to see in Morongo. We want to hear it. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. Currie, meanwhile, if not officially a member, is thanked for playing and singing, so yes: things were always fluid.