Metamatic Forums John Foxx John Foxx Metal Beat

On CD1, track 4, reference ‘Old Street overgrown’

Having spent many hours looking out of The Old Blue Last or Catch on the dereliction around Old Street, following the disused Broad Street railway line, wondering how a place so close to the rich city of London is so abandoned, to find John thought the same 30 years earlier and encompassed it in my favourite song. This is a brilliant interview for insight and new dimensions to the songs.

Touchy subjects alert!

1. Several times in the interview John reminisces about the 1960's, leading me to think that he probably was born in 1947. (He even talks about early Elvis and the movie "Laura", both of which seem unlikely experiences for a boy born in 1952.)

2. As far as John Barker is concerned, JF seems to be perfectly open and fair. The absolutely only point of slight dispute is who's playing the Underpass riff on the final album mix, and JB has graciously conceded that JF could be right, so I don't think it's anything to get one's knickers in a twist about.

Finally got to listen yesterday.
Good stuff.

Love the demo versions,they seem even colder & bleaker than the album versions.

Did I hear John say he'd like to remix Metamatic?

Does that mean yet another definitive version some time in the future?

So theres possible remasters of 'the garden' 'the golden section' and 'IMW'. Plus some chance of 'shifting city' and 'TPOE' remastered too. Some interview cds, a past tour been released. And now maybe a remix of 'Metamatic'. Also it looks as if some recent gigs were recorded, John and Louis must still have ideas for the next studio album sometime too.
So all in all, not much happening.

You may have 1 or 2 extra tracks than what I gathered but more or less this is it.

These demos are well intergrated with the Interview.

These interview discs are a brilliant idea and I hope there is one each for the reissues of The Garden, The Golden Section and In Mysterious Ways.

One correction on Fusion/Fission. This was the original name of Metamatic. :p

There were a couple of scans on Ultravox.org.uk. Cerise can you provide us with a copy here?

I found that there was no mention on the synths that were used for the recording of Metamatic.

http://www.ultravox.org.uk/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=000528

Otherwise, a much treasured item.

THANKS JOHN!

Chris

I would have to disagree.

Are you suggesting the 'Jingles' from the FBWL project are on there??

With the possible exception of "Jane", I don't recognise ANY of the material on Metal Beat from anywhere else
(except the obvious demos of tracks from Metamatic, of course)

From what I gathered we have from the Bed Soundtrack bootleg tape:

Drums 1 & 2 (the opening track of CD1)
Jane (on CD2)
Red Cellar (on CD1)
and possibly Bed Flight.
We can also add the strings part of Touch & Go (on CD1)

Then we have the non-Bed Soundtrack tracks:

No-one Driving (demo) is on CD1

Like A Miracle (demo) is the closing track on CD2.

Plaza (extended version) is also on CD2. It looks like for the Metamatic album it was faded at the end.

There are also a couple of tracks which I do not recognize and these are the ones that Glamour Zero mentions as "Jingles". These are not from the album From Brussels With Love but jingles, very short instrumentals that is.

I'll give Metal Beat another listen and the Bed Soundtrack, and come up with a track listing bar the Jingles.

Chris

Could be a fascinating discussion this, because I really don't think these pieces are the tracks you mentioned.

Except "Jane" which is that which all of us have previuosly been referring to as "Jamie's Theme".
It is also not part of the sessions for The Bed, but recorded earlier for a different project.

And John is very dismissive of 'the noises' he recorded for The Bed in this interview.
I'l play it again now though...

I don't think any of the "Bed" soundtrack is on Metal Beat. if it were it would surely be mentioned in the sleevenotes.

What we have is synthesiser and drum machine experiments, plus "Jane" from the instrumentals/film music tapes.

Hi there

My understanding of what constitutes The Bed Soundtrack is the following:

He's a Liquid (instrumental)
Piano Piece
Drums 1
Drums 2
Echo Piece
Jamie's Theme
Bed Flight
Touch & Go (strings)
Bed Cellar

From what I've heard on Metal Beat, 2 or 3 of the above do feature on the the 2CDs. The versions on Metal Beat are straight from the masters and remastered giving it an impressive sound. There's a clear difference in sound quality to our CDR versions.

I'll come up with the Metal Beat tracklisting in the next couple of days.

No kidding it's true!

Chris