Crime and the City Solution are one of many Australian bands that never really got their international due. For example, I first heard of them via their appearance in Wim Wenders' film Wings of Desire. My attention was further drawn to them by the involvement of Mick Harvey, whose name you might not recognize but who, as a long-standing member of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds and The Birthday Party, is well-positioned to provide a bridge between those groups and lesser-known bands like Crime and the City Solution (and his own, excellent, solo material). Although Harvey was not a founding member of Crime and the Solution, whose only consistent member has been singer Simon Bonney, he is the longest-serving member apart from Bonney and appears on all of their records.
And speaking of their records, this is a particularly timely installment of Review Revue, as Crime and the City Solution has recently reformed after a 20+ year hiatus, and has a new album coming out this very year! Australian audiences will be able to see the band this February, while the rest of us will have to hold our breaths and cross our fingers for dates a bit closer by. If they ever do show up at a Seattle venue I wouldn't be surprised if you were to find some KCMU vets in the audience.
"One dizzy rock/pop piece after another, w/one semi-epic to boot. Looking back on their history + the scene they were a part of in the '80s, this is a fairly layered evolution of their sound. It's good stuff." "Try this for an endless auto-reverse car tape. From here to Chicago." "Concept LP about the British pilgrimage to the States." "This, and the last disc + W. of D. appearance, is the Crime I've come to admire. Quite good!!" "It causes me to grow breasts that lactate and attract large moths." [I think this is the best thing I've ever read written on an album cover. Thank you 'Skillit,' whoever you are!] "I'm glad you write small cuz weasal [sic] shit comes in small piles." "Actually I shit gross smell huge piles, besides what business is it of yours to talk about my shit?" [I have no idea what's going on here.] "With this LP they've crossed the line from 'average' to 'good.' The next step is...?" |
Suzi Quatro is probably the first person I've covered in this blog series who was also a cast member on Happy Days - which I watched quite a bit as a kid, but I don't remember much of. But perhaps Quatro's bass-playing character Leather Tuscadero was an early influence, subconsciously leading me to…
