Modern Man - War Drums/ Tell Us Lies

 

Ultravox associates with strident, pounding New Wave track

Label: MAM
Year of Release: 1981

You'll remember (possibly) that back in 2018 we covered a group called The Messengers. Consisting of Colin King and Danny Mitchell, they were close associates of Ultravox, supporting them on tour and having their recordings produced by Midge Ure.

Prior to that group's activities, King and Mitchell were members of Modern Man, who were discovered by Ure playing at a venue on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow. He offered to produce their LP "Concrete Scheme" which should by rights have made the group hot property, but any possibility of exposure was stifled by them signing to MAM. The label had been a strong player in the seventies thanks to its endless parade of Gilbert O'Sullivan smashes, but by 1981 was gasping for air and being distributed by the chaotic PRT. None of the singles they issued - either this, "All The Little Idiots", "Body Music" or "Things Could Be Better" - charted, and the group quickly shattered under the pressure. 

"War Drums" was their final 45, and shows a confident, strident group who avoid a lot of the weaker, more pretentious elements of the dominant early eighties synth pop sound and instead wallop a track out which sounds like early Spandau Ballet if they'd all been given amphetamines and forced to join the army. The group are caught standing at the crossroads of the fading New Wave sound and the promise of the new electronic future, and it's an interesting few minutes.

The Messengers - I Turn In (To You)/ The Semi-Professionals (Theme No.1)

Midge Ure proteges on a distinctly Ultravoxy sounding trip

Label: Chrysalis
Year of Release: 1982

Glaswegians The Messengers were formed from the ashes of the post-punk band Modern Man, who Midge Ure discovered while he was in a bar on Sauchiehall Street. He offered to produce their sole LP "Concrete Life" but the group, signed to the ailing MAM label, failed to generate any interest and quickly disintegrated.

Reduced to a basic duo of Colin King and Danny Mitchell, and focusing their renewed efforts on synthesised pop, they busied themselves after Modern Man's split by recording basic demos of tracks and posting them to potentially interested music business contacts, of whom Ure was inevitably top of the list.

In 1982, the man Midge got in touch and asked the pair if they would like to support and contribute additional instrumentation for Ultravox on tour, and also release a single in order to ensure they had some product to push on the road. The pair quickly agreed, and "I Turn In (To You)" is the fascinating result - produced by Ure himself, and using his favoured equipment and studio engineer John Hudson, it inevitably ends up sounding exactly like a record of his, to the point where drawing comparisons seems futile. You can hear it in every chunk of those melodramatic keyboard flourishes, pained vocal lines, and echoing drum sounds.