Miki :: No Regrets

"Even now," says Miki, "it won't be at all easy knowing Chris won't be there. We know you can't recapture what you had before, but hopefully it will be brilliant in a different way. If I think of all best bits of the band, how great it is to play live, and to play your own songs, then there's an open door you can walk through. I know I'll regret it if I didn't."

4AD Reveals New LUSH Site

4AD has just launched their own full-blown Lush site (not to be confused with the band's own site), detailing the bands history on the label, pre-2015 of course, beginning with a nice intro of where the band is today. There's even a mention of Emma stating that the next album(!) will be more rehearsed than 'Blindspot' is when it was recorded. All is told with the first person accounts of Miki, Emma and Phil, and additional details provided by former band mates Meriel Barnham and Steve Rippon and the very fitting tribute to Chris Acland and his importance to Lush are much appreciated.

The official website for independent record label 4AD.
The official website for independent record label 4AD.
4AD.COM

'Select' :: May 1996

Twenty years ago - Emma and Miki, in the pages of Select magazine, published on the eve of their 1996 North American tour. 

"I do have a real problem writing songs about stuff that I'm right in the middle of actually... John used to get pissed off that I never wrote any songs about him, but I used to say, "Well you know all the songs I write about people are really horrible!'" -Miki

Want to read the entire article? Pop over here for the full electronic version - www.lightfromadeadstar.org/

LUSH Official Site Update

The official band webpage has been update with lots of more content - news, tour info, photos and more. Isn't it strange that all of this that but a few months ago still seemed to be a long lost dream has now become such a daily reality??

Visit: Lush Official

And now for a bit of a teaser from the new photos section... a tribute to Lush's Chris Acland and his drumming. He will always be missed.

LUSH Photo of the Day

Shared through the band's official streams earlier today: Chris during a publicity shoot for 'Split', from the same series of shots we've seen earlier with Emma and Miki. This is also the same set we see featured in the 'Desire Lines' video.

LUSH @ Heathrow Airport

The photo booth series appeared in the May 1992 issue of Select Magazine. Can you guess each letter?

Scroll down for the answers...

Answers: A, B, C - D, E, F - G, H, I - J, K, L

The Making of 'Hypocrite'

I love sharing all these fresh new posts that keep coming straight from the band! Today they're talking about the making of the 'Hypocrite' video (one of my personal faves).

. . .

Miki: 'Chris LOVED making this video! So sweet to see him laughing and being his lovely happy self. I remember going on the Octopus ride with Phil and they ran it backwards and forwards and it went on and on and what started with riotous hilarity ended with both of us having one hand clamped over our mouths and the other frantically waving in the air desperately trying to get the bloke to STOP!!! '

Phil: 'I remember that before we decided on getting Matthew Amos to direct this we met up for lunch in Notting Hill with a now famous French film director who was making pop promos at the time. Chris nicknamed him 'consumptive child' as he looked very pale and sat throughout the meal in silence while his manager did all the talking. The concept was us floating around a haunted house. It would need to filmed in a pool on a Hollywood soundstage. “100,000” his manager told us. “Pounds or dollars” asked our manager. “Pounds” he replied. Meal over. Think PJ Harvey ended up doing it in the end. We instead decided to hire a funfair near Heathrow Airport for the day and shot the video there for half the price. A bargain...um.'

Emma: 'I don’t remember a massive amount about it except them trying to create that effect where the camera and the subject is moving unnervingly toward/away at the same time..they do it using the camera on a track and the subject (us individually) on the same track with both moving at the same time. It wasn’t a massive success.
Wasn’t there also an extra who was also in Eastenders?'

Phil: ' I do remember seeing one extra (old bloke looking miserable) all the time afterwards in Marylebone library’.

LUSH - Control Freaks

Well what's all this then?? It's a bit of a filler piece that was shown on Channel 4 around 1996-ish during the holidays. But what makes this unique is that the 4-minute show features the one, the only Phil, Miki, Emma and Chris - aka LUSH. Aren't they all a wonderful lot? So there's  no music from the band, no interviews either, however as the uploader keenly points out: "...but it's rather charming in a lo-fi kinda way." And that's something that every true Lushhead can appreciate. Cheers and Long Live Rock!

(follow the link, web-sharing disabled) https://youtu.be/fKMah99Z8ro

Chris Acland Remembered

Remember Chris, it was 19 years ago today... Never forget.

LUSH's Photo of the Day

Photo shared by the band today on Facebook. I don't believe this one has been made public before.

LUSH by Kevin Cummins

This off of Kevin Cummins' Twitter feed via Phil's Facebook status. The internet is a wonderful thing...

https://mobile.twitter.com/KCMANC/status/651739864724062208

LUSH – A Video Retrospective With Miki Berenyi

Andy over at the Von Pip Express has posted a new interview with Miki discussing all the juicy behind the scenes lore of Lush's music videos.

Miki also has something to say about Lush's reformation (I never get tired of seeing those two words together):

"‘Hey, ‘ if financial constraints and time were not an issue I’d be on my 10th LP and recording a Greatest Hits compilation with the Royal Philharmonic by now. I would love to make music again, but it’s precisely those things that are stopping me!"  – Miki Berenyi (Lush) -2008 

Thanks Andy and Miki!

http://www.thevpme.com/2015/09/29/lush-videosmikib/

Hard Skin's New Track with Miki - 'You Still Here'

Miki Berenyi from Lush - more raspy as she reaches back to her punk roots - sings on a new cover album from oi punk band Hard Skin. The band was one of the last projects that Lush's drummer Chris Acland worked with before his passing.
https://soundcloud.com/lamestain/03-you-still-here-miki-berenyi

Three Shots as a Threesome

Three press kit promotional shots of a temporary threesome Lush, between bassists of course. The bottom photo is credited to Jurgen Osterhild, and all were commissioned by the band's label, 4AD. Though undated, it seems reasonable to guess that they were taken around this time when the band were preparing for the new LP release.

Slightly moody, vaguely shadowed, very contrasted, and definitely Lush.

Tie your shoestring Chris!

Dislike! - publicity shots where some of the members are pushed to the background and put out-of-focus.

Making Music/The Scenic Route to Success :: November 1991

Lush are the cover story on the November 1991 issue of Making Music, "The Scenic Route to Success" by Jon Lewin. The subhead teaser reads:

"[Lush have] been the big noise in the press for about a year now, though their particular bubbles beginning to show signs of deflating."

There goes another faction of the music press, building-up then writing off the band once again.

"They're widely acclaimed as both precursors to and leading lights of The Scene That Celebrates Itself, though their particular combination of intricate vocal harmonies, angry guitars, mobile bass, and adaptable time signatures transcends such a limiting categorisation."

The four Lushes settling down to eat their lunchtime bagels in their Camberwell rehearsal room while preparing for their early October London mini-tour.

Following are some very abbreviated excerpts from the Making Music story concerning the writing and recording for the upcoming LP.

The band currently (early October) are promoting their new Black Spring EP with a mini-tour of London and working on a forthcoming LP, which they've been recording and mixing this Autumn for release in the New year... all that's left now is for producer Robin Guthrie to come back from holiday to finish the mixing.

Although occasional parts may be added in the studio, Lush never write as a foursome, or simply work out new material by jamming. "We can't," says Miki.
"Because were such crap musicians," laughs Emma.

While working with Robin Guthrie on the new LP, Chris wasn't allowed to touch his new Yamaha drum kit. "I hated it, but I'm really pleased with the end results." says Chris. Instead of his own, Chris basically played on a Simmons kit wired up to change the fills, then re-done on Octopads. He says it divides his play into five different processes which for him doesn't seem natural, but the end result sounds like a really good drum kit.

With the new LP, Lush's repetoire is up to 21 songs, 17 of which are played for live shows. Admits Chris "That's the weird thing now, we've got so many songs." Chris also lays claim to be the boss on stage, since he controls the tempos of the songs... and he's prone to speeding up those tempos. "And there's us lot giving him dirty looks, telling him to slow down." Miki says.
"That's because," adds Emma, "we can't bloody play the songs any faster..."

Happy Lushoween!

Lush was reborn in October 1988, with Miki taking the vacated lead vocal spot. And according to at least one source, Lush was originally formed on Halloween night of 1988, in London, England (*please see note below!). For today I'm referencing this alternate view to give full play to the whole Lush 'mythology' and for adding a bit fun for the holiday occasion ;)

Later on the band would eventually play a gig on an October 31st date. In 1990 they performed at Birmingham's Institute of Art and Design. Never again would Lush do another Halloween gig after this performance - coincidence? We may never know!

On several occasions the band members dressed up in costume (even at one time raiding a Hollywood costume shop in 1991)... which just so happens to be a very popular custom typically observed only for Halloween!

In 1992 Lush's first full length "proper" album was titled "Spooky".... though the whole wasn't entirely spooky in nature!

While staying in Normandy for the mixing of the album Split in 1994, some band members reported strange goings-on while holed-up at their secluded - and haunted - chateau. Chris felt his bed abruptly moved back one night. Phil too had a strange experience here. "[I dreamt that] I was in a red cathedral, and there was this red room in this huge church..." It wasn't until after relating the dream to their producer that Phil learned that "there used to be a church on the grounds where the chateau was, and one day there was a massacre in a big red room there." The band's mysterious connection to the nether realms deepens!

So what more is there to add but Lush's own music itself, last but not least. Hauntingly beautiful, for the Halloween holiday I offer you:

Lush's Most Haunted Mix!

• I Have the Moon - Amazon Preview
  
• When I Die - Amazon Preview
  
• Invisible Man - Amazon Preview
  
• Ocean - Amazon Preview
• Undertow [Spooky remix] - Amazon Preview (Spooky remix version n/a)
  

MP3 versions of these tracks may be purchased for download at Lush - Amazon.com


* There is no record of a Halloween gig in '88 on Miki's own exhaustive show listing, though she admits she may have missed one or few. It's near certain that the band had their very first gig in March 1988, having just filled the bass spot with Steve in the nick of time. Chris was on drums, Emma and Miki both backing vocals/guitar and Merial Barham on lead vocals. Personally I think a bit of confusion is responsible for the Halloween '88 date, even an '87 date when the very beginnings of the band were forming in the Fall of that year would make more sense. Also see one of my older post, Lush v.2.0.

NME "Tubular Belles" :: October 26, 1991

The noteworthy musical mag NME devotes yet another article (Oct. 26, '91) to the very lurvely LUSH for the second time in as many weeks. This time its an in-depth, behind-the-scenes, one-on-four think-piece searching for what makes the band tick, titled "Tubular Belles."

And it goes something like this:

NME: ". . .Why do you like yourselves?"(as in Lush's music)
Chris : ". . .Personally I like it because I'm involved in it but if I wasn't in Lush I wonder if I'd be into it!"
NME: "If you weren't in Lush, would you play your records to do the washing up to?"
Chris: "Uh. . ."
Emma: "Yeah!"
Chris: "Well you get up in the morning and you play records that lift you up and on an evening you play something that is. . . moody. . ."
Emma: "SHAT AP, CHRIS! JUST SHAT AP!"
Chris: "Well, you do. . ."

Summer of Lush

Another summer has wound down. With timely topics being a bit dry recently, now is a good time to share some excellent photography... which just so happens to tie-in with Lush's final American tour 15 years ago this summer.

The first example is a solo shot of a black-rooted, flamy red-haired Miki onstage! This nice catch was taken at Toad's Place, New Haven, Connecticut in August of 1996. Photographer John Anthony Wilcox, a Lush fan, witnessed the band live a number of times... lucky guy!

Miki Berenyi Of Lush - Wilcox660 on deviantART



Next in line is a fifteen photo set taken by Steve Latham during a June 6th 1996 performance. The shots feature the entire band, jamming it out at Waterplace Park, Providence, Rhode Island!

And after enjoying the rich imagery of Phil, Emma, Miki and Chris, do what I did and let Mr. Latham know what you think...

Steve Latham Photography:
Lush - Waterplace Park - 6-6-96

Chris Would Be 45 Today

If Chris were still with us, today would be his 45th birthday...

We miss your care-free attitude, your sense of humour, the fun times you shared with us, and your decency to your fellow human beings... Peace Chris.

Debut of The Lillies :: The Spur :: September 1991

Twenty years ago...

In the September issue of the Tottenham Spurs fan magazine "The Spur" (Number 24) there's a special item attached - the Lilies flexi.

The Lilies are a one-time supergroup whose members include Miki and Chris, who just so happened to be rabid fans of the Spurs football team.

I've posted about the flexi before - if you'd like, you can view my original post right over here. But why redirect you when I can repost it the story in it's entirety below?



The Lillies
An indie rock band formed in 1991 as a one-time collaboration between members of the bands Cocteau Twins, Lush and Moose.

And here's what the the Lillies were about - a recording with the very memorable little title:

"And David Seaman Won't Be Very Happy About That"

Background
Although originally from the Lake District, Chris was a keen Tottenham Hotspurs football fan. Miki was a huge fan as well, and the Lillies' 3-1 trouncing of local rivals Arsenal in the 1991 FA Cup semi-finals was an occasioned to be celebrated. So how do musicians best express their praise of such a victory? They co-create a specially recorded track aptly and humorously entitled 'And David Seaman Will Be Very Disappointed About That', and have it pressed-up on a flexidisc to be glued to issue 24 of 'The Spur', a football fanzine. The sound bites used throughout the song deal with a goal Gary Lineker scored for the Spurs against Arsenal.

Joining forces with Kevin McKillop and Russell Yates of Moose and the Simon Raymonde of the Cocteau Twins they became the Lillies - effectively a super-indie rock band. And Simon wrote the song. The lyrics? "Three-one, three-one, three-one!" Miki's sole lyrics, vocalized all the way through.

The track was recorded at the suggestion of The Spur’s editor Stuart Mutler. After rejecting suggestions that they should record a cover version of an old football song, such as "Nice One Cyril", they decided to come up with an original song.

Yates said of the track: “…we’ve all been Spurs fans for years, and for myself making this flexi has probably made me more proud than making any Moose record”

The Lillies
"And David Seaman Will Be Very Disappointed About That..."
Release : September, 1991
Flexidisc insert, The Spur #24