Countdown

With one more week to go until the 11 July gig in Fuerth with Mind 2 Mode there is just one question on the lips of  every Burchill fan across the world which haircut to go for – the “Burchill-crop circa 1988 Mandela Concert 80’s classic” or the “1995 longer hair sensitive-new-age-guitarist-crop”. Now I ve [...]

Graffiti Soul Review

Graffiti Soul is the new album from Simple Minds, in case you haven t been keeping up with the news, and I have to say its an impressive collection of songs and ideas. It is probably, dare I say it, their best since 1991’s Real Life and shows that the band can bounce back from [...]

Simple Minded and Sample Minds

Hey, guess what – if you’re in Wurth in Germany on 11 July this year you’ll see Sample Minds play their Mind2Mode set and I’ll be playing guitar for them for a night! Martin Sommer is unable to man the guitars that night and so Simon Hayward [who you may have heard on this site [...]

Mandela: Jim Pulls Out

Just kidding,…ole Simple Minds will be playing at the Mandela Concert on 27 June this year and it brings a tear to my eye. However, what the band will make of some of the other acts lined up brings into question the usual cross generational barriers. Didn’t it used to be about the music? Isn’t [...]

How to be Charlie Burchill in 10 easy steps

1. Confuse your fans by looking and sounding a little like Gordon Brown [see 'Is Burchill The New Prime Minister?' posted September 2006]. Keep all your hair unlike other guitarists we could mention that you never see without a hat.
2. When playing live, mouth the words to the songs,…..but wait, those arent the same words [...]

10,001

Congrats to blog viewer 10,001. If you can prove you were visitor 10,001 then you can claim your free Simple Minded Tour T-Shirt along with a free trip to one of the many gigs in the busy schedule and a tour programme showing some of the high-lights of the latest tour. Next posting: How to [...]

How To Be Jim Kerr in 10 Easy Steps

Follow these 10 easy steps and you’ll be Kerring with the best of them in no time.
1. Wear tight leg-ins, boots and frilly shirts with the occassional waistcoat for that “dapper, poetic, philosophical gent type of fellow” vibe. If you need some practice of being in a ’stage’ situation you can get the old hairbrush [...]

Someone Somewhere at Easter

It’s been a while since the last Simple Minded blog….but hopefully its been worth the wait as Christophe Avril and I bring you a new version of Someone Somewhere In Summertime! I always enjoy these collaborations and look forward to more musical endeavours with both Christophe and Simon Hayward in the near future. Feel free [...]

80’s Guitar Sounds Appreciation Society on Facebook

Hi,
I ve set up the 80’s Guitar Sounds Appreciation Society on Facebook – if you click on this link you should find yourself on the group page and if you appreciate the fantastic sounds of Burchill, Edge, Farriss and those other excellent 80’s guitar innovators then add yourself, keep yourself up to date with what [...]