*VISIT THE NEW BLUE AEROPLANES WEBSITE!*
www.blueaeroplanes.co.uk
Welcome to the Official Blue Aeroplanes on MySpace! This profile is maintained with the co-operation (and authorisation) of Blue Aeroplanes frontman, Gerard Langley.
Building a BA's MySpace Profile is, as you can probably imagine, no small task! Collecting everything there is to know and love about this band, even with Gerard's input, is a huge job! Humble apologies therefore, for not yet having a fully comprehensive, 'packed with all conceivable info' Profile just yet... It's growing slowly by the day though, so please add us as your friend and watch this space!
In the meantime, please visit the brand new website and don't forget to add yourself to The Blue Aeroplanes Mailing List at www.blueplanes.sthomas.net for 'live' discussion and updates on the Blue Aeroplanes via email.__________________________________________The Blue Aeroplanes - A Brief History!
The Blue Aeroplanes burst out of Bristol in 1984, a pyrotechnic blur of dulcimers, bagpipes, turntables, dancing and lots of guitars, all bound together in tendrils of freeform poetry. Many came and were bewildered, but for a select few they were a revelation, and the debut LP Bop Art was a source of comfort in trying musical times.
Bop Art - "angry, sad, beautiful, rewarding, and bursting with very real emotion" NME
It soon became apparent that The Blue Aeroplanes were not going to take much notice of the rule-book. The line-up was - and remains - in a constant state of flux, coalescing and dissolving around the core of Vocalist / Poet-In-Residence Gerard Langley and Dancer Wojtek Dmochowski. Various instruments and sound-textures have appeared and disappeared - hurdy-gurdy, banjo, mandolin, harmonica, French horn, and espinette de vosges all made fleeting contributions to The Blue Aeroplanes' sonic vortex before being swept away in the endless onrush of personnel and ideas. At the last count, twenty-nine people have passed through the ranks of the band.
Remaining with Fire for most of the eighties, The Blue Aeroplanes gradually expanded their audience with a string of acclaimed records and a cast-iron reputation for awesome live work. The critics were relentlessly won over.
Tolerance - "This album is the hardest, the most musical of victories" Melody Maker
Spitting Out Miracles - "This could be the best left-field British pop album of the year" The Independent
The Blue Aeroplanes demonstrated their casual brilliance and embarrassment of riches on Friendloverplane, a collection of lost and obscure tracks which was as well received as their albums proper.
Friendloverplane - "a trove of guitar bliss, a double album compendium of transports" Melody Maker
In 1989, the band signed a new deal with Ensign, and gained a new audience by touring the UK with long-time admirers REM. Those who witnessed the fourteen-guitar finale at the Hammersmith Odeon - where Stipe, Buck, Berry, Mills, half the road crew, and an assortment of music journalists joined the band on-stage for Breaking In My Heart - still speak in hushed tones. Fresh from this live triumph, The band headed for the studio, and began work on the superlative Swagger LP.
Swagger - "the most exhilarating live band in the country have at last completed a long-playing record of incomparable genius" Melody Maker
Swagger became the band's biggest critical and commercial success to date, and indicated that, by steering clear of fashions and styles to develop an idiosyncratic and distinctive body of work, the band had achieved far more than contemporaries with less integrity. Bolstered by their new-found success and recognition, the band headed for LA to record the follow up to Swagger, entitled Beatsongs.
Beatsongs - "the best album to bear a UK postmark in a long, long time" Select
Things had clearly been proceeding too smoothly, though. Ensign records were swamped by Chrysalis, and it took two years of protracted negotiations for the band to extricate themselves from what now seemed like an unsympathetic contract. Life Model, the LP recorded during that period, finally found an appreciative home at Beggars Banquet, and made its delayed appearance early in 1994. In the meantime, Ensign had put together a compilation - Friendloverplane 2 (Up In A Down World) which gathered together another assortment of hidden gems.
Friendloverplane 2 - "a bona fide treat ... a vital collection" Select
Life Model - "at least their third consecutive stone cool classic album" NME
And suddenly, The Blue Aeroplanes had been defying logic for ten years. To celebrate - another album, natch. Plus some chaotic and memorable live shows where the 1994 line-up were joined by the 1984 line-up to wreak havoc on London's Mean Fiddler.
Rough Music - "that most rare of things: a casually challenging, genuinely rewarding and hugely enjoyable album." Time Out
"The Blue Aeroplanes will be our most fascinating band in the next decade" Sounds 1990
Albums that followed include:
Fruit, 1996
Weird Shit, 1996
Huh!: The Best, 1987-1992, 1997
Warhol's 15 - The Best Of The Blue Aeroplanes 1985-1988, 2002
Cavaliers & Roundheads, 2000
Swagger Deluxe, 2006
Altitude, 2006__________________________________________
LATEST NEWS...
The Blue Aeroplanes have just completed their 2006 UK tour, supporting the release of 'Swagger - Deluxe' (a re-mix of the original 'Swagger' album) in January and of 'Altitude' in April 2006.
