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The Chameleons are back! Three
of the band have returned to the Suite 16 Studio in Rochdale and the
resulting sessions are now released as "STRIP" an acoustic
set of ten tracks, with two brand new ones. They give a new slant on
the old songs, Less than Human, Nathan's Phase, Here Today, Soul In
Isolation, Pleasure and Pain, Paradiso, Caution and On the Beach,
plus new tracks, Road to San Remo and Indian. John was not available
when the recordings were made, but Shan Hira was. Full circle in
effect! CD is PARADISOCD1 |
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Open Letter
from Mark Burgess, December 29th, 2001 (Forwarded from Plunko:)
First off I hope everyone reading this had a good Christmas
celebration and that the New Year proves to be an ace one. For myself
it's been rather a dramatic year, probably 'the' most dramatic year I
can ever remember, but overall an extremely positive one, I hope you
are able to say the same. I can honestly say that it's been a
positive year for the group too. 2001 saw the release of our first
album in fifteen years in 'Why Call It Anything'. We are all
proud of the work we did, primarily because I think we proved to
ourselves that we still have the ability to make great records, songs
that are able to retain the timeless quality that's become the band's
trademark. How do we know this? Because over the last year we've
played the songs night after night and felt them to be as fresh as
the day we laid them down. If anything the live performances have
improved the songs and enabled them to continue to evolve. It's a
shame, in a sense, that we didn't have the opportunity to tour the
material before recording the songs for the album, but that has
always been the way of it. I know that some people didn't get the
album they wanted and I feel slightly sad about that, but only very slightly.
What little feedback I've had from folk along these lines
reflect a mind set that would prefer to see us as we were twenty
years ago, rather than as we are today. Well, young children can
behave in very charming and endearing ways but were they to behave
the same way at the age of 40, as parents we'd be very worried,
wouldn't we? To those people I also say this, we will not retard
ourselves for you, nor will we be the sad, nostalgic champions of
your long, lost summer. If that's what you want then you have those
early records, either that or book tickets for The Mission.
The massive majority of you though have embraced the new record
and supported the gigs and to you I say you have our most sincere
thanks and appreciation. Who are The Chameleons today? Well as you
can hear we are still trying to work that out. If WCIA represents
anything then it represents a group of close friends learning how to
play and write with each other all over again, utilising all the
various influences and diversities we have accumulated during our
years apart.
With the addition of a fifth collaborator, Kwasi Asanti, we've
touched on textures that we weren't even aware of and had a lot of
fun doing it. We've been able to rekindle the belief and confidence
that made the band something special and we now intend to forge this
into a positive direction. For myself I've always been most attracted
by the darker, more intense work, both lyrically and sonically and I
know Dave shares this view. Reg continues to conjure up riffs and
progressions that are as inspiring as they are original. John has
always been the hardest working member of the group and provides as
powerful a foundation as ever, all of this in combination with
Kwasi's spirited percussive talent, bodes well for a new record,
providing we can find the time, space and resources to do the new
ideas justice.
Quite a few people, clued in by certain remarks I made at
Wishville toward the end of the year, have questioned whether The
Chameleons have a future beyond 2001. While the answer to this
question remains open it is looking decidedly better than it was back
then. While I can't divulge too much right now, I can tell you that
we are chasing some exciting possibilities for the new year, which,
should they actually come off, will provide us with fresh challenges,
something which is essential to the continued evolution of the band.
'Why Call It Anything' will finally get a domestic release
slated for February 26th on the Cleopatra label. Hopefully this
should bring us one step closer to getting the band Stateside next
year. Also planned for the New Year is the long promised Chameleons
live album, as yet untitled, recorded at the Manchester Academy last
summer. The album will feature almost the entire set, I say almost
because 'Truth Isn't Truth Anymore' and 'Soul In Isolation have had
to be omitted due to a DAT failure on the former and Dave's guitar
breaking mid-song on the latter. Shit happens as they say. The rest
of the record sounds great though, even if I say so myself. The
band's sound engineer John Delph and I mastered the recording about a
month ago and we're only awaiting the completion of the artwork.
While on the subject I've been asked where the official bootleg,
'Live At The Witchwood', which was being sold at the gigs recently,
can be purchased via mail order. You need to contact Pod (pod@arcmusic.freeserve.co.uk).
In addition to the mystery project mentioned earlier then, we
are hoping in the New Year to be able to bring the band to Spain and
plan to attempt to find venues in the southern region of France in
support. I'm hoping that we'll finally be successful in our attempt
to get the band a gig in Dublin and intend to try and get the group
onto the bill of next summer's Roskilde festival in Denmark, in which
case, if successful we shall also try and find gigs in Sweden and
Oslo. Finally, as I mentioned, we're determined somehow to get the
group to North America this year, even if it turns out to be an
ad-hoc visit to the east coast and would hope that any visit would
also include a visit over the Canadian border to Montreal and Toronto.
I appreciate that these are not easy goals for a band so far
out of the mainstream, so any help anyone may be able to offer would
be greatly appreciated by all of us.
Finally, egged on by many in the know, I'm hoping to find the
time to finish the autobiographical narrative I've been working on
for some time. Should this be of interest to you please let me know
as the more feedback I get on this the more motivated I will be to
actually get it finished.
I'll continue to update this page as and when things become
definite or when I have any further news relating to the band. Thanks
again to all of you for the continued support, be it the constant
stream of positive mail encouraging us forward, the warm reception at
all of the gigs, even the one or two dodgy shows, or for buying the
new record, thus increasing the odds of there being another. I hope
you have an ace New Year or at the very least, more 'ups' than 'downs'.
Namaste
Mark Burgess
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