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Josef K |
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Info: Biography, Pictures, Discography of all CDs & DVDs |
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The protagonist of The Trial, a novel by Franz Kafka.This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title.This page was last modified 17:22, 9 February 2007.See Copyrights for details."Are you sure you want to block this user?"Are you sure you want to delete this comment?"Hello from japan and thank you for the add!Thanx For The Axceptance,Josef K Were And Always Will Be A Truly Great And Innovative Band.Cash Card to Macy's in the mail this evening...ACTUALLY RECEIVED IT IN THE MAIL!Your songs always bring us a sigh.This could be an attempt to steal your username and password.Do you wish to continue your form submission?"The best DJs play for themselves (back me up on this guys); this one is my fave.Not me, but the great flood of viewers has made me feels this big time.Terms of Service
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Copyright 2008 Automattic, Inc.Considering the degree to which the musical period spanning from '79 through '83 has been plundered in recent years, it's surprising nobody's ripped off Josef K yet.The band's roots lie in the Edinburgh of 1978.Soon after the band formed a loose alliance with Glaswegians Orange Juice, playing shows and signing to their fledgling Postcard Records.They recorded their "debut" album, Sorry for Laughing for Postcard in late 1980, but both the band and label determined it was too slickly produced and not properly representative of the band's blistering live sound, so it was shelved.Recorded in less than a week, it was Josef K at their best, sometimes dour and sometimes glib, always spontaneous and never ponderous, it proved to be an enduring classic of the era.Josef K broke up shortly thereafter.David Weddel and Ronnie Torrance joined Nick Currie (later known as Momus) in the early 4AD indie pop band The Happy Family and guitarist Malcolm Ross turned in stints with both Orange Juice and Aztec Camera.In 1987, Young and Stupid, a compilation culled from Josef K's many singles, appeared for the first time.The LTM version, released in 2002, features fully remastered sound, a June 1981 John Peel session which captures the band's famously immediate live sound, and additional live and early demo material, running 21 tracks long.For anyone interested in the formative days of indie pop, LTM's release of Young and Stupid is a fantastic place to begin."Are you sure you want to block this user?InfluencesInfluenced by: The Velvet Underground, Talking Heads, Television, Pere Ubu, Roxy Music, The Modern Lovers, David Bowie.For two brief years at the dawn of the 1980s Josef K gave the
Postcard label its sharpest cutting edge.Orange Juice and Aztec Camera, Josef K's
flame burned brightest, while their influence has touched bands
as diverse as Propaganda and the Wedding Present.Yet just as
interesting are the subsequent solo careers of all four members,
which include stints with Orange Juice, Aztec Camera and 4AD
outfit the Happy Family.Not to mention the undervalued body of
solo work produced by enigmatic frontman Paul Haig.After David Weddell took over on bass early in 1979 the group
began gigging locally, joining a thriving Edinburgh scene which
also included the Associates, the Visitors, TV21, Fire Engines,
the Scars and Another Pretty Face.It therefore came as no
great surprise that their covers included the Velvet's Sweet Jane
and I'm Waiting for the Man, as well as Be My Wife (Bowie),
Psycho Killer (Talking Heads) and Marquee Moon (Television).Radar
or Rough Trade, though these embryonic songs failed to elicit
much interest."Josef K was like a gang.We would all hang out together.Punks were just as
dirty.After Daly set up his own
label, Absolute, Chance Meeting by Josef K became its first (and
last) release.Both sides were lifted straight from the earlier
demo, and although initial sales were modest on release in
November 1979, BBC radio airplay from John Peel afforded the band
a degree of national exposure.Edwyn Collins and Alan Horne, singer and manager respectively of
Orange Juice, subsequently set up Postcard Records, to which
Josef K duly signed.Arty and camp, Postcard stood in stark
contrast to the colourless majority of independent labels of the
'cold wave' era.The second Josef K single, Radio Drill Time, was
recorded in April 1980 during a shared session with Orange Juice,
who cut Blue Boy.The flipside, Crazy To Exist, is credited as
'live', but was in truth recorded in a cottage in Fife.Radio Drill Time found favour with the rock weeklies, who now
ventured north to check out 'the Sound Of Young Scotland', a
phrase appropriated by Horne from Motown.Interestingly, the song would also prove the most durable
oldie in Haig's solo live set.November 1980 also saw the band record their debut album, Sorry
For Laughing, a record which (until its appearance on CD in 1990)
quickly joined the pantheon of Great Lost Albums.Certainly, most of the songs were
already old, and the album gave little indication of what th
group proved capable of delivering just nine months later with
the Only Fun In Town.Ever uncompromising, Josef K were already displaying a
marked disdain for careerist notions, even going so far as to
boast of making only one or two albums before splitting in a
blaze of glory.In December 1980 Orange Juice and Josef K travelled to Brussels
at the invitation of Les Disques du Crepuscule for a New Year's
Eve concert at Plan K.Josef K appeared feelings in the crowd were
running high.Indeed, at a distance of twenty years, it is easy to overlook the
fact that Josef K considered themselves a live rather than a
studio band.In concert was the place to
truly experience Ross and Haig's sensational guitar work.Ross' lead playing in particular was inspiring.Onstage was where Josef K made most sense.It was becoming increasingly apparent that Josef K weren't
the serious young men that they first appeared to be.Is there one
missing?."When Crepuscule
released the record in April 1981 it was rightly hailed as the
group's strongest offering to date, and established the
definitive Josef K style of circular rhythms paired with incisive
guitar angles.In March, several songs from the scrapped debut album
were donated to the BBC as a fake John Peel radio session, while
in April the band crossed to Brussels again to play several more
shows, and to record their debut album a second time.Chance
Meeting, released in June, was far superior to the Absolute
version eighteen months earlier and, complete with added brass,
saw Josef K beginning to sound like a bona fide pop band.Bearing in mind that these four songs were to prove
Josef K's last recordings together, their excellence makes the
demise of the group all the more heartbreaking.Life in Reverse, a single
by Brussels band Marine released on Crepuscule in April.Although expectations for the 'debut' album were now running
high, it met with mixed reaction upon release in July.The Josef K Sound that would present their songs
with class.Can they forget their past?Josef K have cheapened themselves and
cheated the world: not bad for a first LP."TOFIT
arrived as a shock indeed to anyone expecting Josef K to turn in
the brand of sophisticated pop subterfuge that, say, the
Associates would produce a year later with Sulk.By way of promotion Josef K set out on a lengthy UK tour during
July and August, with boy wonders Aztec Camera in support.The
last London show, at the Venue, is preserved on the 'Crazy to
Exist' CD.Haig's dislike of touring and unspecified disagreements
over future direction were primarily to blame.Rather fancifully,
Alan Horne saw fit to blame the NME.We didn't have anything in common, so there were
no jokes, no happy feeling.Josef K weren't that famous anyway.We've split up, so
what?"I've lost alot of the ideals I had in Josef K.It's an ideal which Haig, perhaps to his detriment, has never
strayed.But before going on to examine the subsequent careers
of all four members, it is worth jumping forward in time and
covering the many posthumous Josef K releases.Fortunately, in 1990 LTM collected every
Josef K song ever committed to vinyl (together with demo tracks,
the Peel session and the shelved album) onto two remastered
compact discs.The direct covers and tributes number just three: Sorry For
Laughing (Propaganda), It's Kinda Funny (the Confettis), and a
heartfelt adieu from the June Brides, titled Josef's Dead."Friday Ferris Wheel" for free.Hello from japan and thank you for the add!Many thanks for adding us,We like your music, it's sounds great,really good atmoshere, it's cool!!The comment of thanks became very very slow.NME c86 bands got there sound now.The Undergroud with Belisha
Gigs are a mixture of ticket and pay on the door, get in touch if you want tickets and we can sort them out.Have a watch of the video on the profile too, it was shot by a fan.Lastly, we may be looking to get some merch in soon, so message us if you would be interested.Many thanks for the add."Urgent Security Alert","Warning: You are submitting information to an outside site.This is not a MySpace login page, please do not enter your MySpace login information (email address or password).Do you wish to continue your form submission?" |
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