Duran Duran, at the very best of times, is a poptacular live force to be reckoned with. I’ve seen them 8 or 9 times in 5 different cities. I know this fact to be true. I am -GIANT MEGA DISCLAIMER- a Duran supporter and literal card-carrying member of the VIP fan club.

Verdict for the show in Seattle (okay, Everett, WA)?

Poptacular? Yeah, totally.

LIVE FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH? Ehhhhhh, not so much.

No, Duran’s first-show-of-the North American tour had that very definite new tour smell: performances were restrained, the energy was a bit muted, opening with “Before the Rain” was too sleepy, glitches were abundant (had to laugh when the four giant weird 3D Kraftwerk-ian white heads that had the band’s own faces projected into them started acting up during “Wild Boys”, displaying Apple error messages), apologies ready (paraphrasing Simon after a kind of loose “The Reflex”: “The problem  when you are a band who have been together as long as we have, is that you think you don’t have to rehearse certain songs because you’ve played them so often”), a false start, Nick taking pictures of his keyboards DURING a song, and just a really obvious feeling that it might take a couple of shows to get back in the saddle again.

Plus, Simon Le Bon’s “dance like yer dad” moves always make me chuckle. And when, by way of introducing himself, he shouted “WHO’S YOUR DADDY?/WHAT’S MY NAME?”  followed by “…which makes us Duran Duran, the band guaranteed to make you orgasm”, it was, oh, a wee bit cringeworthy. I don’t want Simon Le Bon to be my daddy. And I certainly don’t want him to be my daddy while wearing a shiny blue snakeskin shirt.

But that’s Simon. And that’s kind of why we love him.

Still, the magic wasn’t quite there. And I get why. All bands clunk a bit on the first show. But when you’re expecting to cry great big happy tears of Rio? See Nigel John Taylor lunging towards the ladies, and grinning that smile? Simon bounding about as if on 80s speed?

Bit of a let down not to get it. Cos, you see, Duran shows should be quasi-religious experiences. We followed ‘em since the 80s and we pay HUGE money to be there. We buy $35 tour programs. WE HAVE HIGH EXPECTATIONS.

But but but but….butt. Let’s abandon the harsh-but-fair-tack for a second and try the here’s-where-it-was-brilliant approach.

The set and graphics display were awesome (although the  military-inspired and Radio Ga-Ga imagery was weird, shit, sorry, supposed to be positive here). It was most wonderful to hear Simon’s voice strong again after his devastating throat infection earlier this year. The new songs sounded sharp, and as a long-term fan who never needs to hear “the Reflex” live again (unlike 80% of the audience who exploded only during the …”the Reflex…*le sigh*), t’was great to hear highlights “The Man Who Stole a Leopard” “Other People’s Lives” “Blame the Machines” and (finally! A relaxed and smiling John Taylor! In the encore!) “Girl Panic” from most recent (and decent) album All You Need Is Now. Yes, “Wild Boys” was a party, “Girls on Film” sounded perfect. And THAT RIFF on “Planet Earth”? Puddles. Roger looked like the cheeky chappy he always is, Nick looked sharp, and John Taylor – bless him – is just such an incomparably amazing bassist to watch perform. You know you’re getting old when you actually start watching his FINGERS as they caressed his Peavey Liberator customs.

(And as for their cover of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax” – yes, you read that right – wedged into “Wild Boys”, I gotta be honest. I don’t know whether I should be harsh or fair. I kinda liked it. I think?)

In other words, Duran Duran live in Everett was a good time. It just wasn’t the hair-blown-back time. And it wasn’t the Duran Duran I know they can be. Still, I love ‘em and I’ll take ‘em, always have done. John Taylor especially. Send him over? M’kay thanks! \m/

And so today brings us to the release of the 13th studio album by Brum’s finest. Produced by Mark Ronson, and meant to be a reclaim of the band’s Rio years, All You Need Is Now is now out on the devil iTunes.

But I’m not a deaf Durannie. The band has made some absolutely shit songs during its history. Let’s be fair. But I won’t trash them unecessarily. Still….

….Duran’s also annoyed me with its old-school marketing tactics (overpriced VIP access and lotteries to meet the band, designed to pray on monied 30- and 40-somethings) and awkward forays into social media. While I applaud the 50-somethings finally taking good advice that they need to drive their fancy cars up the information highway and engage blogs, not just fading red carpets, it’s REALLY irritated me that Duran Duran’s marketing team still don’t quite get that social media is a DIALOG (ie, please reply, don’t just RT positive only comments or layer on the PR bullshit). Nobody buys it when a MONTH before album’s launch Simon Le Bon and John Taylor start tweeting in a sort of “well, well, well, what have we here, then?” sort of way without any instruction on how best to speak to us canny and dedicated bunch.

Simon’s tweets always seem slightly wine-sozzled, which is fine. Yesterday’s offering included a musing on his own new piratey facial hair: “Fave beard saying from the 70s: just coz you got hair all round yer gob, no need to talk like a ****!” Oh Simon, oh Simon. Bless you.

John Taylor’s tweets, meanwhile, are generally promotional rubbish. Considering JT has oft talked about technology and social media as if he’s 800 years old, I’m finding this a bit of a strong-arm-”hey, JT, the ladies love you, you gotta be THERE!” sort of thing. Nevermind. I continue to tweet him in the hope that I will one day get 140 characters worth of love from Him, even though he’s kissed me twice. [Note/update, Dec. 23: JT actually did a fairly entertaining FB "chat" of sorts on the 22nd. And it appears that in one day, Simon has learned how to "@" people on Twitter...influence of the BSR? Ha. Still, credit where's credit's due, etc]

But I digress, as I am wont to do on this topic. I do love Duran Duran. I will always love Duran Duran. I kinda wish this was a cast-back to the debut more so than the poppier Rio, but hey, I’m perpetually frozen as a gothy new-wave kid.

So that brings me to the new album. Thanks for your patience. Here’s my breakdown of All You Need Is Now. Please note that I’ve been recovering from surgery and wrote this whilst high on codeine. Which just makes it better, right?

The BackstageRider’s Track By Track Commentary on Duran Duran’s All You Need is Now:

1. All You Need Is Now The first single. Starts with a  wee-ooo-wee-ooo vocal synth treatment and Simon growling. It feels like a Frankensong – actually two songs glued together with hairspray. But then the chorus! So unmistakably Duran. “And you sway in the moon/the way you did/when you were younger” Simon sings as he thinks about ye olden days. Last week I asked Nick Rhodes’ ex-wife Julie Anne what she made of the track. She said it didn’t grab her at first, but thought it was a grower. I have to concur. It doesn’t scream Rio to me. Is it supposed to? There are references to a “VIP section”…okay, phew. More I listen, more I like.

2. Blame The Machines A 1986 synth opening, not particularly new-wavey Duran, just ’80s in general. But then it happens: Simon’s opening salvo: “I’m driving up/the autobahn” which enrages me because it reminds me of SLB’s recent Twitter “chat” in which he joked about what he wanted for Christmas. Along with the “usual” (socks, underwear), he said he wanted a Ferarri. Further reminding us of Duran’s inability to shift away from making us think they really are those dickheads on the yacht. But to the song:

The guitars are definitely “My Own Way”, the chorus is divine…this is deffo single potential. “Woah-oh!” is the punctuation here. The synth totally spits up Vancouver band Images in Vogue’s 80s track “In the House”. (Apologies, I have fallen into the Music Critic Trap of comparing one song to another really obscure other song. But, well, fuck it.) Nice to hear English newscaster Nina Hossain’s arch London-sounding accent (though she’s from Huddersfield) and girlvoice at the end. She’s on two tracks on this album and it works. I like hearing England again on Duran songs, after the whole Timberlake/land dalliance with America on the last album.  “I should have known when I bought into the dream” goes the chorus…great pop lyrics from Simon. Which is saying something for a guy who wrote “The Reflex”.

3. Being Followed opens with unspooling film sounds (ooh, an homage to “Girls on Film”? Or am I totally overthinking this? YES I AM.) and a JT bassline then morphs into gay western synth new wave. It’s GREAT. “To the voyeur/seated in the darkened room/do you thrill when the green light starts pulsing?” Simon asks. Oh he’s such a dirty old man, wink wink. Chorus is catchy as fuck. There’s some “Hold Back The Rain” in this. And reeeee-dic whistling and sirens hidden towards the end. But this is a vast improvement on the “wikiwiki” scratch noises on Red Carpet Massacre’s “Skin Divers”  so I’ll take the effects and the song any day. Another single poss.

4. Leave A Light On The Casiotone “Save a Prayer” with “Ordinary World” earnestness. A little saccharine. Simon Le Bon is no longer having one-night stands but coming home late from the pub. A ballad for people who have summer houses in the Med.  Movie theme song soundtracky. But pretty.

5. Safe Love this in all its disco-lite glory. It features the divine Ana Matronic of the Scissor Sisters – (check out what SS lead Jake Shears had to say to me about Duran). Opens with a signature Play That Funky Bass John bassline and brings a smile to this ageing Durannie’s face. THEN THERE’S COWBELL! Life is complete. No, really. Fab opening. The sexy Ana purrs “People say you’ve been around/how ’bout you and me get down,” and I’m already crafting scenarios of threesomes between me, her and JT. Simon pipes in and his first words rhyme “fame/vain/strange” but all 10 toes are tapping and headsabobbin’. Yeah, he throws in a typical cringer (“change my Karma train” is this album’s “Google dirty fingers”) and the chorus brings in generic background singers – musicians of the world, use your background singers sparingly – but then there’s MORE SYNTHY COWBELL. Ana’s singing about scratching her surface, diggin’ deep, inviting me to get down and I’m, like, totally there.

6. Girl Panic Slightly samba first 10 seconds gets replaced with (here it is again) “Hold Back the Rain/Girls on Film” bass and guitar. Thank Christ. Catchy. Simon casts his mind back to a time of teeming masses and screaming teens…then per usual sort of makes it about some experience with a non-descript lady. Having been at Duran shows recently, I’d say that it’s more “Career Woman Hormonal Explosion” than “Girl Panic”, but this is a good little pop song. Great drums and bass in here from the Taylors, but it’s a bit thick with Rhodes. Ease up on the Miami Vice synth, my friend.

7. The Man Who Stole A Leopard (featuring Kelis). First few seconds has Nick Rhodes reaching into his old Rum Runner DJ bag and snatching a bit from the very excellent Human League’s “Being Boiled”. And then wooooooooooosh (as Simon would say on Twitter) we’ve reinvented “The Chauffeur”! This is Duran’s most excellent cover of themselves. Kelis is barely recognizable, just sings a bit of harmony in the synthy chorus. This is an all back to mine, got wasted, surveying the wreckage song. Dig.

8. Runaway Runaway Least favourite track on the album. Actually sounds like a theme song to a TV show about photogenic teens with mild behavioural problems, set in California, sometime around 1989.

9. Before the Rain Sloggy synth churn at the beginning, with strings and images in my head of Simon lying on a blood red velvet Freudian couch in a silky blouse, wailing and waving his arms about. It’s the ’80s again (the 1880s) and there’s fine brandies and lament. It’s a slow and steady pretty, with a nice build at the end.  It’s exactly a Duran Duran song….

…which is exactly what I wanted Duran Duran to offer up on this album. And they have. They’re not perfect, but they’re Duran Duran. And that’s all I need, now. \m/

FOR THE BEST DURAN DURAN ALL YOU NEED IS NOW COVERAGE ON PLANET EARTH, AS WELL AS INSIGHTFUL COMMENTARY, PLEASE VISIT GIMME A WRISTBAND

I’d met JT  a few times previously but this was my first opportunity to sit down with his cheekbones for one-on-one time. I was/am a major Durannie. John Taylor has been in my life in some way or another for about 26 years . How much of a Durannie? I nearly puked in the hotel lobby from nervousness. It was the first interview, but it wouldn’t be the last. I’d interview him again about a year or so later….when Taylor went solo.

Which is why I found the interview fascinating. Held at a pretty interesting and volatile time in Duran’s history, things weren’t going so well. It was three years after “Ordinary World” and the Wedding Album. The band had kicked at the coffin back in’ 92, climbed up through the dirt and was rediscovered by the mainstream market. The music had been good.

But it was now 1995. The top 10 Billboard Charts were filled with TLC, Coolio, Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey. In England, it was all about Oasis, a band Taylor raved about.

In his personal life,  his marriage to his first wife, Amanda DeCadenet, was showing signs of strain and in our chat he took a few potshots – talking about how she only came on tour to cities that had Chanel shops in them.

He also mentioned how the band was working on new music. Little did we know at the time that two years from then, in 1997 when Medazzaland came out, John Taylor would no longer be a member of Duran Duran.

But he was relaxed and funny and generous with his time with me….even when I pulled out a picture of me at 10 years old, standing in front of a Cannes, France realtor agency called “John Taylor”. “I know where that is! It’s on the Croissette!” he exclaimed. He tried to push my thumb – covering up the tomboy in red trainers and what I called my “Roger Taylor shirt” – out of the way. “My, my Mikala…..” he said, his eyes glinting, “…how you’ve changed.” He laughed readily.

THANK YOU: WHAT THE FUCK?

And so…to Thank You. Oh, poor Thank You. What a mess that album was, sadly. It had covers of Public Enemy, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Grandmaster Melle Mel, Sly & The Family Stone, Elvis Costello and The Doors on it. I know. You’re thinking: WHAT THE FUCK? DURAN DURAN? DOING “911 IS A JOKE? Seriously?”

(It must be said, however, that their cover of themselves – a reworking of their original classic “The Chauffeur”- and their take on Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” and “White Lines” by Melle Mel were pretty good).

“Every week in the NME it’s been like a running gag up to the release of the album,” he sighed, curled up in his chair. “And finally, the week before the record came out, they gave two pages – two pages!!!- where they called up Led Zeppelin’s tour manager and asked him to review ‘Thank You’, and they called up this rap DJ and asked him to review ‘911 is a Joke’. And I think they expected it to be a unanimous trouncing, but it wasn’t. Even though the editorial slant was negative, it couldn’t fight the fact that some people actually liked the stuff we’d done.”

Thank You was supposed to Duran’s version of Bowie’s Pin Ups – a tribute to the bands that inspired them. Taylor acknowledged that releasing a covers-only album was a bit risky, especially after winning back their original fan base and gaining an new one.

“It’s such an achievement just getting an album finished and getting it out there. It really is difficult, so it gives you a tremendous amount of inertia. When you get it out, it’s like ‘Oh God, I don’t have to create for another two years now!’ You know, you get the right to lunch for another year,” he laughs. “And I was thinking, I’m sure Pin-Ups had bad reviews when it came out.”

“I’M WIDE AWAKE NOW, AND FEELING EVERYTHING…IT’S INTENSE”

“Henry Miller once said that music is a beautiful opiate as long as you don’t take it too seriously.” How serious are you right now about your music?”, I asked.

“Terribly, terribly serious,” said Taylor. “Yeah.”

How do you think that’s changed? It was fun for a while and now it seems like it’s work to you?

“It’s always been work,” he said. “It’s just that we were fucked up most of the time we were working. It’s like I’m in a mid-stage of recovery and I’m wide awake now and feeling everything. And I don’t know what to do with the feelings half the time. It’s really intense. It’s like I’m having to do a lot of things I don’t want to have to do anymore.”

Like interviews?

He laughs. “No, I didn’t say that. I don’t like over-promoting. We’ve always fought about it. I don’t like spending lots and lots of money making records.”

It’s that kind of 80s debt to electronics that Duran have got. I think that the traditional band thing is really where musicians play and the whole thing just about hangs together and if something falls over, the whole thing falls apart. Our musical direction was really forged with a lot of Kraftwerk and Georgio Moroder stuff and we’ve always used sequencers on stage, tapes and click tracks. And it’s too sure of itself. It’s like a tram or a bus. You know it’s not going to break down. I learned that really early on. If something happened and I broke a string or my guitar went out of tune or whatever and I stopped playing, the beat kept going. Which is okay at first, because it means you can get completely fucked up and it wouldn’t make a difference. But actually, it’s not what a band’s about. I’d like to see us return to that primal thing. We’re trying to get there.”

So you can get back to playing funky basslines again?

“I’m not even into funky basslines anymore. And I went through SUCH a period of doing that and that’s why I’m so grateful for this new punk, because it’s like ‘oh god that’s where I’m from.”

“I HAVE NO FINISHING POWER”

So what does it mean, “trying to get there”?  “We wanted to get a band feel to the writing so we did what we always tended to do, which is jam. We’ll do a few weeks and just play and Simon will lie on the couch and just wail and we’ll just jam. And then we’ll make up a tape, after a month, with all these fragments on it, and see which stuff really sticks. And that’s the bit I like the most, really. I’d be quite happy to do that every night.”

I called him on that. “But you’re a perfectionist, so…”

“Well, yeah, and the only point of real perfection is that initial moment [he snaps his fingers] when it’s all happening and everybody’s in the same key and then it immediately becomes pedantic. Then it’s all, like, ‘well, we’ve got to organize it.” I hate organizing, I’m really immature like that. I have no finishing power, I like the initial stimulus. I’ve never been really good with paperwork (laughs).”

But was there anyone you were really nervous about giving these songs to? Having, say, Ray Manzarek from the Doors listen to it? Or Lou?

“You know, I didn’t care. I didn’t give a damn. I thought it was really contrived, quite frankly. Have you got the press kit with all the quotes? I mean what are they gonna say? They’re not going to criticize it, are they? The cheque is in the post! Their manager’s got their arms behind their backs going ’say something nice about it.’ I don’t know. I thought it was milking it. It was a little lacking in humility. Like ‘come on! come! give us a quote!’. First it was, like, ‘Give us your song! Then it was ‘we can use your photograph to put on the cover, right?’ Then it was ‘we need a quote! On film please!’. Now they better come to our party in New York or they’ll be off the second pressing!’” Taylor giggled.

ON ROGER’S (BRIEF) RETURN

But JT got serious when asked about (original drummer) Roger Taylor returning to play on this album. “Well, we’d been asking him – we’ve always asked him – but this time out he was ready. He played on “Watching the Detectives” and “Perfect Day”. It was…..interesting. He actually learned a lesson, I think. He actually played on several other songs but his tracks ended up getting wiped. And I had to explain to him, ‘well, when you left, the dynamics of the band changed enormously.’ Everybody became a drummer, everybody’s a computer programmer and the way that we approached writing changed when Roger left.

If I’m the first one in the studio, I’d be tapping out a little rhythm and it’d be like, okay, well, that’s the groove. So there was this massive grey area. Then somebody would say: ‘I don’t think it’s the right drum vibe, let’s get someone else in’. And I think it was quite educational for him to see how things have changed. How much less spontenaiety there was. But for me the best aspect of what he did on Thank You was the video for ‘Perfect Day.’ The images that have stuck with me is me sitting around watching him on the monitor filming a close-up. And I felt really sad. And we just realized that it’d been 10 years since. I remember thinking ‘10 years? What have I done in 1o years? What have YOU done in 10 years? What the hell have we been doing in 10 years?”.

It’s fairly obvious to any music fan what TaylorTaylorTaylorRhodesLeBon were doing over the past 10 years. Does he ever resent the fact that the band are always now measured against their 80s successes rather than seeing the music as a continuum and change?

“IT WAS TOO HARD NOT TO PARTY”

“I do, but I think of us like misappropriated company funds at a very early age. We weren’t very responsible as artists and musicians. It was just too hard not to get down and party and do all sorts of bad things. We’d have to be like priests to side-step that. So I kind of understand why people had a hard time taking us seriously. And maybe I’m being spoiled to expect that. I don’t expect that, actually.”

How did it effect you to be written up in every 16 magazine, every month?

“I’M PISSED OFF ABOUT SPIN MAGAZINE”

“I never read 16 magazine so I never thought about it. But I’m pissed off about SPIN magazine, cos I like SPIN. So when they give us a two out of 10 now, I’m pissed off. And nobody else in the band understands that. Cos they don’t read SPIN. But I do. And the same goes for the NME. Why is that the fucking magazines that I like to read criticize us so much? Nobody else in the band feels that. And that’s probably because they’re more in denial than me. Or maybe they’re less interested in what’s happening in today’s music scene so they just shut off. The Sunday Times, in London, gave us a magnanimous review. It was review and it was the best thing that’s ever been written about the band…. but the Times sucks. I’m glad it’s out there people will read it the day before the album is released…but….I guess it’s part of my upbringing. It’s really easy to earn the failures but it’s harder to earn the successes.” \m/

The White Wizard, (J. Mascis from Dinosaur Jr) from the side of the stage at the Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver

Beth Ditto from the Gossip decided to reach out and touch someone(s) in Vancouver

Look! Indie Record Store Fans! And Sarf London’s 20-somethings, The XX, at Zulu Records

Billie Joe from Green Day always wanted to be the policeman in the Village People

What’s he doing here? John Taylor from Duran Duran, at Marymoor Park, Richmond, WA

C’mon and show us what you’ve got! Share links to YOUR mobile phone gig or band pics! \m/