VISAGE

'Visage' was a New Romantic band that began life in 1978, mainly to provide some danceable music to be played on Steve Strange's and Rusty Egan's ''Billy's'' London nightclub. Strange commented about the meaning of the band's name: "The meaning of Visage, apart from being French for face, is that the ''Vis'' is for the visual side of the band... and the ''Age'' is the new age in dance music. That's how I see it."[1]

Contents

History

First incarnation (1978-1984)

Second incarnation (2004-)

Discography

Website

Media

External links and references

History

First incarnation (1978-1984)

Initially, the band was comprised of Steve Strange, Rusty Egan and Midge Ure. Ure and Egan began working with Strange after the demise of power pop band "Rich Kids" and Steve being at a loose end after the demise of new wave band 'The Photons' (managed by punk legend Andy Czezowski creator of the Roxy Club and owner of the The Fridge) . The trio recorded a demo which included a cover of the Zager and Evans hit "In the Year 2525". Ultravox's multi-instrumentalist Billy Currie, and the core of post-punk band Magazine — bassist Barry Adamson, guitarist John McGeoch, and keyboardist Dave Formula joined the studio-only band later. Visage signed to Radar Records and released their first single, "Tar" (which was originally composed whilst Steve was in 'The Photons') in September 1979.
The following year saw the release of their self-titled debut album, which sold extremely well and raised the band's popularity mainly because of the single "Fade to Grey". The single quickly became a huge club hit, went to number one in 21 countries and marked an imminent commercial breakthrough for electronic music and the whole New Romantic movement, for which the first Visage album became a kind of soundtrack.
After the Top 40 hits, "Mind Of A Toy" another track originally written whilst Steve was in 'The Photons' and "Visage" Strange struggled to reunite the band again to record the second album because of their success with their respective bands (Ure and Currie with Ultravox, Formula and Adamson in Magazine and McGeoch in Siouxsie and the Banshees); but in the autumn of 1981 all musicians sans McGeoch went to the studio again and recorded "The Anvil". Those album sessions had Strange and Ure debating on which musical direction the album would focus on, which resulted in an excellent, but somewhat fractured album. This album was released in March, 1982 and was met with little less fanfare than their first outing, though its singles fared well in the charts. Midge Ure left the band after the recording of this album because of his differences with Strange regarding the music style and the growing compromises with his main band, Ultravox. The band, without Ure and Adamson and with the addition of bassist Steve Barnacle recorded the single "Pleasure Boys", which was released in October of that year. Their final album "Beat Boy" was released almost two years later, in September, 1984 due to some problems with the music publishers, and Steve Strange's decision to make Visage a live band instead an albums-only project, decision that left him working only with drummer Rusty Egan and a trio of unproven musicians. Dave Formula and Billy Currie, the last two members of the band lineup left due to differences in musical style between them and drummer Rusty Egan; the musician changes and the inability of new musicians to create better music than the first two albums made this third one, "Beat Boy" a very disappointing record both in sales and critics. Beat Boy's two singles ("Love Glove" and "Beat Boy") were the band's biggest failures in the charts.
Steve Strange formed the short-lived band Strange Cruise, that released one eponymous album in 1986. A "Bassheads" remix of "Fade to Grey" was a UK Top 40 hit during the early 1990s.

Second incarnation (2004-)

Steve Strange reappeared in the music scene in 2002, after several years fighting with his heroin addiction. Strange performed several Visage songs on the "Here and Now Xmas Tour" — a revival of 1980s musicians. Some time after the performance; and noting he still had a fanbase, Steve decided to relaunch what he calls a '"mark II"' of the band with people from several electronic bands and projects: Steven Young, Sandrine Gouriou and Rosie Harris from Seize and Ross Tregenza from Jetstream Lovers/Goteki. After the announcement of the formation of the new lineup, the plans of reworking old material, releasing a new record and remixing songs for the likes of Kelly Osbourne have yet to be realised (as of Summer 2007). The long-deleted "Visage Videos" VHS have been re-released in DVD in Summer, 2006. Steve Strange recorded the first 'Visage''s "mark II" original composition, named "In the Dark" as part of electronic music duo Punx Soundcheck's debut double album "When Machines Ruled the World".
The album was released in Europe in Summer 2006.

Discography

''For a complete list of albums, EPs, singles and videos see Visage discography.''

Website

★ Official Visage 'mark II' site

★ Official Visage 'mark II' MySpace site

Media

This section includes music samples of several of Visage's B-sides:

External links and references

★ Quote in BBC's article on Steve Strange

★ Article on Visage's history

★ Discogs' Visage UK discography

★ Complete fan-made Visage discography