the psychedelic furs

The Psychedelic Furs made it crawl and made it bleed with the sarcastic storm of their anodyne imitation of punk.  The group had formed in 1977 around the core of brothers Richard and Tim Butler.  Duncan Kilburn, Paul Wilson, and Roger Morris completed the original lineup, which started out as RKO and then became Radio before choosing The Psychedelic Furs over The Europeans.  By the time they secured a record deal, Wilson had left to be replaced by Vince Ely, and John Ashton joined as well.  



Tim Butler tells:  "I can remember when we first started they had what they thought was a psychedelic bill in the London Lyceum - you had the new psychedelic explosion. There was us, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes and A Certain Ratio. The only band there that was remotely psychedelic was A Teardrop Explodes. We put the "Psychedelic" in there just to show we like some psychedelic bands, because everybody at the time had been putting down the '60s and psychedelia being a waste of time, but some great music came out of that period. We just wanted to show our allegiance and that we enjoyed some of that music. Plus, at the time if you put "psychedelic" on the announcement, you were bound to get some kind of a reaction, and we did. We never professed to be psychedelic." 

Richard Butler relates:  "Punk was very influential. Coming out of how staid it had all been – you could love music, but there was no way of getting 'there' from where you were as a young man. Then it became - steal a guitar and write a song with three chords and people were up and doing it and the walls came down. We were like, 'we can do that too, we don't want all that old shit'...There were so many punk bands doing a very similar, faux-nihilistic take on things. We wanted to be ourselves. It was an undeniably huge influence. Punk rock, absolutely, enabled us to make music and get signed by record companies. They didn't know what the hell was going on once punk rock came along."



'The Psychedelic Furs' was primarily produced by Steve Lillywhite and featured Richard Butler on vocals;  John Ashton and Roger Morris on guitar;  Duncan Kilburn on saxophones;  Tim Butler on bass guitar;  and Vince Ely on drums.   'The Psychedelic Furs' reached one hundred and forty in the US and eighteen in the UK.  








http://www.thepsychedelicfurs.com/








"India"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKZyJng2p1U



"Sister Europe"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYBHe3HHouY




"Imitation of Christ" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s73JbZY3LWU




"We Love You"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1os7STqxNE




"Flowers"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS54I4Xh234








'The Psychedelic Furs'
full album:

https://myspace.com/psychedelicfurs/music/album/the-psychedelic-furs-8104762




All songs written by The Psychedelic Furs, and produced by Steve Lillywhite, except where noted.

"India" – 6:21
"Sister Europe" – 5:38
"Imitation of Christ" – 5:28
"Fall" – 2:40
"Pulse" – 2:37 (produced by Howard Thompson, Ian Taylor and The Psychedelic Furs)
"We Love You" – 3:26 (produced by Howard Thompson, Ian Taylor and The Psychedelic Furs)
"Wedding Song" – 4:19
"Blacks/Radio" – 6:56
"Flowers" – 4:10 (produced by Howard Thompson, Ian Taylor and The Psychedelic Furs)
"Susan's Strange" – 3:13 (produced by Martin Hannett)
"Soap Commercial" – 2:53 (produced by Martin Hannett)
"Mack the Knife" (Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht, Marc Blitzstein) – 4:18 (produced by The Psychedelic Furs)
"Flowers" (Demo) – 5:36 (produced by The Psychedelic Furs)