The Wild Swans (band)
The Wild Swans formed in 1980 when Paul Simpson, who had left the Teardrop Explodes after the recording of their first single, teamed up (on vocals) with Jeremy Kelly (guitar), Ged Quinn (keyboards), James Weston (bass) and Justin Stavely (drums).
[1] An opportunity arose when Pete de Freitas of Echo & the Bunnymen (an old friend and flatmate of Simpson's) agreed to fund their first single "The Revolutionary Spirit" (1982, Zoo Records).
[1] Stavely had dropped out of the band, so De Freitas ended up financier, drummer and producer for the single;[2] he was credited under his middle names, Louis Vincent.
Subsequent to the release of "The Revolutionary Spirit", weekly rehearsals were given a degree of urgency when the band was offered a BBC Radio 1 John Peel session.
[8] Simpson is nowadays disparaging of the sound developed on the album and feels that some of the aura and magic surrounding the (Mark I) Wild Swans had been lost.
[9] He went on to offer even more stark words of wisdom for those thinking of setting up a band: "Major labels suck the poetry from your bones and fill the gaps with a cement made from cocaine and crushed teenagers.
A near-simultaneous promo-only release called Music and Talk from Liverpool included Wild Swans tracks interspersed with interviews with Jeremy Kelly.
[12] Much of the material written for the album had a food-flavoured theme, depicted by the tracks "Melting Blue Delicious", "Tangerine Temple", "Chocolate Bubble-Gum" and "Vanilla Melange".
In 2007, after many years of deletion, Sire Records finally elected to re-release both Bringing Home the Ashes and Space Flower, this time giving them a full UK release.
The album itself was released as part of Sire's April 2007 relaunch of the Korova label, alongside other re-releases from acts like Ian McCulloch and Electrafixion, all 2-CD sets with extra tracks.
Magnitude CD 1 features the whole of Bringing Home the Ashes and the four B-sides from the singles "Young Manhood" and "Bible Dreams", all mastered from the original tapes.
The second disc concludes with five demo recordings, made by Simpson back in late 1988, including early versions of "Melting Blue Delicious" (called "Telescope") and another mix of "Tastes Like Tuesday".
Magnitude enjoyed a relatively short physical shelf life as a 2-CD set, as in June 2007 Warner Brothers (UK) was disbanded by the parent company and the album was deleted.
Paul Simpson declared his intention to resurrect the Wild Swans on his Myspace site in late 2007: "This unhappy band has been unfinished business for me for over 20 years, haunting my days and nights, obsessing my thoughts at the expense of my health and sanity.
I formed and named the band shortly after leaving The Teardrop Explodes back in 1980, individually recruiting the members and establishing both the look and the compass direction.
"[13]A year and a half later, the band had indeed reformed, albeit with a very revised line-up: founder and original member Paul Simpson was now joined by original member Ged Quinn, Ricky Rene Maymi (Brian Jonestown Massacre), Les Pattinson (Echo and the Bunnymen), Mike Mooney (Julian Cope/Spiritualized), and Steve Beswick (the Heart Throbs/Slipstream).
The Wild Swans played a third gig at Static Gallery, Liverpool on 11 December 2009, having officially expanded to a sextet with the addition of newest band member Richard Turvey on keyboards.
Later that year, the band performed two successful shows in the Philippines, one concert in Cebu City on 30 September and the other at the SM Mall of Asia, Manila on 1 October.
