Peter Murphy sings all the hits

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 19:21:50 -0700

A highlight of our trip to Maryland last week was seeing Peter Murphy in Baltimore, though the less said about the club (and the opening act) the better. The last time we saw him as a solo act was at the 9:30 Club in 2004, when he was being forced into the old tour-to-promote-album-sales paradigm, and the album he was promoting (Unshattered) was just not up to snuff. Consequently he only played a few of his older hits ("They've told me this is not a nostalgia show, " he said). Today everyone knows (except the major labels) that the money is in live performance and merchandising, and the recorded music is more or less a giveaway to promote the shows. So this time he played the hits, though by a twist of fate the ticket price was about half that of the 2004 show. But the songs were glorious: "All Night Long," "Indigo Eyes," "Strange Kind of Love," "Gliding Like a Whale," "Huuvola," even "The Sweetest Drop," a few Bauhaus numbers, a bit of Bowie, and for the final encore, "Cuts You Up." Plus a whole bunch of songs I'm less familiar with. Peter is beginning to show his age as his face wrinkles and his hair thins; he is still spry, though, pogoing at times, even moonwalking (!), and his voice is as effortlessly lovely as ever. He seems quite at home in the role of Elder Statesman of Goth. It was a completely satisfying set. But if I could pick one song from Peter Murphy's catalog to be added to his live repertoire, it would be "Let Me Love You" from Holy Smoke. The slow, mysterious verses just open up and resolve so beautifully into the dreamy major-chord chorus, and who can argue with a sentiment like "Let me love you"? This song always makes me visualize Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête, so I've used a graphic from that instead of the traditional album cover:

06-Let Me Love You

Peter Murphy

And if I could choose a second, it would be "The Scarlet Thing In You"--

Peter Murphy - The Scarlet Thing In You

What would you pick?

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The Iggy Pop-Peter Murphy connection redux

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:35:39 -0700

Several weeks ago I wrote about Iggy Pop and Peter Murphy sounding nearly the same; just yesterday I discovered the live radio performances that Peter Murphy and Trent Reznor gave during the joint Nine Inch Nails/Bauhaus tour of 2006. Lo and behold, they did an Iggy Pop cover:

Night Clubbing - Trent Reznor, Jeordie White, Peter Murphy

And to pile on the coincidences, Trent released a new Nine Inch Nails album today (The Slip), for free!

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Burl Veneer’s Music Blog

Peter Murphy sings all the hits

The Iggy Pop-Peter Murphy connection redux