100-592: John Foxx (born Dennis Leigh ; 26 September 1948) is an English singer, musician, artist, photographer, graphic designer, writer, teacher and lecturer. He was the original lead singer of the new wave band Ultravox , before leaving to embark on a solo career in 1980 with the album Metamatic . Primarily associated with electronic synthesizer music , he has also pursued a parallel career in graphic design and education. Andy Kellman of AllMusic described Foxx as an influential cult figure whose "detached, jolting vocal style inspired mainstream and underground artists across
200-501: A heavy metal and rock-dominated format. In a December 1982 Gallup poll , 14% of teenagers rated new wave as their favorite type of music, making it the third-most-popular genre. New wave had its greatest popularity on the West Coast. Unlike other genres, race was not a factor in the popularity of new wave music, according to the poll. Urban contemporary radio stations were the first to play dance-oriented new wave bands such as
300-587: A hippy , while he formed his first band Woolly Fish in 1967 in Preston. He experimented with tape recorders and synthesisers whilst at the Royal College of Art. Prior to 1973, he was singing and playing a 12-string guitar and occasionally supported Stack Waddy in Manchester, from which he later moved to London in order to escape what he saw as a lack of musical stimulus. In April 1974, Foxx formed
400-680: A band that would eventually be called Tiger Lily , composed of bassist Chris Allen and guitarist Stevie Shears , with Canadian drummer Warren Cann joining shortly afterwards in May 1974. The band played their first gig at the Marquee Club in August 1974, after which Billy Currie was recruited as violinist in October 1974. Tiger Lily released a single in 1975 on Gull Records, the A-side of which
500-583: A big screen for the first time with Foxx playing a mix of live and recorded accompaniment from the album. This 'film' was shown again at Fulham Palace in July 2007, and in a slightly revised format at the ICA and as part of the 21st International Film Festival, in Leeds during November that year. In September 2007, a remastered edition of Metamatic was released as a two-CD pack containing the original album, plus most of
600-930: A collection of short stories. In the run up to the John Foxx and the Maths Interplay tour in October 2011, Artrocker ran a series of articles on Foxx, including a filmed interview taken at The Garden studios in London. Special features during the "John Foxx Week" also contained quotes and comments about his work from a variety of different musicians and film-makers, including The Orb , Vincent Gallo , members of Ladytron and Duran Duran , director Alex Proyas, and Awaydays creator Kevin Sampson. The corresponding printed version Artrocker (Issue 115) also featured Foxx and Gary Numan together in an in-depth interview. The magazine contains further tributes by Philip Oakey of
700-870: A distinctive visual style in music videos and fashion. According to Simon Reynolds , new wave music had a twitchy, agitated feel. New wave musicians often played choppy rhythm guitars with fast tempos; keyboards, and stop-start song structures and melodies are common. Reynolds noted new-wave vocalists sound high-pitched, geeky, and suburban. As new wave originated in Britain, many of the first new wave artists were British. These bands became popular in America, in part, because of channels like MTV, which would play British new wave music videos because most American hit records did not have music videos to play. British videos, according to head of S-Curve Records and music producer Steve Greenberg , "were easy to come by since they'd been
800-475: A further collaborative EP in 2008 entitled Never Been Here Before . A remix of Dislocated was issued on Foxx's 2010 compilation Metatronic , while Never Been Here Before appears on the 2013 compilation Metadelic . Hulkkonen played as supporting act to the first John Foxx And The Maths concert at The Roundhouse in 2010 and also joined Foxx and the band onstage to perform " Underpass ". A new EP entitled European Splendour issued as John Foxx + Jori Hulkkonen
900-413: A new pop group. That's all." According to Stuart Borthwick and Ron Moy, authors of Popular Music Genres: an Introduction , the "height of popularity for new wave" coincided with the election of Margaret Thatcher in spring 1979. In the early 1980s, new wave gradually lost its associations with punk in popular perception among some Americans. Writing in 1989, music critic Bill Flanagan said; "Bit by bit
1000-566: A private screening. His official website described these as having the "filmic, atmospheric approach" of the Metamatic -era instrumental B-sides "Glimmer", "Film One" and "Mr No". On 18 November 2006, Foxx gave a performance of the work at the Duke of York's cinema in Brighton , where Tiny Colour Movies was premiered as part of the city's Film Festival. Edited versions of the movies were shown on
1100-498: A second album The Pleasures of Electricity , in September 2001. Two years later they toured again, to promote the album Crash and Burn , released in September 2003 on Foxx's own Metamatic Records. Three collaborative albums with Louis Gordon were released in late 2006: Live From a Room (As Big as a City) , a 'live' studio album from the 2003 tour (released in association with an interview CD entitled "The Hidden Man") in October;
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#17327838847271200-468: A staple of UK pop music TV programs like Top of the Pops since the mid-70s." This rise in technology made the visual style of new wave musicians important for their success. A nervous, nerdy persona was a common characteristic of new wave fans, and acts such as Talking Heads , Devo , and Elvis Costello . This took the forms of robotic dancing, jittery high-pitched vocals, and clothing fashions that hid
1300-721: A stigma—especially in the United States—that made the music virtually unmarketable. At the same time, a number of bands, such as the Cars , the Police and Elvis Costello and the Attractions , soon emerged who combined the energy and rebellious attitude of punk with a more accessible and sophisticated radio-friendly sound. These groups were lumped together and marketed exclusively under the label of new wave. As early as 1973, critics including Nick Kent and Dave Marsh were using
1400-492: The Anglo-Saxon burial ground at Sutton Hoo . The work integrates new compositions by John Foxx and other digital musicians Baron Mordant, Dolly Dolly, Ekoplekz, Farmers of Vega, Gazelle Twin , Pete Wiseman, Raime and Skjolbrot. As part of the event presentation, on 7 March, Foxx premièred a new piano work entitled Electricity and Ghosts with accompanying films made by himself and Karborn . In 2015, Foxx contributed to
1500-693: The Arden Shakespeare series. Foxx began to find inspiration in the underground house and acid music scenes in Detroit and London. With Nation 12 in the early 1990s, Foxx released two 12-inch singles , "Remember" and "Electrofear". The first was a collaboration with Tim Simenon , best known for his Bomb the Bass project. The group also wrote the music for the Bitmap Brothers computer games Speedball 2 (1990) and Gods (1991, " Into
1600-533: The New Romantic movement. In 1981, Rolling Stone contrasted the movement with the previous new wave era, writing that "the natty Anglo-dandies of Japan ", having been "reviled in the New Wave era", seemed "made to order for the age of the clothes-conscious New Romantic bands." MTV continued its heavy rotation of videos by "post-New Wave pop" acts "with a British orientation" until 1987, when it changed to
1700-725: The Pink Floyd track " Have a Cigar " was recorded for a tribute CD issued by Mojo magazine with their October 2011 issue. It was announced shortly afterwards that the version on the CD was not the completed version, and a free download of the finished version was offered via the Mojo website. A nine-date UK tour by John Foxx and the Maths was announced in July 2011, plus live performances in Poland and Belgium. A second album, The Shape of Things ,
1800-614: The music press as a "reaction against the opulence/corpulence of nouveau rich New Pop" and "part of the move back to guitar-driven music after the keyboard washes of the New Romantics". In the aftermath of grunge , the British music press launched a campaign to promote the new wave of new wave that involved overtly punk and new-wave-influenced acts such as Elastica , but it was eclipsed by Britpop , which took influences from both 1960s rock and 1970s punk and new wave. During
1900-545: The 1960s mod influences of the Jam . Paul Weller , who called new wave "the pop music of the Seventies", explained to Chas de Whalley in 1977: It's just pop music and that's why I like it. It's all about hooks and guitar riffs. That's what the new wave is all about. It's not heavy and negative like all that Iggy and New York stuff. The new wave is today's pop music for today's kids, it's as simple as that. And you can count
2000-528: The 1980s, rejecting potentially more lucrative careers from signing to a major label. In the UK, new wave "survived through the post-punk years, but after the turn of the decade found itself overwhelmed by the more outrageous style of the New Romantics." In response, many British indie bands adopted "the kind of jangling guitar work that had typified New Wave music", with the arrival of the Smiths characterised by
2100-513: The 1980s, said in a 2011 interview that by the time of British new pop acts' popularity on MTV, "New Wave had already been over by then. New wave was not synth music; it wasn't even this sort of funny-haircut music. It was the guy in the Boomtown Rats wearing pajamas." Similarly in Britain, journalists and music critics largely abandoned the term "new wave" with the rise of synth-pop. According to authors Stuart Borthwick and Ron Moy, "After
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#17327838847272200-422: The 2000s, a number of acts that exploited a diversity of new wave and post-punk influences emerged. These acts were sometimes labeled "New New Wave". According to British music journalist Chris Nickson , Scottish band Franz Ferdinand revived both Britpop and the music of the late 1970s "with their New Wave influenced sound". AllMusic notes the emergence of these acts "led journalists and music fans to talk about
2300-616: The B-52's , Culture Club , Duran Duran, and ABC . New wave soundtracks were used in mainstream Brat Pack films such as Sixteen Candles , Pretty in Pink , and The Breakfast Club , as well as in the low-budget hit Valley Girl . John Hughes , the director of several of these films, was enthralled with British new wave music, and placed songs from acts such as the Psychedelic Furs , Simple Minds , Orchestral Manoeuvres in
2400-635: The Dark , and Echo and the Bunnymen in his films, helping to keep new wave in the mainstream. Several of these songs remain standards of the era. Critics described the MTV acts of the period as shallow or vapid. Homophobic slurs were used to describe some of the new wave musicians. Despite the criticism, the danceable quality of the music and the quirky fashion sense associated with new wave musicians appealed to audiences. Peter Ivers , who started his career in
2500-682: The Human League and Jim Kerr of Simple Minds . New wave music New wave is a music genre that encompasses pop -oriented styles from the 1970s through the 1980s. It is considered a lighter and more melodic "broadening of punk culture ". It was originally used as a catch-all for the various styles of music that emerged after punk rock . Later, critical consensus favored "new wave" as an umbrella term involving many contemporary popular music styles, including synth-pop , alternative dance and post-punk . The main new wave movement coincided with late 1970s punk and continued into
2600-448: The Jam as "British New Wave at its most quintessential and successful", remarked that the band broke up "just as British pop was being overrun by the preposterous leisurewear and over-budgeted videos of Culture Club, Duran Duran and ABC, all of which were anathema to the puritanical Weller ." Scholar Russ Bestley noted that while punk, new wave, and post-punk songs had featured on the Top of
2700-548: The Modern Lovers debuted even earlier. CBGB owner Hilly Kristal , referring to the first show by Television at his club in March 1974, said; "I think of that as the beginning of new wave". Many musicians who would have originally been classified as punk were also termed new wave. A 1977 Phonogram Records compilation album of the same name ( New Wave ) includes American bands Dead Boys , Ramones , Talking Heads , and
2800-533: The Police, and the Cars charted during this period. " My Sharona ", a single from the Knack , was Billboard magazine's number-one single of 1979; its success, combined with new wave albums being much cheaper to produce during the music industry's worst slump in decades, prompted record companies to sign new wave groups. At the end of 1979, Dave Marsh wrote in Time that the Knack's success confirmed rather than began
2900-496: The Pops album series between mid-1977 and early 1982, by the time of the first Now That's What I Call Music! compilation in 1983 punk and new wave was "largely dead and buried as a commercial force". New wave was closely tied to punk, and came and went more quickly in the UK and Western Europe than in the US. At the time punk began, it was a major phenomenon in the UK and a minor one in the US. When new wave acts started being noticed in
3000-867: The RetroFuture exhibition hosted by ArtHertz. On the opening night, Foxx performed a piano piece accompanying a reading from his unpublished novel The Quiet Man in front of an audience for the first time. In 2005, Foxx appeared on stage at the Brighton Pavilion with Harold Budd and Bill Nelson as part of a concert to celebrate the work of the retiring pianist, which led to the announcement in October that year that Foxx would be involved in collaborations with Jah Wobble , Robin Guthrie , Steve Jansen and Nelson. In June 2006, Foxx released an instrumental solo album, Tiny Colour Movies , consisting of 15 instrumental tracks inspired by short art films he saw at
3100-631: The Runaways . Between 1976 and 1977, the terms "new wave" and "punk" were used somewhat interchangeably. Music historian Vernon Joynson said new wave emerged in the UK in late 1976, when many bands began disassociating themselves from punk. That year, the term gained currency when it appeared in UK punk fanzines such as Sniffin' Glue , and music weeklies such as Melody Maker and New Musical Express . In November 1976, Caroline Coon used Malcolm McLaren's term "new wave" to designate music by bands that were not exactly punk but were related to
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3200-540: The UK Albums Chart in early August 2020, becoming the first John Foxx and the Maths album to chart in the UK, and Foxx's first charting album in the UK since 1985. Over the years John Foxx's first solo single "Underpass", originally released in 1980, has come to be considered a milestone in the development of popular electronic music, and has gained recognition as iconic in the development of the electropop genre. In March 2010, Berlin producer Mark Reeder remixed
3300-405: The UK. In early 1978, XTC released the single " This Is Pop " as a direct response to tags such as "new wave". Songwriter Andy Partridge later stated of bands such as themselves who were given those labels; "Let's be honest about this. This is pop, what we're playing ... don't try to give it any fancy new names, or any words that you've made up, because it's blatantly just pop music. We were
3400-454: The US, the term "punk" meant little to mainstream audiences, and it was common for rock clubs and discos to play British dance mixes and videos between live sets by American guitar acts. Illustrating the varied meanings of "new wave" in the UK and the US, Collins recalled how growing up in the 1970s he considered the Photos , who released one album in 1980 before splitting up a year later, as
3500-519: The Wonderful "). He also worked with LFO and made the music video for their eponymous debut single. Around this time, Foxx also taught on the Graphic Arts and Design degree course at Leeds Metropolitan University . On 24 March 1997, Foxx made a return to the music scene with the simultaneous release of two albums, Shifting City and Cathedral Oceans on Metamatic Records . Shifting City
3600-403: The acts on which reflected a wide variety of stylistic influences. New wave's legacy remained in the large influx of acts from the UK, and acts that were popular in rock discos, as well as the chart's name, which reflects the way new wave was marketed as "modern". According to Steve Graves, new wave's indie spirit was crucial to the development of college rock and grunge / alternative rock in
3700-584: The album did gain the band exposure to a wider audience, including the United States. During the recording of Systems of Romance , a song of the same name was written, but the band had no time to record it. It was later included on Foxx's second solo album The Garden . At Systems of Romance gigs, Foxx began to perform with the band three future solo songs, "He's a Liquid" and "Touch and Go" (later included on Metamatic , Foxx's first solo album) and "Walk Away" (included on The Garden ). The latter song
3800-523: The album was preceded by a remix of "Shatterproof" on YouTube. Another live event featuring John Foxx and the Maths was held in April 2011. Back to the Phuture was billed as a special electronic music event, featuring live sets from Foxx, Gary Numan , Mirrors and Motor, plus a DJ set by Daniel Miller . Again, a selection of tracks from the new album and Foxx's past works were played. A cover version of
3900-573: The associated B-sides and extra tracks from the period, including two 'new' songs re-assembled from original music recorded at the time. In the same month, a showcase of Foxx's work was held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, where he performed another version of Tiny Colour Movies and hosted a question-and-answer session. This was followed by the first live performance of the entire Metamatic album, during which Foxx and Louis Gordon were accompanied on stage by Steve D'Agostino. Later in
4000-451: The band signed to Island Records , they released three albums during 1977–1978. The debut Ultravox! single, "Dangerous Rhythm", backed with "My Sex", was released on 4 February 1977. Their first album (the self-titled Ultravox! ) was released three weeks later on 25 February 1977, produced by Steve Lillywhite and the band, with assistance from Brian Eno . It was followed by their second album Ha! Ha! Ha! in October 1977, which included
4100-428: The bands that do it well and are going to last on one hand. The Pistols , The Damned , The Clash , The Ramones – and The Jam. Although new wave shares punk's do-it-yourself artistic philosophy, the musicians were more influenced by the light strains of 1960s pop while opposed to mainstream "corporate" rock , which they considered creatively stagnant, and the generally abrasive and political bents of punk rock. In
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4200-464: The body such as suits and big glasses. This seemed radical to audiences accustomed to post-counterculture genres such as disco dancing and macho " cock rock " that emphasized a "hang loose" philosophy, open sexuality, and sexual bravado. New wave may be seen as an attempt to reconcile "the energy and rebellious attitude of punk" with traditional forms of pop songwriting, as seen in the rockabilly riffs and classic craftsmanship of Elvis Costello and
4300-529: The contrast between "the American audience's lack of interest in New Wave music" compared to critics, with a "stunning two-thirds of the Top 30 acts" in the 1978 Pazz & Jop poll falling into the "New Wave-to-rock 'n' roll revivalist spectrum". A month later, the same columnist called Elvis Costello the "Best Shot of the New Wave" in America, speculating that "If New Wave is to take hold here, it will be through
4400-544: The covers of all the John Foxx and the Maths releases. In 2000, a Porcupine Tree release called Lightbulb Sun was issued with cover art by Foxx. In December 2007, Foxx exhibited some of his photographic works in an exhibition called Cinemascope at the Coningsby Gallery in west London. The images were part of three collections, "Grey Suit Music", "Tiny Colour Movies" and "Cathedral Oceans". His design work
4500-575: The decades". Leigh was born in Chorley , Lancashire , England. His father was a coal miner and pugilist , his mother a millworker. He was raised Catholic and educated at St Mary's Primary and St Augustine Secondary schools. Next he attended Harris College of Art in Preston and then the Royal College of Art in London. During his youth in the 1960s he embraced the lifestyles of a mod and
4600-635: The early 1980s, particularly in the United States, notable new wave acts embraced a crossover of pop and rock music with African and African-American styles. Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow , both acts with ties to former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren , used Burundi -style drumming. Talking Heads' album Remain in Light was marketed and positively reviewed as a breakthrough melding of new wave and African styles, although drummer Chris Frantz said he found out about this supposed African influence after
4700-436: The early 1980s. The common characteristics of new wave music include a humorous or quirky pop approach, angular guitar riffs, jerky rhythms, the use of electronics, and a distinctive visual style in fashion. In the early 1980s, virtually every new pop and rock act – and particularly those that employed synthesizers – were tagged as "new wave" in the United States. Although new wave shares punk's do-it-yourself philosophy,
4800-403: The efforts of those furthest from the punk center" due to "inevitable" American middle class resistance to the "jarring rawness of New Wave and its working-class angst." Starting in late 1978 and continuing into 1979, acts associated with punk and acts that mixed punk with other genres began to make chart appearances and receive airplay on rock stations and rock discos. Blondie , Talking Heads,
4900-513: The entire New Wave." Lee Ferguson, a consultant to KWST , said in an interview Los Angeles radio stations were banning disc jockeys from using the term and noted; "Most of the people who call music new wave are the ones looking for a way not to play it". Second albums by new wave musicians who had successful debut albums, along with newly signed musicians, failed to sell and stations pulled most new wave programming, such as Devo's socially critical but widely misunderstood song " Whip It ". In 1981,
5000-555: The evening, the DVD of Cathedral Oceans was shown in one of the ICA cinema studios. In October, Foxx and Gordon toured the UK with Metamatic , culminating in a show at Cargo in London. The year ended with two shows at the Luminaire in London. A live album titled A New Kind of Man , culled from the Metamatic performances in 2007, was released on Metamatic Records on 28 April 2008. Foxx presented three different pieces of his solo work in
5100-469: The fact. As the decade continued, new wave elements would be adopted by African-American musicians such as Grace Jones , Janet Jackson , and Prince , who in particular used new wave influences to lay the groundwork for the Minneapolis sound . The Velvet Underground have also been heralded for their influence on new wave, post-punk and alternative rock . Roxy Music were also influential to
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#17327838847275200-513: The genre as well as the works of David Bowie , Iggy Pop and Brian Eno . The term "new wave" is regarded as so loose and wide-ranging as to be "virtually meaningless", according to the New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock . It originated as a catch-all for the music that emerged after punk rock , including punk itself, in Britain. Scholar Theo Cateforis said that the term was used to commercialize punk groups in
5300-420: The growing nostalgia for several new-wave-influenced musicians. New wave music encompassed a wide variety of styles that shared a quirky, lighthearted, and humorous tone that were popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s. New wave includes several pop -oriented styles from this time period. Common characteristics of new wave music include a humorous or quirky pop approach, the use of electronic sounds, and
5400-432: The last traces of Punk were drained from New Wave, as New Wave went from meaning Talking Heads to meaning the Cars to Squeeze to Duran Duran to, finally, Wham! ". Among many critics, however, new wave remained tied to the punk/new wave period of the late 1970s. Writing in 1990, the "Dean of American Rock Critics" Robert Christgau , who gave punk and new wave bands major coverage in his column for The Village Voice in
5500-411: The late 1960s, went on to become the host for the television program New Wave Theatre that showcased rising acts in the underground new wave scene. He has been described by NTS Radio as "a virtuosic songwriter and musician whose antics bridged not just 60s counterculture and New Wave music but also film, theater, and music television." In September 1988, Billboard launched its Modern Rock chart,
5600-408: The late 1970s, defined "new wave" as "a polite term devised to reassure people who were scared by punk, it enjoyed a two- or three-year run but was falling from favor as the '80s began." Lester Bangs , another critical promoter of punk and new wave in the 1970s, when asked if new wave was "still going on" in 1982, stated that "The only trouble with New Wave is that nobody followed up on it ... But it
5700-462: The latter half of the 1980s and onward. Conversely, according to Robert Christgau , "in America, the original New Wave was a blip commercially, barely touching the nascent alt-rock counterculture of the '80s." In the US, new wave continued into the mid-1980s but declined with the popularity of the New Romantic , new pop , and new music genres. Some new wave acts, particularly R.E.M. , maintained new wave's indie label orientation through most of
5800-499: The media: Punk rock or new wave bands overwhelmingly expressed their dissatisfaction with the prevailing rock trends of the day. They viewed bombastic progressive rock groups like Emerson Lake and Palmer and Pink Floyd with disdain, and instead channeled their energies into a more stripped back sound… The media, however, portrayed punk groups like the Sex Pistols and their fans as violent and unruly, and eventually punk acquired
5900-401: The monochrome blacks and greys of punk/new wave, synth-pop was promoted by a youth media interested in people who wanted to be pop stars, such as Boy George and Adam Ant ". In 2005, Andrew Collins of The Guardian offered the breakup of the Jam , and the formation of Duran Duran, as two possible dates marking the "death" of new wave. British rock critic Adam Sweeting , who described
6000-500: The most "truly definitive new wave band". In the same article, reviewing the American book This Ain't No Disco: New Wave Album Covers , Collins noted that the book's inclusion of such artists as Big Country , Roxy Music, Wham!, and Bronski Beat "strikes an Englishman as patently ridiculous", but that the term means "all things to all cultural commentators." By the 2000s, critical consensus favored "new wave" to be an umbrella term that encompasses power pop , synth-pop, ska revival , and
6100-411: The musicians were more influenced by the styles of the 1950s along with the lighter strains of 1960s pop and were opposed to the generally abrasive, political bents of punk rock, as well as what was considered to be creatively stagnant " corporate rock ". New wave commercially peaked from the late 1970s into the early 1980s with numerous major musicians and an abundance of one-hit wonders . MTV , which
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#17327838847276200-608: The new wave circuit acts happening very big [in the US]. As a movement, we don't expect it to have much influence." A year earlier, Bart Mills of The Washington Post asked "Is England's New Wave All Washed Up?", writing that "The New Wave joined the Establishment, buying a few hits at the price of its anarchism. Not a single punk band broke through big in America, and in Britain John Travolta sold more albums than
6300-442: The new wave movement's commercial rise, which had been signaled in 1978 by hits for the Cars and Talking Heads. In 1980, there were brief forays into new wave-style music by non-new wave artists Billy Joel ( Glass Houses ), Donna Summer ( The Wanderer ), and Linda Ronstadt ( Mad Love ). Early in 1980, influential radio consultant Lee Abrams wrote a memo saying with a few exceptions, "we're not going to be seeing many of
6400-665: The news on his own blog in November calling The Maths "a new album project". An initial download-only single, "Destination" / "September Town", was released in December 2009 by Townsend Records and later via iTunes . The duo continued to work in Benge's studio throughout 2010 and some new tracks were previewed at the Short Circuit electronic music festival at The Roundhouse in London on 5 June 2010. A new album entitled Interplay
6500-558: The punk-music scene. The mid-1970s British pub rock scene was the source of many of the most-commercially-successful new wave acts, such as Ian Dury , Nick Lowe , Eddie and the Hot Rods , and Dr. Feelgood . In the US, Sire Records chairman Seymour Stein , believing the term "punk" would mean poor sales for Sire's acts who had frequently played the New York club CBGB , launched a "Don't Call It Punk" campaign designed to replace
6600-412: The punk/new wave movement. Acts associated with the movement received little or no radio airplay, or music industry support. Small scenes developed in major cities. Continuing into the next year, public support remained limited to select elements of the artistic, bohemian, and intellectual population as arena rock and disco dominated the charts. In early 1979, Eve Zibart of The Washington Post noted
6700-704: The recording of John Cage 's 4'33" as part of the Cage Against the Machine collective. In March 2013, Foxx took part in the On Vanishing Land project, a work by British sound artists and theorists Mark Fisher and Justin Barton. Described as a magisterial audio-essay On Vanishing Land evokes a walk undertaken by the artists along the Suffolk coastline in 2005, from Felixstowe container port to
6800-399: The release of the second volume of Cathedral Oceans as well as another ambient record, the double CD Translucence and Drift Music with Harold Budd. In 2004, from September through October, a collection of Cathedral Oceans images was exhibited at BCB Art, Hudson, New York , and in the following year Cathedral Oceans III was released. A second surround sound DVD of Cathedral Oceans
6900-442: The same time, Leigh adopted his stage name of John Foxx: Foxx is much more intelligent than I am, better looking, better lit. A kind of naively perfected entity. He's just like a recording, where you can make several performances until you get it right – or make a composite of several successful sections, then discard the rest. Chris Allen, who had briefly gone by the name Chris St. John, changed his name again, to Chris Cross. Once
7000-539: The same year. After In Mysterious Ways , Foxx temporarily left his career in pop music. He sold his recording studio and returned to his earlier career as a graphic artist, working under his real name of Dennis Leigh. Examples of this work include the book covers of Salman Rushdie 's The Moor's Last Sigh , Jeanette Winterson 's Sexing the Cherry , Anthony Burgess 's A Dead Man in Deptford , and several books in
7100-414: The single " ROckWrok ", although both were commercial failures. For their third album, Systems of Romance , Ultravox abandoned the exclamation mark in their name. Also missing was their first guitarist, Stevie Shears, who was replaced by Robin Simon , from Neo . The album was co-produced by Conny Plank . Two singles were released from the album, " Slow Motion " and " Quiet Men ". Sales were modest, but
7200-509: The sleeve. One of the album's songs, "Metal Beat", takes its name from a CR-78 drum machine sound used on the record. Virgin released the album under the imprint name Metal Beat Records, which was used for Foxx releases throughout his contract with them. The non-album single " Burning Car " followed in July 1980. Spending seven weeks on the UK charts, it reached its peak position at no. 35 in August. Foxx then worked on dozens of tracks for two projected albums, and one of these tracks, "My Face",
7300-523: The soft strains of punk rock. In the UK, some post-punk music developments became mainstream. According to music critic David Smay writing in 2001: Current critical thought discredits new wave as a genre, deriding it as a marketing ploy to soft-sell punk, a meaningless umbrella term covering bands too diverse to be considered alike. Powerpop, synth-pop, ska revival, art school novelties and rebranded pub rockers were all sold as "New Wave". In mid-1977, Time and Newsweek wrote favorable lead stories on
7400-458: The soundtrack of the feature-length film Blue Velvet Revisited , with Cult With No Name and Tuxedomoon , which consists of footage shot during the making of David Lynch 's film Blue Velvet . In December 2009, the Metamatic website announced the new musical project John Foxx and the Maths, the name given to the work written and produced by John Foxx and Benge . Benge had already broken
7500-478: The soundtrack to Michelangelo Antonioni 's film Identification of a Woman ( Identificazione di una donna ). In September that year, his third solo LP The Golden Section was released ( UK No. 27). A development of The Garden , Foxx described the album as a "roots check" of his earliest musical influences, including The Beatles and English psychedelic music . It was followed by a tour, his first live performances since Ultravox. The album In Mysterious Ways
7600-691: The space of one week in June 2008. This began with a showing of Tiny Colour Movies at the Caixaforum in Barcelona on 14 June 2008, followed by a performance of Cathedral Oceans III inside the Great Hall at Durham Castle, England on 18 June. He then travelled to Italy and presented an extract from The Quiet Man at the 14th Festival Internazionale di Poesia in Genoa . In December 2010, Foxx participated in
7700-407: The start of MTV began new wave's most successful era in the US. British musicians, unlike many of their American counterparts, had learned how to use the music video early on. Several British acts on independent labels were able to outmarket and outsell American musicians on major labels, a phenomenon journalists labeled the " Second British Invasion " of "new music" , which included many artists of
7800-428: The studio album From Trash in November and a further album from the same sessions a few weeks later during the accompanying mini-tour. This two-CD package, entitled Sideways , included ten original tracks plus two extended versions of songs on From Trash . The second disc contained an extensive interview with Foxx describing the making of From Trash which was available only at concerts on the 2006 tour. The "live in
7900-470: The studio" recordings originally distributed in limited edition during the 1998 Subterranean Omnidelic Exotour were later made available through the double-CD issue "The Golden Section Tour + The Omnidelic Exotour" (2002) and the double CD re-issue of "Shifting City" in 2009. The album Retro Future (2007) is a live-on-stage performance recorded on the Exotour, on 10 January 1998 at Shrewsbury Music Hall. It
8000-665: The term "new wave" to classify New York–based groups such as the Velvet Underground and New York Dolls . In the US, many of the first new wave groups were the not-so-punk acts associated with CBGB (e.g. Talking Heads, Mink DeVille and Blondie ), as well as the proto-punk scene in Ohio, which included Devo , the Electric Eels , Rocket from the Tombs , and Pere Ubu . Some important bands, such as Suicide and
8100-542: The term with "new wave". Because radio consultants in the US had advised their clients punk rock was a fad, they settled on the new term. Like the filmmakers of the French New Wave movement , after whom the genre was named, new wave bands such as Ramones and Talking Heads were anti-corporate and experimental. At first, most American writers used the term "new wave" exclusively in reference to British punk acts. Starting in December 1976, The New York Rocker , which
8200-795: The time. The lead single " Europe After the Rain " became Foxx's fourth and last top 40 hit on the UK Singles Chart during a five-week chart run in August/September 1981. In 1982, Foxx set up his own recording studio, designed by Andy Munro, also called The Garden, housed in an artists' collective in Shoreditch, East London, in a former warehouse also occupied by sculptors, painters and film makers. He produced some demo recordings for Virginia Astley's first album From Gardens Where We Feel Secure . In 1983, Foxx provided some music for
8300-474: The track "Underpass" (Reeder Sinister Subway Mix) for John Foxx's CD/DVD retrospective compilation Metatronic . Reeder not only remixed his versions from the original master tapes in stereo for the CD, but he also made 5.1 mixes of his own remixes and Foxx's original 1980s version. The track was re-issued in May 2013 as a special edition 12-inch vinyl. The disc features two new remixes. The sleeve features new artwork created by Jonathan Barnbrook who has designed
8400-528: Was Foxx's first collaboration with Manchester musician Louis Gordon . On 11 October 1997, Foxx played his first public gig since 1983 at The Astoria, London. A limited-edition twelve-track CD (1,000 numbered copies only) entitled Subterranean Omnidelic Exotour was available for purchase by ticketholders. Foxx and Gordon continued to work together, performing live on the Subterranean Omnnidelic Exotour in 1997 and 1998 and releasing
8500-536: Was a cover of the Fats Waller track " Ain't Misbehavin' ". It was commissioned for (but not subsequently used in) a movie of the same name. The B-side was the group's own song "Monkey Jive". Tiger Lily played a few gigs in London pubs between 1974 and 1975. After several changes of name, including Fire of London, The Zips and The Damned, the band became Ultravox! in October 1976. The group's style fused punk , glam, electronic , reggae and new wave music . At
8600-510: Was also announced prior to the tour and was initially only available for purchase at tour venues. In January 2013, it was announced that John Foxx and the Maths would be the support act for Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark 's English Electric spring tour. The 13-date tour ran from 30 March to 14 April 2013. The only headline live show for 2013 was held on 7 June at the Brighton Concorde. The live-in-the-studio album, Rhapsody ,
8700-559: Was announced in January 2011 and released on 21 March. The album gained critical acclaim; The Quietus called it "one of the finest electronic records you'll hear in 2011", and launched a remix competition to coincide with the release of the album. Stems of the album track "Shatterproof" were made available for download, remixing and re-uploading via the SoundCloud site. The competition was won by Dave Poeme Electronique. The release of
8800-434: Was coined to describe groups who were initially considered part of new wave but were more ambitious, serious, challenging, darker, and less pop-oriented. Some of these groups later adopted synthesizers. While punk rock wielded a major influence on the popular music scene in the UK, in the US it remained a fixture of the underground. By the end of 1977, "new wave" had replaced "punk" as the term for new underground music in
8900-463: Was issued in October 1985, which spent one week at No. 85 in the UK chart. Musically it was not considered a significant advance on the sound of his three previous releases, nor was it a commercial success although the album's lyrics are far more romantic than any of his previous albums. Foxx later said that at the time he felt divorced from any contemporary musical influences. However, he did produce, co-write and play on Pressure Points , by Anne Clark ,
9000-474: Was issued to coincide with these live performances. An announcement of Foxx's official Facebook account in May 2019 stated that John Foxx and the Maths were back in the studio working on a new album, this time with Robin Simon on guitar. A short video clip of Foxx and Simon in Benge's studio was also posted on Benge's official account. The resulting album, Howl , was released in July 2020, and reached No. 80 in
9100-469: Was launched in 1981, heavily promoted new-wave acts, boosting the genre's popularity in the United States. In the UK, new wave faded at the beginning of the 1980s with the emergence of the New Romantic movement. In the US, new wave continued into the mid-1980s but declined with the popularity of the New Romantic, new pop , and new music genres. Since the 1990s, new wave resurged several times with
9200-460: Was not performed again by Foxx until 1983. Ultravox were dropped by their record label at the very end of 1978. The band undertook a self-financed tour of the United States in February, during which they performed three new songs, "Touch and Go" and "He's a Liquid", which Foxx later recorded for Metamatic , and "Radio Beach". Foxx left the band at the end of the tour, and returned to solo work. He
9300-487: Was really an exciting burst there for like a year, year and a half." Starting around 1983, the US music industry preferred the more generic term " new music ", which it used to categorize new movements like new pop and New Romanticism . In 1983, music journalist Parke Puterbaugh wrote that new music "does not so much describe a single style as it draws a line in time, distinguishing what came before from what has come after." Chuck Eddy , who wrote for The Village Voice in
9400-569: Was released for Foxx's 2007 Metamatic tour, and was originally limited to 1000 pressings. Foxx has performed and recorded with a variety of artists and musicians since returning to the music scene in the mid-nineties, most notably with Louis Gordon but also with Harold Budd , Jori Hulkkonen , Robin Guthrie (formerly of Cocteau Twins ), Ruben Garcia and The Belbury Circle . In April 2005, Foxx guested on Finnish DJ Jori Hulkkonen 's album Dualizm , where he provided vocals for "Dislocated" which Hulkkonen had written for him. Foxx and Hulkkonen issued
9500-547: Was released in August 2013 on the Sugarcane Recordings label. The first volume of Cathedral Oceans was released at the same time as Foxx's comeback collaboration with Louis Gordon and the Shifting City album. In stark contrast to the latter, Cathedral Oceans is a more ethereal, ambient work combined with Foxx's own artwork of overgrown natural settings superimposed onto faces of statues. 2003 also saw
9600-529: Was released in March 2007. This contained his artwork made into a film intended as a "slowly moving, hallucinogenic, digital stained glass window, intended to be projected as big as possible onto architecture and in public places." The work was premiered in November 2006 at the Leeds International Film Festival . In July 2007, Foxx exhibited some of his Cathedral Oceans artwork as large format digital prints at Fulham Palace as part of
9700-433: Was released on a flexi-disc given away with Smash Hits in October 1980. Foxx's next album was The Garden , released in September 1981. It reached No. 24 in the UK Albums Chart. Musically it was a departure from the stark electropop of Metamatic to a sound resembling Ultravox Systems of Romance . The Garden ' s starting point was "Systems of Romance", written by Foxx for the earlier album but not released at
9800-588: Was replaced by Midge Ure . After signing to Virgin Records , Foxx achieved two top 40 entries on the UK Singles Chart with his first solo singles, " Underpass " (No. 31) and " No-One Driving " (No. 32). Its parent album Metamatic was released on 17 January 1980, and peaked at No. 18 in the UK Albums Chart . Foxx played most of the synthesisers and "rhythm machines", as they were listed on
9900-522: Was suspicious of the term "punk", became the first American journal to enthusiastically use the term, at first for British acts and later for acts associated with the CBGB scene. The music's stripped-back style and upbeat tempos, which Stein and others viewed as a much-needed return to the energetic rush of rock and roll and 1960s rock that had dwindled in the 1970s with progressive rock and stadium spectacles, attracted them to new wave. The term "post-punk"
10000-468: Was the subject of an article in the UK monthly Creative review in September 2010. Between July and August 2016 an exhibition entitled "Europe After the Rain" was held at the University of South Australia featuring images made from photographs and found objects gathered over a period of around thirty years by Foxx in his travels across Britain and Europe. In November 2020 Foxx published The Quiet Man ,
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