ULTRAVOX!

Dislocation

'Slow Motion' and 'Dislocation'  - almost a full stop on the first part of the Ultravox! story - Notice the 'Krautrock' inspired exclamation mark at the end of their name; quietly dropped after the second album!!(!) (or should that be -!)

Near the beginning of their story (there is an earlier history; 'Tiger Liley' - not to be explored here) on their first album sleeve - squint at the band standing underneath that name in lurid neon pink, the exclamation mark present in all its camp glory, tilted to the right just above Billy Currie's bequifed head.,  - the band, looking camper - L to R; Stevie Shears - mullet, too tight sleevless black T, drainpipes and white sox - goth soul boy; Chris Cross, a vision in black leather, bouffant hair do and duck egg blue boots, Nosferatu hands, his expression matches a comic void; John Foxx - see through rain mack and pink plastic choker - echoing the Soho sleaze of the logo above his head, connecting him to it like a queezy, pornographic umbelical chord!(!). Foxx's faun boots' shade match his alter ego name; Warren Cann, looking like a glam rock racing driver put through a Bowie filter - watching eye badge, black gloves - tilted back against the grey bricks, the toes of his white boots point up at us, an anodyne manakin, and last but not least, the afformentioned B.Curry, channeling an alien version of Elvis, his high-waisted jeans and sickly complexion a perfect metaphor for early Ultravox! Queezy, sleazy, baffling and un-categorizable - a band who's influences were obvious (Roxy Music, David Bowie, Kraftwerk, glam and punk) but the sum of their parts means that there is always something in their music (even the worst of it, and there's a fair bit of that!) that brings you back again, to listen again, to swim in the glimmer of a summer of that fading outro to one of their masterpieces - 'Dislocation'

Dislocation