Tubeway Patrol Release
Added 15th March 2009
It's been quite a while since the last update for various reasons, but the Tubeway Patrol album of released, unreleased and demo masters is now planned for a Summer 2009 release.
The tracks of the forthcoming album will include versions of:-
- Do eyes ever meet?
- No time
- Relay
- Welcome
- Little Girls
- Bordello
- Times Square
- Only Dreaming
- The End
- Computer Failure
- Views
- Whiplash Girls
- A Death In A City
Please check back here for more news as the project progresses.
Sean
Tubeway Patrol on MYSPACE
Added 15th March 2009
Please click here to visit the Tubeway Patrol MySpace site
Sean and Gary Numan Meet
Added 8th December 2006
Sean Burke the Tubeway Army ex-guitarist and Gary Numan have not met since Tubeway Army was disbanded in 1979. Recently, Sean and Gary renewed their acquaintance and Gary invited Sean to see him play at The Forum, Kentish Town on Friday 8th December 2006.
Here they are pictured after the gig by Mark of The Thought Criminals. Thanks to Mark for the picture.
Tubeway Patrol Release?
Sean has located his cache of unreleased Tubeway Patrol master tapes and demos and is currently considering making the best material available as a CD.
Please come back and check for more info once Sean has move further forward with the project.
If you would like to contact Sean regarding a possible Tubeway Patrol CD, please contact him directly at his email address :-
A Brief History of Tubeway Patrol Go to top
Tubeway Army split in 1979 and while Gary Numan and Paul Gardiner went one way, Sean Burke (Guitar) and Barry Benn (Drums) went another and formed the Station Boys, later to become Tubeway Patrol. Sean arrived via a short stint in Robert and the Remoulds with another collaborator Bob Noble. They added Nicky Combes on vocals and Billy Holland on bass and set about gigging a batch of new songs all written by Sean Burke. The girl in the cover scan is Debbie Katz, daughter of jazz piano maestro Dick Katz, and she was added to the line-up to play live keyboards. Billy was later replaced on bass by John McCartney.
One of the reasons for friction in Tubeway Army, that eventually lead to the split, is that Sean was also a writer and contributed a lot of ideas. Numan (in the MP3 interview below) says that he wanted to follow an "electronic" route whilst Sean and Barry wanted to be punks forever. An exaggeration, no doubt, but as a guitarist, it's obvious that Sean would have preferred that the powerful guitar sound that they had developed wasn't dropped before they had explored it's potential. During his stint with Numan, Sean owned a Moog Satellite synth and suggested using it in the Tubeway Army live set, but Numan declined, puzzling Sean. It was when they went in to master "Bombers" that they used the now infamous Mini-Moog synth that Gary went on to use so heavily on his own albums.
The Tubeway Patrol songs show that Sean was not against synths at all and had probably got most of his punk guitar thrashing out of the way playing in his first band with Barry Benn, Open Sore. In fact, Sean played all the synths in the demos because Debbie Katz had not yet joined. She does play on the single though.
The demo album was partly recorded on 16-track in May 1980 at Jacob's Studios in Runwick, Nr. Farnham in Surrey. The second half of the 8 tracks were recorded in December 1980 at Exit Studios in Fulham. All 8 tracks are available as MP3 files below, taken from Sean's own cassette tape, probably the best quality version of them that exists. I ran them through some sound reinforcement tools to clean them up and have them archived in a CD-compatible format.
Signed to record label Carrere, the band recorded their single "Do Eyes Ever Meet?" and the b-side "No Time" at Abbey Road. This was released and received favourable radio airplay, but didn't gain the success that was hoped for. Following this the record company took the decision to drop the band, though they were disappointed that this seemed to have more to do with their unpopular manager (who chose and insisted on the Tubeway Patrol name) than the band itself. The band members did not enjoy being called Tubeway Patrol and were sure that it counted against them.
They then signed to DJM and the single was re-released in Europe, but unfortunately fared no better. Dissapointed with the manager and frustrated with the set-up, Sean decided to call it a day and buy some home recording equipment so that he could produce demos at home. Sean dabbled in the music industry for a while, writing his own music, turning down a guitar session with Alvin Stardust, playing guitar in Jayne County's band on an international tour and producing demos for hopeful girl groups. Eventually he became generally disillusioned with the music business and the annoying group of (wonderful) friends he had somehow made, and began spending a great deal of time in Thailand and other parts of Asia, away from them, and work, which he finds tiring.
He is currently in the country attempting to avoid boredom.
Tubeway Army Go to top
These scans from the Tubeway Army "Bombers" single feature Sean and Barry. In fact, Bombers is one of very few recorded tracks that they are featured on. Of the mastered tracks, Sean plays guitar on Bombers, O.D. Receiver and Blue Eyes. That last four-piece incarnation of Tubeway Army was a great live outfit, but due to Sean's other commitments during tracking for The Plan, was hardly recorded as a complete band.
Open Sore Go to top
Sean Burke and Barry Benn originally played together in punk band Open Sore who played at the final night at the famous London punk venue, The Roxy. This gig was recorded and their excellent track Vertigo is still available on the punk compilation Farewell To The Roxy (AHOY CD 86) on Captain Oi Records.
MP3 Files - May 1980, Tubeway Patrol Demo (Copyright Control) Go to top
Apologies - but for Copyright reasons and the impending CD release, the MP3 files have had to be removed.
| Side One | All
songs written and arranged by Sean Burke. Recorded
on 16-track 31st May 1980 at Jacob's Studio in Runwick, Nr. Farnham in
Surrey, UK. Line-up:
|
|||||||||||||
| Do
Eyes Ever Meet Welcome No Time Relay |
||||||||||||||
| Side Two | All
songs written and arranged by Sean Burke. Lyrics co-written by Nicky
Combes. Recorded
6th December 1980 at Exit Studios in Fulham, London, UK. The same
line-up was used.
Please feel free to
download and enjoy the MP3's for personal use. |
|||||||||||||
| Only Dreaming A Death In The City Computer Failure Time Square |
MP3 Files - Interviews Go to top
| Nicky Combes interviewed about Tubeway Patrol | |
| Gary Numan interviewed about Tubeway Army |
MP3 Files - Other Tubeway Patrol Songs (Copyright Control)
Apologies - but for Copyright reasons and the impending CD release, the MP3 files have had to be removed.
| The End (released as B-side of "Strangers In The Night" by Friday (Sean Burke) | |
| Love To Feel (recorded 1995 in home studio. Piano by Neil Cockle) |
Links to related and otherwise interesting sites
| Open Sore @ Bored Teenagers | Great pictures of the band rehearsing | |
| Detour Records | Punk enthusiasts and record label | |
| Punk 77! Punk Rock in the UK | Stylish UK and US punk site | |
| The Thought Criminals | An excellent band you must check out | |
| New Wave Photos by Philippe Carley | Masses of concert photos | |
| New Wave Web Ring | Varied set of new wave/80's sites |
Please feel free to
download and enjoy the MP3's for personal use.
Please note that all the
songs are copyright of the writers listed.