New Tales to Tell - Love and Rockets Tribute Due

I’m always surprised by the huge vacuum of obscurity some fantastic bands seem to fall into after productive years and creative notoriety. One of these bands was Bauhaus offshoot, Love and Rockets. Their blend of psychedelia and glam rock proved enormously popular in the late eighties and early nineties only to disappear into that rock n’ roll ether we so often see. Thankfully, Love and Rockets do offer a revered and sizeable musical legacy that continues to influence many of our favourite indie artists to this day.

No surprise then that a tribute album will emerge paying homage to the once mighty purveyors of cool. The Flaming Lips, Frank Black, Maynard James Keenan's Puscifer project, A Place To Bury Strangers and The Dandy Warhols are among those who will appear on New Tales To Tell: A Tribute To Love And Rockets when it's released this summer.

The tribute album will be digitally available through Justice Records on July 28th and will hit stores on Aug. 18th. It will be available with special bonus tracks and on limited edition blue and red vinyl. New Tales To Tell: A Tribute To Love and Rockets was produced by Christopher The Minister and Phil Jaurigui (Concrete Blonde, Audioslave), and its album artwork was done by Shepherd Fairey. (Indeed that is the fellow that created the ubiquitous Obama Hope poster.)

Love And Rockets took their name from a comic book series by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez when they formed in England in 1985. Daniel Ash (guitar, saxophone, vocals), David J (bass, vocals) and Kevin Haskins (drums, synthesizers) had been in Bauhaus with Peter Murphy until that band splintered in 1983.

Love And Rockets' sound was more pop-based and upbeat than Bauhaus' goth rock, and the band's Seventh Dream Of Teenage Heaven was released the year they formed. It was followed by six more albums before the band split in 1999. Love And Rockets reformed in 2007 and performed at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival and Lollapalooza last year.

Here are the artists and songs on New Tales To Tell: A Tribute To Love And Rockets:

Black Francis - All In My Mind
Puscifer - Holiday On The Moon
War Tapes - Love Me
Blaqk Audio - No New Tale To Tell
Dubfire - I Feel Speed
The Dandy Warhols - Inside The Outside
The Flaming Lips - Kundalini Express
Film School - An American Dream
A Place To Bury Strangers - The Light
Monster Magnet vs. Adrian Young - Mirror People
The Stone Foxes - Fever
Frankenstein 3000 - No Big Deal
VEX - It Could Be Sunshine
Better Than Ezra - So Alive
Chantal Claret vs. Adrian Young - Lazy
Ian Moore - Sweet F.A.
Snowden - No Words No More

http://www.myspace.com/loveandrocketstribute