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W
nally
released the CD/DVD
Live at
Wembley
last year following
an extensive reunion tour
with all the original members,
congregants from the “Church
of the Poison Mind” rejoiced.
And the “Karma Chameleon” contin-
ues to swing in their direction with not
only the announcement that singer Boy
George, guitarist Roy Hay, bassist Mikey
Craig, and drummer Jon Moss will
release their rst entirely new album
together this century, but also em-
bark on a massive tour that includes a
double-decker Ravinia debut on Friday,
August , and Saturday, September ,
alongside returning favorites e B- s
(“Love Shack,” “Rock Lobster,” “Roam”)
and ompson Twins’ Tom Bailey
(“Hold Me Now,” “Doctor! Doctor!,”
“Lay Your Hands On Me”).
“Oh it’s everything; something old,
something new, something borrowed,
something blue. It’s going to be like a
wedding,” reveals Boy George with a
laugh during a phone call conversa-
tion with
Ravinia
Magazine about the
concerts. “We do obviously the classic
songs, we do some new stu , and we do
some great covers. Tom Bailey comes
out and he’s singing these incredible
hits, then you’ve got e B- s with
their pop/punk sensibility, and then
we come out. We’ve got everybody in
Chicago, so that’s a big show, but it really
works. We’ve held audiences in like
torrential rain, and if people stand out
in the rain, you know they’re there for
the right reasons!”
Having so many ubiquitous hits be-
tween them all throughout the
s has
surely contributed to the outing logging
one sellout a er the next. However, ev-
eryone’s current whereabouts are just as
compelling. For Culture Club, the forth-
coming
Life
marks the o cial follow-up
to
’s
Don’t Mind If I Do
, e B- s
are celebrating years together, while
Bailey’s inaugural solo album,
Science
Fiction,
returns to the ompson Twins
style that he hasn’t explored since
.
ough Boy George and company’s
upcoming collection didn’t take nearly
as long to materialize, it was de nitely a
labor of love that bene tted from some
space between sessions and fresh ears.
“We started making this new album
about four years ago, and then stu got
in the way,” admits George. “I wasn’t
happy with the way the record [original-
ly called
Tribes
] was going, and I needed
to nd a new manager. I did that, then I
came back to Culture Club. I was about
to do a solo album, but then I thought,
‘Well, we’ve got this album that we start-
ed, let’s nish it,’ so I spoke to the guys,
and we all agreed that we should nish.
en we got a deal with BMG, and that
made it all the more urgent and exciting.
…We went back and re-recorded the
[songs] we loved and wrote new songs,
so it’s tracks and there’ll be additional
tracks coming out as well. It’s basically
Tribes
, but now it’s called
Life
, and it’s a
whole di erent record because it’s been
[redone] with di erent producers, and
we’re happy with it.”
I
, the band seamlessly
fused pop, blue-eyed soul, new wave,
reggae, and dance music across
additional smashes such as “Do You
Really Want to Hurt Me,” “Time
(Clock of the Heart),” “I’ll Tumble
Ya,” “Miss Me Blind,” “It’s a Miracle,”
“Move Away,” and “I Just Wanna Be
Loved.” But what exactly does Culture
Club sound like circa
?
“It’s very loose, it’s very band-y; it’s
not overproduced, it’s raw, it’s excit-
ing, and we write songs. We’ve always
written songs, and it feels like, at the
moment, people don’t really write
songs anymore. ey write choruses,
you know?” observes George. “I think
we sound like all of our in uences. We
sound like the things that we listened
to growing up. Culture Club has always
been very eclectic, and I think on this
particular record, we are really very bold
about wearing our in uences. ings
like Gladys Knight & e Pips, Sly &
e Family Stone, and David Bowie. All
those in uences, I think, are very prev-
alent. When you read this recent thing
with Ed Sheeran and I think it’s Marvin
Gaye again [whose estate is suing over
song similarities] … I think it’s really
weird to read these stories about people
coming out and saying ‘you shouldn’t be
able to sound like the things you love.’
By Andy Argyrakis
AUGUST 20 – SE3TEM%ER 2, 2018 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE
33