Killing Joke world tour 2008! ORIGINAL LINE UP RETURN!!!

Discussion
1

Great news on a gloomy sunday!

From the Killing Joke website:
ORIGINAL LINE UP RETURN!!! JAZ, GEORDIE, YOUTH AND BIG PAUL WORLD TOUR

Finally, after numerous line-up changes through the years, all original Killing Joke members reunite for new album and world tour.

Drummer, Paul Ferguson, rejoins the line up for the first time since 1987 enabling a whole new generation of fans to see Killing Joke’s legendary original formation. Diehard fans have been waiting for this moment for two decades!

Bassist, Martin ‘Youth’ Glover also steps back into the live arena after a near 15 hiatus, having not played live with Killing Joke since 1994’s Pandemonium tour.

The tour will see Killing Joke take up a two night residency in most venues offering a different set on each evening. On the first night, they will play their first two albums in their entirety, 1980’s self-titled album followed by the album ‘What’s This…For!’. Their
second performance in each city will treat fans to 1994’s Pandemonium and the Island Records singles of’79 to ’80.

Once described by Ferguson as ‘the sound of the earth vomiting’, Killing Joke is anthemic and grandiose in it’s evocation of nightmare visions. Taking a sarcastic jab at authority and perceived reality to a sonically charged mixture of post punk and metal,
Killing Joke’s heavy guitars and pounding tribal drums conjure a primitive atmosphere of doom, gloom and resistance.

Notorious for their use of inflammatory imagery, a backlash against a world they perceived as ever more materialistic, unjust and conservative, Killing Joke, railed against the establishment and created a unique sound from their very conception.

Ironically, in the current musical climate with it’s obsession with rehashing eighties sounds, the 80’s saw Killing Joke really pushing music forward, incorporating danceable elements with aggressive, grinding guitars and thumping drums. With elements of
proto-techno rock, their post apocalyptic vision has inspired bands as diverse and influential as Nirvana, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Foo Fighters, Soundgarden
and Godflesh. Killing Joke have always been and continue to be more than just a band.

Godfathers of post-punk, Killing Joke return with their eagerly anticipated new album to coincide with their world tour. Album release date TBC.

LIVE DATES
September
13 - (JP) Tokyo, Club Quattro
14 - (JP) Tokyo, Club Quattro
16 - (ES) Madrid, Heineken
17 - (ES) Barcelona, Apollo
19 - (IT) Milan, Rolling Stone
20 - (IT) Milan, Rolling Stone
22 - (CH) Geneva, TBC
24 - (DE) Berlin, Columbia Hall
25 - (DE) Berlin, Columbia Hall
26 - (FR) Paris, Trabendo
27 - (FR) Paris, Trabendo
29 - (BE) Brussels, AB Club
30 - (BE) Brussels, AB Club
October
02 - (UK) London, The Forum
03 - (UK) London, The Forum
09 - (US) Los Angeles, TBC
11 - (US) New York, TBC

More info check out killingjoke.com

2

Heard about this yesterday or so… Very fucking good news! It’s about time for a new album, and it’s cool about the lineup. Didn’t youth rejoin a few times though? I thought he came back for Pandemonium and Democracy, and then coming back in 2003, but Raven touring in his place. I didn’t get into killing joke until way late, but i’m sure youth’s been around off and on over the years. Big Paul on the other hand: That’s a return.

3

Youth has reunited with the band more in the role of producer than bass player.

4

this is cool… but Democracy is still their best album… so this tour is kinda… well… flawed for me. haha.

5

this is cool… but Democracy is still their best album… so this tour is kinda… well… flawed for me. haha.

I’m going to have to agree. Much as I love “Night Time,” I gotta give the nod to “Democracy.” “Absent Friends,” “Aeon,” and the title track… Yeah.
Oh yeah.

6

[reply]
this is cool… but Democracy is still their best album… so this tour is kinda… well… flawed for me. haha.

I’m going to have to agree. Much as I love “Night Time,” I gotta give the nod to “Democracy.” “Absent Friends,” “Aeon,” and the title track… Yeah.
Oh yeah.[/reply]

Always been a fan of “Prozac People”. It’s chorus is way catchy. “I was one of the prozac people”. Good stuff. I thought Democracy was a great album, and then I finally heard Pandemonium which was even better. Can’t beat “Millenium” and “Pleasures of the Flesh”. But if I had to pick a favorite album, i’d probably go with Night Time or Brighter… i’ve been more into the 80s synth/pop/rock lately, so that’s it. To this very day i’ve never even heard Outside The Gate, and i’m still skeptical about it.

7

i remember buying Dem from my friend’s record store cus he wouldnt stop telling me how this band “was like Ministry’s bigger better older brother”, now, i dotn quite agree, but i rememebr spinning that disk and jumping through my skin.

the title track is fucking class all the way through.
HftBoH was pretty kick ass as well.

8

To this very day i’ve never even heard Outside The Gate, and i’m still skeptical about it.

There’s one really cool song on Outside The Gate called “My Love Of This Land”. It sounds like a cousin of Brighter Than A Thousand Suns. Let me know if you want me to email it to you. Other than that, it’s a really bad album. It seriously sounds like Geordie and Jaz had severe writer’s block. Bad lyrics, cheesy arrangements (have you heard America? That says it all). That was pretty much the band for that album. Most of the percussion is programmed, and there’s too much synthesizer (never thought I’d complain about that). I’m also from the Night Time/Brighter camp - love those albums.

Democracy is very good, but a lot of time the production suffers. I think Jaz wanted it that way, too. The vocals are, at times, buried in the mix (Democracy, Aeon, the near-muddy Absent Friends). There’s definitely a lot of great songs on the album. I think it depends on my mood which one I like better. I do prefer Geordie’s guitar work on Democracy…it’s more KJ, and less metal than Pandemonium.

1002

9

[reply]To this very day i’ve never even heard Outside The Gate, and i’m still skeptical about it.

There’s one really cool song on Outside The Gate called “My Love Of This Land”. It sounds like a cousin of Brighter Than A Thousand Suns. Let me know if you want me to email it to you. Other than that, it’s a really bad album. It seriously sounds like Geordie and Jaz had severe writer’s block. Bad lyrics, cheesy arrangements (have you heard America? That says it all). That was pretty much the band for that album. Most of the percussion is programmed, and there’s too much synthesizer (never thought I’d complain about that). I’m also from the Night Time/Brighter camp - love those albums.

Democracy is very good, but a lot of time the production suffers. I think Jaz wanted it that way, too. The vocals are, at times, buried in the mix (Democracy, Aeon, the near-muddy Absent Friends). There’s definitely a lot of great songs on the album. I think it depends on my mood which one I like better. I do prefer Geordie’s guitar work on Democracy…it’s more KJ, and less metal than Pandemonium.

1002[/reply]

I remember reading on wikipedia on how Outside The Gate was intended to be a Jaz solo album, but went way over budget. Geordie being all over it, which essentially would be a KJ album anyway. And I hear that’s why Big Paul and Raven left (the first time). And for Democracy, there’s just something about the overall vibe on that album that I enjoy. The title track and Prozac People are, by far my two favorites.

10

There´s alot of talk about the Democracy album!
I feel it didn´t get the attention it deserved when it showed up, perhaps i´m wrong. Overall a very good album. Title track i agree is on of the best KJ tracks out there.

Outside the gate? In short - It´s crap…

Anyone who hasn´t given their early albums from those mad years a listen should try it.
Anything from 1980 to 1983…don´t mind their 1985 Nighttime album either, but they where abit more ferocious back in the day.

Or better get the “Laugh? I nearly bought one!” - a good compilation of old tracks + some later.

11

Or better get the “Laugh? I nearly bought one!” - a good compilation of old tracks + some later.

i picked that up, to fill me in once i started getting into them, and BOY that cd is fucking LONG.

great! but fucking long…

12

…Outside The Gate… a really bad album.

Here here!! It’s insufferably bad.

It seriously sounds like Geordie and Jaz had severe writer’s block. Bad lyrics, cheesy arrangements (have you heard America? That says it all).

It’s like, having dispensed temporarily with the industrial grind doomsday wailing of their early years, they had nowhere left to go. It’s an out and out shocker. Even if it was conceived as a Jaz sideproject - that’s STILL no excuse. What was he thinking?!?!? Guess we’ll never know.

I’m also from the Night Time/Brighter camp - love those albums.

I love both of those albums to death - so my complaint isn’t with these guys doing lighter stuff.

Democracy is very good, but a lot of time the production suffers. I think Jaz wanted it that way, too. The vocals are, at times, buried in the mix (Democracy, Aeon, the near-muddy Absent Friends).

Thought Democracy was terrible. Not as bad as ‘Outside The Gate’ granted, but still pretty dire. A bunch of phony assed U2 arena rock anthems with garbled quasi new agey lyrics that made me cringe back then and cringe even more now.

However, having said that, ‘Medicine Wheel’ is a half decent track.