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Simple Minds

Simple Minds

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Simple Minds: New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)

Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 18 September 1982

ONETHIS RECORD is something of a glow. Whatever your preference you will find it memorable and instructive. Find its qualities and fix your place. Be ...

Audio interviews

Simple Minds' Jim Kerr (1989)

Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages audio, May 1989

The Simple Minds frontman expounds on such subjects as latest album Street Fighting Years; writing political lyrics and taking political stands; and how travel has informed his life from hitch-hiking as a kid to touring the world.

File format: mp3; file size: 61.1mb, interview length: 1h 06' 46" sound quality: ***

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Simple Minds: Strangers In A Strange Land

Interview by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 17 February 1979

SIMPLE MINDS were fidgety as they sat around the kitchen table, some of them exhaling long streams of cigarette smoke while the others rattle boiled ...

Simple Minds

Profile by Lindsay Hutton, ZigZag, March 1979

I'VE NEVER BEEN this goddam excited about a rock'n'roll band for ages. The monster media called NEW WAVE is almost finished and the climate is ...

Magazine, Simple Minds: City Hall, Newcastle

Live Review by Ian Ravendale, Sounds, 12 May 1979

"YEAH! WHO-O-O! Magic!" yells the guy from Arista sitting a couple of seats away, in a burst of paid-for enthusiasm during Simple Minds' set supporting ...

Simple Minds: Not as simple as all that

Interview by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 19 January 1980

Simple Minds talk to DAVE ("we hoped it would someone nicer") McCULLOUGH ...

Skids, Simple Minds, Pink Military: Hammersmith Palais, London

Live Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 6 September 1980

Bowled over by a Skid ...

Simple Minds: Empires and Dance

Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 13 September 1980

I'M DANCING as fast as I can! Empires And Dance, an LP of terror-songs, vigilance and vanity, starts with 'I Travel', one of the great ...

Simple Minds: Travel Broadens Simple Minds

Report and Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 4 October 1980

ONCE YOU get onto the European mainland, it's hard not to be infected by the virulent strain of fatalism sweeping the continent. En route to ...

Visage: Visage (Polydor PD-1-6304); Simple Minds: Empires and Dance (Zoom SPART1140)

Review by Jim Green, Trouser Press, February 1981

BOTH THESE records explore the musical turf of brave new pop swathed in synthesizers and studio effects. Neither is quite a paradigm of such experimentation; ...

Simple Minds: Sons And Fascination/Sister Feelings Call (Virgin)

Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 5 September 1981

AFTER THREE LPs and a label switch, Simple Minds really should know better than to be persisting with an "innocents abroad" strategy. While they might ...

Simple Minds: Celebration (Arista)

Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 6 February 1982

DEAR JIM, ...

Simple Minds: The Prize Guys

Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 4 September 1982

JIM KERR is sitting in the bay window of a hotel in Portobello, his head surrounded by a halo of sunlight Jim is smiling and ...

Jim Kerr's Glittering Dream

Interview by Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, 16 September 1982

JIM KERR and I have just started talking over a cup of tea in London's Hyde Park, when a girl comes rushing up. ...

Simple Minds Dream A New Gold Dream

Interview by Betsy Sherman, Boston Rock, 5 July 1983

JIM KERR'S eyes light up. "I saw (the German film) Fitzcarraldo three weeks after our album was complete, and there was a subtitle in it ...

Simple Minds: Ontario Theater, Washington D.C.

Live Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, August 1983

A THIN SLIVER OF STYLE ...

U2/Simple Minds/Eurythmics/Steel Pulse/Perfect Crime/Big Country: Phoenix Park, Dublin

Live Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 20 August 1983

DATELINE DUBLIN: 3.30am Monday. There will no doubt be some measured reports of U2's home-coming gig. But I really hate measured reports. ...

U2, Simple Minds, Eurythmics, Big Country, Steel Pulse: A Day At The Racecourse

Report by Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, 1 September 1983

A long, hot, emotional day it was too. Dublin's Phoenix Park throws open its gates to U2, Simple Minds, Eurythmics, Big Country and about 20,000 ...

Simple Minds: Taking Kerr of Business

Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 3 September 1983

SIMPLE MINDS: on the banks of a new gold dream? Or simply wet? DON WATSON fathoms it out with Jim Kerr ...

Simple Minds: Lyceum, London

Live Review by Leyla Sanai, New Musical Express, 7 January 1984

GOLDEN SHOWER ...

Simple Minds: Sparkle In The Rain

Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 11 February 1984

Give The Kerr A Bono ...

Simple Minds, Silent Running: Barrowlands Ballroom, Glasgow

Live Review by Betty Page, Record Mirror, 17 March 1984

BARROWLANDS, THOUGH tacky and well-worn, certainly has a sense of history about it. Twenty years ago. The Stones played here on a minuscule stage. Ten ...

Simple Minds: Jim Kerr Ghostdances Through A Stormy Landscape

Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, December 1985

JIM KERR, listening to a playback of 'Ghostdancing' is getting down. Or maybe getting up. It's hard to say because we're seated at a small ...

Simple Minds: Jim Goes To Hollywood

Interview by Lynden Barber, New Musical Express, 3 January 1987

SIMPLE MINDS, and Jim Kerr in particular, always seem to be "out" when we phone... funny, that. But LYNDEN BARBER got a good connection, from ...

Simple Minds: The Laird

Interview by Adam Sweeting, Q, August 1987

HE HAS HEARD the big music, and he'll never be the same. "At the end of the day we are a hell of a noise," ...

Simple Minds: Barrowland, Glasgow

Live Review by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 2 January 1988

IMAGINE Rangers and Celtic combined, against Leyton Orient, for charity, in a hall the size of the Electric Ballroom. That's the sort of boiling partisan ...

Simple Minds: Street Fighting Years (Virgin)

Review by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, 6 May 1989

THE HIGHER GROUND ...

Simple Minds: Do Not Disturb

Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, June 1989

Come to the heart of the Trossach mountains, breathe the fresh Perthshire air, and discover a troupe of weary travellers footsore from their labours upon ...

Simple Minds: Wembley Stadium, London

Live Review by Andrew Smith, Melody Maker, 9 September 1989

KERR-RAP ...

Mandela's Day — The Journey To Freedom

Report and Interview by Ted Mico, Melody Maker, 28 April 1990

TWO YEARS AGO, THE POP WORLD TURNED OUT IN FORCE TO CELEBRATE HIS 70TH BIRTHDAY AND DEMAND HIS RELEASE FROM PRISON. ON EASTER MONDAY, NELSON ...

Simple Minds

Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1991

"I ENJOY staying here," says Jim Kerr, the broth of his Glasgow accent as thick as ever. His upturned palms take in not only ...

Simple Minds: Real Life

Review by Mat Snow, Q, May 1991

MUCH HAS HAPPENED to Simple Minds since their 1989 album Street Fighting Years topped the album charts in nine countries. ...

Simple Minds: Moore Theater, Seattle

Live Review by Gillian G. Gaar, Rolling Stone, 23 March 1995

IT COULD be coincidence that Simple Minds kicked off their first tour in three years in Seattle. Given the band's unveiling of a rougher-edged, guitar-based ...

Simple Minds: Sheffield Arena

Live Review by Simon Warner, The Guardian, 23 March 1995

IT'S OFFICIAL. Rock, that huge, lumbering beast we thought had been exiled to the sports stadiums of the American Midwest, is alive and almost kicking, ...

Simple Minds: Neapolis

Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, April 1998

Return to electronic form for the New Gold Dreamers ...

Simple Minds: Neapolis ***

Review by Dele Fadele, Vox, April 1998

IF THE YOUNG Jim Kerr; who fronted Johnny And The Self Abusers in the late '70s tailspin of punk, knew what fate had in store ...

Simple Minds: New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)

Retrospective by David Stubbs, Uncut, May 2002

David Stubbs commends Simple Minds' New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) ...

Simple Minds: Shine On

Interview by Scott McLennan, Rip It Up (Australia), March 2007

"THAT SONG lives on its own planet!" laughed Simple Minds frontman Jim Kerr in a Glaswegian brogue undiminished by a Sicilian residency. "I heard it ...

Simple Minds: Still Going for Gold

Retrospective and Interview by Gavin Martin, Daily Mirror, 23 May 2008

IT IS 30 YEARS since Glaswegian teenagers Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill formed Simple Minds. In the years since, they have scaled the heights of ...

Jim Kerr: The Things I Like

Interview by Graeme Thomson, The Word, February 2012

Simple Mind, Celtic FC supporter, fan of prog and proto-punk. Buys much of his new music via TV ads ...

Simple Minds: "Maybe we shouldn't have cashed in…"

Retrospective and Interview by Graeme Thomson, The Guardian, 23 February 2012

A COUPLE OF YEARS ago a young, anonymous musician approached Jim Kerr in a Glasgow rehearsal studio and began humorously haranguing him. "He was like, ...

Simple Minds: Capitol, Hannover

Live Review by Keith Cameron, MOJO, May 2015

THE INFLUENCE of Simple Minds is now a given. In deploying futurist gestures amid a communitarian ethic, the band's hallmark early-'80s work anticipated Arcade Fire ...

When Pop Went Political: Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute

Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, Classic Pop, June 2018

IT WAS A PARTY staged to express solidarity with the world's most famous political prisoner, while concurrently expressing vehement opposition to an overtly racist system ...

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