LOS ANGELES

It was 1980 when I fell for The Cure, and leaned hard on Siouxsie. I was living in Mississauga, just arrived from a little village outside Oxford, England, and without my music I’d have been completely lost. I remember walking the pale, alien corridors of the Square One shopping centre. I bought records by The Undertones and The Clash, and XTC and David Bowie with Canadian money, and tried to pretend I was still on the other side of the Atlantic with my friends. About then I stopped talking for a long while to my parents.

If anyone had told me that more than forty years later Lol Tolhurst and Budgie (drummer for The Cure and drummer for Siouxsie) would team up in a supergroup of sorts and make music that felt fresh and energetic, and even sort of vital, I’d have laughed at them. Los Angeles is the title track from their new album and I like it very much. The whole record in fact is pretty special in my books, and reminds me of U2, back when U2 were still experimenting, and not at all sad, which means going a long way back, doesn’t it?