Placid Wonder if they were a band just for Leeds dressers in 80’s?
Reminded me of this written on another board. We should get this lad on here 🤨
Like any music you can judge it retrospectively or remember how it sounded when it came out, when it was fresh and how it compared when heard against other songs/artists of the time and that reissue mod, two-tone, new romantic cacophony started to grate.
I have to be in a certain mood to listen to China Crisis now, almost a light-hangover type of mood as it can seem too fey, too twee.
But, I will say this, China Crisis have a special place in my affections because back in 1981/82 when I first heard African & White, I had suddenly found a band that sounded just how I needed them to sound - that spectacular flickhead seen in the Christian video cemented the deal.
I remember playing the 12″ of African and White over and over. That green sleeve and the little boy/girl shot in black and white. That little lads stripey t-shirt, (I wanted one).
To my mates they were my band and I had a mate who was also into them, plus The Associates, Depeche Mode etc. So in 1983 we went and saw them in Leeds without a ticket and the price from a tout meant that our YTS £25 wage only covered entry for one of us. He sloped off to his birds, whilst I stood at the back with my red C&A rodeo roll neck, Patrick Cagoule and green striped Pony trainers. It was the Working with Fire & Steel tour, so singles such as Tragedy and Mystery, Working with Fire and Steel, Hanna Hanna, Wishful Thinking, and No More Blue Horizons were heard alongside African & White, Red Sails, Seven Sports For All and bizarrely, but fantastically; Some People I Know To Lead Fantastic Lives.
There were a lot of Bradford lads there, lads I’d seen knocking around, wearing better but similar clothes to me. I was shitting myself in the train station coming home as they were mainly drunk and checking you out. Some of them are firm friends now, one of them was my future brother-in-law for a while.
Singles came out and more success was achieved, culminating in their best spell; You Did Cut Me, Black Man Ray, King in a Catholic Style etc. etc. and another gig was on, again in Leeds but the crowd was heavily peppered with scouse lads who looked similar but markedly different, longer hair, scruffier look, cardigan and checked shirts (top button done up), effortless but aggressive cool replacing short wedges, straight jeans and jumpers bearing the woolmark label. Like The Farm, China Crisis had a large Leeds football contingent following them.
That album; Flaunt The Imperfection (produced by Steely Dan’s Walter Becker) sounded so polished, so much so that even the duff tracks (and you always get duff tracks with China Crisis) sounded OK. It was the soundtrack to a very hot summer to me that album and they seemed to be on the radio all the time.
I have one strong memory at the time, walking to my mates with The Highest High buzzing round my head (St Kevin’s taught me how, John (Conteh) the boxer is braver now, Phil (Thompson) the captain of the cause, fight your fight for what is yours…), wearing Farahs (when the hopsack material was still thick and didn’t have the iron sheen shining back at you, Littlewoods crew neck sweaters; cheaper and less strong colours than M&S, (I can still smell chips, beans and the bread roll smell from their cafeteria), pastel polo shirts - in fact that summer was a pastel palette and on my feet, Adidas Samba with the black leather dulled by polish but the stripes and toe guard still brilliant white.
The back of the hair was much longer whilst the sideburns were still razored off - remember when you could see your hair billowing out from behind your ears? The Bracewell scal look.
Magic time for me that.