I saw Strangelove live at the Cockpit in Leeds in 1997, and it remains one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to. Strangelove’s charismatic singer Patrick Duff was described in the press as “eye-poppingly intense” in a live situation, which turned out to be something of an understatement. Duff glared, ranted, stage-dived, even ripped out some of his own hair during the song Sea Of Black, all the while with a knowing wink to the audience – he was clearly taking the piss. Wasn’t he? Well…probably.
Strangelove was the band’s third album, but really this recommendation could be for any of the three studio albums they recorded (the first being Time For The Rest Of Your Life, the second Love And Other Demons). Strangelove's songwriting was consistently excellent, including the b-sides – a posthumous b-sides compilation surfaced in 2008. An early review of one of the band’s performances described Duff as “Morrisey if tutored by Scott Walker”, which is not such a bad description for the songs themselves. Time For The Rest Of Your Life remains my favourite single, including as it does a drily amusing cover of Bob Dylan’s Motorpsycho Nitemare, although I also still love the song Freak - the lines I hear my mummy crying in her sleep/he’s a freak amuse me to this day.
Sadly this album proved to be the last huzzah for the band, as they were to split up the following year. Patrick Duff has since started a solo career, while guitarist Alex Lee has aided and abetted Placebo and Goldfrapp in recent years.
If you’re lucky, you might find a Strangelove album or single languishing in a charity shop or car boot sale near you – if so, I would suggest that you snap it up immediately! Good Lord, he’s a freak...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangelove_(band)
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