5 essays

Topics

Short, sourced essays on the periods and people the usual accounts pass over. Each ends by saying what is still unknown.

April 1974 – October 1976
Tiger Lily and the discarded names, 1974–1976
How the band that became Ultravox! spent two and a half years under five other names, and what survives on record from that time.
1992 – 1996
The Fenelle and Blue years, 1992–1996
Billy Currie's two 1990s line-ups, the albums Revelation and Ingenuity, and why the authorised biography treats them apart from the rest of the catalogue.
1974 – 1978
Stevie Shears: the public record
What the public record says about the guitarist of the first four years, who left in March 1978 and declined to take part in the authorised biography.
December 1978 – end of 1979
The 1979 transition
From John Foxx's departure in March 1979 to Midge Ure's arrival at the end of the year — what is documented about the months in between.
1984 – 2005
Live Aid, Live 8 and Ultravox
Ultravox played Live Aid in 1985. They did not play Live 8 in 2005, though Midge Ure co-founded it and sang "Vienna" in Edinburgh.