Simple Minds

A past project on Valentines Day: a "Love Song" in sparks and steel created for our friends Simple Minds, based on the band’s iconic emblem. (Andy Scott Sculptures)
...@andyscott.sculptures

“I open up to take a look into the bright and shiny book”

Book of Brilliant Things - Live at Nuits de Fourvière, 2024.

Thank you to everyone who has shared their photos and memorabilia from Simple Minds’ early years

“I recently got Jim & Charlie to sign a poster of the flyer from the Grafton Bar gig... in Glasgow on 04/10/78. It was my dad’s pub at the time and they played in the basement. My brother worked the bar. Jim told me his girlfriend at the time, Jane, designed the poster. “ - x.com/Mountcharles2

What are your favourite early Simple Minds tracks?

Released this month in 1982, Celebration compiled highlights from the band’s first three albums. Among them was ‘Factory’, captured ...here live at the Hurrah Club in New York City, 1979.

Simple Minds’ tenth studio album, Good News from the Next World, was released 31 years ago today.

Recorded at the band’s own studio in Loch Earn and finished in Los Angeles, the album ...saw the band reunite with producer Keith Forsey.

“Keith is fantastic. We had always loved him. He had continued making hit records, and we thought he might open us up to more of a pop sensibility; the sacred art of the three-and-a-half-minute radio song. It didn’t work out that way, but that was the initial idea.” - Charlie

40 years ago today, Simple Minds released ‘Sanctify Yourself’ 🕊️

Listen to the 40th anniversary editions of Once Upon a Time - available on vinyl, CD, and digital at the link in bio.

LIGHT TRAVELS: SIMPLE MINDS from the album Graffiti Soul - the fifteenth studio album by Simple Minds, released in May 2009 and seen by many as part of their late career creative resurgence.
UK ...chart performance: Reached number 10 in the UK Albums Chart, their first UK Top 10 since 1995.
Writing locations included Rome, Sicily, Antwerp and Glasgow, reflecting a very mobile, on the-road writing phase.
Recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales, returning there for the first time in almost three decades.
Produced by Jez Coad. Written by Sean Kelly. Mixing was handled in Los Angeles by Bob Clearmountain, with mastering by Bob Ludwig, giving the album a polished, radio ready sound.

Listen to LIGHT TRAVELS SIMPLE MINDS on Youtube

MOSCOW UNDERGROUND - SIMPLE MINDS (KERR/BURCHILL)
"Descended from a world of darkened places. Descended from a world that’s lost control
Suspended between time and fractured places, ...waiting for the fall here on my own"
(listen on youtube)

The early metro stations in Moscow were built in the 1930s–1950s as a showcase for the Soviet Union, using marble, granite, mosaics, and chandeliers rather than purely functional finishes. The idea was to create a “palace for the people”, so commuters descended each day into spaces filled with heroic imagery, classical columns, and elaborate lighting.

While the Novoslobodskaya is famous for its stained-glass panels framed in brass, depicting workers, artists, and other professions in a style reminiscent of a glowing underground gallery, Ploshchad Revolyutsii near Red Square is lined with 72 life-sized bronze statues of soldiers, workers, students, and animals; locals are known to often rub the noses of the bronze dogs for good luck!

Pic: davidburdeny.com

This month in 1984, ‘Speed Your Love To Me’ was released as the second single from Sparkle in the Rain, with backing vocals provided by the brilliant Kirsty MacColl.

“I wrote ‘Changeling’ on the guitar: a picking riff at the front, and a sequence heavily influenced by the Rolling Stones in the verses. That was almost a proper song, and it became quite ...popular in the incipient New Romantic clubs in London.” - Charlie

Released as the lone single from Real To Real Cacophony this month in 1980.

SATELLITE OF LOVE: Forty-eight years ago today, on January 17, 1978, Simple Minds made their live debut at Glasgow’s Satellite City. Supporting the reggae headliners Steel Pulse, the original ...lineup—Jim Kerr, Charlie Burchill, Brian McGee, Tony Donald, and Duncan Barnwell—delivered a lean, high-impact, minimal set.

The performance opened with 'Act of Love' and closed with 'Pleasantly Disturbed' flanking another Burchill/Kerr original 'Wasteland.' They also paid homage to their influences with a cover of Lou Reed’s "White Light/White Heat" and revisited their roots with "Pablo Picasso" by Johnny & The Self Abusers.

With a ticket price of £1:50, their debut success sparked a rapid ascent. With the same band line-up in place, Simple Minds soon secured further dates at The Third Eye Centre (see pic) and established legendary residencies at Glasgow’s Doune Castle and Mars Bar.

It was during these pub gigs that future Burchill/Kerr staples like 'Tonight,' 'Take Me to the Angels,' 'Caught in a Dream,' and "Chelsea Girl" began to form the backbone of their evolving live sound.

Pic: Peter McArthur

This month in 1995, Simple Minds released ‘She’s A River’ as the lead single from Good News from the Next World, reuniting with producer Keith Forsey for the first time since ‘Don’t You ...(Forget About Me)’.