acr.

this is my first time coming into the message board and already i've noticed people have mentioned a certain ratio here and there. they have been one of my favorite bands for the last 12 years or so. i'm from southern california, so i don't run into too many fans of acr. in fact, i don't know anyone that has heard of them. i did get to meet andy connell though at a SOS appearence. can anyone out there tell me what a acr show is like? has anyone ever met them and are they nice people? i know this is a new order forum, but this might be my only chance to get info on another favorite band.

         g.

Originally posted by g05 this is my first time coming into the message board and already i've noticed people have mentioned a certain ratio here and there. they have been one of my favorite bands for the last 12 years or so. i'm from southern california, so i don't run into too many fans of acr. in fact, i don't know anyone that has heard of them. i did get to meet andy connell though at a SOS appearence. can anyone out there tell me what a acr show is like? has anyone ever met them and are they nice people? i know this is a new order forum, but this might be my only chance to get info on another favorite band. g.

I've never met them but have seen them live on many occasions. Personally, I thought their best live shows were around 85-86 when they were mixing older stuff like 'And Then Again' and 'Shack Up' with newer stuff like 'Wild Party'. They'd nearly always finish off with 'Si Firmi O Grido' which, no matter if you were in the seediest dump possible, always made you think you were in Rio or somewhere similar! And those whistles...

Donald Johnson would sometimes take over the bass for 'Inside' and 'Touch' leaving the drums to Martin Moscrop.

Have you got the 'Live in America' tape/album? This is a good pointer to what they were like live around that time. Has anybody got ACR any bootlegs they'd like to trade?

thanks andy! i have almost all the acr cd's. my favorite being good together which seems like no one likes. when perfoming live, does jeremy talk to the crowd at all or is he one of those quiet types? andy connell left the band around 86 or so to do SOS. who plays keyboards live?

I also have a fondness for ACR - The Big E and The Fox are favorites (and I think The Big E was produced by Barney?). Does anyone out there have the Double 12" (as I have) and noted the eerily Joy Division - like song Flight? From memory, the ACR singer (Simon Topping?? not sure ) was an early idea for Ian Curtis' replacement (which obviously didn't go ahead), but I may be wrong. Great band anyway. CTD

Originally posted by g05 thanks andy! i have almost all the acr cd's. my favorite being good together which seems like no one likes. when perfoming live, does jeremy talk to the crowd at all or is he one of those quiet types? andy connell left the band around 86 or so to do SOS. who plays keyboards live?

He doesn't say a lot but he went through a phase of introducing the band as 'We're A Certain Ratio and we're from Manchester' with heavy emphasis on the 'we're from Manchester' bit. I've got a great tape recorded at the Wag Club in London when he's complaining that the audience aren't dancing and asking them if they were dead from the neck down which was pretty funny!

The last time I saw them was just after the 'Good Together' album came out and, if I remember correctly, the keyboards seemed to have been pre-programmed and were partly played by Tony Quigley although Andy Connell appeared at the end for 'Si Firmi O Grido'.

Their website should be up and running by the end of the month and it's going to feature a brand new track 'Starlight'.

www.acrmcr.com

anyone out there have any live audio or video they would like to sell me? i'm really into the video thing. does ACR have any official videos out?

                    g.

Originally posted by g05 anyone out there have any live audio or video they would like to sell me? i'm really into the video thing. does ACR have any official videos out? g.

There's no, full, official videos although they were included on a couple of Factory compilations. They were also due to work on a film for Factory called 'Too Young to Know, Too Wild to Care', but it was never made. As for bootlegs, there was a really poor quality video of them at WOMAD c.85 that did the rounds at the time. I saw it at a mates house and it was recorded from the side of the stage so you only get to see half the group. They also had a Town & Country Club gig televised around the 'Good Together' era which somebody might have taped.

"Donald Johnson would sometimes take over the bass for 'Inside' and 'Touch' leaving the drums to Martin Moscrop."

hey andy,

i thought jeremy played bass and martin was the guitarist?

                 g.

Originally posted by g05 "Donald Johnson would sometimes take over the bass for 'Inside' and 'Touch' leaving the drums to Martin Moscrop."hey andy,i thought jeremy played bass and martin was the guitarist? g.

g,

That's right but Donald Johnson played bass on the tracks that required slap bass. ie. 'Touch', 'Inside' and 'Knife Slits Water'.

What was 'Change The Station' like?

Cheers

Andy

Also, some things that you may (or may not know), and this is also going from memory!

• Andy Connell contributed keyboards and percussion to the 'Jane And Barton' mini LP on Cherry Red Records. Jane is most famous for a single called "It's A Fine Day" which was later covered (and sampled) by numerous people including Opus III, Miss Jane, Lost Witness, and Orbital. Barton is that mad Manc Ed Barton, who wrote all the songs, and who also released some superb (and weird songs) on his own 'Wooden' label, culminating in an album called 'Edward Not Edward' featuring 808 State, A Guy Called Gerald, Dub Sex, Kiss AMC, Ruthless Rap Assassins and many more!

• Both Electronic and The Other Two (together with 808 State and others) remixed various songs on 'Looking for A Certain Ratio)... From memory, Electronic remixed 'Shack Up'...

• Donald Johnson also contributed drumming duties to Electronic's first album, as well as joining them on tour.

I hope the above is of some use to somebody!!

l8rs,

Nick ;)

i knew about the electronic and the other two stuff. didn't know the extra andy connell stuff. i did get to see donald drum for electronic when they opened for depeche. electronic was supposed to do their own tour in the u.s., but it never happened. i still have my ticket though!

               g.

hey allen,

i'd love to hear any of your live acr stories if you have any. thanks for all your input andy!

                      g.

thanks allen,

no one wants the set lists? wow. i was under the impression that acr was one of the top bands to see in concert over there. from what you're saying it seems like more people would want to go to a show like blur. are acr very popular now? how many people would show up to one their shows these days? where i'm from, venues can be pretty strict about people taking pictures or video taping shows. is it the same way out in the uk? do you have any live pics of acr? the last show i got to take pics for was elastica last october. i'm dying here to learn more about acr, because as far as i'm concerned no one knows them out here. thanks!

                            g.

I'm with Allen on this one - ACR definitely suited a smaller, intimate club-like venue although they did rock Finsbury. They probably played to the same size crowd at GMEX in 88 and in 86 at the 10 year punk festival bash (does anybody remember what song ACR opened with that day? The chorus went something like 'Don't let them/Get to you' but it didn't appear on Force or Good Together?).

I think the best two times I saw them was at Bham Poly in 85 and Kings College London in 86 or 87. The Poly gig was in a real small hall, absolutely packed, and I think nearly everybody had a whistle. It was also the Poly gig where I got my Live in America tape. Jez had his usaul attire for that period too - blue shorts, blue sweatshirt and the obligatory latin whistle. The Kings gig was just after Mickey Way came out - I remember Donald Johnson's drumming being particularly tough that night and, again, everybody had a whistle. It was strange as Jez anounced that 'And Then She Smiled' was going to be their next single - something that didn't happen.

A bit of a strange one was when they supported PTV at Hammersmith Town Hall - playing all the old stuff.

It was quite easy to get tape recorders into gigs in those days - just shove a walkman down the front of your jeans! - suffice to say, I've got a few live ACR tapes but, at the moment, I've got no way of copying them.

They also had a couple of live tracks on the 'A Factory Outing' and 'Cities in the Park' videos. I've got both somewhere - the Factory one's also got Durutti, 52nd Street, Section XXV and Kalima (who were an ACR offshoot). This has also got me thinking about a 12 inch ACR did under the name of Sir Horatio - a real heavy dub reggae workout that, again, I've got *somewhere*!

Originally posted by Allen Jarvis Now we're talking. Bloody whistles. I'd forgotten about them. And huge aviation shorts. And a bizarre obsession with the profile of airplanes.

It was awesome when those whistles got going on 'Si Firmir..' Fantastic stuff.

I'd forgotten about the airplane obsession. Thinking about it, I had a couple of ACR t-shirts with planes on - one like the cover of Wild Party with a blue plane and red ACR written on it and another a reproduction of the Lifes a Scream (or Brazilia) cover - the one with all those youths with gliders. Wasn't there a picture of a plane on the back of Force as well?

The t-shirts circa Good Together were a bit lurid though. Bright and I mean BRIGHT yellow.

thanks so much andy and allen! you two are the only ones keeping this thread alive. you'd think with 300 plus views of this thread more people would input. it seems like we are the only three in the world that likes acr. thanks again!

                                 g.

OK, I hate to be all anal and not-knowing but who is ACR? You have all got me interested and if NewOrder fans like this band then chances are I will to.

Can anyone tell me where I can find songs from this band and maybe let me know what ones to look for?

Thanks :)

Originally posted by April OK, I hate to be all anal and not-knowing but who is ACR? You have all got me interested and if NewOrder fans like this band then chances are I will to.Can anyone tell me where I can find songs from this band and maybe let me know what ones to look for?Thanks :)

ACR = A Certain Ratio (or Una Certa Proporzione when the mood takes them)

I'm not sure if the back catalogue is available (I 'think' Creation re-released a lot of it at some point). They released about 6 albums on Factory before moving to A&M then in the latter years to Rob Gretton's label. The albums I'd go for would be 'The Old & The New' (early stuff plus stuff from the mid 80s - try to get a copy that includes 'Shack Up') and 'Force' (their last 'proper' album for Factory). If you like these I'd get the earlier stuff as they went poppy when they moved to A&M and, if I'm honest, went off the boil (although g05 will disagree here!)

'Graveyard & The Ballroom' is a must-have too although this is pretty raw stuff. Oh and a copy of the 'Wild Party/Sounds Like Something Dirty' 12 inch and 'Knife Slits Water'...

This lists them all (hope the code works)

A Certain Ratio Discography

Hello again April,

Thinking about it, I'm not sure that liking New Order will automatically mean that you'll like ACR. If you like early Joy Division, you'll like early funky/punky ACR around the time of 'Graveyard' and 'Flight'. In 82-84 they flirted with all sorts of styles from dub reggae and moody jazz right through to full on latin workouts and 80s white-boy funk. Mid 80s, they seemed to find their way again and produced some excellent, moody at times, dance stuff. In the late 80s they flirted with acid house and had a stab at chart success with Good Together and The Big E.

Heaven knows what the new track 'Starlight' will sound like

you're right andy, i'm not really into the earlier acr stuff. it probably has something to do with that acr has never really hit it big in america and i discovered them doing my homework with new order. i do like some stuff of force though. i think when acr started to mess with synths and programming is when i started getting interested. not that i'm in anyway against guitars. i started a synth thread awhile back, but no one cared to input. hey april, if you want, i can put together a tape or cd for you of acr stuff so you can get a better idea. let me know.

                                       g.

Originally posted by Andy Swan Hello again April,Thinking about it, I'm not sure that liking New Order will automatically mean that you'll like ACR. If you like early Joy Division, you'll like early funky/punky ACR around the time of 'Graveyard' and 'Flight'. In 82-84 they flirted with all sorts of styles from dub reggae and moody jazz right through to full on latin workouts and 80s white-boy funk. Mid 80s, they seemed to find their way again and produced some excellent, moody at times, dance stuff. In the late 80s they flirted with acid house and had a stab at chart success with Good Together and The Big E.Heaven knows what the new track 'Starlight' will sound like

First of all I would love to thank you Andy for your very in-depth information on ACR. I love it how there is always someone there to lend a helping hand with questions. I will look into the band and let you guys know what I think..

You guys are the best :)

Originally posted by g05 you're right andy, i'm not really into the earlier acr stuff. it probably has something to do with that acr has never really hit it big in america and i discovered them doing my homework with new order. i do like some stuff of force though. i think when acr started to mess with synths and programming is when i started getting interested. not that i'm in anyway against guitars. i started a synth thread awhile back, but no one cared to input. hey april, if you want, i can put together a tape or cd for you of acr stuff so you can get a better idea. let me know. g.

Thanks for the offer, e-mail me at auroramode@yahoo.com and maybe we can work something out.

:)

OPEN!!!

http://www.acertainratio.com/

g,

I just remebered that Madonna once supported ACR in the States. Cool or what?!