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Kirk Harrison: How I discovered John Foxx

As a teenager, while my friends were chasing girls I was much happier sitting at home playing my parent’s collection of 1980’s pop and generally cramming as much music as I could into each day. I loved what I heard, which was mostly UK bands of the New Romantic/Blitz club era but I very quickly grew thirsty for more bands, more albums and the music magazines of the late 1990’s provided an invaluable point of reference. I would scan through the brief album reviews looking for any mention of the bands I Iiked or even just the 1980s itself.

One afternoon I came across a review of a compilation by John Foxx (This was before Modern Art in 2001 so it was probably for the Assembly CD) My eyes were drawn to the review as in about twelve lines the writer mentioned Kraftwerk (cool) Gary Numan (whoa baby!) and David Sylvian (I was pretty much obsessed with his group, Japan and their Quiet Life album) to top it off and support the writer’s bold claims was a Metamatic era photo of John and from that moment I knew I had to hear this guy’s music. This was in the late 90’s where music downloading was just taking off and it was through some determined searching online that I found to my delight, an MP3 of “Burning Car”. I will never forget hearing that track for the first time and being fascinated by the grim lyrics, the dark pulsing music and John’s unnerving voice that sent my already powerful imagination into overdrive.

The Internet was new to me at the time so I never considered overcoming the lack of music shops in my town through buying John Foxx CDs online but his name was planted firmly in my mind and upon moving back to my home city of Birmingham in the early 00’s, Metamatic was one of the first CDs I bought. Apparently “Burning Car” was no fluke and to this day Metamatic remains a favourite of mine not just for the songs themselves but also for the consistent, otherworldly atmosphere that puts me on the blurred boundary that separates this world from another, much more mysterious one. This album contains the two things I like most in art which is horror and camp/silliness. Later I got access to and came to appreciate John’s work with Ultravox! As well as The Garden album and even more so his 2006-2007 releases (especially From Trash) which reference the past, while in my view featuring some of his best material to date.

I still love most of the artists I discovered in my teens, but John Foxx is one of a handful still providing myself and other people with the kind of music that made them fans in the first place and for that I’m extremely grateful.

Favourite song: “Plaza”

Favourite album: From Trash

Favourite lyric: “Why aren’t you dissolving yet, and why’s that car always there? I got a letter from America, somebody else lost in the glare” (from “This City”)