This seemed like a curious collaboration when I stumbled across it in the racks of Our Price a quarter of a century ago, and it still seems like a curious one now.
It seems like The Edge's name is only on the cover for box office appeal: he gets co-writing credit on one track and only plays on two. I was going to say that I can hear more of Jaki Liebezeit's influence across the mini-album, but he also only plays on two tracks. So my guess is that the Man in Charge may have been François Kevorkian, also a drummer and drum programmer, whose first album as a producer this was. After all, the first thing on the cover is "François Kevorkian presents"…
| Buy via Discogs.com |
 MusicBrainz entry for this albumWikipedia entry for this album Rate Your Music entry for this album |
This is Edge circa the War album sessions. This is probably how he worked out the slide for 'Surrender'. I have this on vinyl.
You are right about Francois. He did remixes for New Years's Day and Two Hearts Beat As One back in the day.
Regarding Edge being on the sleeve for box office appeal? Um no, in 1983 U2 had fans, but not that many fans yet. Edge was not yet famous except to college radio listeners. It took the Joshua Tree to establish that. Then they (U2 were accepted on top 40 stations.
Posted by: INCA | 20 February 2011 at 03:53 AM
Well, I was going to reply that U2 may not have had many fans in the US, but they already had top ten singles in the UK.... then I thought, hang on a minute, 1983? According to Wikipedia, "By mid-1983, as U2 toured the United States on their War Tour, the group's success had enabled them to fill venues of similar capacity to Red Rocks." The capacity of Red Rock Amphitheatre is 9,450 (source). If U2 were able to fill venues of over 9,000 capacity, then I'd say they had a lot of fans in 1983, even in the US. I very much doubt that Jah Wobble or Holger Czukay could fill venues of 900 even at the height of their careers -- and 1983 was not the height of their careers.
So, on those figures and comparisons, I'd say it was entirely plausible that box office appeal could have been one of the reasons that The Edge was on the sleeve. Can you suggest any others?
Posted by: David | 20 February 2011 at 09:47 PM