The Associates Best of Compilation Announced

The Associates will release a band new 'The Very Best of' Compilation in more than ten years. It includes their early beginnings tracks "Boys Keep Swinging" and "The Affectionate Punch", their biggest hits "Party Fears Two" and "Club Country" and also some previously unreleased songs. along comes a detailed sleevenotes in an 8-page booklet. This Compilation will be released through Metro Select on April 15th and it is already available on pre-order. 

  www.unionsquaremusic.co.uk/shop

Billy Mackenzie and The Associates Mixtape

Billy Mackenzie was a Scottish singer who teamed up with Alan Rankine in the late 70's to form The Associates. As The Associates they had several hits and released three excellent albums. Alan Rankine left The Associates around 1985 and Billy Mackenzie continued to release under the name The Associates. On 22 January 1997, depression and the death of his mother are believed to have contributed to Mackenzie's suicide. He was 39 years old. He will mostly be remembered for his unique voice which shifted effortlessly from bass blues to falsetto diva posturing. His life was the subject of a biography by Tom Doyle 'The Glamour Chase' released in 1998. This is a very special mixtape starting Billy Mackenzie, his friends and the associates.

Instant Hit: Alan Rankine- The World Begins To Look Her Age (Single)

"The World Begins To Look Her Age" was the third and the last single Alan Rankine has released as solo artist. In the early 80's he was a producer and member of the British group the Associates. This single was released on Virgin, in 1987 and appeared on the album of the same name released the year before, in 1986.

Heaven 17- Naked and Advertised

‘Naked as advertised’ is a newly recorded album by Heaven 17. Featuring Tracks derived from their live set as well as a few real collectors items of oddities and rarities..There is even one brand new, never heard before Heaven 17 song, ‘Don’t Fall’. Some of these tracks reach back into the very earliest days of Heaven 17. Re-visited and re-worked they sound as fresh today as they ever did. A beautiful version of the Associates' ‘Party Fears Two’ originally performed at the Billy Mackenzie memorial concert makes you take a second look at this classic and beautiful song.

Follow the link for more info and the song stream
http://www.myspace.com/heaven17

Instant Hit- The Associates- Boys Keep Swinging

"Boys Keep Swinging" was a debut single by the Scottish group The Associates. This song was actually released before the original one which was written and performed by David Bowie. By infringing the copyright, the band attracted a good deal of attention back then, but it remains as one of the best cover songs ever recorded.

One Year of The Burning Flame Blog

Today is exactly one year since this blog started on Wordpress. I really enjoyed working on it and hope I managed to deliever some useful info about some lost bands. Here is the line up of the bands that were featured here:

The Associates, Josef K, I Start Counting, Nits, Blue Zoo, D.A.F., Fiat Lux, Fay Ray, Dalis Car, Tik And Tok, Thick Pigeon, Pink Industry, Images In Vogue, Stockholm Monsters, Terry Hall, Fra Lippo Lippi, Ronny, UV POP, Polyrock,
Do Re Mi, Dark Day, Mydolls, Intaferon, Snowy Red, The Beloved, Vitamin Z,
Leisure Process, Alison Statton, Mathematiques Modernes, Foreign Press, Black, Winston Tong, Little Nemo, Max and Malcolm, Seppuku

Retrovision: Billy Mackenzie- Breakfast -live-

The Associates

The Associates were a Scottish Post-punk and New wave band from the early '80s, consisting of Billy Mackenzie and Alan Rankine. Under the name The Associates, they achieved Top of the Pops fame, despite their unconventional approach to pop music which inspired music critics to label it as "new pop."

Mackenzie and Rankine met in 1976 and formed the band The Ascorbic Ones and soon after they changed their name to The Associates. Their debut single was David Bowie’s song “Boys Keep Swinging”, which to great surprise was also released before Bowie’s version. This song attracted a good deal of attention and by 1980, they were touring with The Cure and The Passions and were signed to Fiction.

In the same year, the band released their debut  The Affectionate Punch. By this time the duo was extended to a group by adding bassist Michael Dempsey and drummer John Murphy, even though in most promotional material the group were still marketed as a duo. 

A string of 1981 non-album singles on the label Situation Two were compiled as Fourth Drawer Down, released that October. These releases saw the band develop an interest in experimenting with sound and recording techniques. In the same year Rankine and Mackenzie released a version of "Kites" under the name 39 Lyon Street, with Christine Beveridge on lead vocals.

The Associates' breakthrough came in 1982 with the release of the single "Party Fears Two." Riding the wave of synth-pop popularity at the time, the song reached No. 9 on the UK singles chart. Following this success, two more hits emerged: "18 Carat Love Affair" and "Club Country." Martha Ladly, of Martha and the Muffins, contributed backing vocals and keyboards to this album. Sulk became Melody Maker's Album of the Year.

The Associates disbanded in 1982 just before the Sulk Tour. Billy Mackenzie continued to write and record music under The Associates banner until 1990 and then under his own name. However, without the guiding hand of Rankine, recordings were sporadic and arguably failed to reach the majesty or inventiveness of his earlier work. Alan Rankine on the other side recorded three albums and singles until the end of the decade without any big success, but continuously worked as producer with Paul Haig and Winston Tong.

In 1988, WEA/Warner rejected the fourth Associates album The Glamour Chase considering it not commercially viable. Mackenzie signed to AVL/Virgin subsidiary Circa Records, to release the fifth Associates album Wild and Lonely. However, recordings were sporadic and subsequent records failed to reach the UK chart and sold far fewer than their/his early albums.

Between 1987 and 1992, Mackenzie worked with Blank and musical partner Dieter Meier of Swiss avant-garde outfit Yello. Mackenzie wrote the lyrics of the song "The Rhythm Divine". In 1992, Mackenzie released an electronica-influenced solo album, Outernational, for Circa Records with limited success.

Mackenzie committed suicide in 1997 at age 39, shortly after the death of his mother. He had been suffering from clinical depression. He was contemplating a comeback at the time with material co-written with Aungle. The albums Beyond the Sun (1997) and Eurocentric (2000) were released posthumously. 

Before Mackenzie's death, almost all Associates records had been deleted. Former band member Michael Dempsey and the MacKenzie estate began a reissue programme to make sure the band's legacy continued, reissuing almost every Associates album, including a 25th anniversary edition of The Affectionate Punch in 2005.

The Tom Doyle book The Glamour Chase: The Maverick Life of Billy Mackenzie, first published in 1998 and reissued in 2011, documented the band's career and Mackenzie's subsequent life.

Alan Rankine use to be a lecturer in music at Stow College in Glasgow, and worked with Belle and Sebastian on their debut album, Tigermilk. Rankine died on 3 January 2023 at age 64.

Information source mostly Wikipedia and other relevant internet sources.

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