Though the skull-guitar cover art for Be Bop Deluxe’s 1974 debut Axe Victim once led US tour promoters to pair the band with Ted Nugent, Bill Nelson was never that guy. Yes, he was a guitar hero, but his art school background and love of jazz and surrealist polymath Jean Cocteau helped inspire a wider vision.
After the sonically transitional LP that was Be Bop’s 1978 swan song Drastic Plastic, Nelson formed Red Noise, whose debut album Sound-On-Sound was hip to Kraftwerk, Talking Heads and Belgian synth-poppers Telex. Nelson was shape- shifting; a moving target.
Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam was originally intended to be Red Noise’s second album, but major upheavals at Nelson’s then-label EMI led to him releasing it under his own name.
Prior to Phonogram/Mercury taking on the album (“Too wacky for us!” carped Nelson’s US label Capitol) he released the single Do You Dream In Colour on his own Cocteau imprint. Later, someone saw David Bowie buying a copy at Virgin Records in London’s Marble Arch, and the NME reported on it.
There’s certainly something of the Bowie circa Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) about Quit Dreaming’s opener Banal and retro-futurist gem Disposable, while Living In My Limousine conjures M’s 1979 hit Pop Musik with lead guitars.
Given that it was recorded in 1979 and not released until May 1981, what’s really striking about Quit Dreaming is how far ahead of the 80s art-rock curve Nelson was, making forward-looking, new wave electronic music with trace elements of his prog and glam roots.
This expanded reissue doesn’t just ice the cake, it adds whole new layers. Nelson devotees/completists will love bonus tracks Turn To Fiction (angular, Talking Heads-esque funk) and Hers Is A Lush Situation (a masterclass in dissonant lead-guitar), while there’s primitive magic in the sequenced electronic tracks Nelson and his brother Ian recorded for Manchester’s Piccadilly Radio in March 1981.
Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam – Deluxe Box Set is on sale now via Cherry Red.
