The best track on Strange Times, however, is "Souls In Isolation." Here, Burgess goes deeper than ever in what amounts to a musical psycho therapy session. The vocals here are appropriately as anguished as ever, as Burgess howls away about being "alive in here" as the ever darkly strummed minor chords frame this haunting picture of musical psychosis.
The Chameleons finally toured America the next year and I was able to see them in a 1987 show at Seattle's Moore Theatre. Unfortunately, the show was something of a disappointment. The band got detained at the border coming from the previous night's gig in Vancouver, British Columbia, and didn't take the stage until well after midnight. This, of course, gave the crowd little to do in the meantime but get either liquored or smoked up. Much of the crowd was as tired as the band — no doubt — was by the time the show finally got underway.
And that was basically it for the Chameleons.
The band would not make another record or play another show for nearly twenty years following its final tour in 1987, after making three great, but largely under-appreciated records. There would, however, be a flood of "official" bootlegs of outtakes and live performances over the years, as the band's cult following grew in its absence. These "bootlegs" were released under titles like Tripping Dogs and Singing Rule Brittanica Live. Burgess himself would briefly front a band called The Sun And The Moon, making one record with them before settling into solo artist obscurity with projects like Mark Burgess And The Sons of God.
I did get another chance to see Burgess in 1993 while working for a record label in Los Angeles. He was doing a solo "showcase" performance at what I want to say was the Whiskey, in the hopes of scoring a record label deal. This show unfortunately turned out to be strike two in my quest to see a good Chameleons' (or Chameleons-related) live show. Burgess himself didn't sound half bad performing alone with an acoustic guitar that night.
But that's when you could actually hear him. The audience — made up mostly of record company A&R guys and other assorted L.A. scenesters — ignored Burgess' performance completely for the most part, and talked so loud throughout the show that the din actually overpowered whatever was happening onstage that night. The friend I went with — as "professional" a bootleg "taper" as it gets — walked out disgusted halfway through when he couldn't even get a proper level to record.
Article comments
1 - Michael J. West
Ahhhhhhhhhh Yes Glen! The Chameleons are sooo great. I have to agree that Script of the Bridge is their best album. "Up the Down Escalator," "Pleasure and Pain," and "Friday's Child" are three of my very favorite songs.
You don't mention the Tony Fletcher Walked on Water EP from 1988. Do you not have that one? It's surprisingly good.
2 - alessandro nicolo
Super details Glen. I may go out and buy their stuff today.
3 - Glen Boyd
Well I'm glad both you guys liked this. Micheal, I haven't heard the EP you mentioned but will make a point of checking it out. Alessandro, the best place to start is either "Script" or "Strange Times". Both are great, but most of the video clips you see on this page come from "Script" so you would already be somewhat familiar with the music.
Thanx for the comments.
-Glen
4 - Vern Halen
Och aye, Glen - I don't often get stone cold stumped, but you've got me here. Never heard 'em, never heard OF them. I watched their videos you linked - I might've liked them had I known about them at the time, but that kind of music doesn't interest me anymore.
What DID interest me though is that they're still working and playing. Where do they play? And who buys their albums?
5 - Glen Boyd
Vern,
I guess thats why my friends know me as the king of obscuro rock trivia.
Anyway, to answer your questions:
As far as I know The Chameleons are still together, though the last time they toured was in 2002. 2001's "Why Call It Anything?" was their last official CD release (and its a good one), although they released a DVD of the 2002 tour called "Ascension" last year in a limited run of 1000 copies (I did notice it's available on Amazon.com though).
As to who listens to them, they have a rather small, but rabidly devoted cult following (of which I am one). Since my focus on these "Rockologist" columns, has thus far been bands who were big at the time but that people have forgotten about--I decided this time around it might be fun to a focus on a band few people even remembered while they were around.
Anyway you should be able to get updates on The Chameleons at their website
And they are a band worth checking out. Thanx as always for stopping by with your comments Vern.
-Glen
6 - Glen Boyd
I just tried to respond to the above comment and it didn''t post---
?????
7 - Glen Boyd
Okay lets try this again.
Vern, to answer your questions. As far as I know The Chameleons are still together but they haven't toured since 2002. Their last CD was 2001's Why Call It Anything? (and its a good one), but they did put out a DVD of the 2002 tour last year in a limited run of 1000 copies (I did see copies available on Amazon).
As to who listens to them? They have a small, but a very rabidly devoted cult following.
Since I've been largely devoting these "Rockologist" columns to bands who were popular in their heyday, but largely forgotten now--I thought it would be fun to focus on a band that few even remembered while they were originally around.
Like I said in the headline, The Chameleons Are The Greatest Band You've Never Heard of.
Thanx for the comments Vern.
-Glen
8 - Christopher Rose
Glen, you didn't quite format the link properly AND you got snagged by Akismet. Both fixed.
PS: It's marking my own comments as spam too! :-)
9 - Glen Boyd
OK Chris. If ya want you can remove comment #7 since it just repeats what is said in comment #5. Your call and no big deal either way on my end. Thanx for catching it and for the fix.
-Glen
10 - Richard
The Chameleons are my all time favorite band. I grew up in the North of Holland in the eighties and discovered music like Echo & the Bunnymen, The Sound, Cocteau Twins and of course The Chameleons. I was really stunned when I heard Script for the first time. Thursday's Child gave me shivers and Second skin was all a single had to be. All the guitarloops rifs and so forth are so intense that if you listen to the album via an headset you know what I mean by this.
Unfortunately they split up in 1987 after a lot of arguments which way to go after their manager died. Mark Burgess went on to do his own gigs and Reg and Dave founded The Reegs.
After their revival they released Why call it anything and an unplugged album This never ending now.
But again tension rose and arguments started to rear up again an yet another split was there. So officially there is no band called The Chameleons anymore.
If you want to experience The Chameleons's livesound, buy the album The Chameleons Live released in march 2002. It's great.
11 - bren
im very lucky im from manchester here in the u.k and was there to see every gig in Britain,right from the start with the first single "in shreads" we just loved the searing guitars,a world away from the goth rubbish going on here then
Sure there is angst in the lyrics but what beauty lay within,always thought they were going to make it big like u2,glad it didnt it would of ruined what they had
12 - SB
Nice article, surprised you didn't mention the awesome Fletcher EP though.