{"id":135,"date":"2006-04-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-04T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodvale.co.uk\/midge-ure-rite-of-passage\/"},"modified":"2006-04-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-04-04T23:00:00","slug":"midge-ure-rite-of-passage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/midge-ure-rite-of-passage\/","title":{"rendered":"Midge Ure – Rite of Passage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Midge Ure<\/strong> talks to Fergus Byrne<\/strong><\/p>\n

Midge Ure\u2019s musical history reads a bit like a who\u2019s who of the industry. He experienced his first moment of success in 1976 when his band Slik knocked Abba off the Number One slot with their single Forever and Ever<\/em>. He went on to be part of The Rich Kids, Thin Lizzy, Visage, Ultravox and of course Band Aid.<\/p>\n

Midge is modest about his success and puts it down to luck saying he joined the music business to get noticed. \u201cIt was a desire to show off\u201d, he says. \u201cI was kind of small for my age and to try to impress the girls I thought if I had a guitar round my neck, that would make me more appealing. It was also a desire to be on Top of the Pops and try and have a peek inside Pan\u2019s People\u2019s dressing room!\u201d It wasn\u2019t until he got embroiled in the industry that he thought he could really write songs and perhaps create something a little different. Apart from Band Aid\u2019s Do they know it\u2019s Christmas<\/em>\u00a0he has been responsible for memorable songs such as Vienna<\/em>, If I Was<\/em>\u00a0and the classic Dancing with Tears in my Eyes<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Although his life has been littered with what most people would consider, historic moments \u2013 from appearing at Live Aid to receiving an OBE \u2013 he claims a lot of that is down to luck. He says, \u201cI can\u2019t put it all down to me. It\u2019s just being in the right place at the right time, and fate dictates in which direction you should head. Possibly the one talent that I might have, is that when there\u2019s a decision to be made, I haven\u2019t always made the right decision, but I\u2019ve made the right one for me at that moment in time. I\u2019ve followed whatever was my gut instinct at the time, and sometimes that\u2019s led me up back alleys, but most of the time it\u2019s actually led me on to doing the right thing \u2013 not a bad thing to instil in any kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspiring, or being a role model for children is something Midge is sometimes baffled by. Although staff at a university, from which he has been bestowed an honorary degree, see him as a role model, he certainly doesn\u2019t see that from an academic point of view. \u201cI was a dreadful student,\u201d he says. \u201cThe only way I would ever get a degree is if it was an honorary one. I had no interest in academia at all. My head was full of guitars and amplifiers and all that rubbish. Having said that, I think the degree I got from Abertay in Dundee was more because they have a history of helping the working class and nurturing the talents of your average guy in the street. I think the parallel they are looking at, is the working-class guy who has done well. If anyone wanted to follow my footsteps in academia they would end up sweeping the streets!\u201d<\/p>\n

His inspirational role, resulting from his involvement in \u2018Live Aid\u2019 and \u2018Make Poverty History\u2019, followed an altogether more logical path. He says, \u201cOnce I\u2019d been to Ethiopia and seen it for myself, that changed everything \u2013 that changed it all.\u201d Live Aid and starting a family came close together. \u201cWhen family life came along I started getting my priorities altered and changed round. Instead of just thinking, me me me, I had to start thinking of this thing I\u2019d brought into the world.\u201d The \u2018thing\u2019 he\u2019d brought into the world now has her own record deal. His daughter Molly is lead singer with The Faders, a band that has also tasted chart success. However, Midge is more than aware of the pitfalls of that success. He bitterly remembers how six months after having a number one hit, his band Slik was \u2018all washed up\u2019. Like all parents, he hopes that experience and his advice will help his daughter sidestep some of the lessons that rock \u2018n roll sometimes misses. \u201cThere is a kind of rock \u2018n roll rite of passage that you have to go through,\u201d he says. \u201cI remember as a kid, desperate to be successful, desperate to have a record deal, desperate to be allowed to go and do what I wanted to do … then, of course, it all comes along and you find yourself with an eight-bedroom house on the river in London and a garage full of classic cars that are too old to drive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lessons learned from success, however, are something that he can only hope are stronger than the messages from schmoosing record label marketing men. \u201cI\u2019d tasted what felt like success,\u201d he says of his Slik days. \u201cBeen on Top of the Pops<\/em>, had the screaming girls, the huge rosy future \u2013 so I thought \u2013 only to find we were blown out of the water by the Sex Pistols. Quite right \u2013 but it was a great lesson to learn early on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nowadays Midge has more control. He produces what he wants, when he wants and releases most of it through his website www.midgeure.com. On Friday, April 28th he plays at the Marine Theatre in Lyme Regis. Though he doesn\u2019t like to call it a tour he is travelling around the UK and Germany bringing an acoustic show to what is very often a very mixed audience. \u201cI still get a bit of a Goth following\u201d, he says. \u201cThey turn up and see me in my acoustic shows and I would think that\u2019s so far removed from what I\u2019d expect them to go and listen to. But I\u2019m also getting the diehards, thank God, and even those that might want to see me in case I die soon \u2018Oh yeah I saw Midge before his old ticker gave out\u2019, you\u2019ll hear them say.\u201d Thankfully he gives audiences a lot of much better reasons to go and see him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Midge Ure talks to Fergus Byrne Midge Ure\u2019s musical history reads a bit like a who\u2019s who of the industry. He experienced his first moment of success in 1976 when his band Slik knocked Abba off the Number One slot with their single Forever and Ever. He went on to be part of The Rich […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,15],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts","category-features","tag-fergus-byrne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}