I wish they played England more often

The seeds of my love for the Cure were sewn by a good friend, at the time a schoolfriend, called Alex. We were starting up our own 'band' - I say band but in actuality we spent hours of free studio time noodling with synths and guitar, but i digress. We each made a mix tape aiming to show off our influences and the direction we wanted to head in. His was by far the more interesting.

90% of the tunes contained within the tape have gone on to become favourates of mine and included we The Edge Of The Deep Green Sea, Friday I'm In Love, Open and End. It did, admittedly, take me a while to 'get' fat Bob and co. Alex played me a clip of Where The Birds Always Sing from Bloodflowers two days later and I made him yank it right off. Initially I veered towards the more miserable stuff but soon warmed to the charms of Catepillar etc. To this day Wish is still the first Cure cd I reach for but Pornography, The Head... and Faith aren't far behind. I still don't get Disintegration I think it's well overrated.

As for my attitude towards the band today.... I think they've done well to keep their integrity, peers like Echo & The Bunnymen, U2 etc need to take a long dark night of the soul. On the whole however their output has been pretty dire of late. Us & Them is unforgiveable. terrible mess of a song. Alt.End/In Your House is a bit wank but The End Of The World sits happily in my all time top 10 Cure songs. I wish they played England more often and when they do, actually let people outside the fanatics know.

(From: Jonathan Russell, England)