There are some people that come out fully formed. For example, Thurston Moore has never looked a hair under 18 years old even though he has been alive for 50 years. Yet another example of such a philosophy although in reverse is comedian George Burns. For all extensive purposes the man has been at least 80 years old ever since he was a baby. Can you picture that a really old looking baby?

Anyways, let me bring this back to the reason you are here - music and music clips. I was talking with a friend of mine, who said that The Cure’s Robert Smith should be inducted into this club. I disagreed with him, because I mean surely Robert Smith didn’t spring from the womb with long uncombed hair and poorly applied make up. There must have been a time when young Robert was just a normal punker from Crawley. In an effort to win a bet I searched the internet for three simple words - The Easy Cure

For those unfamiliar with the genius of The Cure, they were originally dubbed The Easy Cure but for reasons unknown to me shortened it to their current famous moniker. My reason for searching under this name was that only the hardest of the hardcore Cure fans would tag a video by that title, and those fans, my friends, always have the good stuff.

Here is the first clip that I uncovered, which settled the bet and also rocked our socks off. This piece of video shows the boys performing one of my favorite early Cure tune’s “Grinding Halt” from their debut, Three Imaginary Boys. This footage comes to us from 1979, and although the date cannot be confirmed except by true crazy Cure fans (if you happen to know please drop me a line), this could have been one of the first shows that long time bass player Simon Gallup ever played with the band*.

See? I told you that Robert Smith wasn’t always like that. Anyways, I was planning on stopping right there but as I scrolled down the page I saw the following words: “The Cure A Forest Pre Version 1979 Rare” and I stopped in my tracks. To be honest the video had me watching it at “The Cure A Forest”, since that is one of my favorite songs by the band, but the rest only made it more tempting. The rare part of this clip refers to the appearance of Matthieu Hartley who played keyboards with the band live and on their sophomore album Seventeen Seconds. He left the band shorlty after but is often given a lot of credit for influencing and defining the new “darker” Cure sound. This clip also features a different take on the legendary track, in which Hartley’s keyboards come more to the forefront and are considerably darker and more robotic than in the recorded version. The reason behind this could be,because allegedly Hartley and Smith were fighting over composition. Hartley favored more complex chords and playing, whereas Smith favored minimalism and only wanted single notes.

*Simon Gallup played with The Cure before his actual joining the band. Gallup had played in the short lived Cure side project Cult Hero, where he was essentially auditioned.

EXTRA CREDIT
Here is the earliest footage that I can find. It was apparently taken in 1977 as the band was loading gear into a truck. This was the first line up of the band: Robert Smith, Michael Dempsey (1976-1979), Lol Tolhurst (1976-1982 (as drummer), 1982-1989 (as keyboardist) and Porl Thompson (1976-around 1978, 1983-1993, 2005 - Now). Although it doesn’t have sound it is still a really special piece of footage because this was before the hype, the hits, the success and it all. I bet if you asked these kids in the footage if they would have a great career, hit singles and adoring fans they probably would have laughed at you.

Last 5 posts by Dan Berkman

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