From www.chainofflowers.com. The bold part is the message. The rest is clarification and speculation.


The Cure is Dead: Say hello to Nu-Cure:

We are pleased to announce that Steve Sevrin long time Banshee will be parting ways with us to join old time drinking buddy Robert Smith on keyboards with international nu-metal supergroup THE CURE. Do not fear we will be keeping Steve's place on bass ( we're poets and dont know it ) warm for when the fat boy finally sobers up and sends him home again.Don't let him steal YOUR makeup and hair Steve.

Steve will be joining the "Anti-Goth Dinosaur" in time for a European festival tour with other "Cure new boy" Kieth Airey (ex Simple Minds,Gary Numan, Then Jericho and Nik Kershaw guitarist).

Sioux + Budgie

Un-fucking-believable...if true. It's been a very strange day (hahaha). I'm leaving this as a rumor for now, as I'm not familiar with The Creatures press person who sent this, and I find it strange that they misspelled Severin and Keith, and hope that I've simply been had by a bad joke. But it certainly fits in with other things I've been hearing today.

Update: Sadly, a second source backs part of this up. Two members of The Cure are gone, but the source couldn't verify that Severin and Airey are in. Basically, The Cure is a three piece right now, with Robert, Simon, and I assume, Jason. Whether Severin and Airey are the permanent replacements for Roger and Perry or simply "filling in" for the festival tour, I don't know yet.

Update 2: We might be hearing something from Nu-Cure or Tri-Cure very, very soon.

And now it looks like they will play Benicassim too. I'll be honest, these shows have really surprised the hell out of me. : )

good lord. I knew people were leaving the band, and I'm sad to see Roger and Perry go. More sorry about Roger than Perry, and HAPPY that Simon is sticking around. While I love the Blue Sunshine album, I'm kind of 50-50 about how I feel regarding Steve joining up. We'll see how it goes. I'm still not a fan of Self-Titled, I want a new album. Thanks for the news Tron, as I haven't looked at COF in a lil while...

well this is pretty freaky. and what is it w/ Siouxsie? Can't she keep her bitterness under control? I mean I love her and all, but jeez.

I hope Robert finished work on the reissues - or maybe he is already finished - so they can get moving on new material. Should be interesting

I know this isn't anything new for The Cure, but what's up with these recent band members leaving? Was there a falling out?

Sounds false to me.

i love me some siouxsie. it would not surprise me at all if this note is the real thing - ol' girl has a nasty streak.

she and Boy George really ought to get off their asses and do something themselves, instead of watching the entire music business pass before them as they sit in the bleachers and throw tomatoes. they've basically turned themselves into angry bitter bloggers, rather than musicians.

GrayKing said:

didn't the creatures release a record just a few years ago? and the 7 year itch tour with the banshees followed that. i admit that siouxsie and budgie could certainly afford to be a little more prolific but its not like they've been releasing and re-releasing best of records.

and the last creatures was far better than the last cure record, imo.

Whoa. This is totally unexpected.

SassyBritches said:

The Creatures released an album called "Hai", I believe, a couple years ago. It was pretty terrible, in my opinion. But then, I wasn't a huge fan of "The Cure" album either.

The Creatures best work remains Boomerang in my view... what a great record.

GangstaFam said:

Obviously no official explanation has been released, but word around the campfire is that a lot of the problem stems from Ross Robertson, the guy who produced the Self Titled Cure LP last year. According to interviews that I have read, Ross intentionally created drama in the studio with the band just to get "better performances" out of them. Must be because Ross normally works with "Nu-Metal" and emo bands. Some of the band took great offense to this way of working, but Robert Smith absolutely loved it, calling the new album "the best thing we've ever done" or something, and vowed to make more albums with him. In a radio interview a few months ago, Robert was asked about the rumors that some of the band were quitting. Simon, Roger gave Robert an ultimatum: Either Ross or Us. Robert's reply in the interview was basically "Fuck them, it's my band and if some people don't like how I do things, they can leave".

This situation has been building for months now, and apparently has come to a head. I'm sorry to see them go, especially Roger.

JonSnow said:

i thought hai was alright. i also thought anima animus (from '99) was pretty damn good.

Let 'em all go. Robert did "The Top" and it is still my favorite Cure album. But I really really hope Simon stays. Roger and Perry never did seem happy anyway and if Steve is joining, maybe that's cool. Who knows.

If you all go over to the Chain of Flowers Site and Forum, you'll see that this has pretty much been proven to be a joke.

smokeverbs said:

Even the folks leaving bit? Why would Siouxsie write something like that? She clearly still has issues.

JonSnow said:

Am I the only one who really likes this record?

GangstaFam said:

I like it to a certain extent, but it hasn't reached the level of other Cure albums for me. For some reason it just hasn't connected w/ me in a big way. Most of the songs are okay, but... i dunno. It seems like the vocals are way too upfront. I did burn my own version of it adding the b-sides, which are among my favorite songs from the project.

GangstaFam said:

i loved it.....

JonSnow said:

Agreed, everything you said. It's not that it's entirely a bad album, it's kinda like a pretty girl with a shitty personality. The b-sides and import tracks are the best things on it, indeed. I love "going nowhere" especially. That one at least stands up against anything else they've done.

smokeverbs said:

Wow. "Lost" had me right from the beginning. The most intense thing they've done since "The Kiss". Same with "The Promise". There are a few I'm not crazy about like "Us Or Them", but most of it I really enjoy. And it isn't the ugly, nu-metal monster people make it out to be. There are a lot of really good Cure pop songs on there too. I do think it would've been a little more balanced had it included some of the more gentle, beautiful songs like "Truth, Goodness and Beauty" and "Going Nowhere", but that's what CD-R's are for.

GangstaFam said:

I definitely think it has some redeeming moments. But by and large, everything that's good about it has been done before - and better - by The Cure.

Taking Off, for example, is an acoustic-pop-by-numbers re-write of songs like In Between Days, Friday I'm in Love, Mint Car, A Pink Dream, etc. Not that it's a bad song, exactly, but... it just seems lacking in inspiration.

"The Promise" is just 10+ minutes of Robert wailing tunelessly. "Never" is embarrassingly bad, especially lyrically. He's done the "angry, seething rocker" track much more effectively: "Cut", for example.

So many of the songs just seem like product to me. Like Robert was making an album to make a Cure album. It seemed like he sat down with a notepad and was like: OK - acoustic pop ditty, check. Long, drawn out, emotional rollercoaster: check. Angry rocker: check. Slow, mournful, "faith"-like dirge: check. I dunno.... It didn't have the heart and soul that Bloodflowers did, in my opinion.

There are some great tracks - it is the Cure, after all - but for me this album just doesn't stand up among their best works.

Favorites: Labyrith, Your God is Fear, Anniversary, alt.end, Fake, Why Can't I Be Me, and - the high point - Going Nowhere.


Maybe I'm way off base, and the next time I listen to it, its greatness will dawn on me. But so far it hasn't happened. Which is sad....

JonSnow said:

Bummer dude. Well, I guess I'm just in the minority with this one.

Still haven't cracked "Wild Mood Swings" though which you seem to have done effortlessly.

Some clarification from COF.

Still some confusion over what was true and what was false on friday, so let me try to straighten this mess out:


Severin and Airey e-mail - This has proven to be 100% false. Steve Severin and Keith Airey ARE NOT joining The Cure.

Roger and Perry - Neither has quit and neither have been told that they have been let go. So as of last night, Roger and Perry are still members of The Cure. And until/unless there is concrete evidence that proves otherwise, The Cure that will be playing this summer should be the same Cure we've had for the last 10 years (Robert, Simon, Roger, Perry and Jason).

Summer Festivals - This was never really connected to the above, just happened to be announced at the same time. These shows have been confirmed by the festivals, promoters and various press outlets. Still no official confirmation from The Cure, but probably just a matter of time.

Fucking Siouxsie.

GangstaFam said:

Yeah, I'll go to my grave defending Wild Mood Swings, lol Well.. at least my version of it

GangstaFam said:

Siouxsie needs something productive to occupy her time. A new album, for example

JonSnow said:

That's me with the new one. I really don't see what's lacking. And the extras just make it even stronger.

Seeing as how I'm probably the biggest Banshees fan on the org, I will come to Siouxsie's defense.

First of all, The Creatures last album was released about a year and a half ago and a U.S tour followed last year. They played three times in NYC alone. Sioux and co. are currently working on the remastered Banshees albums so it's not like she's sitting on her ass doing nothing since the Banshees broke up.

Secondly, why does everyone think Siouxsie sent that message? I would think that if you've played in a band with someone for 20 years, you would know how to spell their name correctly (it's 'Severin'). Maybe I will send a note to the org and sign it 'Prince' and everyone will believe the malarkey I write too.

sextonseven said:

I guess cuz it was on her website and it was signed Siouxsie and Budgie.

GangstaFam said:

I never saw it on www.thecreatures.com. Which site are you talking about?

sextonseven said:

I never saw it on there either as I've never checked that site. But the original post on Chainofflowers sited it as being from her site with pictures and all. I don't know what to belive at this point, cuz now they're making it all out to be a big joke. Not that any of it surprised me really with The Cure's history of a rotating lineup and Siouxsie's less than affectionate comments about 'Fat Bob'.