BACK AT ROOST
New Musical Express February 16, 1985
Ted Milton, ex Blurt? No, they're still going!
David Quantick learns this and the other facts.
The very well-spoken Mr Milton is holding his cup to his ear. Lost in an analysis of his interest in American electro, he is very calmly letting most of his coffee cascade delicately down his arm.
Ummm, Mr Milton ... you're spilling your coffee down your
arm.
"Oh am I? Oh, yes..."
Ted Milton has been quietly flooding the dry gullies of pop for years now, and people have stopped noticing him, me
included. For example, first question: what have you been
doing since the demise of Britain's best-loved aural assault, Blurt?
Ted informed me that Blurt still exists.
"It's just that we haven't played in London for two years. And, of course, " he remarks with perhaps a soupcon of irony, "that means that the band is dead."
Blurt are continuing happily, I learn. An LP with the name of 'Friday The 12th' out soon on the Belgian Himalaya label, a lot of foreign travel behind them, and now, a tour of these isles,
culminating in a London
appearance at the beginning of
March.
For those familiar with the Blurt noise, the band now prefers the sound of the keyboard to that of the guitar. For those who aren't, Blurt are to white funk and white noise what Towering Inferno was to bee-keeping.
And here's a surprise. Ted Milton has made a solo single. It is called 'Love Is Like A Violence', and Danny Kelly made it his single of the week. I don't rate it quite so high, but it is intriguing. 'Violence' is a taut, sparse, electronic thing, with as much surplus flesh as an angle-poise lamp. Ted intones over a backbone beat in a voice of exaggerated, but clear, diction, and the whole thing is fascinating; notwithstanding, it bears no resemblance to Blurt.