For all of October 2022, Editors were the Artist of the Month on Greek radio station En Lefko 87.7 and this was a featured podcast. It's an extended interview with Tom, and I have to keep reminding myself that even in 2022, there are still people finding this band. Why is that relevant? It means that those folks won't have the same level of abundant knowledge that comes from having spent years listening to these encounters between band and media. Although a lot of what we hear during the show may be very familiar, to some it's brand new. This is the kind of truth being self-reiterated that keeps me humble. Also, if you're a new fan, welcome. Nice to have you around.
The question here of which songs have never been played live opens up a game you never knew you wanted to play, but once you start it's quite addictive. Without cheating, try and come up with at least 10 studio tracks that Editors haven't performed on stage and that should give you a good sense of your own addiction level. It's actually a hell of a list and contains an awful lot of b-sides, with some absolute potential monsters in the collection. It's likely they'll remain fixed in audio recorded form, but then Tom has surprised us in the past with the collection of Instagram acoustic videos, so you never know. After all, did you ever think you'd hear The Picture played live? It happened, and I have the receipts (scroll down).
On the subject of collaboration, it was interesting to hear Tom say that he's like to duet with someone like Agnes Obel, but we should take a minute to tip the cap to his original first dance partner in the world of duetting, La Goswell. She is, of course, present on 3 of In Dream's songs. Shoegaze never die. If you want to go back a little further then you could point to Helen Atkinson as a vocalist on The Weight from the The Weight of Your Love, although that wasn't a duet as such. There was also Edith providing auditory support as part of the "choir" on Smokers so there have been outside influencers there from very early on.
Tom talks about what he's most proud of, with the choice seemingly to be between Editors' gigs and Editors' records. He came down on the side of the studio, and had this to say about playing live:-
There are a few big concerts that I think we've done that I'm proud of too, but they're moments in time, you know, those...they fade. As important as they were at the time, or how fondly I remember them, but they will fade...
Which only makes me more eager to delay the decay. For as long as The Archive continues to exist (who knows?), those ephemeral instances will live a little longer than memories ordinarily do.
Enjoy the chatter ;)
Related
Bonus Material - Tom's Picks
Here's a little something extra to accompany this post. Because of Editors' status as Artist of the Month on En Lefko 87.7 during October, Tom got to play some songs by artists he loves. As is usually the case with these things, the official releases that were aired by said groups have been edited out in the joint interest of not ripping folks off, but also of The Archive avoiding descending rapidly into copyright-breach hell on YouTube. So it's all intros only, but I've included links to all the songs played. Enjoy the picks ;)
Songs Picked
brought to you with lots of lemming-love ;) x
