Dennis Leigh, known professionally as John Foxx, was born on 26 September 1948 in Chorley, Lancashire, and attended Harris College of Art in Preston and then the Royal College of Art in London. During his youth in the 1960's he embraced the lifestyles of a mod and a hippy, while he formed his first band Woolly Fish in 1967 in Preston, although he later experimented with tape recorders and synthesisers whilst at the Royal College of Art. Prior to 1973, he was singing and playing a 12-string guitar and occasionally supported Stack Waddy in Manchester, moving to London in order to escape what he saw as a lack of musical stimulus. In April 1974, Leigh formed a band that would eventually be called Tiger Lily, composed of bassist Chris Allen and guitarist Stevie Shears, with Canadian drummer Warren Cann joining shortly afterwards. The band played their first gig at the Marquee Club in August 1974, after which Billy Currie was recruited as violinist a few months later. Tiger Lily released a single in 1975 on Gull Records, the A-side of which was a cover of the Fats Waller track 'Ain't Misbehavin'', while the flip was the group's own song 'Monkey Jive'. Tiger Lily played a few gigs in London pubs between 1974 and 1975, before changing their name to Ultravox!, having played briefly as Fire Of London, The Zips and The Damned.
The group now fused punk, glam, electronic, reggae and new wave music, and it was at this time that Leigh adopted his stage name of John Foxx, while Chris Allen, who had briefly gone by the name Chris St. John, changed his name again, to Chris Cross. Once the band signed to Island Records, they released three albums during 1977–1978, with their eponymous debut being produced by Steve Lillywhite and the band, with assistance from Brian Eno. It was followed by their second album 'Ha! Ha! Ha!' in October 1977, which included the single 'ROckWrok', while for their third record they abandoned the exclamation mark in their name. 'Systems Of Romance' was co-produced by the legendary Conny Plank, and it featured new guitarist Robin Simon, who had replaced the recently departed Stevie Shears. At the end of 1978 Ultravox were dropped by their record label, following which the band undertook a self-financed tour of the United States in February, during which they performed three new songs, 'Touch And Go', 'He's A Liquid', 'Radio Beach'. At the end of the tour Foxx left the band to return to solo work, and he was replaced by Midge Ure, after which the revitalised Ultravox went on to have a very successful career.
Foxx, meanwhile, signed to Virgin Records, and achieved two top 40 entries on the UK Singles Chart with his first solo singles, 'Underpass' 'No-One Driving', while their parent album 'Metamatic' was released on 17 January 1980, and peaked at No. 18 in the UK Albums Chart. One of the album's songs, 'Metal Beat', takes its name from a CR-78 drum machine sound used on the record, and Virgin used the name for their Metal Beat Records imprint, which was used for all Foxx releases on their label. The non-album single 'Burning Car' followed in July 1980, and was another top 40 hit in the UK, and Foxx then worked on dozens of tracks for two projected albums, with one of these tracks, 'My Face', being released on a flexi-disc given away with Smash Hits magazine in October 1980. His next album was 'The Garden', which was released in September 1981 and reached No. 24 in the UK Albums Chart. Musically it was a departure from the stark electropop of 'Metamatic', to a sound resembling his previous band's 'Systems Of Romance', and it even featured the song of the same name, which had been written during the sessions for Ultravox's third album, but which was never recorded. The lead single 'Europe After The Rain' became Foxx's fourth and last top 40 hit on the UK Singles Chart, during a five-week chart run in August/September 1981.
In 1982, Foxx set up his own recording studio, designed by Andy Munro, also called The Garden, which was housed in an artists' collective in Shoreditch, East London. In 1983 he provided some music for the soundtrack to Michelangelo Antonioni's film 'Identification Of A Woman', and in September that year he relased his third solo record 'The Golden Section'. Foxx described it as a development of 'The Garden', and a "roots check" of his earliest musical influences, including The Beatles and English psychedelic music. In 1985 he released 'In Mysterious Ways', which was less of a commercial succes than his previous records, as it was not considered a significant advance on the sound of his previous work. After 'In Mysterious Ways', Foxx temporarily left his career in pop music, selling his recording studio and returning to his earlier career as a graphic artist, working under his real name of Dennis Leigh. In the early 1990's he began to find inspiration in the underground house and acid music scenes in Detroit and London, and with Nation 12 he released two 12-inch singles, 'Remember' in 1990, and 'Electrofear' the following year. The first was a collaboration with Tim Simenon, best known for his Bomb the Bass project, and he also worked with LFO, and made the music video for their eponymous debut single.
On 24 March 1997, Foxx made a return to the music scene with the simultaneous release of two albums, 'Shifting City' and 'Cathedral Oceans', both on Metamatic Records, and 'Shifting City' was Foxx's first collaboration with Manchester musician Louis Gordon, with whom he formed a long-time partnership. On 11 October 1997, Foxx played his first public gig since 1983 at The Astoria, London, and a limited-edition of 1,000 numbered copies of a twelve-track CD entitled 'Subterranean Omnidelic Exotour' was available for purchase by ticketholders. Foxx and Gordon continued to work together, and in September 2001 they released a second album 'The Pleasures Of Electricity', followed two years later by 'Crash And Burn'. In late 2006 the pair released three collaborative albums: October saw 'Live From A Room (As Big As A City)', which was a 'live' studio album from the 2003 tour, the studio album 'From Trash' appeared in November, and a further album, 'Sideways', from the same sessions a few weeks later during the accompanying mini-tour. Foxx has continued to record and release music, and his latest album, 'Wherever You Are' appeared this year, but for fans like me, his classic period was before that first hiatus, from 1979 to 1985, and so this post collects all of his non-album singles and b-sides, plus a few out-takes, from those years.
Track listing
Disc I - 1979-1980
01 Young Love (unreleased single 1979)
02 Like A Miracle (unreleased single 1980)
03 Film One (b-side of 'Underpass' 1980)
04 Glimmer (b-side of 'No-One Driving' 1980)
05 This City (b-side of 'No-One Driving' 1980)
06 Mr. No (b-side of 'No-One Driving' 1980)
07 Burning Car (single 1980)
08 20th Century (b-side of 'Burning Car')
09 To Be With You (out-take 1980)
10 Cinemascope (out-take 1980)
Disc II - 1980-1981
01 My Face (free flexi-disc with 'Smash Hits' magazine 1980)
02 Miles Away (single 1980)
03 A Long Time (b-side of 'Miles Away')
04 This Jungle (b-side of 'Europe After The Rain' 1981)
05 Swimmer I (b-side of 'Dancing Like A Gun' 1981)
06 Swimmer II (b-side of 'Dancing Like A Gun' 1981)
07 Swimmer III (previously unreleased 1981)
08 Swimmer IV (previously unreleased 1981)
09 Fog (out-take 1981)
Disc III - 1983-1985
01 Dance With Me (b-side of 'Endlessly' 1983)
02 A Kind Of Wave (b-side of 'Endlessly' 1983)
03 A Woman On A Stairway (b-side of 'Your Dress' 1983)
04 The Lifting Sky (b-side of 'Your Dress' 1983)
05 Annexe (b-side of 'Your Dress' 1983)
06 Wings And A Wind (b-side of 'Like A Miracle' 1983)
07 City Of Light (b-side of 'Stars On Fire' 1985)
08 Lumen De Lumine (b-side of 'Stars On Fire' 1985)
09 Stairway (b-side of 'Enter The Angel' 1985)
