The Psychedelic Furs “Forever Now” released 40 years ago yesterday, September 25th, 1982. Produced by Todd Rundgren, Forever Now was the Furs third album; it hit #20 in the UK and #61 in the US. Its biggest track was the single “Love My Way,” a moderate hit at the time (#42 UK, #44 US) which ended up having nostalgic staying power with its inclusion on 80’s themed movie soundtracks (Valley Girl, The Wedding Singer, Call Me By Your Name). Rundgren plays marimbas on that single; he also appears on “No Easy Street” playing keys and sax. Overall Forever Now is neo-psychedelic and darkly post-punk especially tracks like “Only You and I” which has gothy Cure-esque guitar effects and “Run and Run” which has a Joy Divisionish bass line topped by some pretty great jangle.

We saw Psychedelic Furs play at the end of this past July at The Riverside here in Milwaukee. X opened and honestly that’s really who we were really there to see (X, still in their original lineup, are still very much on top of their game and put on amazing show). Psychedelic Furs were…OK. Just two members of the Furs who were in the band in ’82 remain: Richard Butler, who peacocked around the stage so all eyes on him, and his brother Tim Butler on bass (who I honestly can’t envision right now even though the show was just under two months ago: Richard took up all of my mental bandwidth). The only song from Forever Now that they played that we saw was “President Gas” (which has an overblown 80’s sound on the LP). We left after “Pretty in Pink” which was about 2/3 of the way through the show. They played “Love My Way” second-to-last and finished the set with “Heaven” before the encore.