Lorita grahame biography channel

Who is Colourbox? A Brief Career Overview

Welcome to the fascinating world of Colourbox, the pioneering English electronic musical group that emerged from the iconic 4AD label! Formed by the talented brothers Martyn and Steven Young, along with initially recruited vocalist Debbion Currie, Colourbox captured the essence of the deep new wave and uk post-punk movements in their experimental music. Known for their innovative use of sampling well before it became mainstream, Colourbox carved a unique niche that blended elements of R&B, dub, and industrial sounds. Their notable contribution to the 1987 hit "Pump Up the Volume," performed under the collective name M/A/R/R/S, showcased the artistic fusion of soulful rhythms and electronic beats, establishing them as true innovators of their time. Their legacy is not just in their impactful recordings but also in their connections to the vibrant vinyl culture, with several noteworthy releases that continue to intrigue collectors today!

Colourbox's Early Life and Background

Colourbox's story begins in the vibrant cultural landscape of London, with brothers Martyn and Steven Young at the helm. Born into a family deeply rooted in musical appreciation, their upbringing was filled with melodies and rhythms that would later inspire their own creative pursuits. The Young brothers were encouraged to explore their musical inclinations from an early age, often experimenting with different instruments. Their exposure to a variety of genres--ranging from classic soul to the burgeoning punk scene of the late '70s--shaped their artistic vision significantly. Growing up amidst the melodies of their childhood, the fascination for the tangible experience of vinyl records became an integral part of their lives, igniting a passion that would serve as the backbone for Colourbox's eclectic sound.

The Musical Influences That Shaped Colourbox's Sound

Colourbox's sound is a capt

They sample, they steal, they write (un) official World Cup themes, and Jon Lewin finds their idea of fame rather strange. Paul Spencer finds a 1963 Fender Jaguar planted in their garden.

"We're not looking for a hit single. We wouldn't mind the money, but as far as the rest of it goes, no."

How often do you hear anyone say that? How often do you hear anyone say that less than a month after they've released two 12in singles? How often do you hear anyone say that, and mean it?

I really like Colourbox, but there's a big problem here. Still, first let me tell you a bit about them, just in case you've not heard any of their excellent records: Colourbox is two musicians, brothers Martyn and Steve Young, and a singer, Lorita Grahame. They make music with synthesisers, sequencers, drum machines, occasional guitars, Lorita's cool and powerful voice, and bits of found dialogue. Their songs are a mix of funk, reggae, and rocky film music, with elements of cut-up production technique. They have nearly had three hit singles.

Martyn and Steve agreed to be interviewed in the flat they share in West London. Mindful of interesting photographs with towering mountains of home recording gear, and hi-tech keyboards, El Photo and myself nosed into their cluttered basement premises to find a distinct absence of electrickery (hence the late '63 Jaguar in the photo).

Nice chaps, they made us a cup of tea, and we had a chat about Colourbox's history. A somewhat haphazard (this is a clue) tale, it turns out. I'll let Martyn tell you how their first release came about.

"We used to muck around in a bedroom with someone else's gear, and we did this tape which someone took into 4AD without us knowing, and he (Ivo) really liked it, and wanted to put it out. We hadn't gone about forming a group or anything."

Apparently the early Colourbox recorded two singles with hired equipment, both of them a song called 'Breakdown', released respectively in October '82 and March '83. T

ByDonald Chasein the September-October 1997 Issue

Not long before she died in 1981 at age 57, Gloria Grahame, who had acted in films signed by Frank Capra, Nicholas Ray, Josef von Sternberg, Vincente Minnelli, Elia Kazan, Fritz Lang, and Fred Zinnemann, demolished them all in one sweeping statement. “Those men never directed me,” she told an English stage director with whom she was currently working. “I’d go home and work on it with my mother, then come in and shoot it, and that would be that.” If she gave credit to anyone other than her mother, a Shakespearean actress-become-Los Angeles-drama coach, it was to Bill Watts, her dialogue director on the 1947 Crossfire. A dialogue director's job is to learn lines with actors, presumably in accordance with a director’s interpretive notions, but this one apparently did much more with Grahame. Watts, she told the Brit entertainment mag Time Out in 1978, “first made me realize how to play movies. It’s thinking... All he did was talk to me about who the character was, where she was, what she was, until I was so immersed in what it was all about. After that, maybe I just did it for myself.”

Of course, Grahame was by this time largely a figure of celluloid memory: she was the flirtatious goofus of Zinnemann’s Oklahoma!, but, more typically, she was the Ur-noir siren (of Lang’s The Big Heat, in particular) whose cracked, lispy purr issued from an odd, tortured, liberally painted mouth poised somewhere between sadism and masochism. So maybe she was trying to discourage her interlocutors’ nostalgia—for her former self, her films and their directors—in order to focus on the theater work she was doing. Maybe she specifically wanted to avoid discussion of her work with Ray and the natural segue into their tumultuous marriage and its even more tumultuous aftermath. Or maybe she was speaking the subjective or objective truth (or some amalgam).

But like it or not