Aural Sculptors - The Stranglers Live 1976 to the Present


Welcome to Aural Sculptors, a blog aimed at bringing the music of The Stranglers to as wide an audience as possible. Whilst all of the various members of the band that have passed through the ranks since 1974 are accomplished studio musicians, it is on stage where the band have for me had their biggest impact.

As a collector of their live recordings for many years I want to share some of the better quality material with other fans. By selecting the higher quality recordings I hope to present The Stranglers in the best possible light for the benefit of those less familiar with their material than the hardcore fan.

Needless to say, this site will steer well clear of any officially released material. As well as live gigs, I will post demos, radio interviews and anything else that I feel may be of interest.

In addition, occasionally I will post material by other bands, related or otherwise, that mean a lot to me.

Your comments and/or contributions are most welcome. Please email me at adrianandrews@myyahoo.com.


Saturday, 18 January 2025

Rusty Butler In Blackmail Corner (New Musical Express 13th January 1979)

NME would back in the day occasionally run a piece called 'Blackmail Corner' in which they would run with a prefame photo of a musician or group.  Well I guess that given the number of band's that he was in prior to The Stranglers, our own Dave Greenfield would be a prime candidate for such a treatment. Here he is, in the 13th January 1979 issue, with Rusty Butler, a progrock outfit active that were active not so long before Dave threw in his lot with The Stranglers.


And here's a couple of gig ads from early 1974.



I am aware that some Rusty Butler demos exist.

It is a shame that no material from some of the Brighton based bands that he had an involvement with in the 1960s has materialised (The Ambassadors, The Mark Addam Showband, The Initials, Aquila and Freeway (not to mention The Originals and The New Originals... no sorry that's Spinal Tap!).

At around the time when Dave died, I saw on a Brighton based Facebook page a post comment from a member of The Ambassadors and I did send him a message asking wheter he had any recollections of working with Dave, but unfortunately no reply was forthcoming. Of course it could have been that their time with the band did not overlap. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I find the pre-history of bands fascinating, so thanks to those that have trawled through the music papers pre-1976 for mentions of the bands with whom Hugh and Dave served their rock 'n' roll apprenticeships with!


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