Aztec Camera
Aztec Camera were a Scottish new wave band formed by Roddy Frame, the group's singer, songwriter, and only consistent member. Formed in 1980, Aztec Camera released a total of six albums: High Land, Hard Rain (1983), Knife (1984), Love (1987), Stray (1990), Dreamland (1993) and Frestonia (1995). The band garnered popular success for the songs "Oblivious", "Somewhere in My Heart" and "Good Morning Britain" (a duet with former The Clash guitarist Mick Jones).
History
Early years
Aztec Camera first appeared on a Glasgow cassette-only compilation of local unsigned bands on the Pungent Records label, affiliated with the Fumes Fanzine run by Danny Easson and John Gilhooly. Fumes and Pungent Records championed several Glasgow bands before they achieved popular success.
Postcard Records
The band's first United Kingdom (UK) single release was sold in a 7" format by Postcard Records—a Glasgow-based independent record label cofounded by Edwyn Collins and Alan Horne—in 1981. The single featured the song "Mattress Of Wire" and a B-side entitled "Lost Outside The Tunnel". Frame, aged 16 years, met Collins for the first time during the Postcard period when the latter was 21 years old.
Podcasts:
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by Aztec Camera
Knife
by: Aztec CameraWords and music by Roddy Frame
Like a child could have the trigger,
And the best man needn't fall,
To understand that heaven,
Could be any place at all,
Just five colours set in motion,
And I try again to place it,
And it's features are obscured
Everytime I turn to face it,
But I still chase it.
Oh it's twists are cruel and hopeless,
Like neglect has worn it thin,
And it could rip the sky wide open,
And let the rain come tumbling in.
And we wait on every whisper,
Like it makes us more alive,
There's a sense we didn't have,
And I feel it in the other five.
See the pity and the pride
In the same sea of emotion,
Cup my hands and touch the tide,
And expect to feel the ocean,
It's just a notion.
And the knife has got my number,
And the number that you keep,
And the knife has called division,
And it's drawn when I'm asleep.
Oh it's twists are cruel and hopeless,
Like neglect has worn it thin,
And it could rip the sky wide open,