Echo & The Bunnymen frontman Ian McCulloch will strike back out on his own next year with the release of both a new live album and his first solo record in nearly a decade — projects that he’ll support with a series of U.S. dates that so far include a single concert in San Francisco and two nights in Chicago in March.

To commemorate Ian McCulloch’s 52nd birthday today, here’s a full, 53-minute Echo & The Bunnymen live performance filmed in Madrid and broadcast on Spanish TV on Sept. 4, 1984.

The debut album from Julian Cope’s neo-psychedelic band The Teardrop Explodes — 1980’s ‘Kilimanjaro’ — is due to receive an expansive 3CD reissue next month, along with Cope’s 1993 compilation of post-Teardrop recordings entitled ‘Floored Genius 2: Best of the BBC Sessions 1983-1991.’

The lastest in French music site La Blogotheque’s impromptu “A Take Away Show” series — in which bands or artists throw together spontaneous performances, wherever they may be — features Echo & The Bunnymen frontman Ian McCulloch offering up a stark, solo-acoustic take on the band’s classic “The Killing Moon.”

In this clip, Echo & The Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant has attached a Flip Mino HD camera to the necks of his 12-string Vox Teardrop while playing the band’s 1984 single “Seven Seas” in what appears to be an Ian McCulloch-less soundcheck or rehearsal.

Tweet Although Echo & The Bunnymens’ fall U.S. tour still hasn’t been rescheduled after being scuttled over IRS issues, frontman Ian McCulloch did devote a […]

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