Gold Afternoon Fix, The Church's seventh studio album, and second on Arista, was released in February 1990. Meant to capitalize and build on the success of 1988's Starfish, the album saw considerable promotion upon its release. Despite moderate success in the U.S., with the single "Metropolis" reaching the top of the Modern Rock Tracks chart, the release failed to deliver mass commercial appeal.
Following their tour for the Starfish album in 1988, the band members went home for a four month break before reconvening to begin work on the next album.
For Gold Afternoon Fix, as on Starfish, studio production was overseen by Waddy Wachtel, despite the band's desire to employ John Paul Jones, formerly of Led Zeppelin. The recording sessions for the album were particularly tense and unsuitable, and in-band tensions led to drummer Richard Ploog being ostracized. While some of the bare, open sound that characterized Starfish punctuates the recording, heavy use of a drum machine (duplicating Ploog's parts) has resulted in the album being criticized as somewhat stiff and cold. Ploog left the group following the recording.
Gold Afternoon Fix is also unique among the Church's releases in the absence of any 12-string electric guitar. The missing trademark sound was due to guitarist Marty Willson-Piper's 12-string Rickenbacker having been stolen during the previous tour.
Read more about Gold Afternoon Fix: Track Listing, Personnel
Famous quotes containing the words gold, afternoon and/or fix:
“Whatever is gold does not glitter. A gentle radiance belongs to the noblest metal.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The afternoon is visibly a source,
Too wide, too irised, to be more than calm,
Too much like thinking to be less than thought,
Obscurest parent, obscurest patriarch,
A daily majesty of meditation,
That comes and goes in silences of its own.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone; You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 6:4-9.