There was a plenty of love for yesterday's post, featuring a 1979 Cure B-side. But just two years earlier, things had been quite different.
Still known as Easy Cure, the band won a talent competition in early '77, which led to them getting a recording contract with Ariola-Hansa. After a bit of line-up shuffling, which included Robert taking on vocal duties (he'd previously just been on keys), the band recorded their first demos at London's SAV studios during October and November 1977. This is the version of I'm Cold they recorded back then, and it's very different. More punk-influenced than goth, and more new wave-sounding than punk, this is an intriguing glimpse of what might have been.
Ariola-Hansa baulked at this and the other demo's recorded, and dropped Easy Cure from their contract in March 1978, having released nothing. Guitarist Porl Thompson left in April, Smith changed the band name to The Cure, a new demo tape was recorded and by September '78 the band were signed to Chris Parry's newly formed Fiction label. Crucially this had backing and distribution support from Polydor. Debut album Three Imaginary Boys followed in May '79, and by August the band were supporting Siouxsie and the Banshees on tour. Then in October came the single Jumping Someone Else's Train, the B-side of which was yesterday's version of I'm Cold.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
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