“Far ahead of the 80s art-rock curve… forward-looking, new wave electronic music with trace elements of prog and glam”: Bill Nelson’s Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam Deluxe Box Set

Bill Nelson – Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam Deluxe Box Set.

Though the skull-guitar cover art for Be Bop Deluxe’s 1974 debut Axe Victim once led US tour promoters to pair the band with Ted Nugent, Bill Nelson was never that guy. Yes, he was a guitar hero, but his art school background and love of jazz and surrealist polymath Jean Cocteau helped inspire a wider vision.

After the sonically transitional LP that was Be Bop’s 1978 swan song Drastic Plastic, Nelson formed Red Noise, whose debut album Sound-On-Sound was hip to Kraftwerk, Talking Heads and Belgian synth-poppers Telex. Nelson was shape- shifting; a moving target.