Die Krupps and Ross The Boss have recorded a brand new version of The Stranglers’ “No More Heroes” in tribute to Stranglers keyboardist Dave Greenfield who passed away earlier this year from COVID-19.

“No More Heroes” was originally released in 1977 as a single from the album of the same name. It is one of the band’s most successful singles and lyrically refers to several historical figures, including Elmyr de Hory, Leon Trotsky, Lenny Bruce, William Shakespeare and fictional character Sancho Panza.

At the time of the single’s release, the B-side “In the Shadows” was a non-album track; however, it appeared on the Stranglers’ next studio album, “Black and White”. The band’s publishers threatened legal action against Elastica in 1995, arguing that their single “Waking Up” borrowed elements of “No More Heroes”. Elastica eventually settled out of court.

Here’s the new version.

And here is the original for those Youngers readers who don’t know the version by The Stranglers.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

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(Photo by Stranglers French forum) Again bad news from the music world. This time we learned that The Stranglers’ keyboard player Dave Greenfield has died at the age of 71 and this after contracting the coronavirus. Greenfield died on Sunday evening, May 3. The musician contracted the virus in a hospital where he was treated for heart problems.

Greenfield has left a legendary legacy that includes the music for for instance the classic “Golden Brown”.

Greenfield, the Ray Manzarek of The Stranglers

The sound of the UK-born musician has frequently (and correctly) been compared to that of Ray Manzarek of the Doors, most of you will without any doubt remember the distinctive sound on the early The Stranglers recordings including the use of Hohner Cembalet (model N), Hammond L-100 electric organ, a Minimoog synthesizer, and later an Oberheim FVS-4 polyphonic synthesizer. On the albums “The Raven”, “Gospel According to the Meninblack” and “Aural Sculpture”, Greenfield used a Korg VC-10 vocoder.

Little known is that he frequently contributed harmony backing vocals to the band’s songs, and sang the lead vocals on a few of their early tracks including “Dead Ringer”, “Peasant in the Big Shitty”, “Do You Wanna?”, “Genetix” and “Four Horsemen”.

Apart from The Strangles he also produced a single in 1981, namely “Back to France” by the band Boys in Darkness. Greenfield and fellow-Strangler Jean-Jacques Burnel also released a joint album in 1983, “Fire and Water” which was used as the OST for the film, “Ecoutez vos murs” (directed by Vincent Coudanne).

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

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