One of the reasons I was so excited to go to work for Sire was because of bands on the label like The Ramones, Depeche Mode, The Smiths and Echo & the Bunnymen, all of whom I had been playing-- with great enthusiasm-- as a dj in San Francisco. I already knew all the bands because they were able to do live shows in the Bay Area because of all the radio exposure and when they came there weren't any other stations that wanted them to come by. I walked into my job at Sire already having interviewed and gotten to know my of the artists. And Echo & the Bunnymen, from Liverpool, were among my favorite of all. By the time Ocean Rain, their 4th album, came out (1984) I was already at Sire. For me the album started so-so and built with every song into one of the greatest albums of the mid-80s. "Thorn of Crowns," "The Killing Moon," "Seven Seas," and "Ocean Rain" were all gems-- as was tonight's selection, "My Kingdom:"
