Visage

Visage was a New Romantic ensemble that began life in 1978, mainly to provide some danceable music to be played on Steve Strange's and Rust

Visage was a New Romantic ensemble that began life in 1978, mainly to provide some danceable music to be played on Steve Strange's and Rusty Egan's Billy's London nightclub. Strange commented about the meaning of the ensemble's name: "The meaning of Visage, apart from being French for face, is that the Vis is for the visual side of the band... and the Age is the new age in dance music. That's how I see it."

Initially, the ensemble was comprised of Steve Strange, Rusty Egan and Midge Ure. Ure and Egan began working with Strange after the demise of power pop band "Rich Kids" and Steve being at a loose end after the demise of new wave band 'The Photons' (managed by punk legend Andy Czezowski creator of the Roxy Club and owner of the The Fridge) . The trio recorded a demo which included a cover of the Zager and Evans hit "In the Year 2525". Ultravox's multi-instrumentalist Billy Currie, and the core of post-punk band Magazine — bassist Barry Adamson, guitarist John McGeoch, and keyboardist Dave Formula joined the studio-only ensemble later. Visage signed to Radar Records and released their first single, "Tar" (which was originally composed whilst Steve was in 'The Photons' ) in September 1979. The following year saw the release of their self-titled debut album, which sold extremely well and raised the ensemble's popularity mainly because of the single "Fade to Grey." The single quickly became a huge club hit, went to number one in 21 countries and marked an imminent commercial breakthrough for electronic music and the whole New Romantic movement, for which the first Visage album became a kind of soundtrack.