In the fall of 1990, Julee Cruise went on a brief tour throughout North America following the continued success of Twin Peaks and her 1989 album “Floating Into The Night.” While researching topics for the Julee In June takeover of Twin Peaks Blog, I discovered she played at a former concert venue called The Spectrum in Toronto, Canada on Nov. 17, 1990. While I’ve been unable to locate photos from her show, I found some advertisements and a concert review in “The Toronto Star.”
JULEE CRUISE PLAYS THE SPECTRUM IN TORONTO ON NOV. 17, 1990
The Toronto Star first listed Julee’s concert at The Spectrum in their upcoming events section on Oct. 19, 1990. She was advertised as “singer in Twin Peaks’ Roadhouse Bar” who also has an album. The concert date was Saturday, Nov. 17 at The Spectrum. Tickets were only $12 (where’s my time machine?!).
Oddly, another Canadian paper, The Gazette, ran an advertisement on Oct. 20 stating Julee would be playing at Le Spectrum on Friday, Nov. 16 at 9:00 p.m. She may have possibly opened for Dead Can Dance as other newspapers at that time listed concert tickets for $18.50 to see them both. I’ve yet to find any concert review from this show.
Another concert listing appeared in the Oct. 21, 1990 issue of The Toronto Star. Julee was billed as “Twin Peaks songstress” and sandwiched between concert listings for Iggy Pop on Nov. 12 and Kronos Quartet on Nov. 25.
‘THE TORONTO STAR’ | NOV. 16, 1990 – “JULEE CRUISE LAUNCHED BY A LYNCH MOB”
On Nov. 16, 1990, Toronto Star report Chris Dafore published an interview with Cruise in advance of her Nov. 17 performance at The Spectrum. Six days earlier, she had appeared in Twin Peaks episode 2.007 singing “Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart” and “The World Spins.” She says she doesn’t know who killed Laura Palmer.
I know who killed Laura Palmer (I think). And you know who Killed Laura Palmer (you think). But please, please, please, don’t tell Julee Cruise.
Cruise, who with director David Lynch and composer Angelo Badalamenti, created the eery ethereal pop that pops up now and then on Twin Peaks, is currently on her first tour, which stops at the Spectrum (2714 Danforth) on Saturday night.
And being on tour has meant losing touch with some things. Like Twin Peaks.
“I know I’m in the episode “where the killer is revealed,” says Cruise, whose debut album, Floating Into The Night, became a surprise cult hit thanks to the exposure provided by Lynch’s oddball TV series.
“But since being on tour, I haven’t been able to keep up. I’ve got a couple of episodes at home Con tape and I don’t want to watch any of the new ones until I catch SUD. As far as I know, I didn’t kill her, but David wouldn’t tell me anyway.
“Not that it matters. It really doesn’t matter who killed Laura.”
Cruise became part of the Lynch mob in 1986, when Badalamenti, whom she had met three years earlier, mentioned that Lynch had asked him to find a singer for “Mysteries Of Love”, a song that had been written for the movie Blue Velvet.
Cruise sent down six or seven of her friends to audition but none turned out to be right for the role.
“I was a little embarrassed,” recalls Cruise, “So I said, ‘Let me try to imitate what I think you want, just so we have an idea.’ And I was surprised – it came out pretty.”
Since then, she’s worked with Lynch and Badalamenti on two projects, Floating Into The Night and Industrial Symphony No. 1, a hastily assembled performance piece that appeared in the New Music America festival last year and features Cruise singing while dangling from a wire.
“For such a mellow type of music, they’re really frenetic,” says Cruise of her collaborators.
“David, of course, has a very child-like view of life. And to give you some sort of perspective on Angelo – he doesn’t know who Pink Floyd is.
“He was in Nashville during the ’60s, and as a writer he’s very dramatic – his music has that Morroconi touch to it.
“Well, David takes that and uses it in an ironic way. The same way he uses my voice.”
As for Twin Peaks, while Cruise says she’s a fan of the show, she wonders if all the attention might obscure Lynch’s ironic intent.
“I think the media has gone insane with it, almost too far.
“If something is given too much attention, it’ll become a cliche, like a happy face. I don’t know how David feels — as I said, he has a very child-like view of life and it’s
a surprise for him. I think he just thinks it’s nice to have a hit.” As for her own hit, Cruise says the trio are now at work on a second album, even as she’s coming to terms with the success of the first.
“I’m surprised that (Floating) is such a big success, but at least the music hasn’t gotten overexposed the way the show has. That’s nice, because the music doesn’t have a lot to do with doughnuts.”
The article also used her 1989 publicity photo taken by David Lynch for “Floating Into the Night.”
JULEE CRUISE’S SET LIST FROM HER CONCERT AT THE SPECTRUM ON NOV. 17, 1990
According to Setlist.fm, these are the songs Julee play at her Nov. 17 show at The Spectrum. It’s difficult to confirm all details without production paperwork. Supposedly three people who posted on Setlist attended the show.
- Falling
- I Float Alone
- The Nightingale
- Instrumental
- Into the Night
- Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart
- (Unknown)
- The World Spins
- ? Twin Peaks instrumental
- My Love’s Dead
- I Remember
- The Swan
- Falling
- Encore – Mysteries Of Love
It’s unclear if “My Love’s Dead” was an original song or something she covered.
‘THE TORONTO STAR’ | NOV. 18, 1990 – “CRUISE’S MUSIC FIT FOR ELEVATOR”
Two days after the show, The Toronto Star ran a review written by Lenny Stoute.
A renown music critic in Toronto, he who wrote extensively publications like Music Express, Globe & Mail, eye, Metro, and Cashbox Canada. Stoute passed on Sept. 22, 2024.
In 1990, Stoute didn’t really care for Julee’s show, comparing her to then popular Teenage Mutant Turtles.
“Julee Cruise showed up at the Spectrum Saturday night wearing the emperor’s new clothes.
Put another way, it was an evening of Lynchomania, a multi-media profit machine, and Cruise and her band just another line of merchandise.
The marketing sprawl of movie and TV director David Lynch’s empire is rivalling that of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to which it bears a marked resemblance.
Both empires used one electronic visual medium to spring-board into the other: the Ninja from TV to movies, Lynch vice versa. Ninja comics were countered by Laura Palmer’s diary, the hit single “Turtle Power” by ‘Mysteries Of Love”. On Halloween, Laura Palmers and replicants of the TV detective form Twin Peaks freely mingled with T.N.M.T.s in the streets.
The Mutant Turtles movement Took the war onto music’s turf with their LP and a touring band that played Ontario Place last summer. Lynch’s response was the release of the Peaks’ soundtrack album, followed by putting his touring arm, Ms. Cruise, on the road.
Which led to Saturday night and 700 of the most cross-sectional audience that could he hoped for. Made sense, this being a TV event and that being the most democratic of media. Simultaneously, the mood was elitist to the max
All concerts are loaded with expectations, but they’re usually based on previous experience with the artist or the genre of which he/she is part. This time they were based on exposure to the movie and TV work of Lynch, without which this pretentious rehab clinic waiting-room Muzak would never have seen the light of day.
It’s likely the songs from Floating Into The Night play well at home. coiled up with a loved one. but as live material, they’re such stuff as would put Margo Timmins to sleep.
Cruise’s tonal range, from a whisper to a whine, is just not enough to inform the three-chord minimalism of the tunes. Its novelty lasts oh, three songs, and after that comes great expanses of blue flannel music with interjections of brash saxophone bursts seemingly designed to jolt listeners from the prevailing somnambulistic state.
And if the alleged tension of the songs derives from the cruel and suggestive lyrics behind the bland, why was it so difficult to hear what Cruise was saying. Nor was the problem one from the mixing board: all the other in-struments were crisp and well-defined. Maybe it’s because the lyrics are no less vacous than the music and don’t stand up to close scrutiny by the skeptical.
About the only songs that made an impression were ‘Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart,’ which got the biggest hand of the night.”
My man … you could have simply said you didn’t like the show.
Hopefully photos will turn up one day from any of the 700 people who attended the performance. Until then, we only have words.
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