Crime & the City Solution

Crime & the City Solution
Circa 1990, L-R: Stern, Hacke, Bonney, Adams, Harvey
Background information
Origin	Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Genres	Post-punk, art punk
Years active	1977 (1977)–1979 (1979), 1985 (1985)–1991 (1991), 2012 (2012)–present
Labels	Mute, Possum, Rampant, BMG, Arista
Associated acts	Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Einstürzende Neubauten, These Immortal Souls
Members	Simon Bonney Bronwyn Adams Alexander Hacke David Eugene Edwards Troy Gregory Danielle de Picciotto Matthew Smith Jim White
Past members	see members list below

Crime & the City Solution are an Australian rock music band, which formed in late 1977 by singer-songwriter and mainstay, Simon Bonney. They disbanded in 1979 with bootleg recordings and demos that are extremely rare. In late 1983, Bonney traveled to London. Two years later he formed another version of the group there with members of the recently disbanded The Birthday Party; later they transferred to Berlin, where they issued four albums – Room of Lights (1986), Shine (1988), The Bride Ship (1989) and Paradise Discotheque (1990) – before disbanding again in 1991. In 2012 Bonney reformed the band in Detroit with two veterans of the Berlin era and a handful of new members.

Critic David Sheridan described the band's music as characterized by slow tempos, dark moods and Bonney's forlorn vocals, all of which can range from "endurance testing" at worst to "hauntingly beautiful" at best.

Crime & the City Solution are an Australian rock group which formed in late 1977 in Sydney with a line-up of Simon Bonney on lead vocals, Phil Kitchener on bass guitar, Dave MacKinnon on saxophone, Don McLennan on drums (ex-Particles) and Harry Zantey on guitar. The group has had five distinct line-ups with Bonney as the only mainstay: Sydney in 1977–78, Melbourne in 1979, two groupings in Berlin from 1985 to 1990, and Detroit from 2012 onwards. In the late 1970s Bonney had met McLennan and sometimes provided guest vocals for McLennan's group, Particles. According to Australian rock music historian, Ian McFarlane, Particles had "a cult following around the inner-city Sydney scene courtesy of its delightful, melodious pop sound". Whereas according to Peter Nelson of Pulp fanzine, Crime & the City Solution, used "An exciting blend of fuzzed monotone guitar runs and squawking saxophone riffs . . . [like] the drone songs on Wire's Pink Flag".

In late 1978 Bonney and McLennan had relocated to Melbourne where they formed a new version of Crime & the City Solution early the next year with Chris Astley on keyboards, Kim Beissel on saxophone, Lindsay O'Meara on bass guitar (ex-Voigt/465) and Dan Wallace-Crabbe on guitar. In Melbourne Bonney became friends with local post-punk group, The Boys Next Door (later known as The Birthday Party). Crime & the City Solution broke up in 1979 after a number of live shows and recording an unreleased demo. Wallace-Crabbe later joined Laughing Clowns, O'Meara returned to Sydney and joined Pel Mel, Beissel played in → ↑ →, Astley and McLennan in other bands.