.

Erasure's Bell Has H.I.V.

Singer has been living with virus for six years

By 
December 16, 2004 12:00 AM ET
Andy Bell, singer for British pop duo Erasure, has announced he is H.I.V. positive in a posting on the band's official Web site.

"I found out I was H.I.V.+ in June 1998 when I had a bout of pneumonia in Mallorca," wrote Bell. "Since then I have been taking combination therapy and I am feeling fine . . . My life expectancy should be the same as anyone else's, so there is no need to panic . . . Let's just get on with life, i.e., making music, doing a live tour and generally having a good time."

Erasure's next good time, Nightbird, will be out January 25th. The eleven-track album was recorded at Union Street Recordings in Brooklyn and includes the single "Breathe," set to debut at radio on January 18th.

The duo, which also includes Yaz/Depeche Mode vet Vince Clarke, released the live DVD The Tank, the Swan and the Balloon Live! last week.

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“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

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Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.

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