(2.19) In 1976 Laurence “Lol” Tolhurst and Robert Smith formed the seminal British punk rock . . . gothic doom . . . post-punk . . . I don’t know, I’m way too young to remember any of this . . . anyway, they formed The Cure. They had been friends since they were five.
That gave Tolhurst a lot of material for his memoir, “Cured: The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys,” and this Sunday you can ask him all about it at a ‘Meet the Author’ at Books on the Square. In an interview last September with The Guardian, Tolhurst gives a shout-out to a local favorite.
The early shows, we played with this Boston band Mission of Burma, who were kindred spirits. We appealed to people who lived in small towns in America, the same kind of people as in England, and from very early on we played lots of small towns, for months and months at a time, in the kind of clubs where people would see their local bands. So we really connected with people. People still write to me from those towns that saw us back in those days; we’re like adopted sons. That’s what worked for the Cure.
Tolhurst goes on to explain why Pornography is his favourite Cure album and is refreshingly non-psychological about his drinking problem. Tolhurst left The Cure in 1989 — they briefly reunited in 2011 for selected shows — and currently lives in L.A. where he records with his band Levinhurst.
[Side note: Lol’s DJ dance party at Dusk this Saturday is already sold out. That will be fun.)
4pm, Sunday, February 19, Books on the Square, 471 Angell Street, 401.331.9097, (directions)