Ever hear of a Pumping Party?Ever want a quick way to big up your behind, fun bags, or old chap, cheap? Just get some clown to shove industrial gloop into you like a robotic rapist.Past it popsters get work done on their bodies. And their careers. Guest vocalisms and jisms, new sounds and genre mutations and more. It's just another stop on the way to the freezer drawer.Yet there are some that are not trout pout undead, yet cannot die.Perpetually in purgatory, going through it all again and again.If you're not down with that particular piece of Jesus Jive then here it is. The puzzle for the Vatican about what to do with naughty people not foul enough for Hell but not clean and choirboi bothering enough for heaven needed solving:"Purgatory, according to Catholic Church doctrine, is an intermediate state after physical death in which those destined for heaven "undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven".[1] Only those who die in the state of grace but have not in life reached a sufficient level of holiness can be in Purgatory, and therefore no one in Purgatory will remain forever in that state or go to hell. This theological notion has ancient roots and is well-attested in early Christian literature, but the poetic conception of Purgatory as a geographically existing place is largely the creation of medieval Christian piety and imagination.[2]"So what great, or once great, or maybe great artists are in this hell state?I can only relate to what I knew and loved.The Cure. The first band that really touched all parts of my consciousness. Coming to these islands off a flying banana boat from the DC suburbs, this flash geezer made me listen to everything from Three Imaginary Boys to Wish on ok headphones in one amphetamine afternoon.I've never been the same.It was like things, cells, repressed feelings, lusts and memories were burnt backwards and forwards in some kind of neural nucler carpet bombing. Trouble was, Wish should, and could have been, an End. I was over 12 months too late.So I waited. Some underrated live LPs emerged. Show. Paris. Then nothing.Until a foul film with someone related to Bruce Lee that died or summat. Lots of PR. Fuck it. Burn. Kind of a B-side. So there. 1995. Glastonbury. Blood had more acid in it than a toilet block. I was waiting for something that would have changed and marked my life. Idiot. It did. And hurts. The band had very little to offer. In a fresh sense. They were done.Yet I was a reasonably new fan. What was I to do? Was this band still alive?No.There had been no decent album for over three years. A Best Of Bestiary was in the post. The painful self parody of Wild Mood Swings next. It was like once great Sushi chefs forced to cut up vomited fish fingers and crab stixs with rubber spoons.I've never bought an LP since. Winced in horror as some blow up doll from Republica (!?) guested on a throwaway single. And only ever watched the first two segments of the 'Trilogy' thing as Bloodflowers is a flaccid, cynical attempt to make a new Pornography or Distintegration. Forcing a masterpiece is impossible, and as disonest as a machine painted Van Gough from IKEA. I'd love to see them again, but am ashamed for saying it. I know its my own Here and Now - Fat Bob is the only band member left and its just album shows and greatest hits. Now infested with newer things that just would spoil the beauty. I can imagine an encore where the symphonic synesthesia of A Strange Day is blasphemed with the candy glass fake misery of The Last Day of Summer. They gave me, and give me, plenty. But I really was warmed by the embers, not the fire of living genius. So, Bowie style, where are we now? In purgatory. A place where greatness dissipates slow or staid.I loved Massive Attack. In a real sense. I was waiting outside WH Smith on the day Protection emerged. They were alive, not running on fumes and still put out beauty, sometimes.Truth is. after the eternal metal magic of Mezzanine it really is just about 3D, whatever shop worn guests fly in and how much he hates the West.As in get Daddy G if he is bored and put on video of bombed kids in the third world, get Sinead O'Fooker to make a cameo and pretend it still matters. Guest vocalist: Damon Albarn should make anyone run for the hills and scorth the Earth en route. Nothing has been laid under this brand since 2010, so purgatory again.In 2014 what does this fucking mean? Going through the hits in Clapham Common or whatever sponsored by Middle England retail and banks. Not sinking lower, but ending up pretty small and predictable. They are lost to my love, but will keep on going and going. I can't see 'Massive Attack' ending up doing some corporate PA for £346. Purgatory. On and on, lame arse family familiar festivals - sharing the bill with Imelda May and fucking Paloma Faith and the next and nonsense versions of the same will turn up and fizzle. These undead, too Tough To Die lot will carry on, even with no credible new work. They are immune from the nostalgia tour nonsense, in its honest name. But sort of rich like peoples paying £4,000 for a Season Ticket from Surrey will keep it Alive.The Cure may be worse.Festivals based on the US Wine industry and an odd combination of near on two generations of genius and the needs of Today means you pay £150 a head for a delicious run through the singles, some class album tracks, B-sides and a few unloved offcuts.It's too expensive, too much, and will happen again and again. In a fairer world it would end, in an older world those involved would drown in their own pill vomit as rock starrr types should.We are too smart.Expect the retro thing to grow like a mushroom. My glasto 95 put under a bloody Bell Jar by Eavis and kept on the side, as hologram or silent disco whatever.There is no end, only new ways to be old. Unless you find the missing beats...and restore the pulse.