Riot In Belgium’s ‘La Musique’ was one of my top tunes of 2007, it’s an amazing party track, and we have much love for Cut Copy, obviously. So the idea of RIB’s Joel Dickson and Dan Whitford of CC working together fill us with musical joy.
The end result is Voltage, and they’ve just released their début single, ‘All Night’. With more bounce to the ounce, the Moog heavy space Disco assaults you with an infectious bassline and stargazing vocals, with covering fire from electro toms and handclaps flying left and right. This is the kinda’ thing Buck Rodgers should have been dancing to in to 80’s!
Well obviously, not all on their own, but they are one of a small handful of bands that, in the early 80’s, propelled electronic music (in a Pop format) into the UK charts and from there, throughout the world. Sure, there were pioneering electronic musicians who came before, the likes of Wendy Carlos then Giorgio Moroder followed by Daniel Miller’s lot and Kraftwerk, but they were viewed as experimental or avant-garde. Gary Numan’s happy accident aside, it took Heaven 17, The Human League and OMD to capture the nation’s hearts, minds, ears and feet and forever put the synthesizer at the centre of British Pop music.
The day that Martyn Ware and Ian Marsh parted company with (the then art-house) The Human League, Martyn was on the phone to Glenn Gregory, frontman in-waiting, and the rest is SynthPop history. Now, three decades years later, the band are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the release of their seminal, influential and highly critically acclaimed début album ‘Penthouse And Pavement’. Having already performed (for the first time) the whole album and produced an accompanying documentary detailing their history and the making of the album, both broadcast by the BBC, the guys are gearing up to take their ‘Penthouse And Pavement’ show on the road and release a special edition of the album.
Heaven 17 are busy right now, with radio, TV and live appearances almost weekly, so we are lucky that Glenn Gregory, the face of Heaven 17, took some time to fill the readers of electronic rumors in on all things ‘Penthouse And Pavement’:
ER: As you are celebrating the 30th anniversary of ‘Penthouse And Pavement’, how do you feel about those songs now? Could you ever have conceived of how acclaimed and, indeed, influential that album would turn out to be three decades later?
GG: I think ‘Penthouse And Pavement’ is the definitive Heaven 17 Album even though The Luxury Gap had more ‘hits’ P&P is the soul of Heaven 17. It was such an exciting album to make, the whole process of writing and recording at the same time and in the same studio as The Human League added a magical dimension to both albums. There was a lot to prove from both bands and I’m pleased to say 30 years later it seems we all did it. We produced a new exciting record that has stood the test of time. I honestly believe it sounds as fresh and new as it did the day it was made.
ER: When you went into the studio to begin with did you have a vision for Heaven 17? Did Martyn have things he wanted to do that he couldn’t have done in The Human League? Or did the Heaven 17 ‘sound’ just evolve
GG: We knew we wanted to be different from The Human League, even the new The Human League knew they needed to sound different… but it wasn’t something that was forced, we just started to write. There was so much energy around us at that moment in time, the whole split thing had electrified everyone involved and ideas were just flooding out. ‘Fascist Groove Thang’ was completed in about ten days and the direction of the album was pretty much sealed after that track. Martyn had the idea to have a bass guitar solo in the middle of the song (heaven knows why he thought of that) it was inspired… it led us to finding John Wilson which in turn led us to the key that unlocked the door to the new direction that we would take to finish the rest of the album. It was a really exciting period and I think you can get feeling that from the tracks on ‘P&P’.
ER: The BBC’s ban on ‘(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang’ seems odd as it is an anti-fascist anthem? Did they have a blanket ban on political songs at the time or did you feel singled out (or that they didn’t understand the meaning of the song)?
GG: It was a such a knock back for us to have the BBC refuse to play the track… the song meant a lot to us lyrically and to have had such success in the press and with fans we thought everyone had got the plot… but no, for a reason I still don’t really understand the BBC radio stations refused to play it… I believe there are still some BBC local stations that won’t play the track!
ER: Do you regret not touring with ‘Penthouse And Pavement’ first time around? What was the reasons for not really gigging these songs?
GG: I have no regrets . We didn’t play live for a few reasons… The League had toured for the previous 2 years and lost money. Martyn and Ian wanted to concentrate on B.E.F. and MTV had just started and we decided that that was a much more modern way of reaching an audience. Also we now have the added bonus of really enjoying playing live now and not feeling like it’s something we have to do… it’s new, exciting and we love it.
ER: How did the BBC television performance of ‘Penthouse And Pavement’ in Sheffield, and it’s sister documentary on the making of the album (amazing TV, by the way!) come about? Were you going to make the documentary anyway or did the BBC ask you to do it?
GG: It was our idea to make the documentary the BBC only became involved at the very end, they had heard that we were almost finished and asked if they could show both the doc and the gig. It worked out very well.
James Strong the director have done a lot of work together and had talked about telling the story of the beginning of Heaven 17 for some time and when we decided to play ‘P&P’ live for the very first time it was the perfect time to do it.
ER: We can’t really mention the documentary without speaking about Phil Oakey’s appearance and both his and Martyn’s acceptance that it was record label and Bob Last’s involvement that led to their split. Did you ask Phil to talk about this or did he just open up about it and had they both come to the same conclusions separately?
GG: It was something that kind of evolved as the film was being made… Martyn talked about the split and voiced his opinions and when Phil agreed to chat to us we just had to ask him the question (it wasn’t staged) Phil gave the same answer… so then we just had to contact Bob Last and get him in the film, which we did (without telling him the reason) and eventually he did finally admit that he did pretty much engineer the split of the band. It was the first time in 30 years this question had been asked and indeed answered.
ER: From your point of view, had Martyn never parted company with The Human League, what would Glenn Gregory be doing now?
GG: Don’t know really. I suppose I might still be taking pictures. Or running a small café in Cornwall on a surfing beach, or accepting my 3rd Oscar for best actor… or a….. blah blah blah
ER: You were recoding in the same studio as The Human League, I’ve heard you both heard snippets of the other’s work, were you trying to hide your ‘trade secrets’ from Phil and the gang at the time?
GG: It was fun really, Martyn and Phil were not really speaking but it didn’t stop a bit of industrial espionage from both parties… we did get to hear what they were doing and I’m sure they were getting a sneaky listen to how we were getting on.
ER: Speaking of studios, what’s in Heaven 17’s studio these days? Are you using many soft synths or is it still all about the big analog synths?
GG: I’m all soft synths but Martyn is both. He has lots of the original synths and still uses them. I don’t have the space and I like my studio to be sparse.
ER: Do you prefer the raw, hands on nature of analogy synths and tape based recording or the convenience and quality of a modern digital studio?
GG: We have always been at the forefront of recording techniques we have always been modernists… that wont change.
ER: ElectroPop has made something of a resurgence in recent years, is there any of the new crop of electronic Pop artists you rate?
GG: La Roux, MGMT, The Faint, Chromeo and electrono
ER: Earlier in the year you performed with La Roux at Maida Vale for BBC 6 Music. How did that come about? Did you pick them or did they pick you?
GG: It was put together by the BBC 6 team really and didn’t they do well…
ER: It was awesome!
GG: It was a great success I loved performing with Elly and Ben Langmaid is a really great guy and a great producer. She is a star and she’s the real deal, I along with my 7 year old boy am a fan.
ER: It seemed fun, both you and Elly were grinning the whole way through and she did really well on ‘Temptation’, which must be hard. Were you pleased with the end result?
GG: She did really well with Temptation… it’s not easy. She pulled out all the stops for the performance it was an honour to sing with her.
ER: Going back a couple of years, you and Martyn released ‘Naked As Advertised (Versions ’08)’, what made you want to rework those older songs? Was it unhappiness with the older recordings or just an experiment?
GG: We just wanted to put down some of the versions of tracks that we had been playing live. It was never a case of wanting to improve on old tracks we just thought it would be a nice idea to let people hear how we had changed some tracks for our live work… it was going to be the first in a kind of oddities and rarities edition… we may do more.
ER: What can we expect from the special edition anniversary edition of Penthouse And Pavement?
GG: Lots of good stuff…
ER: Is there and current artists you’d like to see remixing your songs?
GG: Not really
ER: And beyond that, is there a new studio album in the pipeline?
GG: We are starting to have a tinker and talk about it …. But do people really want a new album?
ER: Are Heaven 17 more of cereal or full English breakfast kinda’ guys? Would you answer change the morning after a show?
GG: Well on the German tour a couple of months ago I only made it down to breakfast once… but I think the rest of the band ate well. A slice of toast and a cup of tea will do for me ta.
ER: Cheers Glenn! Many thanks for speaking with us!
♫ Heaven 17 – Play To Win
The ‘30th anniversary ‘Penthouse And Pavement’ tour’ takes in the following cities:
22nd Nov – Edinburgh @ Edinburgh Picture House
23rd Nov – Glasgow @ Glasgow ABC
25th Nov – Manchester @ Manchester Ritz
26th Nov – Birmingham @ Birmingham Institute
28th Nov – London @ London Forum
29th Nov – Oxford – Oxford Academy
30th Nov – Brighton @ Brighton Corn Exchange
01st Dec – Bristol @ Bristol Academy
Tickets available from www.seetickets.com (Ticket Hotline: 08700 603 777), check www.heaven17.com for more details and keep an eye out for news of the special 30th anniversary reissue of ‘Penthouse And Pavement’, full of extras!
Sometimes I love a good cryptic email, especially when it comes with such good music.
Meet The Loveliers they are from Poland, they may or may not be friends with Kamp! and, er, that’s about it.
Best let the music do the talking, and ‘Interactivity’ is a beautiful slice of synthesizer Pop. Quite dark musically but with an uplifting vocal the track has the sheen of contemporary production but a real 80’s SynthPop feel to it. The arrangement and choice of sounds are decidedly retro, and the vocal accent and inflection give The Loveliers a unique sound all of their own.
Daybehavior will be a name well known to anyone who, like us, weathered the SynthPop ‘wilderness years’ of the mid-90’s to the mid-2000’s, before it became vogue again.
Many of the acts that were associated with the so-called ‘modern SynthPop’ scene were, unfortunately, stale and fell quickly by the wayside but Daybehavior was one of the shining beacons of hope in the sea of mediocrity.
Formed in 1993 Daybehavior, and the like, kept us going when the world wanted BritPop and dance music was all about being ‘hard’. Now, after a brief split, Daybehavoir are back, with the original line up, and releasing a new album! Their 3rd studio album will be out soon but the band have given us a taste of what to expect in the form of ‘City Lights’, an awesome, hypnotic, synthetic urban hymn. An electronic ode to travelling through the city with more than a small nod to Kraftwerk’s own train journey.
Vice and Intel’s The Creators Project just goes from strength to strength. The project is not only a showcase for creative innovation but also is designed to facilitate content creation form some of the hippest music and arts creators around right now. This month workaholic producer Mark Ronson takes some time out to put trumpets all over the project. check out his video here, http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/en-uk/creators/mark-ronson, where the man speaks on producing Lily Allen & Amy Winehouse, his love of analog synths and 60’s recording techniques. It’s an interesting watch for any musical gear geeks! While you’re there check out some of the other creators spotlights on the likes of Diplo, N.A.S.A., Phoenix, Brodinski, CSS and Peaches.
When you’ve watched your fill, why not come on back and check out Kissy Sell Out’s 2007 bootleg of Ronson’s ‘Stop Me’:
One of the brightest ElectroPop hopes for the coming year, Visitor, stopped by the electronic rumors inbox last night to drop off the B-side to their forthcoming (and pretty eagerly anticipated) début single ‘Los Feeling’.
Defiantly a band to get exited about, Visitor have enlisted one of our favourite producers Diamond Cut to cover mixing board duties and with the already blog smashing Alan BraxereMix the single is looking likely to take the Electro world by storm. ‘Love (Club Edit)’, the B-Side, is a slick as hell slice of electronic dance Pop that dips and soars in all the right place and could, frankly, sustain a single all of it’s own.
Right, I’m kicking off this post with a confession. you remember the hiatus we hadfor a few monthslast year? Well, we receive literally hundreds of items of promotional music weekly, and during that period a whole lot got overlooked, ignored or even binned. I didn’t even know if the site was coming back at the time. I didn’t have the time to work on the site at all, let alone give everything we receive a fair listen.
Some things fell through the cracks, and for that I am truly sorry.
Why the sudden remorse? Well, this past weekend I was lucky enough to catch live one of the acts who’s emails were buried in the inbox build-up around that time. They are called :kinema: and they blew me away!
There’s a whole lot of upcoming ElectroPop acts from the UK, amazing talents who are embracing the Dreamwave sound and applying it to British SynthPop, but who’s got our smooth and soulful Electro-Funk-Pop base covered? :kinema: have, and they could easily go toe-to-toe with Chromeo!
Already drawing comparisons to the likes of Hot Chip and Phoenix, this Brighton band has been nurturing their sound since 2007 and last year dropped their début EP, ‘Circles’ Amongst the reMixes of the title track was this one by Soul Jazz man Secondo who’s Housey rework injects an deep early 90’s warehouse bassline into the track.
:kinema: have just released a brand new single titled ‘Recreation’ which is backed with their cover of Animal collective’s ‘My’ Girl’, check their website, http://kinema.co.uk/, for the lowdown.
We’ve already dropped the trippy video and the pretty great Sam La More reMix of Miami Horror’s new single, ‘Moon Theory, on you. Now it’s time to see what Punks Jump Up can do with the track.
Taking a slightly harder and more chaotic tack than La More, PJU turn the tune into a big dirty Electro Rave track with warping bass and distorted synth work but the end result turns out quite uplifting.
New Wave legends DEVO are back! Over three decades ago, influenced by the concept of ‘de-evolution’ (a school of thought that suggests that instead of evolving, mankind has, and is, actually regressing), Kent State University art students Gerald Casale and Bob Lewis (soon joined by Mark Mothersbaugh) created various art and musical projects with satirical intentions, but witnessing the regression of humanity firsthand during the Kent State Shootings of 1970 was impetus enough for them to form the strange mixture of social commentary, surrealist comedy, and experimental Post-Punk music that is the band DEVO.
Taking an eclectic approach to their output, both musically and visually, DEVO always played fast and loose with the rules of music and as a result have become a hugely influential on everything from SynthPop to Industrial to House to Alternative Rock. In the early 80’s American musical landscape, where synthesizers were even less accepted in Pop music than they were here in the UK, DEVO’s hits ‘Jocko Homo’ and particularly the classic ‘Whip It!’ paved the way for the New Wave bands who followed.
Twenty years since their last studio album, and more than thirty since their highly influential début record ‘Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO!’, the band that sold New Wave to the American youth are gearing up to release twelve brand new tracks on an unsuspecting public. But as with all things DEVO, it’s not quite so simple. Teaming up with ad agency Mother LA the band focus-grouped everything from the colour of their new energy domes to the track listing of the album itself in the DEVO Song Study, the end result being an album guarantees to satisfy.
And satisfy it does, ‘Something For Everybody’, manages to perfectly blend a modern Indie-Electro sound with the signature DEVO groove, sounding unmistakably DEVO, but surprisingly contemporary. Tracks like the synth bass heavy ‘What We Do’ and the Electro-Punky ‘Cameo’ could easily find their place on today’s Indie-Dance dancefloors while ‘Human Rocket’ and ‘Later Is Now’ are as close to ElectroPop as DEVO have ever been, particularly the latter which is borderline Nu-Disco! It’s an album that is defiantly recommended to readers of electronic rumors.
DEVO founder Gerald Casale took the time to let electronic rumors pick his brains:
ER: You’ve toured pretty consistently throughout your career, and released the odd single here and there in the past decade but this is your first studio album in 20 years. Why now? What prompted this?
GC: It was now or never. De-evolution is real and DEVO is therefore in step with the times, no longer pioneers who got scalped. Speaking for myself, I have as much creative energy as I ever did and plenty to get off my chest. DEVO was always the most important vehicle for self-expression. We had a voice in the marketplace that I took seriously. After being de-branded for 20 years against my personal wishes it was a real challenge to get back on the horse so to speak.
ER: Do you feel like now, after 20 years of music, media and arts experiments and status quos, the world is ready for DEVO again?
GC: Yes. We are now the house band on the Titanic, soothing fellow passengers as we all go down together.
ER: How did the decision to open up the track listing for the new album to public consultation, in your Song Study, come about?
GC: We worked with Mother, the adbusters of advertising, and we agreed with them to use all the techniques that corporate culture uses today to introduce new content and new products. Music has been devalued in its cultural importance. No one even thinks they should pay for it. Every aspiring band makes a record in their bedroom and releases it via social networking. More than 10 thousand CD’s are released per month. The old business model is imploded. No viable model has taken its place. Record Labels will no longer exist as we know them in 5 years or so. Marketing is everything in such a world. The beginning and the end. Why do you know there’s a new DEVO record? Why should you care? Mother tells you why.
ER: Were you surprised by the end result or did it gel with what you would have picked anyway?
GC: Our version of the CD is 88% focus group approved. On June 15th the 100% focus group approved version will be released on iTunes. The 12 tracks will be sequenced in the order of votes they received.
ER: Do you think democratizing your album in this way is the ultimate expression of the internet’s democratization of music (in the sense that not only do the music fans have more methods of discovering and aiding to the success of new bands, free of record labels deciding what should be popular, but now with projects like this they even have a say over what course their favourite established bands take) or do you think it can be pushed further? Do you have more idea for ‘musical 4th wall’ breaking you’d like to do in the future?
GC: We of course wanted to push it much further, a much deeper, wider public involvement in the whole process. But the process costs money to conduct. The creation of assets on line and the management of those assets require professional maintenance and quality and assurance policing. We needed Warner Brothers money for the marketing plan. So, with them as our finance and publicity partner we had to play ball inside their more traditional, old school bullpen.
ER: Are you still as advocate of the de-evolution theory and the book The Beginning Was The End as when you started? Do you see your prophecy (as it were) coming to pass?
GC: Devolution is indeed a prophecy fulfilled. It’s a bit ironic and not something we wanted to see happen. But now we can move forward based on this fact, more or less like we can all go forward knowing that Global Warming is real.
ER: Do you think de-evolution applies to music too? Have DEVO evolved or de-evolved?
GC: We are in substance that of which we speak. We always tried to make that clear. None of us can fit into our silver suits from the cover of the Freedom of Choice LP.
ER: Whatever happened to the DEVO movie about your early years I head you were going to make?
GC: Unfortunately I have not been able to secure financing for the script. So, it is in suspended animation like so many big ideas we had.
ER: I’d imagine that you guys have amassed a pretty exiting amount of studio gear throughout your career; do you have any favourite bits of kit?
GC: we still have the original analogue synths we used starting in 1975 such as the mini moog, the Arp Odyssey and so many more. We used them all on the new songs.
ER: What was your go to gear in he production of new album?, Are you using soft synths now or do the analogue synths still play a big part?
GC: I have half answered this above. We combined the use of analogue synths with soft synths and digital samples and real drums used to trigger drum sound samples, etc. Guitars and basses were of course mutated through outboard gear such as frequency divides and vintage distortion pedals.
ER: I’ve heard you’re a big fan of musical toys and circuit bending, how did you get into this stuff and do you still use it?, Do you have a favourite new toy you’re dying to try out live?
GC: That’s really a question for Mark [Mark Mothersbaugh – ER]. Not that I’m not a fan but he spends the time it takes (and it takes mucho time) to get custom, usable circuit bending devices. Still they never do the same thing twice.
ER: Devo must be the subject of a few musical myths and snap judgements from the uninitiated, any misconceptions from you’re nearly forty years going you’d like to clear up?
GC: Mark and I were not advertising creatives. We did not get other musicians to play our parts for us. We did not ask Johnny Rotten to join DEVO. We were not robots or nerds; we just looked like nerds which let us get away with all the sex and drugs that all creative people do. In our case there was no scrutiny by the press.
ER: OK…Devo 2.0, what was that all about? Was it your idea or Disney’s?
GC: Disney’s Hollywood Records division initiated the idea. We found it to be Dadaist and subversive on the face of it. They chose the songs. It took me 3 months of casting to find 5 kids who could sing and play. Then, when I was shooting the videos, the executives at Disney asked to see copies of all the lyrics to the songs they selected. That’s when everything turned truly DEVO. They really schooled me with their “insights” into our lyrics as they demanded changes and censored lyrics. My favorite was “you can’t say it’s a beautiful world for you, but not for me!” I asked what I could say. They replied “it’s a beautiful for you and me too!”
ER: Would you say DEVO was more of a cereal or big pile of pancakes kinda’ band?
GC: I think we’ll avoid any comparison to a ”big pile” of anything. We’re more like Cheerios or Menthos.
Many thanks to Gerald for dropping his science on us.
Give DEVO’s forthcoming single and the lead track from the new album, ‘Fresh’ a listen, it sounds amazingly like it says on the tin.
♫ DEVO – Fresh
The single ‘Fresh’ is released the same day as the album, and in breaking news DEVO have just announced that can be seen, campaigning for Mutant Rights in the 100th episode of the awesome (and resurrected) Futurama!
DEVO’s new album ‘Something For Everybody’ is released 14th July on Warner Bros. Records. Further info at www.clubdevo.com.
Alrighty synth fans! I hope you all had a good weekend, mine was made that little bit better by coming home to find a new email from Australia’s best kept secret, Beaumont, pimping out his new reMix.
Taking on ‘I Won’t Kneel’ by Groove Armada, featuring the vocals of SaintSaviour, Beaumont continues to go from strength to strength, his skills as a reMixer and produces seem to be growing with every new mix. His musical confidence too, which shines though in this complex, yet funky as hell, reMix.
electronic rumors 