I've watched it. The pic's not that bad. It's a good doc for what it is (I'm not a fan of pretty much all those groups). I even forced myself to watch all of it in spite of my aversion to Howard Jones.Originally Posted by hippypants
I've watched it. The pic's not that bad. It's a good doc for what it is (I'm not a fan of pretty much all those groups). I even forced myself to watch all of it in spite of my aversion to Howard Jones.
Ha, well, I understand the aversion to Howard Jones, no one is to blame.
Yeah, I saw that one a couple years ago. As I recall, they lump a lot of stuff like Thompson Twins and Howard Jones and a few others together as "bandwagon jumpers" or whatever and imply that their music was somehow inferior to Depeche Mode, OMD, etc, which I take exception to. Also, there's that bit at the end where the OMD guy makes the wisecrack about how synthesizers eventually fell out of favor, guitars were "back in" and "You get Oasis! The horror!". As if OMD's music was somehow substantially better than Oasis, just because they used synths instead of guitars and drums.
(actually, I do like a few of the OMD songs I've heard over the years, but it's not because they used synths instead of guitars, but because I think the songwriting talent in OMD was substantially better)
It's like saying a McD's burger isn't quite as good as a Whopper Jr. The keyword is barely.
Well, if your perspective is being a synth band you might feel that way though.
I think it's more that certain people were theoretically doing a certain thing slightly ahead of others (or at least that's the perception of some), and when someone else came along slightly later doing something similar, it's somehow derided as being inferior. Personally, I love Thompson Twins. Both Quick Step & Side Kick and Into The Gap are great records. So what if they came a little later than the first Pleasure Principle or whatever the first OMD or Depeche Mode records were called?!It's like saying a McD's burger isn't quite as good as a Whopper Jr. The keyword is barely.
BTW, I saw another documentary about the late 70's Sheffield music scene, called Made In Sheffield. A sizable portion of the film is devoted the early Human League (before Phillip Oakey and Martin Ware "became unable to work together") and I think ABC was the other band that was talked about a lot in that film. At one point, they start talking about Gary Numan, and some guy, who apparently his sole contribution to the Sheffield synth pop scene was writing a fanzine, says that "we felt Gary Numan ripped off Human League".
The other thing I remember about this thing was one of the guys, I think, from ABC talking about seeing whichever band it was, one of the synth pop groups, back in 1979 or 1980, and the opening band was a "new group we'd never heard of called Def Leppard". He then spends like 90 seconds just totally ripping Def Leppard to shreds, saying "I thought punk was supposed to have killed off this shit!". And he says it like he feels that way now!
I think, it's more that you have a musician who thought he was making "music of the future" and was apparently shocked to find out that his "music of the future" became just as cliche ridden and "redundant/outmoded/superfluous/unfashionable/whatever" as the stuff he and his compatriots attempted to "replace" or whatever.
(actually, I'm assuming he was only half kidding with that commentary, but there is a reasonable point that guitars "became fashionable again" and the results were often times less than appealing, at least in some quarters...though one could argue there was just as much unappealing music during the latter part, at least, of the synth pop era)
Music or burgers. Either metaphor will suffice.
I really got in to the synthpop (as my circle of friends called it) thing in the early 80's, was a fan of OMD, Howard Jones (big Keith Emerson fan), Gary Numan etc. Me and a couple of friends went nuts for Depressed Mode, this is my favorite by them:
I got in to punk because of the music, I am still a huge fan of the first two Clash albums, Never Mind the Bollocks, early Buzzcocks and Los Angeles bands like X and Bad Religion because there was a strong songwriting thing going on. I also liked the move towards indie labels and everybody being encouraged to pick up an instrument. What's interesting is the unintended consequence that the ABC guy alludes to: by about 1982, image had become just as important as the music (see also: glam in 1972/73) and with the advent of MTV here in the US in late 1981, it meant groups like Wham! and Culture Club were popular, and later the hair metal bands because they were radio friendly and looked good in videos. Woops!He then spends like 90 seconds just totally ripping Def Leppard to shreds, saying "I thought punk was supposed to have killed off this shit!". And he says it like he feels that way now!
...or you could love
Gary Numan? Do they mention The Banana Splits too?
Well, I think you're talking about something different from what the ABC guy was talking about in the documentary. I don't think what he was talking had anything to do with MTV or image or anything like that. He seemed to be presenting this sort of anti-hard rock/metal attitude that had become part of the whole punk thing. Remember we're talking about before Def Leppard had a record deal, before anyone had ever heard of them. At the time, they were a hard rock band, and obviously onstage, none of the over-production they would become associated with from Pyromania onward.
And as far as the "image" thing goes, that was always part of popular music. The whole teen idol thing was around before there was a rock n roll. It's how Frank Sinatra initially was presented to the public. So the idea that MTV somehow generated that is ridiculous. And the whole glam metal thing was more a result of record companies than it was MTV. It wasn't MTV that signed untalented acts like Warrant, and it wasn't MTV who forced bands to record inferior power ballads and water down their music "so the chicks will dig it".
And know who one of the record company guys who was responsible for that, don't you?! Mr Derek Shulman. Yes, that's right, the guy from Gentle Giant. After the band broke up, he went over to the Dark Side, become a major record company executive and participated in the whole glam metal/hair band thing. He was even interviewed in the glam metal episode of Metal Evolution.
Are you taling shit about Gary Numan?
Cool $200. analog Moog: http://boingboing.net/2015/09/29/coo...-synthesi.html
Meanwhile, Moog has just come out with this. $679 direct from Moog; a little less from the usual retailers. Want!!!
http://www.moogmusic.com/sight-and-s...cing-mother-32
Nice, Mr. Triscuits
Long as we're slapping down some videos, here one on the Moog Werkstatt, which is a demo of what it can do. The guy manning the controls really knows his synths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5P14EgqfsU
Here's another vid about returning to modular synths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w6q...e-001a113f2b78
We have a Minitaur (great name
I want one, or two, or three, or, well as many as possible.
I wondered if anyone had seen those Gameboy games/plug-ins you could buy that allow you to turn it into a synth more or less? I don't know how versatile they were, but I thought it was a unique and cool idea.
I played with one of these for about 4 hours a few months back. If there was a way to just gig with one of these and an echo unit I'd do it. Indeed, there is and I may at that.
http://www.korg.com/us/products/dj/monotron/
Less knobs, more problems.
Here's a nice little doc called Analogue Heaven
Here's another movie that has a synth score. I've been looking for it ever since I found the Michael Stearns score on vinyl. It's great to finally see it.
I saw that movie in the mid to late '80s and then set out trying to track down the soundtrack, finally finding it using the pre-WWW internet and tracking down a copy from a New Mexico bookstore.
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