Latest / Electronic Music / Richard Evans - Inventing Electronic Pop
Transcript
- Hello and welcome to the Sound On Sound podcast channel about electronic music and all things synth. I'm Rob Puricelli. Richard Evans has worked in the music industry for over 30 years in a variety of roles including positions at London and Factory Records and MTV Europe. In 1998, he set up marketing consultancy, the fan base, and has been connecting musical artists with their audiences ever since. He's the founder of the This Is Not Retro website and record label, and has worked for Andy Bell, Vince Clark, and Erasure since 2009 during the pandemic. Richard set out to create a definitive record of electronic music during its earliest and most defining era between 1978 and 1983. Instead of interviewing people with rose tinted and distorted memories of that period, He instead decided to research the very magazines and publications being created as things happened to piece together an accurate record of the movement as it unfolded in real time. Before asking him about his process and what he discovered, I wanted to know why he chose this specific five year period. Good question. Good question, and one that I sort of had to negotiate my way through when I was writing the book. Um, I knew that I had to start somewhere, and I knew I had to finish somewhere. And after that, I was a little bit clueless. So I started working on the records that I wanted to write about. And, um, I knew that the first record that was important for my narrative, uh, was the Normals, TVOD, and Warm Leatherette, um, in, in 1978, um, shortly followed by Being Roiled by the Human League. Um, so they were sort of like my starting point. So that was fairly straightforward. Um, and then I knew that, um, By 1983, electronic music started to become quite confused. Um, you know, it's like, everything was electronic music by 1983. You know, all the rock bands were using it. You know, everyone was using the same technology and the same production techniques and the same, you know, the same sort of, you know, quirky bits and pieces. And things were sort of just crossing into each other. And it felt like at that point, The term electronic music, in the context as I'm writing about it, sort of ceased to make sense. And I seized upon New Order's Blue Monday, um, as the record that I wanted to do as my last record. Um, because I felt like it was a really good one, because it's signposted on the internet. what was coming next. You know, it's like that sort of connection with Arthur Baker in New York, uh, you know, feeding into the Africa Bambaataa, um, electro scene, uh, and, and that felt like a really nice place to sort of point, point the reader, uh, you know, to, to, to, to different books about different things, you know, because after that it starts to get again, you know, quite, quite confused. Did you use records, specific records throughout that timeline to then hang your story off of. Um, I kind of did to an extent, but I really used the media more than anything else. Um, so the way the book was sort of put together was that I went to the British Library in London, And I spent days and weeks and months there. And basically I looked at every music paper or magazine or journal that I could get my hands on from 1978 to 1983. And so I'd go to the British Library and I'd get these huge bound volumes off the shelf, you know, and it would have, you know, the first three months of 1978's NMEs. And I'd literally just turn the page and turn the page and turn the page. And when I saw something that I thought, you know, That's interesting. That might be useful. I got my phone and I took a photo of it. That might be a mention of a throbbing gristle record, or it might be, you know, the first mention that I'd seen of Cabaret Voltaire or something like that. Um, and by the end of the process, by the end of these weeks and months spent, um, you know, in the dark in the British library, I had literally thousands of photographs of little bits of, you know, snippets of, of, of, of, of, of. Stuff from the, from the media, uh, and, and that became the basis of the book. Um, so it's like, it was kind of like having a big box of jigsaw pieces. And then I had to make the jigsaw. So let's go back then, cause I started off somewhere in the writing process, but what actually made you want to write this book in the first place? What was, what was the motivation behind this, uh, this mammoth tome that sits in front of me? I think mostly madness. Um, I, I don't quite know, to be honest, I wrote a previous book, um, called Remember the Eighties back in 2008, uh, and that was a very sort of irreverent, um, guide to the pop culture of the eighties. It was more pictures than words, it was a sort of a big, bright, you know, the sort of Christmas gift you'd give, you know, someone who likes the eighties. Uh, and, and I think because I did that, prior to that, I had no aspirations to be a writer at all. Um, and, um, The publisher came to me, um, because I was running a website at the time called Remember the 80s. Uh, and this was before the big 80s revival had happened. Uh, and they were saying, Oh, we think there's a book in this. You know, would you write a book? And I thought, well, you know, why not? You know, it's like the sort of opportunity you kind of can't turn down. So I said, yes. And I wrote this book, which, like I say, was, you know, a sort of like, a coffee table sort of irreverent celebration of the 80s. Um, but I think the important thing there was that I suddenly realized that even people like me are allowed to write books. Um, and because I did that book, people started saying, Oh, are you going to do another book? And I thought, how am I going to do another book? It's like, I don't know really. Um, but what I was doing was I was reading loads of other books. Um, so I, I love to read all the biographies and all the sort of the music books that come through. That sort of touch on anything to do with any of my interests. Uh, and I started to realize that, Everyone was telling their story, but in this sort of little corner of electronic pop music, no one had kind of put all the stories together in one place and sort of run them against each other, so you could sort of see what was happening in tandem with what was, you know, what was happening elsewhere. And I started also to realize that because lots of the people who were writing these books were writing about their own experiences from a 45 year perspective, I've started to realize that sometimes that the stories that they were telling had sort of been, I don't know, polished in having been told so many times over so many years, and I thought it would be interesting to go back to the original source materials and find out, Um, you know, how, how things were received and how things unfolded and how things, you know, started to, started to happen for these bands. And, and with all these sorts of things in my head, I started to think, well, maybe there's a book in there, you know, and I was kind of hoping that someone else would write it and they, they didn't. So, so in the end, I had to sort of buckle down, uh, and, and I decided I would try and do it myself. And I put together a proposal, uh, which went around some publishers and omnibus press. picked it up and, um, and said, yes, let's, let's do a book. Uh, and we signed that contract just as lockdown started. And, uh, and, and that's where all the trouble started. Cause then I had to write a book. You had no excuse. Exactly. It's kind of like sitting in the British library, looking through the music press from the 1970s and 1980s. Yeah. That seems like fun writing your books, quite hard work. So it's interesting you say that because I speak to a lot of musicians, um, from that era. And sometimes I speak to musicians or developers or manufacturers. Um, and all of their stories kind of have a sense of, um, similarity, but everyone has their own little spin or they remember it slightly differently. So what you were doing was taking all of that information, but then kind of fact checking it against things that were actually documented. At the time and and then hopefully you come up to sort of like a universal truth. Yeah, absolutely That was that was that was the intention definitely And it was like I kind of wanted to sort of I wanted to see if it was true You know the bands, you know always say oh, it's like everyone hated us when we started out and I wanted to sort of say Did they all hate you? And on the whole, yes, they did, but actually not always. And there were sort of, you know, key people in the press who were supporters of, you know, the sort of the early, uh, post punk electronic experimentation. Um, but it was like, yeah, the idea of putting all these stories together in one place was really appealing. Um, and, um, Yeah, and that's, that's where, that's where I started from. Tell me about the title. Uh, where does that come from? Okay, so Listening to the Music the Machines Make is a lyric. Um, it comes from the song Just for a Moment, uh, which is by Ultravox, uh, the first incarnation of Ultravox, and it's on their, um, album Systems of Romance. Uh, and I was, I can remember I was driving along, um, and, uh, I was listening to Systems of Romance in the car, and this song came on, and I thought, Oh, listening to the music the machines make, that'll be a great, great title for my book. And I pulled over, uh, into, into a lay by and wrote it all down. And, um, one of the sort of the, the, one of the best, most exciting moments in the whole process was getting in touch with John Fox and saying, Look, I'm writing this book, uh, and it's about this and I would love to use your words as my title. Um, you know, please, thank you very much, Mr. Fox. So, uh, and getting a message back saying that's absolutely fine. I, you know, love you to do that and good luck with the project. So, um, yeah, so that's, that's where that one came from. How hard was it to get in touch with a lot of the, you know, the protagonists of the time, the musicians, you know, the artists, the label people, you know, how, how difficult was it or how easy was it to, to get in touch? Um, it wasn't too terrible because, um, because, because the sort of the thrust of the book is to tell the story from the original documents. Uh, so the original press at the time, you know, radio documentaries and things that were happening at the time where I could find them. There wasn't so much of a need to have people available to tell the stories because I was telling the stories from the things that I already had. Um, but it was brilliant to have the, the input of, of a selection of people. Um, and to answer your question about how easy it was, it was fairly straightforward, but that's because I work in the music industry. Yeah. Um, and so it's like some of, some of these, some of these paths are more open to me than maybe they would be if I didn't. Yeah, because am I right, you work with Erasure in some capacity? That's right, I do. Um, I run the Erasure office. Um, so Vince and Andy manage themselves. Um, so I'm, I'm not, I'm not their manager and I'm always at pains to say that I'm not their manager. Um, but most of the stuff that they do comes into me. To be worked out with them and then comes out from me back out into the world. So I'm sort of, I'm sort of, I'm sort of their, their office manager, if you like. And, and did your connections with Vince and Andy, cause obviously Vince wrote the forward to the book, but did your connections with those two then maybe grease the wheels to help you get into other people's? Yeah, I think they did. It's like over the course I've, I've worked with Eurasian for 15 years. So over the course of that time, uh, in the course of my work for Vince and Andy, I've, I've sort of. being, you know, intertwined with other people's world. So people like Martin Ware, who does lots of stuff with Vince, you know, and, and OMD, who, you know, who are, who are friends of Andy's and, you know, so it's like these, these people have sort of became familiar to me. Uh, and so when the, the, the need to sort of, you know, talk to people came up, it's like I had an easy in. I was lucky from that point of view. I've got a couple of questions that are almost identical, but there's one key difference. So my first question that I want to ask you, because of the content of this book traverses, you know, um, a five to six year period. Um, what do you consider? Milestone songs that would typify electronic pop music between those years. What, what, in your view, your personal view, are those milestone moments in pop music history in terms of electronic pop? Well, um, it's a really difficult one, actually, off the top of my head. Uh, I would say, um, being boiled and TVOD, woman of the rep from the normal, uh, being boiled from the human league right at the beginning, I think they were, You know, in terms of seminal records, they were, they were, they were the dogs. Uh, uh, and then I guess, um, moving on from that, it would be things like early OMD. Uh, and then Our Friends Electric. Uh, I think that was a sort of a real, sort of a, a, a, a breakthrough record for the, for the movement generally. You know, it's like sort of having that becoming a hit being accepted into the pop universe Um, you know was extraordinary and and opened those doors for so many other people to sort of come rushing through Um, so that will be another one. Um And then anything from dare and or league unlimited orchestras, um, love and dancing, uh Sort of the companion piece. I think that sort of, you know, sums up a whole nother section You Um, anything from Yazoo, um, you know, because I think they, they were sort of, they, they started to be the start of the next thing. Um, and Dipesh Mode as well. It's like, it's interesting, it's like, although there wasn't many artists that I wasn't familiar with before I started writing the book, I realized when I was writing it that I hadn't listened to everything. Um, and I also realized that I'm more of a singles listener than an albums listener. There was quite a treasure trove of things for me to find and to listen to. And I did my best to listen to everything that I was writing about. Um, uh, and so it's like, I didn't only just find sort of deep, deep tracks, you know, hidden away, you know, b sides and that sort of thing. Um, but it was like the chance to sort of revisit things like, for example, um, Leaving Silence by Depeche Mode. Which I suddenly realized, it's like, at the time, I hadn't realized how pivotal it was between the two different Dupesh modes. I felt that that record was a really important one, and maybe an unsung important one. Um, you know, in, in their development as they sort of became, well, steps to what they are today, you know, the biggest electronic band in the world. Um, you know, so, so yeah, so there, there, there are so many along the way. Uh, and like I say, it's like I wanted to end with New World is Blue Monday and in the end I actually ended with I think, um, Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Relax, um, because that was a little bit later, it was at the end of the year and it was like, you know, again, it was a, another sort of pivotal moment in, in the way that things were moving. And then there's all the hip hop stuff and the electro stuff and it's like once you start thinking about it, it's like there's there's thousands of them Yeah, absolutely. So, um the other question where i'm going to change just one element is what do you consider? um milestone Pieces of equipment because our listeners obviously are very interested in synthesizers and hardware and so during your, uh, your research and your, um, sort of journey through this time, did you find that there were key pieces of, um, electronic music equipment that bands were using that seemed to be, um, pivotal in their success or common through, you know, there was a common thread maybe, or even just your own personal view on, on, on that. What instruments stood out at the time? I see, I'm afraid your listeners are going to be a little bit disappointed by this. Because I'm not a musician. I don't play anything. I've never played anything. And I actually don't know much about the gear at all. But in another way of answering your question, I did start to realise that one of the things that was important was the technology. And each successive piece of technology did seem to bring something new to the table that everyone sort of seized upon. And then by the end of this period that I write about it felt like there'll be a new piece of equipment or a new sound, a new something, and then everyone would have to have it, and then everyone would have to have another thing on top of it. So it's like, almost like you've got these sort of teetering piles of layers of sounds, you know, because everyone was sort of trying to outdo everyone else and sort of adding more and more bells and whistles and, you know, all the bits and pieces. And the other thing I think is that there's a real importance to the producers who were operating at the time. I'm thinking of people like Martin Rushand, and Trevor Horn, and the guy who did the Joy Division records. Oh, Martin Hannett. Martin Hannett, yeah. So, so here at the beginning, you know, so it's like these people were sort of, sort of seem to become known for certain sounds and certain feelings, you know, sonic feelings. And I think that they were very important in this in this this story as well. Yeah, because producers back then were almost as influential and uh, Notorious or well known For what they were doing with bands And maybe it's just me getting old. Maybe maybe it's that but it doesn't seem to be that way so much anymore Whereas back then If you saw a record, uh, and in fact, there's a, there's a, an image in your book where the, it's a, uh, an image of an advert and it says produced by Martin Russian, you wouldn't get that on a, on a, an advert, not that there's much print advertising in pop music these days, but you just, you wouldn't get that, you know, tag on the end because. That would attract a whole wealth of people to an artist that maybe wasn't so well known if they saw it was produced by By russian or horn or hannit They would gravitate to that because they knew they liked that it's the same with the labels as well Uh, you know, there was an affinity with a label You'd always buy something on a particular label because you you know, your favorite artists were on that label, too Yeah, yeah, that's that's completely true. It's like, you know people like multi russian for example, you know I think they're also important because You Because they tended to be slightly older than the musicians that they're working with, you know, that I write about, you know, and because of that, they've sort of got grounding in different kinds of music. And although the, the, the sort of the electro pop, um, artists that I write about were very, uh, broad in their, in their influences and the things that they sort of bought into music. You know, rock music and disco and progressive and, you know, kind of everything it was, there was, there was no sort of snobbishness about it. Um, it felt like people like Martin Russian, who've sort of cut his teeth with the stranglers and the buzzcocks, you know, in the sort of the more punkier years, you know, they, they were sort of bringing something, they were joining dots in, you know, in a way that was quite interesting, I think, you know, to sort of come from the stranglers and then to try and do joy division, which Martin Russian did try and do. Uh, and then to do the Human League and Visage and then to sort of, you know, keep moving through to Pete Shelley and to, to, to, to, and then on to people like, um, Altered Images, you know, it's like, it's like almost like that kind of tells a story of the 80s, you know, in, in, in, in, in, in itself. Yeah, because each producer would also have like a sonic, uh, footprint or sonic fingerprint, sorry. Yeah. Uh, the even, you know, like with, with Russian, you know, you had on one hand altered images, which very well. Jangly guitar pop and then you have the humanly which barely had any guitars in it at all And yet you could but you could tell they were russian productions one thing that really jumped out at me and it's Wasn't a surprise as such but it just kind of really Emphasized it was the fact that when I look through the, uh, the contents, uh, the front of the book, you, you break it down into these, um, sections, a revolution transition, mainstream and reaction, which basically tells that story of how it all starts. And when, you know, eventually becomes very mainstream and, and therefore a little bit formulaic and maybe not so interesting, but looking through. You've divided each of those areas up into years and months in those years and looking at the names of the bands that you're talking about, I would say without really sort of looking, you know, doing some proper mathematics, I'd say about 98 to 99 percent of the acts listed are British. Do you think that, I mean, obviously there were American electronic acts and there were European electronic acts based on what you've, you've learned through writing this book. Do you think that the British electronic pop movement was really the vanguard? It was, you know, the biggest influence globally in terms of this style of music. I actually absolutely completely do. Uh, there are notable exceptions, of course, as there are every rule, you know, it's like, you know, none of this could have happened without Kraftwerk. You know, in, in, in, in Germany, you know, so, so, so straight away that they, that they, they should be up there. Although in a, in their own way, they, they're also part of this story because they were having such success at this time. You know, it's like they sort of managed to, they, they almost got left behind and then they were on the coattails of the new things. And uh, and, and then they sort of moved through with it. Um, but it, it, I, I, I, I had to restrict myself to a certain amount. You, you know how big the book is. Uh, uh, and it's like, so I, I geographically kind of restricted myself to bands which had been, which had picked up interest in the uk. Um, so, so most of, most of the things that I write about had success in some sort of a, a, an extent in, in the uk. So even if it was like telex, you know, from Belgium, uh, who only had one hit single, which only got to number 34, um, they felt like they were an interesting enough band and a a, a sort of quirky enough stories. Connected with them, uh, to, to include them. Um, but there's, there's not a great deal of American stuff until quite near the end of the book, where, uh, right at the end of the book, there's a section which is quite short, which is sort of Where electronic music went in the next 10 years after 1983 and that's where America really sort of sort of jumps in You know with house music and techno and then into the Nine Inch Nails industrial areas and that sort of thing So so yeah, so so it was it was intentional to keep it fairly UK focused Um, but I was glad also that I was able to bring in international acts as well. Why do you think then were the brits so good at doing this? Is there something in our culture is there something in our dna our upbringing, uh that that Seem to generate this wealth of electronic music. I didn't, you know, I don't think there's been a movement like that since, you know, the British, the first British invasion of the 60s into the U S where every single band that seemed to get a record deal was getting a hit single both sides of the Atlantic. And then all of a sudden, some, you know, 20, nearly 20 years later, we're doing it all again, but with electronic music. And it wasn't as if the electronic. instrument industry was centered in the UK. It was mainly either America or Japan. We had a few great manufacturers here in the UK and some very esoteric ones, um, but it wasn't as if we had that to draw on. What do you think British electronic pop music artists drew upon for, you know, to fuel this, this revolution? I don't know for sure, um, but my theory is that because Britain is quite small, um, it was possible for interesting, unusual, innovative acts. to make a bigger impression more quickly. Um, I think that the sort of the infrastructure of the music industry was, is, is quite advanced in, in the UK, uh, in, in a way that, um, that, that it maybe wasn't elsewhere. And I think that there was also, um, a tradition, uh, for the world to be looking to the UK for music, um, because the UK has always kind of dominated pop music history. Um, you know, so I think that those things were all important. Um, but I think one of the things that is the most important to this, this, this whole story, uh, is punk rock. Um, and because punk was, again, a seismic shock, but in a very small area, um, it's, it was able to have quite significant impact on the people it touched. Um, and a lot of those people it touched weren't that bothered by the music. Because they'd sort of heard that before, you know, it's, it's rock music. It might be a bit louder or a bit faster. Um, but basically it's rock music. Um, but what punk also did was it enabled people because it demonstrated that you can create your own infrastructure. Um, and I think because punk was so influential here in the uk, um, and, um, these, these bands that I write about were, were so quick to sort of seize upon. You know, the fact that you could actually make your own records, you know, you could, you could press, you know, record them yourself, you can press them yourself, you can get them distributed yourself, you know, you could book your own gigs, you didn't need the music industry, you know, to sort of do those things for you. And I think because of that, there was like a creativity, which was unfettered by, by the labels, because the labels weren't particularly involved at that point. Um, and because of that. This new technology that the Japanese and the American stuff that you were just talking about was getting into the hands of people who actually had no idea how to use it. Uh, and, and that was just brilliant because they had the, the goal, the cheek, you know, to basically sort of plug these things in and make some noises and call themselves musicians. You know, they had no idea how music works. They have no idea what you're supposed to do or what you're not supposed to do. And because of that, they just created things that just felt right to them at the time. And what a brilliant power that that has. I always think of punk as, if you excuse the phrase, a cultural enema. It kind of wiped the slate clean in terms of, What we could do because up until that point, everybody thought, well, if you want to make a record, you've got to get signed to a big label. Then you've got to have money to get into a studio and do all of this thing. And then punk comes along and says, no, you don't have to do that. You can record yourselves on the cheapest, nastiest equipment. Um, people will love you for that. Your song's going to have three chords and be over in two minutes. And people will love it. And you make your own fashion, you make your own sleeves, you make your own distribution networks. So it did that, but also, uh, it, um, it empowered this DIY ethic that you mentioned that, you know, it. said to everyone, you can do all of this yourself. You don't need to have big corporate people coming in and sticking their oar in. And then I think, you know, both labels and artists, or I think a lot of the time the, the labels grew out of the artists. A lot of artists started their own labels, you know, Jerry Damers and, and everything that came out of Coventry at the time was all, you know, have a few bands getting together, pooling their funds and, and, and doing, doing it themselves, um, One of the first things that surprised me about the book when I first started going through it was the first picture in it is a picture of Bowie. Yes. Now, I'm a huge Bowie fan, but I wasn't expecting Bowie to be at the beginning. And then I realized why Bowie was at the beginning. I just wondered maybe if you could elaborate on, on Bowie's influence on electronic music because obviously he wasn't, you know, hugely known for his dabbling with electronics. Obviously there was, you know, the whole second side of low was pretty much him and the, you know, dabbling, but it wasn't electronic music as we came to understand it. So yeah. Could you, uh, elaborate on that a little bit for me? Yeah. So although the book sort of the book proper starts in 1978, as we discussed, um, I realized that there had to be a section that dealt with sort of a roundup, if you like, of the things that were happening prior to 1978, you know, which fed into this, this, this new electronic pop movement. And I started looking into people's stories. And so I started to realize that a moment that lots of people, that resonated with lots of the people who became the artists of my book was Uh, David Bowie going on Top of the Pops in 1972, uh, to perform Starman, uh, and, and at that time, of course, you know, Top of the Pops was on, you know, and everyone watched it, you know, it's like, you know, there was, there was what, three channels at the time, you know, the, the, the audience figures for Top of the Pops would be, you know, 15 million or, or something like that, uh, and, and I think that for, for the people that I write about, the generation of people that I write about, you know, They were probably about 14 at that sort of time. So they were sort of ripe for their own musical discoveries. Uh, and it felt like lots of people had sort of come together, uh, even though they hadn't actually met. Uh, through this shared experience of watching this performance, uh, which was bright and futuristic, uh, and exciting, and your mum wouldn't like it, uh, and all the things that you want from pop music. And that was David Bowie. Um, and so people started to follow David Bowie. You know, he was like an entry point, if you like, I think, for a lot of people, uh, into pop music. And then David Bowie, because he was such an eclectic artist, He was a great place to start because immediately after doing that, he of course kills Ziggy Stardust and, you know, moves on and does new things. Uh, and he does start to experiment with, experiment with electronics. And, and he teams up with by know, as I'm sure everyone listening to this podcast Will, will know. Uh, and they, they make low and they make heroes and they make lodger. Uh, and, and then it's like the, but the music that he's been making, he, he's, because he is who he is, he has the platform to tell people what to listen to, and, and he told people to listen to craft work. And he told people to listen to Noi and to Tangerine Dream. Uh, and because people loved him, they did. They went off and they listened to these things, and they were like, Wow, you know, it's like, Kraftwerk are great, and Noi are great, and Tangerine Dream are great. You know, and, and those sorts of things all sort of fed into, into the burgeoning, um, creativity that would eventually become a whole new wave of electronic pop. So he was one influence, but of course, another influence of early electronic pop music was, uh, literature and specifically the writings of people like J. G. Ballard and so on, that kind of, uh, dystopian futuristic stuff. When you were doing your research, did you, did you find more? Uh, more and more that, uh, many other artists were doing that, you know, the obvious ones, you know, we talk about, uh, TVOD and, uh, Human League who were, you know, uh, you know, their first output was pretty much all based on, you know, their impressions or interpretations of ballad. But did you find that that carried on throughout electronic pop, you know, that period of electronic pop music? I think it did. I think it, I think it was an electronic music thing as well, but I think it was also. I think at, at the time I think Sci-Fi was, was more prevalent. You know, it's like, it was more sort of a rite of passage that you were sort of reading, you know, HP Lovecraft and you know, Michael Cock and, you know, all, all sorts of, you know, sort of strange, strange writers, you know, as, as, as well as the Ballards and, and, and Asimov and people like that. Um, but so, so it seemed like lots of people had these, these familiar touchstones. Um, Gary Neumann I think is a, is a, is a prime example of this. Um, because he was so influenced by sci fi that he decided he wanted to be a sci fi writer himself. Uh, and so he started to pen these stories, uh, which then became the, the, the, the sort of the, the, the breeding ground for his, for his song lyrics. You know, it's like, it is, it's no, it's no surprise. Given that story, you know, that so many of his, his, his, his, his stories are about alienation and robots and, you know, sort of feeling, you know, feeling disconnected, um, because those were the sorts of themes that, you know, science fiction at the time was, were, were, were treading so effectively. But it did seem like almost everyone was, was touched by, by sci fi in some way or another, not just the books, but, you know, it's like Star Wars had just sort of dropped around about that time as well. Yeah. You know, so it's like all of a sudden, it's like everything was sort of about the future, uh, and, uh, and all of a sudden this, this accessibility to, to, to, to synthesize the technology, it kind of allowed people to make the sounds of the future, the sounds that they kind of been promised, you know, through these films and through these books and things. So I think it all fed in quite well. And of course, the political background at the time as well was very tumultuous and electronic pop seemed to really, uh, thrive on that in terms of its inspiration and speaking out for youth culture at the time. Yeah, it felt like this was a generation of young people who were very connected to what was going on in the country, what was going on around them. Uh, and it's like when you think that sort of in parallel to this electronic revolution was things like two tone, which you, which you, you, you, you, you touched upon just now, you know, so those things were happening as well. And everything was very politically charged. Everyone was very politically aware. Everyone was quite angry. Um, you know, and understandably so. Uh, and I think that, In those situations, then music can sort of become a way of revolting and it's also a way of escaping. So it sort of felt like the sort of the two tone thing was more of a sort of a revolution and the electronic thing was often more of an escape thing. It was like sort of trying to take yourself into a new futuristic place where things will be better and people will make better decisions and the world will be places as a result. When you were doing your research, uh, going through all of these, um, magazines and, and, uh, press articles of the time, you must've got a good impression of how the live scene was for electronic music artists. During that time, because I guess, I mean, I was, you know, coming into double figures in age, so I had no experience of that didn't get to go and see a lot of these bands at that time. And I guess it must have been difficult to, uh, get gigs. You see a lot of, you know, documentary footage of, you know, bands like Depeche Mode, uh, Crocs in Basildon and, you know, you see this very dedicated set of fans that are all in the, you know, all dressed up and they're there to, but you don't, you get the impression that that must have been quite a tough gig to get. And. Throughout that whole period of certainly the first couple of years that you cover in your book. I just wondered, you know, what kind of impression you got of the live music scene when it came to electronic pop around that time. Yeah, it's interesting actually, because I think increasingly as electronic music has developed, the live side has become less important to artists. You know, it's like lots of current electronic artists don't play live at all, it's not, not part of their, their, their raison d'etre. Um, but at that time, you kind of had to play live, because that's kind of how the music industry works. Um, and because it was punk, and punk was fairly accepting of, of odd stuff. In addition to the sort of, you know, the thousand miles an hour, you know, sort of cartoon punk, um, I think bands like ultra box right at the beginning of the book. So there's ultra box, there's, um, Japan or another one. Um, you know, they were very sort of much on that punk circuit, you know, there's sort of the post punk circuit. Um, so because, It goes back to that DIY ethos kind of thing. It's like, you know, local people were making, being their own promoters, you know, they're booking their own halls, you know, it's like this sort of local scenes were sort of springing up, you know, so in Liverpool, there was Eric's Club, and in Manchester was The Factory, in London, there was Blitz, um, you know, in, like, like you said, in, in Basildon, there was Crocs. You know, so all of a sudden these sort of scenes were very naturally coming together and as they did so they sort of created an opportunity for people to play. Um, so when Spandau Ballet, um, first got together, uh, and although they're not necessarily the first band you think of as an electronic band, um, you know, when you think about that, their early singles were very synthesizer led. You know, it's like, they, they deliberately wouldn't play in venues apart from venues where their own people already went. You know, to, to build up that following, which was kind of canny and, and, and clever of, of them to do. Um, so I think, you know, it's like, it was, it was a combination of those two things, and sort of the, the enabling of punk, uh, and the sort of the, the, the, the, the creation of, of local scenes. Loosely pulling in national interests, you know, you say electronic artists these days don't tend to be You know the big touring bands, but some of the artists from back then Are now some of the biggest electronic artists, you know, for example pet shop boys are selling out arenas. Yeah, they're in london soon and You know, they sold out wembley arena and back then the pet shop boy said we're not a touring band We're a studio band and yet here we are Yeah, everything's been flipped around again Yeah, it's, it's very strange, isn't it? And it is, it is interesting. It's like I, I think that because these bands sort of cut their teeth in these quite difficult circumstances, you know, it's like they, they, they learned their trade, you know, in a way that, you know, maybe other bands without their sort of, you know, legacy, uh, have had the opportunity to do, you know, it's like, I don't know how many shows they played in their lifetime, but it must be thousands. You know, it's like, and, and, and look at them now, you know, OMG, uh, probably, probably better now than they ever were. And they were always great. Um, you know, so it's like there was, there was a lot, a lot to it. And because they've sort of stuck with it. And I think also because for the legacy acts, which is sort of slightly loaded term, but I'm a bit loathe to use, but I can't think of another one to another one to use, um, because the, these bands were sort of, you know, When, when the eighties came to an end and the nineties started, and it sort of, everything went brick pop, uh, all of a sudden, no one was really interested in the electronic artists. So they kind of had no choice but to go back out on the road and reconnect with their audiences Because that was an opportunity for them to make money And because they did that they not only recreated their audiences which allowed them to make more records But they also sort of managed to sort of hone their skills as live bands Um, so it's like it's lots of different things all feeding into the same place. Do you think we'll ever see a revolution in, in music in general, not just electronic music, but, but music pop music in general that we saw during those five years that you cover in the book? Do you ever, do you think we'll ever see anything like that again? I don't think we will, actually. I don't think we will because I think that There's, there's no, um, culturally and socially, we don't have to look for things anymore, you know, everything is sort of just available, instantly and easily and conveniently, and it's like, I think if you don't have to work for stuff. Then it doesn't feel as special and if it doesn't feel as special, then the passion isn't there to sort of fuel it and the whole thing sort of becomes a bit of a vicious circle, not to say that there aren't exciting things happening all the time, but I can't feel that there's going to be another. Situation where something quite a seismic will happen as the opportunity to to make Electronic music. This is a beast of a book. I was just trying to it's it's over 500 pages if you include the index um What's next on, uh, have you got another book in mind? Do you, do you see yourself continuing the story beyond 83? Or are you gonna switch to maybe some other kind of subject? Um, this is a question that people do keep asking me. And I don't actually have a very good answer to it at the moment. Um, I don't think there's a sequel to this book. Um, because I think that, like I said earlier, it's like after 1983, although there is lots of electronic music and really interesting and innovative and unusual stuff going on, um, there isn't really one story to tell, one book of stories to tell, like, like there is for this, this generation. It's like, there kind of has to be a book for techno and there has to be a book for, for house and there has to be a book for industrial. And some of those books already exist, um, you know, which is great as a, as a, as a treasure trove of music writing out there. Um, so it doesn't, it doesn't feel logical to, to try and, to try and sort of do another six years. Um, because I think that the sort of the blurring of the boundaries between the things that are happening are just, just too, too wobbly to, to sort of really make sense. Make a narrative sense, and I think that would probably just drive me mad. But, but because it's like, like, after writing the first one and thinking, oh I can do this now, I can do a second one, and now I've done the second one, I'm thinking, well, I could probably do a third one. Um, but although I do have a couple of ideas, sort of, you know, swirling around, they're not very, very well formed at this point. Right, so it's more of a case of watch this space. But I would imagine, um, and forgive me for being presumptuous, given your position as, uh, you know, um, running the Erasure office, you are in that little circle. And would there maybe a, uh, maybe be a book about Vince and Andy's journey? Well, it's always possible. Um, but Vince and Andy, Individually and together probably get approached by publishers three times a year, um, and, and always have done, you know, so it's, it's, there's, there's a lot of interest there. Um, the interest isn't with Vince and Andy, it's that they don't feel they're at a point where they want to tell these stories. And it's, I think that they feel that they either have to be completely in and tell the whole story or completely out and not tell the story at all. Uh, and it's like politics sort of dictates that the middle ground is the safest ground, but that's kind of no the no book ground I don't know. You know, it's like every now and again, you know, the, the, the idea comes back is put back on the table. Uh, and if at any point Fitz and Andy are interested in doing that, then I hope they'll think of me. There's stories still being written. You know, there's, there's still, you know, they're still going, they're still putting out great music, new original music. So I guess there isn't, um, a point where you can draw a line and say, right, let's tell that story because that story is still being made. Um, one final question that I want to ask you and, uh, it's to do with, again, it's to do with the artists and again, flicking through the, uh, the contents, you're, you're looking through and you see that band all male, all male, all male. Oh, look, there's Laurie Anderson, more, more male bands, more male bands, and there wasn't a huge female presence at the time. Is that something do you think that was, well, I mean, why do you think that was that? I guess that is my question again, you know, based on your research, were you seeing a trend or anything that would explain why there weren't many female electronic artists? And it did seem to be an incredibly male dominated area at the time. Yeah, it struck me as well. Um, you know, while I was going through the research process for the book, that there are so few women, uh, you know, represented. It's like, you know, there are the girls in the Human League, of course, you know, but you know, they're not necessarily the vanguard of what the Human League was doing. You know, there was Annie Lennox, there was, uh, Alison Moyet, uh, Laurie Anderson, like you said. Um, but yeah, it's a very strange thing that there wasn't more. Uh, and, and I don't quite know what, why that was, because going through the process of doing the research and looking at all the music press from these years. Women were, were really well represented, you know, in, in, in the music industry. It's like, you know, punk was very enabling, I think, you know, there was a fair few, you know, sort of stalwarts of punk who were female, uh, and that sort of, you know, spilled through as well. But for whatever reason, I don't know, you know, it's like the education system. It's like, I'm kind of baffled by it, to be honest. But it's something that has drastically changed. Yes. You know, electronic music today is, you know, it's heavily populated with, uh, some incredibly talented females and, uh, you know, it's a broad spectrum and it's a very welcoming spectrum as well. You know, the, the electronic music industry seems to be much more. Accepting and welcoming and embracing of all genders and cultures and everything. Um more than probably any other genre that um, you could possibly sort of pick out. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, richard It's been absolute joy. Thank you for the book, which is amazing and and I will finish it I promise I will finish it but it is one of those books that you can You can dip into cause you can just open it up at a year and go, well, what happened in the beginning of 1980 or the end of 82? And I found myself going through and it was, evoking memories and sentiments I felt at the time as a young teenager, listening to all of this music and reading those magazines that you were, you know, clearly researching from. And I recognized, you know, certain quotes and articles that you were picking out. I remember that interview. I kept that, that copy of NME under the bed or whatever. So it was, it's a great trip down memory lane. It's a fantastic way of, uh, Tracking electronic music, particularly, you know, British electronic music through that period. So thank you ever so much for the book. I look forward to what you come up with next. And thank you for joining us today. Thank you very much for having me. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode, where you'll find further information along with web links and details of all the other episodes. Before you go, make sure you visit the Sound On Sound podcast page at soundonsound. com forward slash podcasts, where you can explore all the other great content playing across the other channels. I'm Rob Pericelli, and this has been a failed Muso production for Sound On Sound.