Archive for the vince clarke tag

Depeche Mode Tribute this Thursday!

Every year, we do a tribute to Depeche Mode, one of the most popular and influential electronic bands that ever was [I'd place them just under Kraftwerk]. There's hardly anything I can say about them that hasn't been said, but certainly this week we'll be playing some DM tracks that don't normally get a lot of attention, right next to plenty that do. The frustrating bit about doing these is that there's always about 5 songs that, at the end of the night, I'm kicking myself for not playing. Six hours isn't even enough time for a band who has been putting out consistently good work for 30 years.
The particularly amazing thing is how while their early stuff still holds up pretty well after all this time, they've progressed so far as to sound almost nothing like those first albums--and yet still sound like the same band. To illustrate this, I've chosen to post "Monument", from the 1982 release A Broken Frame, a new wave track so minimal it can barely be danced to, whispering of techno and covered in fantastic '80s bleepy synths. In contrast, their recent single "Wrong" is loud and in-your-face, and the synths, now joined by guitars, are darker and harsher. This version is a remix by dubstep master Caspa [who coincidentally is playing at Smartbar on the same night]. The genre-overlay is really well done, and I think it says as much about the versatility of Depeche Mode's songwriting as Caspa's production skills.
Download and dig in, we'll see you on Thursday with a whole lot more!

official website
Depeche Mode on Amazon.com

The Assembly: Never Never

If you are into New Wave in any way, shape or form, chances are the name Vince Clarke is very familiar to you. You knew him on Depeche Mode's Speak & Spell. You knew him from two Yaz (or Yazoo) records. You certainly knew him as a partner in crime for Andy Bell in Erasure. But did you know him in the Assembly?

The Assembly were a short-lived project started by Clarke with producer Eric Radcliffe, following closely after the split of Yaz in 1983. Their original idea was to have a new singer on every track but only ended up releasing one single entitled "Never Never." The singer chosen for the track was Feargal Sharkey of the Undertones - quite a departure from the sound of that band and an unlikely match for Clarke, but somehow it worked. The result was a little piece of magic which still remains a perfect (synth)pop song, similar to that of Yaz's "Only You."

"It never happens to me, maybe that's the way my life was meant to be..." Now, what new waver can't relate to that?!