‘The Adam and Joe Show’ was a Channel 4 comedy programme, written and presented by Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish which ran for four series between 1996 and 2001 featuring a variety of school boy minded antics and sketches.
Most weeks, Adam and Joe would re-create a popular film or TV show using cuddly toys and cardboard sets. Their memorable spoofs included of ‘Toytanic’, ‘The Toy Patient’, ‘Toytrainspotting’, ‘Saving Private Lion’, Fur-riends’ and ’Stuff This Life’.
In a variation to the theme, Adam and Joe also used ‘Star Wars’ action figures to parody mainstream British TV shows. One of the best was ‘Star Wars In Their Eyes’, a send-up of pre-X Factor karaoke talent show ‘Stars In Their Eyes’. With host Chewbacca as Matt-Chew Kelly, characters such as Hammerhead and Darth Vader impersonate their favourite pop stars, but best of all are R2-D2 and C-3PO who rather amusingly and appropriately appear as the PET SHOP DROIDS!!
Several other programmes such as ‘Big Brother’ and ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ were parodied, all with Obi-Wan Kenobi amusingly portrayed as a drunken vagrant!
Among the other regular musical segments to the series were ‘Vinyl Justice’ and ‘Baaad Dad’ featuring Adam Buxton’s father Nigel reviewing music videos of pop groups that he obviously didn’t know anything about (best quote: “if this is ‘Song 2’, let’s hope they never get to ‘Song 3!’”), recording with rappers and memorably visiting Tribal Gathering!
After a quiet number of years even by their standards, the original synth duo SPARKS secured the backing of DEF Management and made a triumphant return in 1994 with ‘Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins’.
It was very much a determined comeback released on the German based Logic label, then home to trendy dance acts like SNAP! and COSMIC BABY.
SPARKS’ career had been very up and down, but the Mael brothers were never deterred by public or media ambivalence and always returned like a phoenix from the flames just when people least expected it.
First finding fame with the glorious ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’, they had originally been HALFNELSON whose Todd Rundgren produced debut was released on Bearsville Records founded by Bob Dylan’s former manager Albert Grossman.
They changed their name to SPARKS when Grossman suggested they should rename themselves ‘The Sparks Brothers’ after the comedy siblings Marx. Following an appearance on ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’ in late 1972, presenter Bob Harris was unimpressed and said they were the worst thing he had ever seen… this same esteemed music expert had poured scorn on ROXY MUSIC a few months earlier by announcing they were “unimpressive hype” and later called NEW YORK DOLLS “mock rock”!
Luckily, British promoters were fascinated by the quirky brothers and they were booked for a series of well-attended club dates. At one of their headline gigs at The Marquee, they were supported by a group of upstarts named QUEEN! Ironically, the US would later embrace the music of QUEEN and indeed SPARKS, but it was indifference towards Ron’s classical keyboard interludes and Russell’s camp operatic falsetto that led to the Maels leaving America and uprooting to the UK to find fame and fortune.
They recruited a new backing band where one of the audition adverts had the prerequiste of: “a really good face that isn’t covered by a beard”! Although one of those who failed the audition was Warren Cann, later to join ULTRAVOX, the rest as they say is history. Who wasn’t frightened to death by the snarling stares of Ron Mael with his Chaplain-esque moustache (…well, that’s what we are going to say!?!), sitting motionless behind his RMI Electra-piano on ‘Top Of The Pops’ in the late Spring of 1974?
Photo by Gems/Redferns
Released on Island Records, their quirky glam albums ‘Kimono My House’ and ‘Propaganda’ bizarrely found a screaming teenybopper audience. But beneath the hit appeal of ‘Amateur Hour’, ‘Something For The Girl With Everything’ and ‘Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth’ was an artistic eccentricity that captured the imaginations of notable soon-to-be songsmiths like a certain Steven Patrick Morrissey.
Meanwhile a Basildon lad named Martin Lee Gore was to later cover ‘Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth’ in a busman’s holiday from DEPECHE MODE! However, despite an appearance in the George Segal film ‘Rollercoaster’ in 1976, SPARKS spent a number of years in the artistic doldrums.
Eventually, Russell and Ron opened their ears to the burgeoning electro-disco sound as heard on DONNA SUMMER’s ‘I Feel Love’ and were put into contact with her producer Giorgio Moroder. With aspirations to work with a band, the Munich based Italian set to work with them immediately, the result being the tremendous ‘No1 Song In Heaven’. Released in 1979, it actually only made it to No14 in the UK charts but this was a few months before TUBEWAY ARMY’s seminal ‘Are Friends Electric?’, often seen as the cultural turning point for the synthesizer.
Eventually the sound of the synth was everywhere, but despite a Top10 follow-up hit in ‘Beat The Clock’, the album ‘No1 In Heaven’ failed to sell and SPARKS eventually got lost among all the British acts they had helped pave the way for like SIMPLE MINDS (just listen to ‘Life In A Day’ and ‘Chelsea Girl’!), OMD (ditto ‘Motion & Heart’), DEPECHE MODE (Founder member Vince Clarke would go on to remix SPARKS) and SOFT CELL (ditto David Ball!).
SPARKS returned to America with a rockier band sound produced by QUEEN cohort Mack. Tracks like ‘Angst In My Pants’ and ‘Funny Face’ were radio hits on LA New Wave station KROQ, but the rest of the world were starting to fall under the poptastic spell of PET SHOP BOYS and ERASURE, two duos who owed more than a small debt to the Maels’ image blueprint of one who does something and the other who does nothing! With the rise of dance culture and the music technology now available to work totally on their own terms, SPARKS came up with ‘Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins’.
The bold artwork with headlines such as “Room service cover up! It was hot but it wasn’t on the menu!” and “America’s Most Miserable Man” laid down their tongue-in-cheek intentions. The centrepiece was the launch single ‘When Do I Get To Sing My Way?’, a masterclass in electronic pop. It had everything; atmospherics, subtle rhythmical infections, an anthemic uplifting chorus and a narrative on sibling rivalry which was superbly illustrated in the vintage Hollywood blockbuster styled promo video directed by Sophie Muller.
The follow-up ‘(When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing’ was very much in the frantic Eurodance vein of the period sounding like ‘Yesterday When I Was Mad’ being covered by Freddie Mercury! Actually, it was quite difficult to get through this album without thinking of PET SHOP BOYS and their stomping 1993 LP ‘Very’.
Despite the lush synthonic strings and beat driven template, Russell Mael brought his obviously more quizzical character into proceedings, particularly on the cutting ‘I Thought I Told You To Wait In The Car’ with its Arabic overtones and unsettling multi-tracked chants of “CAR! CAR! CAR! CAR!”.
‘Now That I Own The BBC’ was obviously more like ERASURE, the Maels ironically reflecting on their return to the fame game and using The Beeb as its metaphor. Also on the uptempo side of proceedings, ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ was perhaps a less accomplished relative of ‘Now That I Own The BBC’, but immediately enjoyable just the same, with orchestra stabs and an anthemic chorus thrown in for good measure.
But the album was not just an electropop experiment in idiosyncratic accessibility. ‘Frankly Scarlett, I Don’t Give A Damn’ was an amusing musical skit based around the acclaimed Oscar winning epic ‘Gone With The Wind’. Spot-on observations in the narrative of Rhett Butler such as “That soft southern accent delivered without the slightest trace of a British accent, even that’s starting to wear on me” confirmed the Mael Brothers’ lyrical humour had remained intact over the years as SPARKS sent up a great American institution!
Best of all was the brilliantly chilling ballad ‘Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil’, now in hindsight sounding like MUSE gone synthpop! ‘The Ghost Of Liberace’ was like an update of ‘Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth’ but like with all good albums, there was the inherent inconsequential filler and that came with ‘Tsui Hark’… it consisted of acclaimed film director Tsui Hark repeatedly announcing “My Name Is Tsui Hark, I’m a film director” over an inconsequential dance number! Thanks heavens for CD programmers!
Photo by Sophie Muller
Although ‘Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins’ was not a huge seller in the UK, it re-established SPARKS as a viable cult act with a headlining tour and notably, an invitation to support BLUR at their 1995 Mile End Stadium gig. In Germany however, the album was a big success when ‘When Do I Get To Sing My Way?’ got to No7. In a country where age and artistic wisdom were not seen as a barrier to cultural acceptance, they found a brand new young audience.
However, the Maels lost it all again with the pointless 1997 reworkings album ‘Plagiarism’ featuring special guests ERASURE and FAITH NO MORE, and then capped it all with the poorly received follow-up ‘Balls’ in 2000.
But as always, they bounced back again in 2002 with the acclaimed classical concept album ‘Lil’ Beethoven’ and have been discretely playing to their fanbase throughout the world since, most recently with the well received ‘One Mouth Two Hands’ tour. Their eccentric sound continues to be heard in modern acts such as MARINA & THE DIAMONDS and GOLDFRAPP.
For the song titles alone, ‘Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins’ is worthy of rediscovery. This collection is from a time when Britpop was taking a hold and electronic pop generally meant dance music; as an item of buried treasure, this album is a fabulous document of when the Maels briefly joined the house party that they had obliquely helped to inspire.
“And instead of the usual bass and drums, he heard…”
‘The Lost Are Found’ is an emotive body of songs, each from their very own world, but together blending to form an eleven episode triste drame.
The journey started when Claudia Brücken teamed up with the top producer Stephen Hague whose credits have included PET SHOP BOYS, OMD, ERASURE, COMMUNARDS, NEW ORDER and A-HA. Recording two brand new songs ‘Thank You’ and ‘Night School’ for her ‘Combined’ retrospective in 2011, they bookended that phase of her career which began of course with PROPAGANDA. ‘Thank You’ in particular captured a Bond Theme meets MASSIVE ATTACK vibe and planted the seed for an intriguing project which was the idea of her daughter Maddy.
Claudia Brücken told ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK back in July: “The theme is melancholy songs…they’re sad but they don’t make you slash your wrists. I recorded it in four months with Stephen Hague and we had this real clear vision of what we wanted to do”.
Despite the varying eras of the compositions, memories and emotions within the human condition exist whatever the period. So by default, songs of love and heartbreak are generally timeless. And because many of these carefully chosen songs are semi-obscure, even within the catalogues of some of their more high profile writers, this album can be approached with fresh ears, like an adventure that has been previously uncharted. In that respect, ‘The Lost Are Found’ does exactly what it says on the tin.
The journey begins with the ethereal ‘Mysteries of Love’ written by David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti. Layers of treated voices climb over synth mountains as lonesome ivories and glacial atmospheres bring Middle America to Alpine Europe. As featured in the film ‘Blue Velvet’ in its Julee Cruise version, also on the soundtrack was ROY ORBISON’s ‘In Dreams’, another song which Claudia has previously recorded. One suspects this surreal film noir might be one of her favourites.
Following it, ‘Memories Of A Color’ from Nordic avant songstress Stina Nordenstam is a mix of acoustic and electric guitars with distorted organ over a mid-tempo percussive jazz shuffle as Claudia’s vocals provide an approachable counterpoint. Although ‘The Lost Are Found’ features a technological base, this is probably the most organic collection Claudia Brücken has ever recorded. Although her excellent ‘Another Language’ long player with Andrew Poppy was acoustic, that relied on stark, minimal theatre for its effect. ‘The Lost Are Found’ combines the ice maiden chill with a fuller naturalistic warmth for an artful but accessible sound.
One nice surprise is ‘The Day I See You Again’ from DUBSTAR’s first album ‘Disgraceful’; Claudia’s reinterpretation of the kitchen sink drama about a man who has grown to be “more Morrison than Morrissey” is done Düsseldorf style with Weimar piano and beautiful flügel tones complimenting the resigned frustration. Then one of the albums highlights arrives with ‘Everyone Says Hi’, a brilliantly lively take on one of Bowie’s more recent numbers dressed with catchy riffs and fuzzy shades.
Lesser known ELO B-side ‘One Summer Dream’ was the first song to emerge from these sessions and begins with a vintage gramophoned segment before building to a pretty John Barry influenced, ‘Felt Mountain’-era GOLDFRAPP arrangement which is frankly quite wonderful. Interestingly, Jeff Lynne himself has recorded his own album of classic tunes recently called ‘Long Wave’.
Another Stina Nordenstam work ‘Crime’ emerges with its pizzicato colours, subtle bass and sparring six string. It acts as a steadfast mid-album interlude in almost hushed resonance before it all snaps back into place with THE LILAC TIME’s ‘The Road To Happiness’. Here Stephen Duffy’s ironic ditty kisses Claudia within an idyllic setting of angelic chorals, spritely strums and French accordion courtesy of Stephen Hague. Salute!
Perhaps thanks to Stephen Hague’s production duties on the original, Claudia’s reworking of PET SHOP BOYS’ ‘Kings Cross’ retains the song’s melancholic edge, the metaphor of capitalism is actually very much still intact. But how it differs is the pressure now rises to a dramatic climax and adds a rush not previously apparent in the song. On the album’s singular new composition from The Burt Bros called ‘No One To Blame’, hints of ‘Spiegel Im Spiegel’ like an antique music box flit in while the electronic orchestration lifts the tune into a dreamboat setting as Claudia’s timbres alternate between innocence and worldliness.
As ‘The Lost Are Found’ steps to its conclusion, the revamp of ‘And The Sun Will Shine’ rom BEE GEES’ 1968 album ‘Horizontal’ is marvellously majestic with rousing string stylings, the neo-Riviera flavour sitting well with the soaring chorus.
The album closes with Robbie Robertson and Richard Manuel’s rustic ‘Whispering Pines’ from which ‘The Lost Are Found’ title comes from. With spacey synth forte not unlike THE KORGIS ‘Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime’ sitting alongside percussive brushes, it’s not quite how one would imagine THE BAND to sound but that’s the point…
The character spectrum which Stephen Hague has crafted for ‘The Lost Are Found’ is a hopeful, soothing experience that is not at all overbearing; Hague is known for placing his emphasis on vocals and by working the music around them, all the instruments have their place.
As a result, there is plenty of room for Claudia to breathe and manoeuvre. While obvious electronic references are perhaps more muted than what one would normally expect from her work, the varied organic embellishments add an enjoyable lounge dimension to Claudia’s repertoire which matures with each listen.
With thanks to Rosie Johnstone and David Lawrence at Impressive PR
The UK’s most consistent elder statesmen of synthpop are “back-back-BACK!”
Yes, former Smash Hits Deputy Editor Neil Tennant and “his grumpy friend” (as NEW ORDER’s Bernard Sumner once referred to Chris Lowe) have had their imperial phase with their stellar first albums ‘Please’, ‘Actually’, ‘Introspective’, ‘Behaviour’ and ‘Very’ while also heading “down the dumper” with the Britpop flavoured ‘Release’. Their most recent long player, the Xenomania produced ‘Yes’ was a return to form of sorts after the below expectations ‘Fundamental’, but struggled with repeated plays.
However, the accompanying ‘Pandemonium’ world tour was a tremendously entertaining spectacle. Indeed, PET SHOP BOYS changed perceptions of how live shows could be presented back in 1991 with the ‘Performance’ tour… costume theatricals, pre-programmed backing, no musicians on stage, backing singers doing lead vocals while Neil Tennant took a breather and Chris Lowe participating as one of the dancers! Rock purists got upset but everyone else loved it and followed suit.
With their appearance at the London Olympics 2012 Closing Ceremony, PET SHOP BOYS are now firmly part of British musical folklore, a consulate representation to the world of not only what it is to be British but particularly, to be English.
So what of the new long player ‘Elysium’? Co-produced in Los Angeles by Andrew Dawson who worked with KANYE WEST, it certainly isn’t the popfest that ‘Yes’ was. It perhaps is more closely related to the introspection of ‘Release’ or possibly ‘Behaviour’.
Opener and second single ‘Leaving’ is beautifully laid back, a classic PSB beat ballad in the vein of ‘The Samurai In Autumn’ but with a Californian sun kissed vibe. The album’s Olympic themed first single ‘Winner’ though certainly doesn’t capture the thrill one would expect from the title… it’s ‘I Get Along’ without the guitars! The album’s tempo remains steadfast and doesn’t up until a third of the way through with ‘A Face Like That’ before it all slows down again with an acoustic guitar providing the backbone to the string laden ‘Breathing Space’.
No PET SHOP BOYS album though would be complete without a touch of irony and that comes with ‘Your Early Stuff’ and ‘Ego Music’. “You’ve been around but you don’t look too rough and I still quite like some of your early stuff” announces the former, while the latter sends up the lot of the seriously up-himself musician. Tennant deadpans: “I see myself as a building, my mind is the office where the work gets done… there’s a real purity to my work, a childish innocence but I’m also smart and sophisticated”; all very amusing.
Also amusing but for perhaps the wrong reasons is ‘Hold On’ which sounds like it was written for Disney! But it all lifts again on ‘Memory Of The Future’ with its rousing anthemic chorus and old fashioned synths in the manner of ‘All Over The World’.
The soulful ‘Give It A Go’ takes its lead from the RAMSEY LEWIS instrumental ‘Wade In The Water’ but to close, there’s the brilliantly titled ‘Requiem in Denim & Leopardskin’. Adding latin percussion and LOVE UNLIMITED styled loveboat backing, it provides possibly the album’s highlight. It’s like a cross between ‘Being Boring’ and ‘Liberation’. The lyric “This is our last chance for goodbye, let the music begin…” could have a veiled message.
The advancing years may have made PET SHOP BOYS less club friendly than the past but thank god they haven’t gone dubstep or anything horrific like that. At least with the chilled down atmosphere, they’re acting their age. While ‘Elysium’ is maybe not the most exciting thing around at the moment, Messrs Tennant and Lowe have done their bit for the cultural revolution and for that, they deserve the utmost respect.
‘Elysium’ is released by EMI Records on 10th September 2012
BRIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT is Welsh songwriter/producer Rod Thomas who adopted his ‘Gremlins’ referencing moniker to prevent being mistaken for an acoustic act which he clearly now is not, despite his folkie roots.
First spotted by ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK supporting fellow synth friendly duo THE SOUND OF ARROWS in 2010, more recently he has opened for Ellie Goulding and AUSTRA. But his highest profile spot to date has been with ERASURE who have been one of Thomas’ biggest influences.
With emotive electronically based pop being given a recent reawkening by HURTS, this album (which has been a long time in the making) has made a timely entrance, especially with acts such as EKKOES and MODOVAR waiting in the queue to join the neon lit party.
As the album opener, ‘Immature’ is a great start as it rhythmically percolates in the manner of THE POSTAL SERVICE before a terrific synth section unexpectedly lifts the whole piece several notches. ‘A New Word To Say’ touches on melodic electronic soul with hints of ABC and YAZOO while the brilliant debut single ‘Love Part II’ gives NEW ORDER’s disco for football hooligans a New Man makeover.
Continuing the uptempo vibrancy, ‘Moves’ and ‘Disco Moment’ both pulse in a club friendly manner but with the beats never overbearing in the way they had been on say MARINA & THE DIAMONDS’ ‘Electra Heart’. The pretty duet ‘Cry at Films’ with SCISSOR SISTERS’ Del Marquis adds a sensitive point of reflection but best of all is ‘How To Make A Heart’, a superbly optimistic love song that sounds like a dance enhanced HURTS. It all ends with a dramatic synth and strings laden drum ‘n’ ballad ‘Grace’ which could be Robbie Williams produced by Stuart Price… hang on, that’s sort of happened!
Classic PET SHOP BOYS synth string pads permeate throughout the album but the most important aspect of Rod Thomas’ songs are his emotive toplines and rousing chorus. Collaborating with Boom Bip, one half of NEON NEON who released an excellent under rated long player ‘Stainless Style’ in 2008, and Andy Chatterley who has worked with KYLIE MINOGUE, the whole of ‘Make Me Believe In Hope’ has a pleasantly widescreen sound that connects with the ears, feet and heart.
Free of the deliberate distortion that marred LADYHAWKE’s ‘Anxiety’, this is a promising debut which despite the melancholy is, as the title suggests, full of hope for the future. And in this time of adversity, everyone needs it. Rod Thomas speaks more about what it’s really like for real people than many a so-called indie poet…
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was released by Logic Records and is available on remastered CD via Lil Beethoven Records
is released by There (there) on 5th November 2012
? Co-produced in Los Angeles by Andrew Dawson who worked with KANYE WEST, it certainly isn’t the popfest that ‘Yes’ was. It perhaps is more closely related to the introspection of ‘Release’ or possibly ‘Behaviour’.
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