Let’s go out tonight ok? The seven videos in the playlist above show pretty much exactly what the clubs I went to in 1987 were like. This club happened to be in San Diego California but it really doesn’t matter. The music, hair, clothes and dance style were true to the NY area too. Enjoy!

“Stratus Dance Club was the premier alcohol-free young adult nightclub in Southern California from 1978 to 1987. Located in Casa de Oro – the foothills of Mt. Helix , Stratus catered to high-school and college students from San Diego County to as far north as Los Angeles.” – youtube.com/user/stratusdanceclub

For more info: facebook.com/groups/54649181374/

One of the many early Depeche Mode songs I love is called Now this is Fun. It’s a song that reminds me of my own youth. It’s a song that seems like it was easy and fun to make. I could be wrong but I hear a Roland TR-808 drum machine and something like an Oberheim SEM in parts. It first appeared as a B-Side to their 1982 hit See You and then later appeared on the album A Broken Frame. Perfect for a summer Friday.

Here speaks the voice of reason
It’s talking to me loud and clearly
And obviously, it’s something to say

Here comes another sentence
It is relentless, it tries my patience
But neverless, it’s for our concern

We can’t see the benefits
So we’ll ignore it or disobey it
And never say that this is fun

This is real fun
This is fun

Buy this song: iTunes or Amazon

Depeche Mode’s Some Great Reward album from 1984 is one of my favorites. I can sing every lyric on the album in order from beginning to end. It has a romantic feel with plenty of melodies, early sampling and fantastic 80s drums. I don’t know the story behind these demo versions of the album tracks but from a musician’s stand point they are very interesting. The highly produced gloss is gone revealing many of the songs parts which on the CD meld together (in a good way).

“In September 1984, Some Great Reward was released. Melody Maker claimed that the album made one “sit up and take notice of what is happening here, right under your nose.” In contrast to the political and environmental subjects addressed on the previous album, the songs on Some Great Reward were mostly concerned with more personal themes such as sexual politics (“Master and Servant”), adulterous relationships (“Lie to Me”), and arbitrary divine justice (“Blasphemous Rumours”). Also included was the first Martin Gore ballad (“Somebody”) – such songs would become a feature of all following albums. “Somebody” was released as a double a-side with “Blasphemous Rumours” and was the first single with Gore on lead vocals. Some Great Reward was the first Depeche Mode album to enter the US album charts, and it made the Top 10 in several European countries.” – Wikipedia.org

Be sure to own the original album!

via ASUKLTD

Devo is going to release its first all new album in 20 years. The Energy Dome helmet is now blue. The new album titled Something for Everybody will be released June 15, 2010.

For more info: clubdevo.com

via Laughing Squid

Gary Numan In Conversation from Machine Music on Vimeo.

I’ve always thought Gary Numan was highly underrated. Go back today and listen through his albums and see if you don’t agree. Honest loud real analog synths and interesting vocals. They don’t make them like they used to.

“Gary Numan (born Gary Webb on 8 March 1958) is an English singer, composer, and musician, most widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” (with Tubeway Army) and “Cars”. One of the first musicians to use electronic synthesizers successfully in rock music, his signature sound consisted of heavy synthesizer hooks fed through guitar effects pedals. Commercially unsuccessful for many years of his career, Numan is nevertheless considered a pioneer of commercial electronic music. His use of themes from science fiction, and his combination of aggressive punk energy with electronics, have since been widely imitated.” – Wikipedia.org

The official Gary Numan homepage: http://www.numan.co.uk

So I’ve really been enjoying the new Depeche Mode song “Wrong“. As a superfan each new album floods my brain with memories of years gone by. One way I knew Depeche Mode were special was the fact that no other band could really sound like them. A few came close with a song here or there such as Camouflage’s The Great Commandment but in general the clones never arrived. Usually when you have a super strong band it’s creates a genre on it’s own… Nirvana as an example. It’s true you could attribute synthpop to DM but let’s face facts, most of that music is terrible.

I find it pretty amusing that one of the best Depeche Mode style songs comes to us as a joke. Take a listen below to Liam Lynch’s Fake Depeche Mode Song. If Liam ever wanted to be big in the German goth scene it would be pretty easy for him.

“Lynch also made the album Fake Songs, released in 2003, produced by his own company, 111 Productions. This album featured the song “United States of Whatever”, which charted in the Top 10 in the United Kingdom and Australia. It is one of the shortest songs to get to the Top 10 in both countries. The song did get Lynch a place in the Guiness Book of World Records for shortest UK song to go top ten. Liam Lynch is also known for directing music videos. He’s worked with Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal, Spinnerette, and No Doubt. In 2003 he directed the UK music video for the Foo Fighters single “Times Like These”, although it was rarely played in the United States.” – Wikipedia.org

Download audio file (Fake_Depeche_Mode_Song.mp3)

Clearly the best lyric here is, “You can’t see me because I’m wearing black.”.

Buy this song: iTunes

One result of the internet invention is I can find a constant flow of electronic songs recorded in the 1980s that I never heard before. Now I want to point out that I know several million electronic songs from the eighties already so this is an astonishing fact! Synthpop, new wave, ebm is my freak obsession. I seek every word of every song and every synth note played from that decade. I’m dumbfounded when I come across something that I never heard of before.

Don’t worry, my blabbing is leading this blog post somewhere… Yesterday I decided to jump around in MySpace to find some new music. I click on a friend or artist I know and then just randomly click on one of their friends and see what I can find. We all do that right? To me this replaces going to a record store and searching the bins or even dial surfing on the radio. I landed on the Daft Records page because Daft Records kicks ass (it’s the Belgian electronic body music label run by Dirk Ivens). The top friend in their top 8 is a band called Jeff and Jane. As soon as I saw the black and white scanned photo they used as their profile picture my eighties radar started going off so I had to click. This is one of the songs on the Jeff and Jane MySpace page called Los Alamos:

Download audio file (Los_Alamos.mp3)

Some of you are thinking right now… eeew that was shitty. I however think that song is fucking awesome. When he sings, “You’ve got lots of political power!” I knew I had to grab everything these guys made I could find. That lead me to click on their website officialjeffandjane.com and discovered you can download a lot of there music for free!

The band performed in venues in Boston, New York and Philadephia. The music was electro-pop employing early Roland synths and the TR808 drum machine. For some performances, Wally Gagel appeared on drums with Russ Smith on bass. In 1985 the band stopped performing and recording. In 1986, Jeff started to direct music videos and Jane produced video art. Both were teaching at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. – officialjeffandjane.com

I had to share Jeff and Jane with you. This is what music is all about… discovery, feeling, memories, getting fired up! What’s so cool about finding an old song like this is you can open Ableton on your laptop, add some tape noise, retro synth and drum machine vst’s and shoot for a similar sound.

There is great music happening in 2008 (MGMT, Justice) but my heart still lives in 1988.