Depeche Mode on Letterman Mon March 11

[MBTC]

Yeah I didn't mean necessarily that you were referring to his looks. Personally I like his voice is good and has a distinction that makes it recognizable. They are like any other band in that even fans probably aren't wowed by every single song. If you're ever inclined, I recommend listening to the album "The Bends" from beginning to end. There are a number of tracks on that one I like, but here's another one that got a lot of airplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BciOfJsqh7M

I liked Erasure, even tho some of their tunes were a little too upbeat and spunky, I just loved the synth aspect of the music and Vince could do some great things with melodies. Old Yaz was good too. Never was a Madonna fan although many of her tracks were extremely well produced from a technical perspective back in the day.

I'm going to answer the question about the Ultranova over in that thread just to keep everything written so far in one place.

[namnibor]

YAZ was definitely brilliant! I have the best of Yaz and that reminds me of period of time in life I was also listening to Romeo Void....love the 80's!

[Berni]

Originally Posted by namnibor

YAZ was definitely brilliant! I have the best of Yaz and that reminds me of period of time in life I was also listening to Romeo Void....love the 80's!

Don't u mean Yazoo? Yazz was some model that Coldcut hooked up with & had a #1 in the UK with 'the only way is up'...as far as I remember.
What about the early human league stuff, john foxx, ultravox, japan...I could go on

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by Berni

Don't u mean Yazoo? Yazz was some model that Coldcut hooked up with & had a #1 in the UK with 'the only way is up'...as far as I remember.
What about the early human league stuff, john foxx, ultravox, japan...I could go on

I think it was a North American thing that "Yaz" was the more common name, while it remained Yazoo in the UK. I don't remember what the story was behind that one, but for example the cover of Upstairs at Erics said "Yaz", so many people heard them by that name first on this side of the pond.

[Berni]

Originally Posted by MBTC

I think it was a North American thing that "Yaz" was the more common name, while it remained Yazoo in the UK. I don't remember what the story was behind that one, but for example the cover of Upstairs at Erics said "Yaz", so many people heard them by that name first on this side of the pond.

Strange a group with 2 different names????????? It's like calling Duran Duran...Duran! Or Spandau, Flock of

[MBTC]

The legal story sounds correct now that you mention it. The real story is funny to me, I always thought it the name got shortened/refined for the US market because Yazoo sounds sort of like a sneeze/yodel combination, or that the mainstream music market would have rejected buying the records in stores because the name sounds a bit backwater or country. Yaz always sounded more contemporary/new wave to me, which I thought would be a better marketing choice. But then it turns out people were fighting over "Yazoo"! lol

[MBTC]

This thread got my mind going down memory lane tonight. I remember once watching some MTV video about Depeche Mode. DM was already legendary before MTV went all stupid and forgot what the M in MTV stood for and started playing non-music related reality shows about dopey roomates and shit.

In the video, one of the Depeche guys, it may have been Wilder or Gore, was screwing around on the keyboard and started playing a riff from one of their songs, I don't remember which, but he was tapping out 16th notes at moderate tempo (with perfect timing) and singing at the same time, and it sounded good enough that someone should have captured to master (I think it was on an Oberheim something or other but not sure about that). He was showing how he could hit a delay to compensate if he needed to drop back to 8ths! My point is, HOW MANY PEOPLE EVEN TAP OUT 8THS LIVE THESE DAYS? Nobody... Most modern artists don't even have the hand-eye coordination and timing skills to keep tempo with that even when they are 15 yrs old. I'm not going to call myself a modern artist, but I promise you I will be using an arpeggiator for that if I needed it today The joys of modern technology (to be fair, they had the technology back then and probably employed it in the studio... but it is impressive to see someone do it well live).

I remember being in a popular resort area around 1988, and a buddy and myself walked by a T-Shirt airbrush artist on the strip that was selling existing painted shirts and offered to do custom work. He had apparently airbrushed his hair, too, he was kind of a Bon Jovi lookalike. I thought his painting was impressive, so trying to be friendly (in my own misaligned way), as I looked at all his shirts, which were mostly depicting bands like Metallica, Megadeath, etc....I said "love the work but where's the Depeche Mode shirts" (being that I was somewhat fucked up after a night of underage boozing, I guess I knew I would get a reaction)....

....I really wasn't being an ass with the comment, if he had stepped up, I would have gladly paid him to paint a truly unique-on-the-planet Depeche Mode shirt, but was mostly gauging his interest...

...He clearly took immediate offense, and said "Depeche Mode? Wonder what happens at their concert, a bunch of guys with synthesizers come out and stand around pushing buttons?"

And I said "you know what you never see at a Metallica concert? Someone hitting 16th notes in realtime".... he looked at me like a deer in headlights, no clue what I was even talking about.

I did not buy a shirt. Shame, by the looks of what he had on display, he did some fine things with an airbrush. Bet he does tats now. Probably limited to the hairband market. lol

[namnibor]

After watching Depeche Mode, I too had an audio stroll down memory lane and dug into my 400+ CDs and started playing Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, OMD (did you know OMD has a new CD coming out in April?) [Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark for younger crowd-FYI] Then Ultravox...oh my, call me old (will be 50 this year), but some of my fondest memories are of the 80's and when I when stationed in USAF at Keflavik, Iceland for a year and half (my choice, as I love geological stuff and wild weather with New Zealand being my next vacation hopefully), and whilst in downtown Reykjavik, Iceland, there was a free concert at this open square that non other, The Sugarcubes (Bjork), before they had even released USA CD...and I still love her voice and layered sounds. I also literally ran into Souixie and The Banshies one late night stuck in Philidelphia in midst of a garbage/sanitation worker's strike, where trash was pilled up everywhere, had missed my flight, so was out on town...cool times...and Depeche Mode is still very relevant and can PACK HUGE arenas ANYWHERE they tour...if they come here I am sure to get ticket and finally see them live...now, where's that black leather skydiving suit and eyeliner at again? Just where I left it last!!

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by namnibor

Depeche Mode is still very relevant and can PACK HUGE arenas ANYWHERE they tour...if they come here I am sure to get ticket and finally see them live...now, where's that black leather skydiving suit and eyeliner at again? Just where I left it last!!

As I was watching that earlier video, I was amazed at how DM was able to play such a small venue as the Letterman show at the Ed Sullivan Theatre in NYC and act like it was just par for the course. That is an extremely small venue for them, and I think folks have to wait to get tickets to Letterman, but ultimately pay zero for the tickets themselves to sit in on that audience (not including the expensive hotels and restaurants of the area to stay there of course).

I remember seeing the documentary 101 about Depeche Mode... They sold out the freakin' Rose Bowl Stadium.. 60,000 people in the crowd that night just to see them!!

The folks who were in the Letterman audience that night were some very lucky people, and I don't mean that as a dig at Dave, because in his field of satire, he is equally as epic as DM is to music. They were lucky people all the way around. Kind of a shame Mayor Bloomberg was the guest that night, lol.... On the nights following they had Steve Carrell and Jim Carrey, both of whom were freakin hilarious.

[namnibor]

Here's a great bit of video of Depeche Mode's "Sounds of The Universe" tour, probably the closest to the Virus Ti's one will see of their set-up and having discovered that youtube channel, The Virus Channel, it seems, there's some really other cool Virus and Depeche Mode related stuff on there...very good PR for Access http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zomJg_odX4