Tag: Fad Gadget (Page 4 of 4)

JOHN FRYER Interview

24 February 2015 /

JOHN FRYER is the renowned producer, engineer and musician who was also a member of THIS MORTAL COIL.

He cut his teeth with Daniel Miller and Eric Radcliffe at the legendary Blackwing Studios co-engineering the first recordings of FAD GADGET. Fryer achieved mainstream success when he was asked to co-engineer a fledgling synthesizer band who had just signed to Mute Records. That band was of course DEPECHE MODE and he was involved in their run of Top 40 singles between ‘New Life’ and ‘Leave In Silence’.

Fryer also co-engineered YAZOO’s debut long player ‘Upstairs At Eric’s’. He soon used his engineering experience to become a producer in his own right, working with COCTEAU TWINS, MODERN ENGLISH, SWANS and NINE INCH NAILS.

Simultaneously, he was also the only constant along with 4AD founder Ivo Watts-Russell in the musical art collective THIS MORTAL COIL who featured Elizabeth Fraser, Lisa Gerrard and Alison Limerick among its highly regarded cast of guest vocalists.

He also recorded with STRIPMALL ARCHITECTURE singer Rebecca Coseboomas as DARKDRIVECLINIC, releasing an album ‘Noise In My Head’ in 2011.

His latest project is SILVER GHOST SHIMMER with vocalist Pinky Turzo, the sound of which is described as “inspired from the vocal groups of the 60s like THE SHANGRI-LAS with a twist of Glamour and Decay to their Sugar Coated Noise Pop Couture”.

Fryer will be making appearance at ‘A Secret Wish’ on SUNDAY 19TH APRIL 2015 in London with a special DJ set that will cover the range of his work for 4AD and Mute.

Hosted by Nordic friendly blog Cold War Night Life, ‘A Secret Wish’ follows on from the success of last March’s ‘An Evening With The Swedish Synth’; the line-up will also feature live sets from SISTA MANNEN PÅ JORDEN and VILE ELECTRODES.

JOHN FRYER kindly chatted to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about his varied career and what he may have in store for his DJ set at ‘A Secret Wish’…

How did you first become acquainted with recording synthesizers?

Well, that’s an easy question, as soon as I walked through door of the studio for my 1st recording sessions, as it was Daniel Miller making a SILICON TEENS song.

You first become known co-engineering FAD GADGET with Eric Radcliffe. What are your memories of being in the studio with Frank Tovey and do you have any particular favourite tracks of his?

It was great working with Fad (Frank) even though he was making electronic music; he had a punk ethos, so anything goes. One of my best memories of Fad was, he was doing a song called ‘The Box’ and he wanted to have a claustrophobic vocal sound, so we recorded him in a box (well, a flight case) to get the boxy close sound.

What did you think when you were first presented with DEPECHE MODE by Daniel Miller?

They were four very shy guys and Daniel thought they were the future of synth pop, and he was right.

The sounds on the ‘Speak & Spell’ album sit neatly within the mix. Did they require much treatment or did you get the opportunity to give feedback and suggestions to Daniel or Vince as they programmed?

‘Speak & Spell’ was made on a 8 track tape machine, so lot of tracks had to be recorded together onto one track, or bounced together once they had been recorded, we didn’t have the luxury of what you had today in the digital world. So a lot of time and careful planning had to go into the recordings.

What was your own preferred or most flexible synthesizer during your time at Blackwing Studios?

That’s a hard question, but one of my favourite things was the sampler when it came out, as it opened up so many new doors of how to record and anything that made a noise became a new instrument.

By ‘A Broken Frame’, the equipment became more sophisticated with things like the PPG Wave 2, Simmons drums and Roland TR808. What were those like to work with?

Technology was moving so fast in the 80s and it was great to be working with Daniel Miller, because as soon as there was a new synth or drum machine out, Daniel would bring it into the studio.

I remember Daniel driving out to Roger Linn’s place to pick up one of the first Linn Drum Machines so we could use it on the album.

You also co-engineered YAZOO’s ‘Upstairs at Eric’s’ at around the same time, how different was this compared to working with DEPECHE MODE? Did you get embroiled in any of the tensions at the time?

It was so different working with Vince and Depeche. Vince wanted to go super pop, he wanted to be the new ABBA and Depeche now with Martin writing wanted to go darker. They both wanted to record at the same time and it was best they were kept apart, so Eric decided to make a new studio in his house for Vince, hence ‘Upstairs at Eric’s’. Why it was called upstairs I don’t know, as the studio was on the ground floor?? I stayed working at Blackwing with the other three.

You went on to produce COCTEAU TWINS, as a well being a member of THIS MORTAL COIL. How were you achieving those ethereal textures that were predominantly sourced from using guitars rather than synths?

By the time 4AD started using the studio on a regular basis, the AMS RMX16 Digital Reverb had been made and it became my trade mark sound on the 4AD records. As for guitar sounds, a lot of the sounds come from Boss Pedals, so everything was saturated with FXs so you couldn’t really hear the source sound and had no idea if it was keyboards or guitar. Still doing the same today…

Did Elizabeth Fraser have any vocal techniques that presented an interesting challenge for you as a producer?

No, Elizabeth is a great singer, no problem with her voice… it’s just that she was so shy, it was painful to see her struggling with her shyness at times, but once she started singing everything was fine.

You co-produced on NINE INCH NAILS’ debut long player ‘Pretty Hate Machine’. What was Trent Reznor like to work with and was that focus and single minded determination that he is known for now, present in him even then?

It was great working with Trent, we had fun pushing the envelope. We tried to make the album as hard as possible at the time of recording.

We were very proud of the sound of the record and couldn’t wait to play it to the head of the label (Steve Gottlieb) when he came by the studio.

After listening to the play back of the album, his face was full of horror and his mouth was wide open and all he could say was, “you have ruined this record” so we were super happy with that… job well done.

Which recordings that you have worked on, are you most proud and why?

Well of course, my album by DARKDRIVECLINIC and my soon-to-be released album by SILVER GHOST SHIMMER, you can check out our new video of ‘Soft Landing’ on Youtube….

What can people expect from your DJ set at ‘A Secret Wish’?

It will be a pimped up set of 4AD and Mute tracks like you’ve never heard them before, and the only way you can hear the tracks like this is when I DJ them.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives it grateful thanks to JOHN FRYER

With additional thanks to Simon Helm at Cold War Night Life

JOHN FRYER will be appearing at ‘A Secret Wish’ hosted by Cold War Night Life on SUNDAY 19TH APRIL 2015 at The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Road, London N1 9JB. Playing live will be SISTA MANNEN PÅ JORDEN and VILE ELECTRODES.

https://www.facebook.com/John.Fryer.Official

http://silverghostshimmer.bandcamp.com/releases

http://www.coldwarnightlife.com/

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
24th February 2015

HYPERBUBBLE Interview

20 December 2014 /

hyperbubble also by Joe Wallace

Bionic Bubblepunk duo HYPERBUBBLE made a rare visit to the UK recently when they were invited to play cult indie queen Helen Love’s ‘Does Your Heart Go Boom?’ all dayer at The Lexington in London.

It was their first gig in the capital and in front of an audience more used to feisty indie pop, they won over the audience with their quirky electronic performance art. HYPERBUBBLE arrived on stage with Jess attired in a black sequined blouse while Jeff was in full Texan state costume including matching ten gallon Stetson… those watching were convinced they were about to witness a mutant Country & Western duo.

But synthpop’s own CARTER & CASH launched into their calling card ‘Candy Apple Daydreams’ for a 45 minute performance of quirky electro. With the wacky manner of THE B-52s, HYPERBUBBLE soon had the crowd smiling and eventually bopping away to fun uptempo numbers such as ‘Synesthesia’, ‘Bionic Girl’, ‘Non Biodegradable Hazardous Waste Disposal’ and ‘Chop Shop Cop’.

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With some finely tuned robotics, Jess even found time to play Theremin and venture over to Jeff to give him a good spanking during ‘Girl Boy Pop Toy’ as his larger than life personality charmed the crowd. And as a tribute to their host HELEN LOVE, HYPERBUBBLE also did an affectionate cover of her song ‘Better Set Your Phasers to Stun’ from 2000 which was appreciated by all present including ‘Never Mind The Buzzcocks’ team captain PHILL JUPITUS.

After their enjoyable set at ‘Does Your Heart Go Boom?’, HYPERBUBBLE kindly chatted about Synths, Justice and The American Way…

So how do you feel after your first gig in London?

Jess: I’m ecstatic, I’m giddy! *laughs*

I woke up this morning and had this visual of what it was going to be like and it was better than what I thought.

Jeff: The same… we have played other UK cities like Lancaster and Manchester but we were really excited when Helen Love asked us to play London.

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It was quite an eclectic line-up for this event so I had the impression some of the audience hadn’t heard a synthesizer played in a pop context for about 20 odd years! What did you think?

Jeff: Ours was the only music that had space between the notes! Instead of the strumming, there was suddenly all this airiness in the room! *laughs*

Jess: I actually think we fit more with Helen Love’s aesthetic because there’s some punk in there and bubblegum pop… so we chose our set with her in mind.

Jeff: We were banking on the audience not knowing what to expect, we threw in a few things to throw them off…

Jess: And, as Jeff likes to say, “guitars are retro…”

Jeff: Whenever anybody plays a synthesizer, the ‘80s’ comes up and the word ‘retro’ gets used. But we’re believers in what we’re doing is a continuance of something that may have stopped a little too prematurely and that hasn’t been explored as much or as often as it should be.

So there’s technology today which does things that couldn’t possibly have been done back in the 80s… I mean, aren’t those guitars and the style of music most often played with them retro? But with electronic music, there’s always been a sense of looking forward, of building upon something instead of looking back.

There were a lot of smiles in the audience during your performance?

Jess: We definitely play upon that because we see ourselves as part-performance art, kitsch cabaret pop…

Jeff: We were taking band photos and coming up with costumes as part of the art concept before we bothered doing the songs… HYPERBUBBLE is very much an art / music project.

So what would you say to observers who might say “it should only be about the music, it shouldn’t matter what a band looks like”?

Jess: I have to say, and not being too irreverent here, but I’m so tired of ‘sincerity’… people say music has to be sincere but art can be anything. And it can be humourous, it can be dark humour, it can be political commentary like our song ‘Non Biodegradable Hazardous Waste Disposal’… when you put limitations on what art or music can be, then you can miss a whole lot.

Jeff: I think the bands should be the ones making up their own rules and not having someone else making them.

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In the US at the moment, EDM is popular… is that helping or hindering HYPERBUBBLE?

Jeff: EDM gives the potential audience something they can relate to and creates an open-mindedness. So our music has a point of reference now for people who didn’t understand it. Little do people know but they have been weaned on electronic music since the 60s with television commercials and movie soundtracks so there has finally been a breaking down of barriers that this wasn’t music. People are recognising that “yes, this is a valid art form now”!

Jess: I have this memory when I got my first synthesizer, my sister who played French Horn said “you can’t make real sounds on that thing! You can’t make the sound of a saxophone or French Horn” but I told her “I’m not trying to, I’m making new sounds”… flash forward to 2014 and she’s HYPERBUBBLE’s biggest fan, you’ll find her all over Facebook liking everything we do.

Jeff: When we were in Glasgow a couple of tours ago, I was in an elevator and there was this guy in there with a mandolin case and I was holding my microKorg case. He said “what’s that?”. I replied “a synthesizer” and he said “when the electricity runs out, you’re f***ed!”. I was thinking, when the electricity runs out, the last thing I’m going to be worried about is where I can plug in my synth! *laughs*

You went to Moogfest 2014 which featured KRAFTWERK and Giorgio Moroder?

Jess: I didn’t go, Jeff went with his brother who’s in the band NITE RISK…

Jeff: Oh, it was like a disciple going to The Sermon On The Mount, it really was. KRAFTWERK were a band I first heard when I was 13 with this otherworldly sound…I listened to ‘Autobahn’ daily! In my mind, they are this perfect combination of music and art concept. To see it played out… I was actually weeping during ‘The Robots’! But the most poignant moment though was when they had a technical issue and you saw human beings behind the keyboards having to deal with an error… they were so graceful about it. And instead of sending out some flunkey to tell the audience to hold tight, Ralf Hütter took responsibility and came out to apologise. I think we were lucky to see the human part of this band. I think we saw one of the best KRAFTWERK shows ever because we got a little peek behind that mystique that has been built up.

Likewise, attending a seminar with Giorgio Moroder and watching him perform live laid to rest the mythology of him being a cold, robotic producer. He was warm, and actually quite funny. Also, like seeing KRAFTWERK, hearing Moroder speak about monumental singles like ‘I Feel Love’ and the soundtracks from ‘Midnight Express’ and ‘Cat People’ brought those early HYPERBUBBLE influences full circle.

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Your main project this year has been the soundtrack for the film ‘Attack Of The Titans’, and you’ve won an award?

Jeff: Yeah, the award was for ‘Dee Dee Rocks The Galaxy’, a film that was made by the same crew as ‘Attack Of The Titans’. It won ‘Best Soundtrack’ at the 48 Hr Film Festival. It’s going to be coming out next year, because we’re trying to pace the releases a little.

With the soundtracks, we’re going back into what got us into this kind of music in the first place, listening to those TANGERINE DREAM soundtracks like ‘The Park is Mine’, ‘Sorcerer’, ‘Risky Business’ and ‘Thief’, which, by the way, worked great while riding the London Underground this trip.

We’d done ‘Drastic Cinematic’ which was a make-believe soundtrack, and it led us to being invited to do actual soundtracks. I just love being given a concept and a visual and asking myself “what are you going to do that suits this?” – ‘Dee Dee Rocks The Galaxy’ is the next step forward for us, because it’s a mini-synth rock opera which required us to work with singing actors.

Jess: Speaking of concepts, our costumes tonight are foreshadowing what’s to come… we plan to produce, mix and create the first electro Country & Western LP *laughs*

Jeff: Actually, ‘Switched On Nashville’ may have been the first! *laughs*

With our stage clothes, we’re playing up to people’s expectations, then throwing in a paradox… looking like their pre-conceived idea of what a Texan is and then sounding nothing like it! So now we’re going to flip it all the way over. Synthesizers with their pitch bend and portamento really lend themselves to that country twang! And the first three letters of “Moog” spell MOO! *laughs*

MOOGATE

It’s been four years since the ‘Candy Apple Daydreams’ album and you’ve been doing these soundtracks and EPs. Has that been conscious? Do you think albums are an outdated concept?

Jess: My first thought is that we keep trying to do something new each time and not repeat it.

Jeff: Also, when we try to do something, we try to do the best version of that concept we can and we were really satisfied with ‘Candy Apple Daydreams’… it was like “let’s do an electronic pop rock opera with a theme and a storyline”. A lot of what we like about electronic music came from the ‘song’ bands that wrote pop tunes but much of it has also come from soundtrack and experimental music. Those first three albums were about establishing ourselves enough to have room to stretch out a little bit more.

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Although Texas has a great crop of electronic based acts such as FEATHERS, ELEVEN: ELEVEN and IRIS, do you ever feel that being there that you’re out of sorts in terms of location as far as electronic music is concerned?

Jeff: Well, Texas is the home of NASA and you can’t get much more technical or electronic than that *laughs*

Jess: I think San Antonio has come along way since its heavy metal days, there’s a lot more up and coming bands who are duos or have a minimal set-up. But of course, we’re close to Austin which is the state’s music capital so it’s a great place to be. And our biggest supporters have been the visual art community in Texas so we really cross over into that realm.

Jeff: San Antonio actually has a secret synthpop history. Shortly after THE SEX PISTOLS played at Randy’s Rodeo in our hometown of San Antonio in 1978, you had this explosion of bands that were inspired by that, but who also listened to FAD GADGET and THE NORMAL. As a result, in the early 80s, there were actually a lot of San Antonio synth-driven acts like DEM VACKRA, BA SYNDICATE, INNOCENT X, CHARLES ATHANAS, MANNEQUIN, LUNG OVERCOAT (of which I was a founding member) and GET REAL. We tip our ten gallon hats to them. Yee-haw!

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to HYPERBUBBLE

‘Better Set Your Phasers To Stun – The Next Generation’, the ‘Attack Of The Titans’ soundtrack and HYPERBUBBLE’s four albums ‘Drastic Cinematic‘, ‘Candy Apple Daydreams’, Solid Pop’ and ‘Airbrushed Alibis’ are available on CD from http://www.hyperbubble.net/

https://www.facebook.com/hyperbubble

https://twitter.com/Hyperbubble

https://www.instagram.com/hyperbubbleofficial/

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
20th December 2014

Introducing TORUL

7 June 2013 /

Native to the wonderfully named Ljubljana in Slovenia, Torul Torulsson, a talented songwriter and producer met guitarist and live synth player Borut Dolenec at a party.

A friendship was forged when they both went to see psychedelic experimentalists BELGRADE NOISE SOCIETY.

Torulsson had already established himself within the music industry having recorded a number of successful club tracks since 1995 under several aliases. The debut album by TORUL, appropriately named ‘Dark Matters’, was released in 2010 and portrayed the demons that Torulsson himself must have overcome to be able to write so eloquently about them.

Torulsson and lead vocalist Jan Jenko came together through a mutual producer friend while Jenko was recording with his other band WORLD::WITHIN. As in the case of so many inspiring collaborations, the pair experienced an instant connection and so work began on recording a new album ‘In Whole’ in 2011. Single ‘Try’ was the first to be released and due to the adroit video, it was successfully featured on regional MTV stations.

TORUL’s current album – the highly contagious ‘Tonight We Dream Fiercely’ – was released in Europe in April this year and reached a top three spot on the Deutsche Alternative Charts just behind OMD and DEPECHE MODE no less! Launch single ‘Glow’ sets the benchmark for a collection of magnificent electronic tracks, each easily a single in their own right. ‘I’m Still Here’ delights with more than a nod towards electronic stalwarts BLANCMANGE while the dark and menacing ‘Wake Up’ conjures visions of FAD GADGET although neither of these great acts are quoted by the band themselves as influences.

TORUL have certainly impressed during their very successful 14 date European tour supporting MESH recently with the statuesque Jenko displaying more than his fair share of stage presence. With the band heavily involved in the conception and production of their own videos, they are a steadily growing force in the alternative electro field and deservedly so…

‘Tonight We Dream Fiercely’ is available now on CD and download via Infacted Recordings

http://www.torul-recordings.net/

http://www.facebook.com/torul

Text by Deb Danahay
7th June 2013

Innocent Bystander: The Legacy of FAD GADGET

29 March 2012 /

Frank Tovey – otherwise and more famously known as FAD GADGET – was one of the nearly acts in the rise of synthesiser music.

Whilst his releases garnered much in the way of media attention, the magic translation to commercial success which happened for a number of his electronic peers, eluded him.

And yet, at the same time, FAD GADGET was one of the most influential acts from the post-punk scene. Despite his lack of chart success, FAD GADGET was a precursor and inspiration to the synthpop, EBM, industrial, and techno scenes that followed later in the decade, and most notably a significant influence on DEPECHE MODE.

April 2012 marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Frank Tovey, and also the forthcoming release of a retrospective collection of his best work, so what better time to take a look back at the life of one on Britain’s less feted synth pioneers? Certainly we can think of none more deserving of greater attention.

Francis John Tovey, the man behind the FAD GADGET persona, was born in East London on 8th September 1956.

His father had a shellfish shop in Bow where the young Frank would work on Saturdays to earn his pocket money. He saved up to buy his first musical instruments, a flute, a violin, and an electric piano, but his early forays into music were none too successful, he himself saying in an interview with The Face in 1980 that “As soon as I’d learnt three notes, I’d get bored and give them up”. Frank’s early exposure to the likes of T-REX, DAVID BOWIE, LOU REED and IGGY POP led him – and countless others – to join a few bands, but he soon became frustrated with what he saw as his lack of musical ability and failure to master any musical instrument.

He went to St Martin’s College of Art in 1974 and, subsequently, enrolled at Leeds Polytechnic. He developed an interest in performance art, apparently the only student in his year to specialise in performance, becoming heavily interested in mime in a way only a post punk artist could without laughing!

One fellow student was Marc Almond, soon to be of SOFT CELL: “I remember Frank fondly from our days at Leeds Poly in the late 70’s, as being both a friend and an inspiration. I always felt we were kindred spirits. We were inspired by similar things, came from much the same world and were in many ways, even then, outsiders. Frank brought all he had learnt from the legendary Lindsey Kemp into the classes and I was eager to learn from him”.

After graduating in 1978 Frank returned to London where he took up a series of dead-end jobs to support himself as he developed his interests in performance art.

Initially he wanted to make music to accompany his mime, so bought a humble set up: a tape recorder, a small Korg drum machine, and an electronic piano, and set them up in a cupboard in the house he was sharing with his girlfriend and some others.

This cupboard was the site of his first demos, including early versions FAD GADGET’s first single and B-side, ‘Back To Nature’ and ‘The Box’, the latter inspired by the claustrophobic atmosphere of recording in the airless dark space of the cupboard.

Frank’s housemate Edwin Pouncey was friends with Daniel Miller, who had just recorded and released as THE NORMAL, the single ‘TVOD’ / ‘Warm Leatherette’ on his own label, Mute Records. Although apparently Miller had no plans to become a proper label or release any other records, he was persuaded by Pouncey to listen to Frank’s demo tape and to meet with him.

Frank recalls how he was initially due to meet with Miller at a gig of THE MONOCHROME SET, but due to an unfortunate set of circumstances involving too much beer and THE MONOCHROME SET drum kit, the meeting didn’t take place until later at Rough Trade’s offices. Miller was apparently blown away by Frank’s demo tape and immediately offered to release a single. Frank chose to release it under the name FAD GADGET, later saying in an interview in 1982 with Paul Morley that it was intended to sound throwaway, disposable.

And so in September 1979, the ‘Back to Nature’ single was released, and became an underground classic, being played in the same kind of clubs as contemporaries such as THE HUMAN LEAGUE, THROBBING GRISTLE, CABARET VOLTAIRE, JOHN FOXX and GARY NUMAN (the latter having already had chart success with TUBEWAY ARMY and the single ‘Are Friends Electric?’ – it was around this time that FAD GADGET began performing live. Early gigs were apparently not entirely successful, Frank himself saying in an interview that he remembered one early gig at a holiday camp in Bognor supporting THE MONOCHROME SET (yes them again) where he performed to an audience of three.

However, the FAD GADGET stage persona was honed at these early gigs; later gigs would feature Frank stripping himself naked and covering himself in shaving cream to accompany his song ‘Ladyshave’, or showering the front rows of the audience with his own torn-out pubic hair. He also began to use implements like electric drills in his performance, to the great pleasure of his father, who allegedly would tell his friends that his drill was featured in Frank’s music!.

Notably, one early audience member was Dave Gahan of DEPECHE MODE, who of course would go on to become label mates and notably support FAD GADGET in one of their own early gigs at the Bridgehouse in Canning Town. Furthermore, of course, some of FAD GADGET’s last gigs before Frank’s death were supporting DEPECHE MODE on their ‘Exciter’ tour.

Frank went on to record and release the second FAD GADGET single, ‘Ricky’s Hand’ in March 1980, a cautionary tale about a drunk driver who crashes and maims himself, (featuring the strains of Frank’s father’s electric drill), followed by a third single ‘Fireside Favourite’ and the first album ‘Fireside Favourites’ in September 1980. This proved to be an independent chart hit and Tovey toured Europe and the United States before returning to record a follow up album, ‘Incontinent’, the title and the lyrical content referring to his experiences in, and observations of, the USA.

The cover features a particularly memorable photograph of Frank dressed as the children’s puppet show anti-hero Mr Punch, a figure that had apparently entranced him as a child and that he felt fitted the brutal nature of the times and of his observations of American culture. Also for this album, Frank began to incorporate real musical instruments and rely less heavily on found sound and synthesis. To promote the album, FAD GADGET went on tour across the UK supporting the then-massive TOYAH, and released a series of singles, again garnering favourable press coverage, but again also failing to trouble the mainstream top 40.

Despite, or perhaps because of this, Frank went on to record a third FAD GADGET album, ‘Under the Flag’, at Blackwing Studios in London, featuring YAZOO’s Alison Moyet guesting on the single ‘For Whom the Bells Toll’. The FAD GADGET stage persona began to unravel around this time, Frank injuring himself in some way at practically every gig, culminating in a stage dive in Amsterdam in which he snapped tendons in both ankles.

The lyrics for the ‘Under The Flag’ album were written around the time of the Falklands conflict and were influenced by the reporting of the time, and also, by the recession and social fragmentation evident in Thatcher’s Britain. Frank returned to a more electronic sound on this album, heavily using the then new Roland MC4 Microcomposer sequencer.

Positive reviews of the album and accompanying first single ‘Life On The Line’ led to an appearance on the newly-launched Channel Four and a slot supporting DEPECHE MODE at their Christmas show on 23rd December 1982. Frank and his band then embarked on a quite extensive tour.

1983 was a relatively quiet year for Frank, with just the single ‘I Discover Love’ being released, once again Frank showing a change of sound back to the more acoustic, electronics being eschewed in favour of piano. However, at the end of the year he, like many British artists before him, made a creative and psychologically significant move to Berlin to record his next album at Hansa Tonstudio, then recent home to DEPECHE MODE who had successfully mixed the ‘Construction Time Again’ album and recorded ‘Some Great Reward’ there.

The first single ‘Collapsing New People’ had a title referencing, and featured percussion from, German Industrial pioneers EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN who were recording at Hansa at the same time. February 1984 saw the release of the last FAD GADGET album, ‘Gag’, the cover featuring an Anton Corbijn photograph of a tarred and feathered Tovey.

Once again the sound was a mesh between the synthetic and the more organic, once again the reviews were, on the whole, positive, and once again, commercial success failed to materialise for FAD GADGET.

Following a couple of single releases, Frank decided to retire the name and continue to record under his own name. The ensuing period of ‘Frank Tovey’ releases is either seen by his fans as his best, or an irrelevance. Certainly, it is a world away from the icy groove of his earlier releases, embracing even acoustic folk. For the purposes of the FAD GADGET story, we skip forward to the Millenium’s beginning – the year 2000. Frank, who had at that time been producing a band called TEMPLE X, was persuaded to perform a one-off gig as FAD GADGET with TEMPLE X being his backing band.

The gig at London’s Elektrowerkz was attended by some of the members of DEPECHE MODE, who talked him into supporting them on the European leg of their Exciter tour, playing in front of and being well received by arena crowds for the first time ever, one gig of which we were lucky enough to have attended.

The success of the support slot for the Mode led Frank to rekindle his interest. A ‘Best Of’ collection was released and Frank was back writing and beginning to record what would have been new FAD GADGET material. However, the story has an unhappy end as, on 3rd April 2002, Frank died suddenly of a heart attack at the young age of 45, having suffered from chronic heart problems since childhood.

Mortality had never been far from the mind of Tovey, and in fact his on-stage entropic character tapped and communicated that frailty, those anxieties. Tovey’s creativity was far from exhausted or fully realised, and he was certainly taken from the world criminally early.

Remembering and respecting the subversive genius of FAD GADGET.

Dedicated to the memory of Frank Tovey 1956-2002

‘The Best of Fad Gadget’ is released by Mute Records

http://www.fadgadget.co.uk/

http://mute.com/artists/fad-gadget

Text by Mike Cooper and Nix Lowrey
30th March 2012, updated 4th April 2018

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