by negative1 » Tue Feb 07, 2017 10:47 am
sure guys.. i will post links to the Word documents for some more chapters... here is the 2nd part.. from speak and spell up to get the balance right:
=================
► Speak & Spell
34
► SPEAK & SPELL
Shortly before Speak & Spell was released on 29 October
1981. the October issue of the popular magazine Flexipop
included an inlay of a 7-inch flexi-single by Depeche Mode
with the title Sometimes I Wish I Was Dead - a good promo-
tional stunt for their forthcoming debut album. There were
60.000 pre-orders for the album in the UK alone. Expecta-
tions were high.
In November, Speak & Spell rose to number 10 in the
British album charts, which was an impressive result for a
newcomer band from an indie label. The album title Speak
& Spell was suggested by Daniel Miller in reference to an
electronic toy on the market in the UK at the time - a fitting
name for a band taking its first steps. Depeche Mode was
never to sound quite as optimistic or as downright naive as
it did during its infancy.
Nine of the album’s eleven songs were penned by Vince.
Tora! Tora! Tora! and Big Muff were composed by Martin
who was also lead vocalist on Any Second Now (Voices). As
Dreaming of Me was only released as a single in the UK, the
song appeared on international pressings instead of I
Sometimes Wish I Was Dead. In the tradition of electronic
bands from the seventies there was an instrumental track
on the album: Big Muff.
The record cover was designed by photographer Brian
Griffith, who had already worked with Elvis Costello and
Iggy Pop. His agency was in the same building as Mute, so
he got the job. “I developed the setting on my own, I didn’t
have any help. I don’t know where I had the idea for the
------------------------
FLEXIPOP! MAGAZINE NR. 11/1981
Speak & Spell learning toy from Texas Instruments. Not only was Depeche Mode's
first LP named after the successful children's toy: director Steven Spielberg's hero E.T.
phoned home on one of these machines in the 1982 film named after him.
-----------------------
swan in plastic, no idea,” says Brian on how the picture was
created. The band wasn’t sure what to make of it either,
and the fee of £1,000 seemed brazenly inflated at the time
- but the swan is what ended up on the cover. And even if
it isn’t the greatest cover the band ever had, it kept people
puzzling about the significance of the image: no one could
quite work it out.
THE FLEXIPOP! ALBUM LP • LYN1 1965 • UK
► Speak & Spell
36
INTERCORD PRESS INFO [ORIGINAL]
LONDON IN DEPECHE MODE FEVER
The news item came by telex on 19 October - exactly ten days before the release
of Depeche Mode's first album. Daniel Miller, boss of the one-man record label, sent
it by ticker: "60,000 pre-ordered LPs - that's silver, people." One day later, it was
corrected. "Forget 'silver'. We've got gold!" To get gold, the band needed to sell 100,000
LPs in England: Depeche Mode's album already had 100,000 pre-orders, nine days before
its release. For Melody Maker the verdict was clear: "The London
is in Depeche Mode fever. It started off innocently, in the little country town of Basildon,
Sussex. That's where the four young lads met about a year ago: Vince Clarke,
the eldest at 20, was a guitarist in an acoustic duo, Martin Gore, 19, a keyboard
player in a rock band, Andrew Fletcher just strummed around by himself on his old
Fender and Dave Gahan, 18, thinks that ever since his voice broke, he's "got real
sex in his voice."
The four decided to start a band. And because they were united by a weakness for
synth sounds as well as their love for music, the direction was clear: "synthesizer
music". A name was quickly found: Depeche Mode. "We just liked the sound of
those French words," mused Vince Clarke. Depeche Mode ('fashion dispatches')
was the name of a French music magazine. Only a year later, the name was syn-
onymous with a refreshingly new electronic sound. Daniel Miller played a large role
in this. Miller, a dabbler in electronic music in his own right and boss of the Mute
label and produced the second LP by German band Deutsch Amerikanische Freund-
schaft (DAF) in the past. Now he began fully concentrating on the band's technical
support: Miller gave the lads tips, made sure they found the right equipment and tu-
ned the sound to its optimal level. Success came quickly. Their first single, Dreaming
Of Me, was released in March 1981 and made it into the UK top thirty. Their sec-
ond s:ngle. New Life (May 1981) made it into the top twenty and their latest single
Just Can't Get Enough made the top ten. In between, the band gave concerts that
fans turned Into real dance orgies. "You could say that the fans just can't enough of
Depeche Mode's new pop," wrote the NME - and this was during times that didn't
exactly look rosy for British youth. "The empire is collapsing and the fans are dan-
cing,' noted Bernd Gockel from Musikexpress. For German sounds, Depeche
Mode's music was the most up-to-date state barometer of England's mood,
Depeche Mode's first album was now out. And not just because of the 100,000
pre-orders, Melody Maker believed that "things have only jus! begun for the synthy-
popper's. Sneak previews of the album had some journalists in raptures: ”... so
transparent, bright, so clear, glittering, full of new life - it's a miracle that they don't
burn permanent dance shadows onto the walls..." begins the enthusiastic review in
Melody Maker. Manfred Gillig from Audio is less poetic, but perhaps more insightful:
’Depeche Mode shows a sixth sense for the stuff that hits are made of. Simple and
fresh.' And Daniel Miller is excited about the reactions: "England is in Depeche Mode fever ..."
SPEAK & SPELL LP • INTERCORD • I NT 146.801 • GER
LIMITED FIRST EDITION LP WITH POP TRANSFER
This edition is one of the most sought-after rarities among collectors. Intercord re-
leased the first pressing in West Germany with a transfer as an incentive for new
listeners.
These iron-on transfers were a hugely popular sales gimmick for children and teen-
agers in the eighties. But the transfer covered the back sleeve and the track list, so
a slip was inserted between the transfer and its plastic wrapping to show it to inter-
ested shoppers. Finding records with the transfer still intact is very difficult more than
30 years after its release. There is no information about the size of the pressing.
► Speak & Spell ► Depeche Mode Live
42
DEPECHE MODE LIVE
In 1981, Depeche Mode played more than sixty shows in
England and Europe. No matter that they’d barely left
Basildon in their early years, by September, Paris, Brussels
and Amsterdam had been on their itinerary. Not long after-
wards they went on their first trip to Germany. On Friday
25 September they played at the Markthalle in Hamburg.
That month the first long article was published about the
band in the German-language magazine Sounds. Journalist
Diedrich Diederichsen, later chief editor of the Cologne-
based magazine Spex, casually condemned them: “Depeche
Mode are absolutely here today, and very probably gone
tomorrow.” Just how wrong he was going to be was some-
thing no one could have guessed back then.
Merchandise from the band's early days. These badges were sold along with t-shirts
and autographed photos at the concerts in 1981 and 1982. The newly founded
Information Service, set up by Vinces girlfriend Deb Danahay, offered various mer-
chandising items in its monthly newsletter. Interest from fans grew with every concert.
Concert manager Dan Silver, who also managed Fad
Gadget, put together a longer UK tour for the end of Octo-
ber/beginning of November. The concert on 6 November at
the University of Liverpool was recorded by the BBC, who
later broadcast some of the songs. Tour manager Andy
Franks remembers: “People would come with strange sorts
of expectations about what they were going to see ... it was
probably one of their first shows that didn’t actually have a
band playing conventional instruments on stage. We were
a bit surprised about it because we hadn’t done a show
before with a band who didn’t have a drummer.”
On the stage where the drummer normally sat there
stood a huge tape machine playing beats and some pre-re-
cordings. Interest in the band was phenomenal. Up to
20,000 people came to each concert, among them many
teenagers. As Vince, Andy and Martin didn’t have much
room to move behind their synths, it was mostly up to
Dave to put on a good show. “Dave had a pretty impres-
sive presence even then. Extrovert but shy, and very char-
ismatic,” as roadie Daryl Bamonte described Dave Gahan
in a later interview with Musikexpress. Although Dave did
not sweep as wildly across the stage as he would do at
later concerts, some of his later legendary dance move-
ments were already discernible. He limited his interaction
with the audience to introducing the next song, and occa-
sionally prompted them to clap and dance. And that’s
exactly what they did.
Set lists from early concerts from Daryl Bamonte's private archive. Some of these
songs only exist on paper nowadays. Recordings of the live songs, such as Mouldy
Old Dough, a cover version of a song by the band Lieutenant Pigeon, and Dance
and Radio News are no longer known. Depeche Mode's first single Dreaming Of
Me is called here Dreams Of Me.
43
► Vince Leaves ... ► Speak & Spell
VINCE LEAVES ...
Depeche Mode was surfing on a wave of success. Their
debut album Speak & Sound was selling fantastically and
their concerts were well attended. But not everyone in the
band felt comfortable about this. Right in the middle of the
album’s success and during the first proper tour, Vince
Clarke announced that he was leaving - to everyone’s sur-
prise. Even today, he’s never talked about the real reasons
behind his departure. But the most likely cause is that the
hype of stardom and the sudden routine of press inter-
views and concerts was too much for him: he preferred to
retreat into the studio and write songs.
Daniel Miller was able to convince Vince to stay until the
end of the UK tour. The last joint performance took place
on 3 December 1981 at Chichester Festival Theatre. “I think
the band was really pissed off. They were, I know. They
think I left them in the lurch,” summarised Vince. For a
while he even contemplated giving up music-making alto-
gether. But then he responded to an ad in Melody Maker
placed by Alison Moyet: she was looking for a band to join.
They met up and put together a joint demo tape.
Clarke and Moyet had known each other from their ear-
liest childhoods. They’d even gone to Saturday morning
music school together in Basildon. Together, they took a
demo tape with Vince’s song Only You on it and played it
to Daniel Miller, who immediately signed them up. The
new band - Yazoo - were initially even more successful
than Depeche Mode. Initially, that is...
------------------
Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet: Yazoo
Concert ticket signed by the band for the last gig on the Speak & Spell tour on 3 December 1981 in the Festival Theatre, Chichester,
It was also the last concert with founding member Vince Clarke, who left the band afterwards. Although his departure had been on the cards for weeks, Daniel Miller persu-
aded him to finish the tour.
45
► Depeche Mode Live In Hamburg In 1981 ► Speak & Spell
DEPECHE MODE LIVE IN HAMBURG IN 1981
Rainer Dreschler photographed Depeche Mode at their
first German concert in Hamburg in September 1981. On
the band’s 30th anniversary in 2011, he recalled in an inter-
view with Musikexpress: “In September, Depeche Mode
was playing for the first time in Germany at Hamburg’s
Markthalle on a short European tour. I was allowed in dur-
ing a soundcheck to take photographs and noticed how
serious they were about what they did, and how important
the right tone was. That surprised me. Personally, I didn’t
like their synth sound - I was more into hard rock at the
time. And if there had to be a keyboard on stage, then let it
be a good ol' Hammond. But anyway. In the evening, the
concert was packed. The Markthalle was too small for the
lads by then. It was a huge crush but the mood was elated.
Everyone felt that something special was going on. The
wave from England had hit Hamburg with full force.”
The Markthalle in Hamburg near Klosterwall is one of the oldest concert venues in
Germany. Built in 1913/14, the long, Hanseatic-style red-brick building was first
used as a vegetable market, then later as a flower market until after the war it be-
came a post stockroom for some years. After that, the building was empty until 1975
when a group of investors were found who wanted to fill this central location with
new life. After extensive renovations the Markthalle reopened its doors on New
Year's Eve in 1976/77 to host a huge party and a concert by the German Krautrock
band, Embryo. The Markthalle became well known for hosting gigs by new bands
among them British acts. Besides Depeche Mode, The Damned, Ultravox, The
Stranglers, The Clash and The Police also played there.
Concert tickets and a concert poster for the first Depeche Mode concert in West Germany.
51
► The Difficult Second Album ► A Broken Frame
► A BROKEN FRAME
THE DIFFICULT SECOND ALBUM
Morrissey couldn’t stand Depeche Mode. At the beginning
of 1982 he wrote in the Record Mirror: “Depeche Mode
may not be the most remarkably boring group ever to walk
the face of the earth but they’re certainly in the running.
Their sophisticated nonsense succeeds only in emphasis-
ing just how hilariously unimaginative they really are.” But
at the time the opinion of some bloke in Manchester was
not really of concern to Depeche Mode.
After the Depeche Mode concert in Rafters, Manchester, on 5 August 1981,
the still-unknown Steven Morrissey penned a damning judgement of the
band in the Record Mirror on 13 February 1982. Morrissey, who was
known for his provocative statements, later made British music history with
his band The Smiths and is considered a pioneer of English indie rock. In
2004, Steven Patrick Morrissey was elected by the NME as "the most influ-
ential artist of all times."
Vince Clarke’s sudden departure had left a gaping hole. Until
then Vince had pulled all the strings in the band and written
most of the songs. But Martin, Andy and Dave had given up
jobs and university courses and didn’t want to go back to
humdrum life after their first success. “It should worry every
other band when your main songwriter departs. But we didn’t
even think about it, we just carried on,” said Andy Fletcher,
remembering the positivity of the remaining members.
---------------------
in its first newsletter of the year, the Depeche Mode Information Service announced
Vince Clarke's departure. The English media had already reported on this in Decem-
ber 1981 and predicted that the band would fold quickly without its main songwriter.
For the remaining live performances, among them in the USA, a quick substitute for
Vince was sought.
-----------------------
SEE YOU
In December 1981 they went back to Blackwing Studios
and recorded a new single. See You had been penned by
Martin Gore when he was a teenager on his guitar, and now
the band rearranged it.
On 29 January 1982, not even two months after Vince
had left, See You climbed to number 6 in the UK charts. Its
high position showed that Depeche Mode was popular
even without Vince. Nevertheless, the song sounded a bit
goody-goody and coy and the underrated B-side, Now, This
Is Fun had much more drive and was far fresher. At almost
the same time, Kraftwerk’s The Model reached number 1 in
the UK charts. Electronic music was everywhere.
Promo posters for the UK release of See You, 1982
With the cover for See You the group underlined its attitude
towards sub-culture and its position outside the main-
stream. The design came from East German painter Moritz
Reichelt, who had relocated to West Germany in 1957.
Reichelt, whose works were displayed at Kassel’s docu-
menta IV exhibition in 1968 when he was only 12 years old.
founded the new wave gallery Art Attack in Wuppertal in
1978 and was a forerunner group of new German wave
(Neue Deutsche Welle or NDW), called Der Plan, in Dussel-
dorf in 1979. Following this, he set up the record label Ata
Tak in Dusseldorf in 1980, an indie label that Martin Gore
and Daniel Miller were already big fans of in 1982.
► A Broken Frame ► Wanted: Keyboard Player
54
WANTED: KEYBOARD PLAYER
After Vince had left, Daniel Miller suggested finding a
replacement for the band; this was rejected by the other
members at first. However, for the remaining bookings in
1982 it seemed sensible to look for a substitute keyboard
player. So the band put an ad in the December 1981 issue
of Melody Maker for a keyboard player: “name band, syn-
thesize, must be under twenty-one.” Among the applicants
was Alan Wilder, born 1 June 1959, from West London.
Alan came from a middle-class family and was a trained
musician who had already played and released records
with the bands Dafne And The Tenderspots, Real To Real
and The Hitmen, but without much success and in musical
genres very different to Depeche Mode.
At first, he lied about his age so that he didn’t get rejected
straight away. Dave recalls: “We auditioned at Blackwing,
and all these strange and wonderful characters showed up.
And they were all dressed up to the nines, but couldn’t
play. And Alan came along and could play anything.” The
band took him on, first as a live musician, and paid him a
weekly wage of £100. In January 1982, he played his first
concert with Depeche Mode in Crocs in Rayleigh and
shortly afterwards went with them to New York to promote
the new US release of Just Can’t Get Enough.
Just as with the hit single Just Can’t Get Enough, the
group decided to produce a video for See You. It was direc-
ted by Julien Temple, a young London music and video
director who had made a name for himself at the end of the
1970s with a film about the legendary punk pioneers, the
Sex Pistols: it was called The Great Rock 'n’Roll Swindle.
Depeche Mode threesome: transfer picture by Target Transfers from the UK, 1982
The Depeche Mode video was partially filmed on loca-
tion at a Woolworths store in Hounslow, Middlesex. Video
producer Siobhan Barron described the difficulties they
experienced during the shooting of the film in an interview
with the teen mag Look In. Barron and her production firm
Limelight, who produced several music videos in the Eight-
ies for bands such as Culture Club, The Human League and
Peter Schilling, a NDW star, described the chaotic day’s
filming: ‘At some point, we had 500 people watching us.
Some of them just walked right through the takes. When
we’d finally cleared the shop, more people suddenly turned
up and pulled faces into the camera. In some scenes, the
band was supposed to play keyboards in the middle of the
shop. But some people thought they were salesmen and
came up to ask questions like: “How long will it take before
I can learn to play this instrument?” or “Can I buy this on
interest-free credit?”
The video itself didn’t appeal much to the band, who
saw the filming more as a necessary evil. In 1985, when
their first collection album The Singles 81 - 85 was released.
See You was included but the video collection that was
released at the same time, Some Great Videos, did not con-
tain Temple’s video. It was the first video featuring an
appearance by newcomer Alan Wilder.
Substitute keyboard player Alan Wilder on 24 March in 1982 at the Trinity Hall in
Hamburg.
► A Broken Frame ► The Meaning Of Love
58
THE MEANING OF LOVE
Without Alan, however, the band then recorded another
single at Blackwing studios: The Meaning of Love, which
was released on 26 April 1982. Again, the cover was
designed by Moritz Reichelt and Ata Tak. This cheerful,
naive song managed to make it to number 12 in the UK
charts. Despite this considerable success, singles by ex-band
member Vince Clarke and his new project Yazoo were
doing better in the charts. Many British music journalists
interpreted this as Depeche Mode’s gradual decline and
predicted that they wouldn’t last long without their main
songwriter. What’s more, the group was still being dispar-
aged in the music press as a teenybopper band after a few,
sometimes dubious TV appearances on unsuitable shows.
One of these bizarre performances was for the German
TV show Bananas on 27 April 1982, when Depeche Mode
performed See You in an imitation shed holding chickens.
Musikexpress also dismissed the group as a one-hit won-
der: "Bland, synth-pop for party people who want to shake
a leg. But even so, your legs soon get tired of shaking.”
WANTED: AN IMAGE
The band’s lack of orientation was showing in its image in
particular. They had traded in their forties’ suits from the
era of their first singles for conspicuously boring pullovers.
They’d also developed a strange taste for boldly checked
58. Depeche Mode on 27 April 1982 on the West German music show Bananas
Bananas was a popular music and former comedy show on the channel WDR,
which then changed on 24 March 1981 to ARD. The show consisted of several 'live'
appearances by different bands that were elaborately produced and of almost the
same quality as the music videos of the era. In between the music performances,
there were one or two comedy sketches.
Even the bands who appeared without an audience were shoehorned into the com-
edy concept of the show with various stage and costume techniques.
This is how Depeche Mode ended up singing See You to a farmyard backdrop,
holding chickens. Additional musical guests in the show were Status Quo, Stefan
Waggershausen, Shakin' Stevens and Robert Palmer. In November 1984 the show
was dropped.
THE MEANING OF LOVE 7" • MUTE • 7MUTE022 • UK
Finding a name for the B-side instrumental of The Meaning Of Love was not easy.
Daniel Miller asked Martin several times in vain.
The deadline for the artwork drew near - the single was due out on 26 April 1982.
Daniel pressed him on the matter.
Depeche Mode was on the European leg of their tour near Oberkorn in Luxembourg
and Martin wanted to order an egg for breakfast. Unfortunately, they were out of
eggs because, according to the waiter: "Oberkorn - it's a small town". This became
the song title.
Later releases of the single on CD used the 12-inch sleeve design also by Moritz
Reichelt and Ata Tak.
THE MEANING OF LOVE 12" • MUTE • 12MUTE022 • UK
59
► Wanted: An Image ► A Broken Frame
THE MEANING OF LOVE 7" • INTERCORD • INT 111.804 • GER
For promo purposes Intercord distributed regular singles that were simply marked
'Promotional Copy".
shirts - all in all, not a good look for an electro-indie band.
"We didn’t have a vision at all. We were torn between being
a pop band on Smash Hits and a cooler, alternative band,”
says Andy about their confusion at the time. To improve the
band's credibility, Mute hired the PR adviser Chris Carr and
his firm Ark PR, who were working with artists like The
Cure and Siouxsie and The Banshees at the time, as well as
with labels like 4D. Mute and Depeche Mode wanted to be
in the same league as these bands and not just a flash in the
pan. Regrettably, neither Mute nor the group had thought
about the quality of their music videos at this stage. The
videos that the band made from 1982 to early 1983 with
Get the Balance Right! are, in the worst case, embarrassing,
and at best, records of these innocent times. All of them
have been left out in later video collections. But perhaps
this is also a reason why Depeche Mode was so popular
with their fans from the beginning: they were not perfect.
Singing a love song while holding a chicken was not some-
thing that happened every day in the music industry.
In July 1982 the band had a difficult journey ahead: the
tricky second album loomed. With Daniel Miller as producer,
they rented the Blackwing Studio again. Eric Radcliffe and
John Fryer were once again involved as sound engineers.
Although Alan had played in all the gigs, TV shows and
videos since January, the band decided to produce the
record without him. The three core members wanted to
prove to themselves and the rest of the world that they
were capable of making a good album. Even without Vince
Clarke.
The single's limited first edition release in West Germany was once again on red
vinyl. Despite this limited edition, the subsequent black vinyl pressing counts today
as a rarity among collectors. To get a copy of this issue you require luck and
patience.
THE MEANING OF LOVE 7" • RCA • SPBO-7333 • SPA • PROMO
The only true promo pressing of the single was issued by RCA in Spain in a com-
pany sleeve. The size of this pressing must have been relatively large as it is not a
true rarity.
► A Broken Frame ► Leave In Silence
60
LEAVE IN SILENCE
Although See You and The Meaning of Love appeared on
the next LP, Leave in Silence was the first release from the
next creative phase. “I look back fondly at Leave in Silence,”
Martin said later. “I think it was a turning point for us and
we realised that this was a way to go forward.” The song left
behind the happy-go-lucky pop of the 1981 singles and The
Meaning of Love, yet was still very danceable. Martin had
successfully taken up his new role as the main songwriter
for Depeche Mode, even if the single only reached the top
20 in the UK singles chart.
Leave in Silence was released on 16 August 1982 and it
was the first single that was designated with the BONG
label in addition to its catalogue number. “Having a bong,”
Australian slang for smoking hashish, was a phrase that
Martin stumbled across in a magazine and found so funny
that since then, every Depeche Mode single has been given
a consecutive BONG number.
In North America, Leave in Silence was not released as a
single. After the band came back from a short US tour they
wanted to concentrate primarily on the album recordings
that they’d been working on under a lot of pressure since
July 1982. The highly successful European release of See
You had only just been issued in the USA, half a year after
its UK release - so there wasn’t any need for a new US sin-
gle.
The 12-inch UK version of Leave in Silence made its way
later to North America and Japan instead of the album A
Broken Frame.
MERCHANDISE T982 Notenheft zu See You von Music Sales Ltd London
LEAVE IN SILENCE 7" • MUTE • 7BONG1 • UK
The lettering was designed by Ching Ching Lee, a master of calligraphy. The sleeve
design for the single was created by Martyn Atkins. The photography on the 7-inch
LEAVE IN SILENCE 12” • MUTE • 12BONG1 • UK
was by Brian Griffin. The only Leave In Silence promo pressings were issued by RCA
in Spain as 7-inch and 12-inch versions.
63
► A Broken Frame ► A Broken Frame
A BROKEN FRAME
At the end of September, A Broken Frame was released and
made it to number 8 in the British album charts. Even in
Germany, it made it to number 56 without much publicity,
as did the other singles in 1982. Similarly to Speak & Spell,
there was an instrumental track and a song with Martin on
lead vocals, Shouldn’t Have Done That.
Unlike the songs that they had recorded the year before
on Speak & Spell, nearly none of the new songs were
recorded live. Martin had written some of them as a teen-
ager, others were created in the studio. Their mood and
quality varied from sugary pop songs like Photograph of
You, to more mature tracks such as The Sun & The Rainfall.
Newly acquired synthesizers also enabled the band to pro-
duce more diverse sounds and the song arrangements were
becoming gradually more complex. It was useful that a
16-track recording machine had been acquired by Blackwing
since the band’s last session, making it much easier to work
on songs and carry out adjustments after the recording.
Even if these days A Broken Frame is considered by both
band and fans as one of Depeche Mode’s weaker albums, it
already has traces of their music’s hallmark melancholy,
bordering on bleakness in places. The old teenybopper
frame of mind had certainly been broken, adding a figura-
tive meaning to the album title.
For the first time the band experimented with sound while
recording, without using pre-recorded noises: for Shouldn’t
Have Done, for example, Daniel Miller and the band wan-
ted to integrate the sound of marching feet. As their friends
in the band Blancmange were recording their new album
in the studio next door, they were asked to come over and
march in front of the mike for a minute.
Depeche Mode’s musical progression was also reflected
in its artwork. The cover for Leave in Silence and the LP
The album photo appeared on the front cover of Life magazine in winter
1990 under the title "The World's Best Photographs"
were designed for the first time by Martyn Atkins, who was
already working for Factory Records and had created Joy
Division’s cover for Closer. Sticking to the decision made
during the last album, the band was not pictured on either
cover. By not doing so, Atkins and Mute wanted to empha-
sise that Depeche Mode was a group of serious artists
whose good artwork reflected their music and that this was
more important to them than boosting sales by putting pic-
tures of their faces on the covers.
Brian Griffin shot the cover for A Broken Frame. His
image of a peasant woman in a field compensated not only
for his first botched cover design but was even judged by
Life Magazine to be among the best colour album cover
photographs in 1990.
Despite the fact that A Broken Frame didn’t sell as well
as Speak & Spell, the UK tour of the following October was
a sell-out. The concert at Hammersmith Odeon on 25 Octo-
ber was filmed by a team from Mute Records. At this stage
they were planning a video of the live gig for 1983. But only
eight months later the band felt that they had outgrown
these songs and abandoned the release. Nevertheless,
some of the live recordings made it onto the B-side of lim-
ited edition 12-inch singles in 1983.
Following the UK tour, fourteen European dates were
scheduled for November and December, nine of which
were in Germany. In March 1983, the band began a short
North American tour and then played in April in Bangkok.
Hong Kong and Tokyo. From Basildon to Asia: the Essex
lads were beginning to get to know the world.
► A Broken Frame ► Alan Wilder
64
A BROKEN FRAME LP • MUTE • STUMM9 • UK
There were no conspicuous differences between the different license pressings to A
Broken Frame. Only a nondescript photo of Andy Fletcher on the inner sleeve varied
from pressing to pressing. Why different photos were used is not known.
ALAN WILDER
Alan Wilder’s status in the band was still unclear. He had
proven himself to be an excellent stage performer and after
being left out of the recordings for A Broken Frame, he
wanted to know at last where he stood.
Long overdue, he was finally accepted as a full member
of the band during the UK tour in October 1982, as was
reported in the Depeche Mode Information Service’s
monthly newsletter. His official acceptance was typical of
Depeche Mode’s style at the time: it was modest and
unspectacular, with no party or drinking spree. Daniel
Miller simply phoned him and told him and from one
moment to the next, he was in the band.
The autographed Walkerprint photographs of Alan Wilder sent out by the
Depeche Mode Information Services in 1982. The portrait tried Wilder's
patience for although he had played in all the band's videos from early
1982 and was pictured in various band photos, the band still recorded the
album without him.
A BROKEN FRAME LP • SIRE • PRO-A-1084 • USA • PROMO
► A Broken Frame ► Depeche Mode Live 1982-83
66
DEPECHE MODE LIVE 1982-83
The first concert of the See You tour took place on 20 Jan-
uary 1982 in Crocs in Rayleigh as a kind of warm-up show
for the band’s new stage line-up during its forthcoming
US concerts.
The set list consisted mainly of songs from the Speak &
Spell album, with some surprises such as the song Televi-
sion Set and a cover version of I Like It by Gerry & The
Pacemakers, whose hit had managed to make it to num-
ber 1 in the UK charts in 1963. In March 1982, the band
toured Germany again where it played three concerts in
Hamburg, Hanover and West Berlin.
In May, Depeche Mode finished their first short US tour,
ending on 16 May 1982 in Los Angeles. Then, with their
new album A Broken Frame, the band went on a longer
world tour. At this point they were already focused on the
German market. They played a total of 13 concerts in Ger-
many, their final concert being on 28 May 1983 at the
Schuttorf Open Air festival.
Tour books for the See You and A Broken Frame tours. Alan is listed in the first book
but apart from a small photograph and his age, there are no other details about him.
New Romantics on Tour ... Poster for the two concerts at Berlin's Metropol during the
See You Tour on 26 March 1982 and for the A Broken Frame tour on 3 December
1982. Although A Broken Frame had already been released on 27 September
1982, the posters still used the Speak & Spell album motifs, at least in Germany.
Special guests at the West German concerts on the A Broken Frame tour were the
Neue Deutsche Welle musicians, X-AGENTEN, from Hamburg.
► A Broken Frame ► Get The Balance Right!
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GET THE BALANCE RIGHT!
As early as mid-November all four members of the band
went back into the studio to work on their next single, Get
the Balance Right! It was released at the end of January
1983 in the UK and climbed the charts to number 13. The
B-side of the single, The Great Outdoors, was already being
produced in the studio by Martin and Alan.
This time the band invested much more in the 12-inch
version of the single. “That was kind of the beginning of
when everybody realised you had to make a 12-inch mix to
help sell your single. It was a good marketing tool,” remem-
bers Alan in reference to his first recording at the Black-
wing Studio and to creating the mixes for Get the Balance
Right! “We did a long 12-inch and I can remember chop-
ping up the tape. Just literally running off parses from the
track. From the mixing board, on the tape, then chopping
the tape up. I remember spending hours and hours chop-
ping up tapes to put them together. People can’t imagine
how you used to have to do things actually.”
Although the release of A Broken Frame was only four
months old, the new single’s catchy hook and the beefier
sound in general showed the band’s clear musical progres-
sion. The single and 12-inch artwork was also a new depar-
ture. The clear graphic structure, which used the abstract
image of a worker with a heavy hammer, was to become
part of the band’s iconography over the next years in vari-
ous forms. Gradually, Depeche Mode was developing its
own, distinctive artwork. But they were still far from being
self-confident performers.
In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine, Martin Gore
recalls shooting the video with an inexperienced director:
"He was totally nervous and didn’t know who our lead
singer was. He singled out Alan, which is why you get to
see Alan most of the time in the video. The rest of us were
just extras.” But the lads were too shy to clear up this mis-
understanding during the him shoot.
The 12-inch version led to an unexpected development:
an unremarkable promo of the song with no information
about the artists found its way into the US underground
club scene, and DJ Derrick May in Detroit was among those
who played it on his turntable. His verdict was that he
found it “really funky.” So much for being “the most boring
group ever to walk the face of the earth”: back then, many
US DJs and clubbers had never heard of Depeche Mode,
and little did they know that no one in Europe would say
they were “funky.” Certainly not Morrissey.
GET THE BALANCE RIGHT! 7" • MUTE • 7BONG2 • UK
GET THE BALANCE RIGHT! 12" • MUTE • 12BONG2 • UK
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