Many many years ago, I had a good friend. Let’s call him Rooster.
If I recall, he and I bonded over music Depeche Mode to be specific. We were both big fans, although possibly more I. We both liked synthpop bands in general, in those early days, and spent endless hours debating the merits of artists such as DM (great!), New Order (bleh!), Skinny Puppy (eh?), Art Of Noise (snooze) and OMD. That last one I dismissed then, but now recognize as one of the greats. Rooster was a curious fellow, unpredictable and often inscrutable. I could fill this blog with amusing (and fond) memories of him and the stuff he and I got up to.
This would have been about 1985 or 1986.
Anyway he lived in a big house with his parents and sister. I’m hardly sure the sister even existed, so infrequently did I see her. She was younger (I think) and didn’t go to our school (I think) and was very shy (I’m sure). Or perhaps her mum just hid her from us, since Rooster’s mum was intense. His dad was a judge and I rarely met him, but his mum was often home when I visited. She was friendly to me, but Rooster and her argued a lot and it tended to make visits often awkward. Also I don’t recall ever going upstairs despite many visits to the house. In fact I don’t recall ever being in any other than one large downstairs room, which looking back on it seems weird. But I went a lot, since we were friends Rooster had a lot of stuff at his house.
For instance, he was the first guy I knew with a video camera. It was a massive over-the-shoulder thing that used full sized betamax cassettes and couldn’t rewind itself. I dimly recall us wandering the streets and recording random things and eventually having a police car stop and question us about what we were doing. I also recall taping other friends at a party at his house (in that one room…) once. I’d love to see that tape today.
Rooster had a lot of musical instruments as well. A piano (which neither he nor I could play), a guitar (ditto), a drum kit (!), an accordian (!!) and then one spectacular day, probably in ’87, he produced an electric keyboard – a synthesizer! – and something that looked a bit like this:
That’s an early drum machine, specifically the Korg KPR-77 released in 1983. It was one of the first with an LCD screen and an memory to save the ‘song’. Rooster’s was better than this – much better in fact. His not only included a basic drum machine, but also a sampler and sequencer. Think of the iOS Garage Band app in a plastic box (much bigger than an iPad!) and that’s about what he had.
We had it all: the keyboard, the drum machine, the sequencer and the new romantic attitude. It was time to start our own synthpop band!
Looking back we probably lacked the most important requirement: talent!
But this hardly slowed us. The keyboard was connected to the sequencer, as was a tape and a microphone. Nearby we had a stereo so we could ‘dub’ things from other songs. And then, in one single day, we laid down an albums worth of tracks.
There was the eerie opening song: ‘Doubter’s Son‘, which consisted of a sub-melodic drone speckled only with the eponymous lyric which increased in frequency until it took over at the end. There was a song about a dog. There were a few instrumentals that at first glance sounded like random noise. There was a spoken word piece that read some lines from a greeting card. And there was the inevitable first single: ‘Hello I’m A Fish’. We collaborated on the ‘music’, and I recall most of the ‘singing’ was provided by me. About 6-8 songs in all were recorded that day, carefully saved to tape and even adorned with a homemade ‘record sleeve’ with liner notes and lyrics. It was dedicated to girls we liked (but we didn’t name). I believe we made three copies in total. We we very proud of it. We loved it.
I used to listen to mine a lot! I still remember (and this is no exaggeration) with great clarity the tune of Doubter’s Son. There were discussions about a second album, or even renting studio time to remake our first one more professionally. Rooster may have even sent one copy to a radio station! If our ‘band’ had a name, I don’t recall.
We shared out creation with others and it was immediately obvious that we had produced something challenging. Most of the initial reactions were giggles, which quickly became uncontrolled laughter. They loved to hate it, calling it noise or garbage. This bothered Rooster a bit, but I didn’t care. In those days I may have said “Geniuses are rarely appreciated in their time” (with a big grin myself). A friend of mine (Thud) did a fine rendition of ‘Hello I’m A Fish’, but his heart wasn’t in it like mine had been. Most of the girls I played it for hated it, but then they thought Rooster was unusual anyway. I stopped playing it for others.
I wonder what my family thought? My brother will remember it. I look forward to his comments.
Only a year or so later Rooster and I had turned our back on synthpop – at least publicly. Who cares about a-ha when The Sisters have a new record out? I had long since stopped playing the tape, but it still languished in a drawer somewhere. It became the brunt of infrequent jokes, sometimes dragged out to laugh at when people were drunk. In the last year of high school Rooster got a job as a DJ on the radio, and sometimes I’d go in and sit with him while he played records. The studio had a bulk eraser in it that I occasionally used to erase cassettes. One time I took a whole bunch in with me, including ‘the record’. We had a laugh about the idea of playing one song on the air but never did.
I honestly don’t remember if I erased it that day or not.
It’s been many years since I heard those songs. When KLS came to Oz in ’92 I never played it for her. In fact just now she told me I’d never even mentioned it. I don’t remember the last time I listened to it or even saw it. I don’t remember even forgetting that it was important to me. Even if any copies still existed after 30-odd years it’s unlikely they could play.
That brilliant first album of a nameless band – crafted in a single day – is probably now lost forever.
