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Depeche Mode - Summer Demo Tape 1980
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These three demo tracks were recorded when Depeche Mode were known as "Composition Of Sound". An unreleased track, Radio News, is included on this demo tape. Lyrically, the other two songs are identical, though Dave sings "the ice machine, ice machine" twice during the end of Ice Machine, as he similarly does during early live shows until the end of the song. Andrew Fletcher surprisingly plays bass guitar during these tracks.
At least two early Composition Of Sound / Depeche Mode demo tapes existed in 1980:
a 4 track tape (containing Photographic, "Television Set" and two unknown/unnamed songs) with Vince singing, recorded before the arrival of Dave in the band. a 3 track tape (containing Ice Machine, Radio News & Photographic) with Dave singing, recorded after the arrival of Dave in the band. The second demo tape was recorded at Lower Whopping Conker Company on Victoria Road in Romford, Essex during the summer of 1980 (Jonathan Miller erroneously states that the studio was called "Lower Wapping Conker Company" and that it was located in Barking). However, Dave Gahan says in this interview that he remembers it being recorded at Rockstar studios, owned by John Springate of The Glitter Band, which was on Tottenham Court Road in London. Vince Clarke and his friend Gary Smith were interviewed by Jonathan Miller in 2002:
Clarke: "I was the experienced one, because I'd been in a studio once before. From what I remember, we did four songs in the demo studio. But none of us knew what reverb was, so we couldn't work out why it didn't sound as good as the demo I'd done before, which did have reverb on, making everything sound great."
Smith: "They paid £50 for one tape at the studio and I was the only person with a tape-to-tape recording machine at home, so I made a copy for each of the band members, so there were originally five tapes in total. Talking to Fletch, he thinks they've all gone and seems to think mine is the last one. He hasn't heard it for years. Anyway, if you hear the demo, it's very... raw."
Martin Gore admitted in Sounds magazine, November 7th, 1981 issue, that he had his synth for a month and didn’t know he could change the sounds. “You know that sound that goes – WAUGH? I was stuck on that for ages. And when we made our first demo all the tracks have the same sounds on it.”
Dave will make his live debut with the band on June 14 at Nicholas School in Basildon, the fourth gig of Composition Of Sound.
Two copies of the second demo tape were sold in early 2011 for a few thousand GBP.
The first copy sold for somewhere above 2000 Euros and was bought by an international team of collectors from depmod.com.
Scan thanks to Depeche Mode Classic Photos and Videos (requires group membership) The second copy was sold a few days afterwards by Terence Murphy, the original landlord of the Bridge House, which was the club that booked Depeche Mode in their early years. Terence proposed the band as the support act for Fad Gadget, the major act of Daniel Miller's record label Mute Records. The rest is history. The band performed their first concert at the Bridge House on September 24, 1980; therefore, Terence probably received the demo tape a few days prior. Terence's tape is an older copy, and was originally labeled "Composition Of Sound", with "Depeche Mode" later written on the label. In fact, it is likely by this date that the band was called "Depeche Mode", and they were mistakenly advertised as "Depache Mode" (see right photo), perhaps because this was the first time anybody had heard the name.
The band will play their second concert at the Bridge House on October 16, 1980.
The first three photographs in the "Photos" folder are of the tape purchased by Svenner and his friends and is the source of this torrent's audio. The fourth picture is the tape sold by Terence Murphy, and has "Depeche Mode" written in ink on the tape's label and inlay. The fifth photo is a scan of an early live set list provided by Daryl Bamonte, which lists "Radio News". That song was played live at least 4 times between June and October 1980.
In the second photo, the real name of Vince Clarke, "Vince John Martin", is listed with a phone number. Vince was out of work and receiving unemployment benefits in 1980 and adopted this pseudonym in fear that with the first newspaper articles about Depeche Mode, he would lose those benefits. A friend of Dave Gahan, Paul Valentine, proposed to Vince the pseudonym of Dick Clarke (from the 1950-1960 US TV host Dick Clark). Vince decided to keep the last name only.
