For someone with an interest in live recordings such as myself, this is the kind of effort that commands my fullest respect. Slavish attention to detail when sharing something of real fan value. This post download includes all of the detail of the recording and so I won't regurgitate it here, other than the review.
It is the idea that gems like this are gathering dusk in lost spaces throughout the land that frustrates me. Even this recording from 1981 (at the tail end of my personal 'golden era' of British music (1977 to 1982 or threabouts)) is now 45 years old. Rare material of this vintage will and is in fact already slipping away from our cultural consciousness.
As to Depeche Mode themselves, I was never a big fan, certainly not of this period, the squeaky clean synth band from Basildon. They became far more interesting as their material got darker, even from the point of 'Construction Time Again'. I do really like 'Music For The Masses' though, after which I didn't pay them much more attention. Nevertheless, I know that there is a lot of love for the band still and perhaps amongst visitors of this site too.
Thanks to the original Dime uploader (ligushka).
Artwork: https://we.tl/t-sp9uyjkRshLTMPt8
The following review appeared in the 5th March issue of Smash Hits.
'By Red Starr
ONE OF the few interesting things currently happening in the musical desert called London is the Cabaret Futura. A mixture of decadent '30s German chic and trendy futurism, this mobile late night event is intended to provide a non-violent, tolerant, atmosphere where people can experiment in expressing themselves through mixed media without audience hassles. Thus you can (and do) get a very mixed bag of talents, from bad mime acts to the unfairly slagged Richard Jobson reading some of his poetry over a simple musical backing.
Undoubted star of the show, however, is its originator, Richard (formerly Kid) Strange.
The influential former Doctor Of Madness has spent some of his recent time in writing a
political fantasy about a pop star who becomes President of a united Europe, only to
be got rid of by The Establishment who don't like his ideas about redistribution of wealth.
Selections from this story form the basis of Richard's current live act (backed either by a
tape recorder or by a band) and consequently his current live album "The Live Rise Of
Richard Strange" (PVC/Ze, import), recorded live in New York.
Trouble is, the translation to vinyl misses the eccentric charismatic presence of the lanky
one's stage act - he comes on like a cartoonist's exaggerated idea of a spy, complete with dark glasses, broad brimmed hat and long coat - and reveals only too clearly that while plenty of attention has been lavished on the lyrics, not enough has come the way of the melodies. The result is therefore driving, rousing even, but not exactly inspired, straightahead rock with few surprises. Which is not to say it's dull- the recent "International Language” single on Cherry Red (included here) is excellent- just
that it needs time for the tunes to come through.
This album is well worth seeking out –It can only be a matter of time before the unique
talent of Richard Strange has its day. (Contact: The album should be obtainable from any
good import shop like HMV or Virgin.)
AMONG THE other contenders at the Cabaret Futura recently have been a young Basildon
(Essex) band called Depeche Mode. Looking scarcely a day over 14 but claiming to be 18
plus, the band consist of vocalist Dave Gahan and three synthesiser players: Vince Clarke and Martin Gore plus Andrew Fletcher.
On the fringes of the Blitz Kids scene by virtue of their electronic music and evident taste for make up and flash clothes, Depeche Mode in fact far outshine many a better known
name by virtue of their ability to write GREAT TUNES and treat them right -like a cross
between the bright synthetic pop of The Silicon Teens and the more weighty personal
song/stories of Foxx, Numan etc.
Two of these gems have now been committed to vinyl and the simply wonderful
"Dreaming Of Me"/”Ice Machine" (Mute) is unreservedly recommended to absolutely
everybody. Tasteful and tuneful, danceable and intelligent, it deserves to be utterly huge.
Buy it! (Contact: SAE to 16 Decoy Avenue, London NW11.)'
And what of Cabaret Futura. Whilst I an familiar with the influential clubs, such as Billy's and the Blitz Club, that facilitated the development of New Romantism and a host of other weird and wonderful 'scenes', Cabaret Futura is a Soho establishment that passed me by. The brainchild of former Doctor of Madness, Richard Strange, the club was intended to be a multimedia space for all manner of artistic expression.
Have a read of this archive piece by Robin Denselow from the Guardian for a bit more on Cabaret Futura.
'The term, said Richard Strange, is neo-survivalism, "and that means keeping your head above water and keeping one step ahead." The past month has seen this tall, gangling bespectacled figure who is normally to be found dressed in bow tie and a natty trilby, doing just that. He has enlivened the London music scene on Sunday nights by opening the do-it-yourself rock cabaret club, Cabaret Futura, in a Soho bar (soon to move to larger premises because so many hundreds have to be turned away).
As a Soho club organiser, multi-media enthusiast and musician, the stylish Mr Strange has a lot in common with the emergent new romantic movement, and the Blitz Kids, as personified by his namesake Steve Strange (who Richard says, stole his name). But this particular Strange has been around a lot longer.
A few years back he was Kid Strange, leader of the band the Doctors Of Madness ("I'm told we were the forerunners of punk in our delivery and stance"). When that band broke up he went solo - literally. " I didn't want the same old process of getting a band together, having to drive to God knows where to play, and then losing money. So I got the idea of performing to pre-recorded backing tracks. Suddenly I was mobile - I could go anywhere with just a tape-recorder, a couple of projectors and a guitar."
In London he played at the Scala cinema, and clubs like Hell and the Blitz (while the Blitz Kids/new romantic movement was still "an embryonic scene"). Then he moved to America, where he toured for three months, and last autumn recorded "the first live album made by someone backed by a tape-recorder."
Arriving back in London before Christmas, Richard Strange surveyed the scene and decided that as there was nowhere suitable for him to play, he'd have to invent such a venue. "I didn't just want to put on a stage show. I wanted a meeting place for people from the different media, and with a cabaret that you can watch if you want to. I don't want to be a club owner, and I don't want to be a straight rock 'n' roller."
He rang round different bar owners, asking if he could take over the premises for their slowest night of the week. He would arrange the entertainment and collect the entrance fee, and they would take the bar profits. That is how the Cabaret Futura came into existence.
The multi-media "cabaret" that Strange put on there has been a mixture of the impressive (mime and songs by Philip Japp or poems by the Skids' Richard Jobson) and the dreadful (last Sunday's power drill dissection of a dead rabbit by a very noisy "mime" team from Belfast). Between the acts, Strange plays records of thirties French and German cabaret songs. "There are so many similarities with the thirties - the re-emergence of international anti-semitism, massive unemployment and rearmament, and balanced against that, people dressing up and the cult of decadence."
Strange's message involves entertainment and politics (which leads him to claim that he's "less soporific" than the Blitz Kids). In part, he's trying to point out similarities with the thirties through his cabaret scheme, but he's also attempting something more original. A night at the Cabaret Futura always ends with Strange performing songs from his concept rock work The Phenomenal Rise of Richard Strange, which deals with the story of his fictional namesake, a former pop singer who becomes president of a future united Europe.
In The Phenomenal Rise, rather like an updated version of the Mick Jagger/James Fox film Privilege, he sees comparisons between what Hollywood did for Reagan, and what rock might do for some ambitious star of the future. "It's about someone who learns media techniques, and is put in power thanks to big business." The final act makes his hero sound rather less like Reagan. "Europe rallies round him, and once he's in power he starts social changes and redistributing wealth. Big business gets worried, and at the end one assumes he's been assassinated.'
