Sean Salo is a New York based Depeche Mode fan who is also an administrator on the wonderful Home website (http://www.depeche-mode.com/) which you really all should be familiar with by now. He's been a Depeche fan for years and has been to see them many times in many cool venues, the names of which I can't tell you as they would just make you cry with jealousy. Giants Stadium on World Violation anyone? Also, Sean has had the good fortune to meet the band through one of his previous jobs, so he knows his Depeche stuff. I was thrilled when he agreed to write a piece for this project and I know you're going to love it. The original brief was to write something about the U.S view of Black Celebration, but Sean has gone further and spoken to contacts at the U.S. label Sire and members of Book Of Love, meaning this is an blog you have to read. There are also some exclusive pictures thrown in for good measure. I'd hoped that this month would see us get some real insight into the Black Celebration era - Sean has provided just that and, even though I've thanked him loads already, I'd just like to say thanks again. Enjoy this - I know you will.
Life in the So-Called Space Age…
By the time Black Celebration was
released in 1986, the decade hadn’t exactly lived up to the promise of the modern
space age with harmonious humankind working toward common goals of
technological progress and prosperity.
Coincidentally to the album’s rear cover tagline about the space age,
the damaged crew compartment and bodies of all seven astronauts of the Space
Shuttle Challenger were found in the Atlantic Ocean just days earlier.
This disillusionment ran parallel to factors
that pushed Depeche Mode from niche act to alternative superstars in the U.S.: Equal parts threat of nuclear annihilation,
sex delivering a death sentence, Reaganomics, hypocritical religious televangelism,
and corporate greed and excess. The new wave and post-punk movements were
generally ignored by media outside of all but the major metropolitan areas, and
was driven in large amounts by small college radio stations and niche music
magazines and alternative newsweeklies.
The band’s earlier singles collection was renamed
Catching Up With Depeche Mode for the North American audience, who were generally
catching up on the band who’d had a minor crossover hit with People Are People a couple years earlier. (Oddly, that
single and others were not included on Catching Up With…, but rather on a
separate, earlier Sire-only comp titled People Are People that included the
eponymous track and was meant to capitalize on the success of that single in
the U.S., as well as singles Get The Balance Right, Everything Counts,
Leave In Silence, and B-sdides like Now This Is Fun. Are you following yet?)
For most in the US, Depeche Mode were
relatively unknown. Except for their
breakthrough hit People Are People which topped out at #13, MTV had ignored
them, and mainstream American radio was the home of Michael Jackson, Bruce
Springsteen, Whitney Houston, Bon Jovi, and Cyndi Lauper. Synths were much more the exception to the
guitar rule in the States, with only a few mostly British pop crossover hits
from the likes of Human League and Eurythmics.
Meanwhile, the press and mainstream rock audiences were being won over
by a new format of radio called “classic rock”, which chose to ignore the fact
that any music created past the year 1979 was worth listening to, further
cementing America’s love affair with the guitar.
But by 1986, things had started to evolve. New wave and post-punk formats appeared on commercial
radio stations with typically weak signals. Stations like KROQ in Los Angeles and WLIR in
New York receive much of the glory for evangelizing a generation of coastal
American fans to Depeche Mode. But by 1986,
others in San Francisco, Boston, San Diego, Washington, DC, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh,
and in Toronto were giving love to DM. For
all this increased exposure, one would think that stars of this burgeoning
genre would have scored TV appearances in the States. One would be wrong. There was not a one. As a result, Depeche Mode’s persona was
largely an enigma to American audiences.
Richard Blade, DJ at KROQ, debuted
‘But Not Tonight’ as an import to his Southern California radio audience
saying that he much preferred it to the gloomier Stripped. Sire, the band’s US record label, had come to
the same conclusion, as has been documented, granting the A-side status to But
Not Tonight, adding it on as the final track on the North American release of
Black Celebration. As linked the other
day in the world tour entry, WLIR
interviewed Martin Gore at the start of their New York stint, which is a
great snapshot of where the band was in 1986.
As a further testament to their newly gained success in a market they’d
all but written off, A Question of Lust placed at #2 on KROQ’s Top 106.7 of
1986, and A Question of Time was “Screamer of the Year”, the best song of
1986 as voted by WLIR’s listeners.
Sandy Alouete, Head of Music & Talent
at MTV, worked at Sire Records at the time, including on Depeche Mode’s
releases. She’d been working for Sire
for a year, at that time providing executive support to label head, Seymour
Stein, when Mute sent a carton of Black Celebration t-shirts, and she
realized that she “had the coolest job in the universe.” She continued to work at Sire and Reprise Records
through 2000, working on all their albums through The Singles 86>98. What struck her about 1986 was that Seymour
was such a champion of the band and the album, dictating memos to her to send
to Warners execs for the same promotion love that other artists on the roster
were getting.
Alouete researched to double check her
memory that they played not one but three shows at Radio City Music Hall. It was unexpected for a niche band to play
one show at the famed hall in 1986. To
headline three nights (and later sell out a fourth show in the market at Jones
Beach) was “a big freakin’ deal at that point!”
She was also struck with how starkly different the “sparkly, new wavy
pop” of tour opener, Book of Love, was from the darker and heavier music from
Black Celebration.
 |
| Radio City Music Hall marquee, 1986 |
Asked if she recalled the swap of
Stripped for But Not Tonight as lead single, Alouete said that ultimately,
Seymour responded to pop hooks, whether it was working on Madonna or The
Replacements, Morrissey or Depeche. “In
the long run, I hope that the band will get its full due as the influence they are”
to virtually every artist in the alternative and electronic genres. “In 2016, you can’t find artists who don’t
say Depeche Mode were an influence.”
“Sire was way ahead of the curve with DM”, Alouete
recalled. “It was rich with amazing
tracks. And their live shows brought
together a diverse audience – straight, gay, goth, pop, suburban, urban – in a
way that no other band could have at any time before…Their Radio City show was
electric.”
Susan Ottaviano is the lead singer of Book
of Love, a synth pop band who formed after meeting at art school in
Philadelphia. On the strength of the
demo for their initial single, ‘Boy’, Stein had signed
the band to Sire in 1984. With just one single under their belts, Book of Love
was asked by Depeche to open for them on the North American leg of the Some
Great Reward Tour. Following the
success of Boy, which achieved near-anthem status in new wave and gay clubs
in the States, they recorded a follow-up single, I Touch Roses, which was
remixed by Mute label head, Daniel Miller. Book of Love’s eponymous album was released in
early 1986, and they were asked to accompany Depeche Mode on the Black
Celebration Tour in both Europe and North America.
 |
| Susan Ottaviano onstage at Radio City Music Hall with roses |
Having been one of only a few acts to open
for Depeche on multiple tours, I asked Ottaviano to share some memories of
touring with the band, and if she noticed a difference in the States of the
band’s acceptance.
Susan: “I didn't really think there was a big change from one tour
to the next. I thought that the band was
growing, developing and finally coming of age, and more people were becoming
aware of Depeche Mode. Black Celebration was such a great album and piece within itself. Book of Love definitely became fans on that
tour! I don't know how many shows we had
on that tour. (75?) But we saw most of them, especially in
Europe.
 |
| Susan Ottaviano's brother and sister with Alan Wilder, 1986 |
“It was clear from
the get go in Europe that their following was already huge! We played with them in some of the largest
venues of our career. Palais Omnisport in Paris was over 20,000 people. For us, we were struggling to keep up. We had just one album’s worth of material, and
one tour under our belt. So, I don't
need to tell you that it was exciting as well as very challenging! Some of these large venues had [general
admission], and fans had been waiting in line for two days to get in. They weren't that keen on seeing an opening
band when they wanted DM. But we won
them over! Dave taught me how to show
them who was boss! I'll never forget
that, he was a big help to me!
“Another point to
note is that 30 years ago there were very few women on the road touring. There
was us and 30 men. That wasn't exactly
easy. We had to win their crew over, as
well. (Which we did. Ha!) When
we finally got back to the U.S., the crowds were still big, and audiences knew
our material better, as well. It was
clear to us that something special was happening, especially by the time we got
to the West Coast.”
The Some Great Reward Tour during Spring
of 1985 saw all of 15 dates in North America, largely in theaters, including a
couple of colleges – something the band hadn’t done since its earliest days in
the U.K. Just over a year later, they
nearly doubled their gigs here to 28 amphitheaters and arenas. Notably, the beginning of the tour saw the
band play large theaters, including Philadelphia, Boston and the Radio City
stint. From there, they went on to play
the amphitheater circuit. Counterintuitively, at precisely the same time
that their music took a darker turn, they had transitioned from a club and
small theater act to one that packed 7k-15k capacity suburban, outdoor sheds.
 |
| Rear of North American Tour t-shirt |
Some of the reason for this suburban
acceptance was that Depeche Mode provided a perfect outlet for
parental/societal rebellion for cliques of kids from the ‘burbs who would have grumbled
under their breaths in the cafeteria about the jocks and the metalheads. (Or am I speaking primarily for myself?)
At 15 years old, I had yet to see any live
concerts. I wasn’t even aware of how to
go about that whole process, nor did I have the funds to do so. As a result, I missed out on the three Radio
City Music Hall shows. But when the show
at Jones Beach Amphitheater show was added, I jumped at the chance. Leaving the ticket buying duties to my cousin,
we wound up with prime tickets in the second to last row in the venue. So on June 13th, as we entered the
parking lot, I was struck by the fact that not only was the theater near the
beach, but the stage was elevated above the water, and seemed to be floating on
the Bay. (It’s a favorite place to see
shows to this day.)
 |
| Ticket to Jones Beach Show, 15 June 1986 |
We arrived in time to see Book of Love open. I couldn’t care less that our seats were at
the top of the bowl. The energy was
palpable. Near the longest day of the
year, the sun was still bright in the sky for their set. Toward their set crescendo, members of the
audience threw flowers on stage as the band played I Touch Roses. “How in the world did people know to bring flowers?”,
my young mind wondered.
Still not quite dusk, there were no venue
lights yet to be lowered to kick off the main show. Simply the brooding synth bass line of Christmas
Island that began shaking my seat – which I sat in again only briefly. By this point, I wasn’t yet the collector or
even the fan that I am now, so I wasn’t intimately familiar with this moody
b-side to the A Question of Lust single. The intro track almost served as a palate
cleanser for the more upbeat, major chord tunes from Book of Love. The band took the stage. Emboldened by the larger audiences, their
shows started taking on more of a spectacle, with the lighting shows and
staging reflecting their increased popularity both here and at home. Additionally, their image both reflected and
informed what was happening within the landscape of the post-punk
subculture. I mentioned sitting briefly
again, but that was a lie; It was actually twice. I did so once right after they left the stage
following People Are People so I could join the rest of the audience pounding
our feet feet rhythmically on the hollow grandstand structure beneath the seats
to coax the band back on stage. They
obliged with Boys Say Go! Then once
more again, this time sounding like thunder, prodding them out for the final
encore of Just Can’t Get Enough and More Than a Party.
What I saw that night changed me, as it did
thousands of others on that tour. I
arrived at the show a fan of the band whose People Are People’ 7” single I’d
purchased on a trip with my summer camp to Montreal in 1984. I left knowing Depeche Mode had cemented
their place at the top of the pantheon of my favorite bands. Somehow, thirty years after that show, this
remains the case. Depeche Mode are no
longer just a hobby – music I enjoy collecting or listening to. I’ve developed deep friendships with other
fans of the band worldwide – some of whom I’ve never met in person, yet
consider close friends. Given the early irrelevance
of the band in the States, I’m sure they could never have imagined it would
still be a lucrative market for them decades later, nor that there would be a
worldwide community of bloggers, message board users, and tour followers dedicated
to their fandom of Depeche Mode.
Life in the so-called internet age…
There is nothing I can add to that, other than to say thanks again Sean and that I hoped you enjoyed reading that. What a wonderful read.
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