Really looking forward to this.Featuring the music of Human League,OMD.the MIGHTY ORDER,DEPECHE MODE,HEAVEN 17,FAD GADGET,GARY NUMAN and many more.(pm till 10...followed by SYNTH BRITANNIA AT THE BBC,in which BBC open their Archives for an hour,revealing some great performances.
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SYNTH BRITANNIA on BBC 4 @9pm Friday 16th Oct
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This is an archived legacy thread. Replies are closed, but the discussion is preserved.
The tracklisting for Synth Britannia At The BBC states that we're going to get Temptation.
Riverside 82, I guess?
Hopefully not the usual rehash of anecdotes that seem to be on every single one of these shows but I'll still be watching in some form or another. 
there on now on the programme 'synth at the BBC' after the documentary 'synth brittania' and yeah its 1982 Temptation. on the main documentary NO feature at the end with predictably Blue Monday 'moving synth pop into the dance music era' etc etc.. joy division also feature with Atmosphere. Lots of Mr Sumner...
Didn't see the synth at the BBC programme but watching the documentary one now. Wasn't a promising start, what with clips of Depeche Mode, but it soon got more interesting. Loads of old footage of late 1970s wasteland Britain which is always nice.
It was really good,quite surprised that Numan didn't get much of a look in on the documentary,but the overlooked Mr FOXX did.
Barney was on,talking about how synths were a bit over their means,so he built a kit one,but it didn't always work as planned.
Andy and Paul of OMD were on,Andy got to meet KRAFTWERK in Liverpool after they played there,and went up to them and said ,"Right that's it we're getting rid of guitars (well apart from bass)"
Also features extensive interviews with Vince Clarke for his work with Depeche and Yazoo (no Erasure though),plus Martin Gore,Chris & Cosey (Throbbing Gristle),Daniel Miller,Wolfgang Flur (Kraftwerk),Richard H Kirk (Cabaret Voltaire) and a good chunk of Phil Oakey.Joanne,Suzanne and Martyn Ware.Oh and Dave Ball (Soft Cell)
SYNTH BRITANNIA At The BBC was a delight.Missed first 10 minutes,erm I was otherwised disposed! Every tune they had on,I realised apart from JAPAN's GHOSTS,I've got on 12" vinyl.Time to get the record player out.
Yes this was very good.
I was pleasantly surprised that bands like Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire were included. Given that this was a complete history though it would have been nice if the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (Delia Derbyshire etc) had got a mention - was a BBC doc afterall.
Also I thought there should have been more on Brian Eno - Brian to some extent even influenced the Germans (recording with Cluster in the 70s).
Also no mention of Bowie's "Low" - huge influence on Joy Division and the likes of Numan etc
redken wrote: there on now on the programme 'synth at the BBC' after the documentary 'synth brittania' and yeah its 1982 Temptation. on the main documentary NO feature at the end with predictably Blue Monday 'moving synth pop into the dance music era' etc etc.. joy division also feature with Atmosphere. Lots of Mr Sumner...
Yeah,but shame it was BM'88 & not the original! Fookin' researchers eh? They do that on the radio too..." and here's this weeks top 10 from 1983,& at 7 it's New Order with Blue Monday!...." (cue '88 version 'cos it has a 7" version).Doh!! 
thought the documentary suffered from trying to cover too much in too short a time. New Order/Joy Division were hardly covered with them stating Blue Monday changed music forever and then leaving it at that. Obviously all the early temptation/EGG stuff wasn't deemed worthy of inclusion. If you knew nothing about the subject you'd had thought the likes of the Pet shop boys started before New Order as it jumped all over the place timeline wise. and there was a bias towarsds the mute label groups. Still, interesting stuff about the recording of atmosphere.
john carrington wrote: thought the documentary suffered from trying to cover too much in too short a time. New Order/Joy Division were hardly covered with them stating Blue Monday changed music forever and then leaving it at that. Obviously all the early temptation/EGG stuff wasn't deemed worthy of inclusion. If you knew nothing about the subject you'd had thought the likes of the Pet shop boys started before New Order as it jumped all over the place timeline wise. and there was a bias towarsds the mute label groups. Still, interesting stuff about the recording of atmosphere.
Speaking of timelines..they had VIENNA coming out in 1982,it was actually latter half of 1980.
john carrington wrote: thought the documentary suffered from trying to cover too much in too short a time. New Order/Joy Division were hardly covered with them stating Blue Monday changed music forever and then leaving it at that. Obviously all the early temptation/EGG stuff wasn't deemed worthy of inclusion. If you knew nothing about the subject you'd had thought the likes of the Pet shop boys started before New Order as it jumped all over the place timeline wise. and there was a bias towarsds the mute label groups. Still, interesting stuff about the recording of atmosphere.
Missed it
Any chance of a re-run? doesn't bbc 4 repeat quite a lot of stuff? 
Does somebody know?
thanx
Martijn wrote:
john carrington wrote: thought the documentary suffered from trying to cover too much in too short a time. New Order/Joy Division were hardly covered with them stating Blue Monday changed music forever and then leaving it at that. Obviously all the early temptation/EGG stuff wasn't deemed worthy of inclusion. If you knew nothing about the subject you'd had thought the likes of the Pet shop boys started before New Order as it jumped all over the place timeline wise. and there was a bias towarsds the mute label groups. Still, interesting stuff about the recording of atmosphere.
Missed it
Any chance of a re-run? doesn't bbc 4 repeat quite a lot of stuff?
Does somebody know?
thanx
it's being repeated a few times, but on 4 only. Fear not, torrent coming in as I type so I'll do you a copy 
john carrington wrote: ....Still, interesting stuff about the recording of atmosphere.
Though Bernard's memory is playing tricks on him since they'd recorded it twice. I think they must have written it (as he remembers) in Pennine Studios for the Piccadilly session, a few months later they re-recorded it in Cargo (the single version).
Some quite long-unseen footage dug out for the synth at the BBC part. Quite surprised i was. Thought it would be just another lazy compilation of stuff we'd seen a million times over.
Geri wrote:
Martijn wrote:
john carrington wrote: thought the documentary suffered from trying to cover too much in too short a time. New Order/Joy Division were hardly covered with them stating Blue Monday changed music forever and then leaving it at that. Obviously all the early temptation/EGG stuff wasn't deemed worthy of inclusion. If you knew nothing about the subject you'd had thought the likes of the Pet shop boys started before New Order as it jumped all over the place timeline wise. and there was a bias towarsds the mute label groups. Still, interesting stuff about the recording of atmosphere.
Missed it
Any chance of a re-run? doesn't bbc 4 repeat quite a lot of stuff?
Does somebody know?
thanx
it's being repeated a few times, but on 4 only. Fear not, torrent coming in as I type so I'll do you a copy
WICKED 
The Haçienda must be (re)Built wrote: Its on again tonight at 23.40 on beeb4
Thanx, only read ur message today...to late (again)
But thanks anyway
They really crammed loads into 90 minutes didn't they. It could've been stretched out to be a 4+ hour 2 part documentary really. I was hoping for more anecotes about how the early equipment was experimental and unreliable. Interviews with more producers who might have a different angle on it to musicians. Think they spent far too long dwelling on Depeche Mode and nearly ignoring, say, Soft Cell. But I guess I'm nit-picking as BBC4 have been putting some great music documentaries out recently (Factory, Rough Trade etc).
I daresay that New Order could have had an even bigger part to play in the documentary if they hadn't rushed the ending explaining how the early synth pop didn't fail but elements of it found their way into acidhouse/rave/techno/djs/clubbing etc.
synthpopfan wrote: Gah! :evil: I wish I could see this here in the States.
Look for it on Youtube or torrent sites..
Didnae enjoy it, they tried to cram far too much stuff into 90 minutes, woulda been a lot better to have had more in depth stuff and stretched it out to two parts.
The only good thing was the programme after it which is the first show to play Temptation @ Riverside all the way through since its original airing, crystal clear picture! Shame about the daft anecdotes on screen during the songs though 
Although I don't personally support the downloading of copyright material, you can get it via here: http://www.rapidshare2download.net/forums/tv-show/94151-synth-britannia-synth-britannia-bbc-2009-documentaries.html
Peter
It's a shame that the BBC didn't focus more on the synth-rock that bands like Simple Minds brought to the table, instead of just mentioning the bland synth-pop that commerce would throw at us (well, not quite me!). 
The New Gold Dream '81 '82 '83 '84 album was a huge influence on Italian trance. 
I would also have liked to hear more on the Confused instrumental.
PhilBarnes wrote: Although I don't personally support the downloading of copyright material, you can get it via here: http://www.rapidshare2download.net/forums/tv-show/94151-synth-britannia-synth-britannia-bbc-2009-documentaries.html
Peter
Thanks for going against your morals and posting the link anyway!
Synth Britannia is being repeated tonight for UK viewers on BBC 4 at 10:30pm and also Sun Aug 1 at 12:30am
It will be available on BBC iPlayer for the whole of next week though
Also Synth Britannia at the BBC is airing just after at midnight and Sun at 2:00am
PLUS the Pet Shop Boys's recent Glastonbury performance airs tonight at 9:30pm and 1:00am and on Sun at 11:30pm
although.....thought they made too much of g numan - down here we always thought he was a bit of an idiot (esp after he crashed his plane down the road)
