Fad Gadget
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Fad Gadget
Francis John Tovey (8 September 1956 – 3 April 2002), known also by his stage name Fad Gadget, was a British avant-garde electronic musician and vocalist. He was a proponent of both new wave and early industrial music, fusing pop-structured songs with mechanised experimentation. As Fad Gadget, his music was characterised by the use of synthesizers in conjunction with sounds of found objects, including drills and electric razors. His bleak, sarcastic and darkly humorous lyrics were filled with biting social commentary toward subjects such as machinery, industrialisation, consumerism, human sexuality, mass media, religion, domestic violence and dehumanization, often sung in a deadpan voice. Early years As a child, Frank Tovey lived in Bow. His father, Frank Tovey, Sr. was a porter in Billingsgate Fish Market. At school, Francis tried to learn many different musical instruments. He realised he did not have the co-ordination to be able to play any of them really well. Tovey d ...
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Industrial Music
Industrial music is a genre of music that draws on harsh, mechanical, transgressive or provocative sounds and themes. AllMusic defines industrial music as the "most abrasive and aggressive fusion of rock and electronic music" that was "initially a blend of avant-garde electronics experiments (tape music, musique concrète, white noise, synthesizers, sequencers, etc.) and punk provocation". The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by members of Throbbing Gristle and Monte Cazazza. While the genre name originated with Throbbing Gristle's emergence in the United Kingdom, artists and labels vital to the genre also emerged in the United States and other countries. The first industrial artists experimented with noise and aesthetically controversial topics, musically and visually, such as fascism, sexual perversion, and the occult. Prominent industrial musicians include Throbbing Gristle, Monte Cazazza, SPK, Boyd Rice, Cabaret Voltaire, and Z'E ...
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The Normal
The Normal is the recording artist name used by English music producer Daniel Miller, a film editor at the time, who is best known as the founder of the record label Mute Records. Background In 1977, Miller had split up with his girlfriend. A friend suggested that he read a book the friend himself had just finished. The book was ''Crash'' (1973) by J. G. Ballard.Synth Britannia - Documentary (BBC4 2 August 2010) He felt that Ballard's writing took him five minutes into the future; the novel was to be a major influence in the music he would produce as The Normal. Miller was disillusioned by the fact you needed to learn three chords to be in a punk band, so he decided to purchase a synthesiser. His thinking was that you only needed to learn to press one key on a synthesiser. After buying a Korg 700s synthesiser from Macari's music shop in London, Miller recorded and released a single under the name ''The Normal''. This was "T.V.O.D."/"Warm Leatherette". Both tracks were minimali ...
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Einstürzende Neubauten
(, 'Collapsing New Buildings') is a German experimental music group, formed in West Berlin in 1980. The group is currently composed of founding members Blixa Bargeld (lead vocals; guitar; keyboard) and N.U. Unruh (custom-made instruments; percussion; vocals), long-time contributor Alexander Hacke (bass; vocals), plus Jochen Arbeit (guitar; vocals), and Rudolf Moser (custom-built instruments; percussion; vocals), who both joined the line-up in 1997. One of their trademarks is the use of custom-built instruments, predominantly made out of scrap metal and building tools, and noises, in addition to standard musical instruments. Their early albums were unremittingly harsh, with Bargeld's vocals shouted and screamed above a din of banging and scraping metal percussion. Subsequent recordings found the group's sound growing somewhat more conventional, yet still containing many unorthodox elements. History 1980s On 1 April 1980, made their first appearance, at the Moon Club in West B ...
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Hansa Tonstudio
Hansa Tonstudio is a recording studio located in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, Germany. The studio, famous for its Meistersaal recording hall, is situated approximately 150 metres from the former Berlin Wall, giving rise to its former nicknames of "Hansa Studio by the Wall" or "Hansa by the Wall". The Meistersaal has been fully restored and is now used for concerts and other events as well as recording. History The studio was originally built in 1913 as a guildhall for the Berlin Builder’s Society and was later used as a cabaret and chamber music concert hall during the Weimar era. The Hansa Records label was founded in 1962 (one year after the building of the Berlin Wall) by brothers Peter and Thomas Meisel in the Wilmersdorf quarter of West Berlin. From 1965, they temporarily rented the Ariola production facilities in the Meistersaal location but also built their own ''Studio I'' on Nestorstrasse in the Halensee neighbourhood, which opened in 1973. Nevertheless, Hansa h ...
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Gag (album)
''Gag'' is the fourth and final studio album released by Fad Gadget on 1 February 1984 on Mute Records. The album was produced by Gareth Jones, who is known for working with acts such as Depeche Mode and Erasure, both being fellow Mute artists. The album features tracks that are a combination of electronica and industrial styles, and features the German band Einstürzende Neubauten on the second track, "Collapsing New People", which was also released as a single. ("Einstürzende Neubauten" translates as "Collapsing new buildings - specifically, tower blocks".) Track listing #"Ideal World" (Frank Tovey, Barbara Frost, Nick Cash) - 5:39 #"Collapsing New People" (Frank Tovey, Barbara Frost, David Rogers, David Simmonds, Nick Cash) - 4:22 - produced by Daniel Miller, Frank Tovey, Gareth Jones #"Sleep" (Frank Tovey, Daniel Miller) - 3:25 #"Stand Up" (Frank Tovey, David Rogers, David Simmonds) - 3:30 #"Speak to Me" (Frank Tovey, Joni Sackett) - 3:23 #"One Man's Meat" (Frank Tovey, ...
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Roland MC-4 Microcomposer
The Roland MC-4 MicroComposer was an early microprocessor-based music sequencer released by Roland Corporation. It could be programmed using the ten key numeric keyboard or a synthesizer keyboard using the keyboard's control voltage and gate outputs. It was released in 1981 with a list price of US$3,295 (¥430,000 Japanese yen, JPY) and was the successor to the Roland MC-8 Microcomposer, MC-8, which in 1977 was the first microprocessor-based digital sequencer. Like its predecessor, the MC-4 is a Polyphony and monophony in instruments, polyphonic CV/Gate sequencer.Chris Carter (British musician), Chris CarterROLAND MC8 MICROCOMPOSER ''Sound on Sound'', Vol.12, No.5, March 1997 Information This sequencer was released before the advent of MIDI, and viewed by some composers to have more accurate timing (music), timing. The MC-4 has an output patchbay to the right of the control panel, allowing you to patch the MC-4 to a synthesizer using 3.5mm patch cords. There are four channels of o ...
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Under The Flag
''Under the Flag'' is the third studio album released on September 1 1982, by experimental electronic artist Fad Gadget. It was recorded at Blackwing Studios, All Hallows Church, London. The album produced by Fad Gadget and John Fryer. Written by Frank Tovey for the most part concerning his fear for the future of the world, in light of having just become a father. He was apparently afraid of the world his daughter was going to grow up in. Sampling, which was new technology back in the early 1980s is incorporated into the album and sequencing is also heavily used. It features backing vocals by fellow Mute Records artist Alison Moyet, known for working on, at the time Yazoo with Vince Clarke. The naming of the album was the subject of a brief legal dispute with Under The Flag, an unsigned electro progressive group using the same name at the time. As reported in Smash Hits, the band yielded and renamed themselves The Archive. "Scapegoat" features a Dutch nursery rhyme. Some ...
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Incontinent (album)
''Incontinent'' is the second album by Frank Tovey, better known as Fad Gadget, released in 1981. While developing the industrial sound of his debut ''Fireside Favourites'' in 1980, the new album relied less on drum machines and found objects, introducing more traditional instruments such as accordion and jaw harp, as well as making more frequent use of female backing vocals. The album's cover featured Tovey made up as the puppet Punch. Its lyrical content was informed by his tour of the US in 1980. Background "Blind Eyes" satirised keeping the world's problems at arm's length, with lines such as "Send a few pounds to a charity / Now we're feeling so much better" and a chorus intoning "Hear no, see no, speak no evil". This was followed by "Swallow It", which foresaw the general public swallowing whatever mass-circulation newspapers put before them. "Saturday Night Special" took its title from an American revolver and ruminated on the right of men to bear arms and rule thei ...
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Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the universe in a time-travelling space ship called the TARDIS. The TARDIS exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. With various companions, the Doctor combats foes, works to save civilisations, and helps people in need. Beginning with William Hartnell, thirteen actors have headlined the series as the Doctor; in 2017, Jodie Whittaker became the first woman to officially play the role on television. The transition from one actor to another is written into the plot of the series with the concept of regeneration into a new incarnation, a plot device in which a Time Lord "transforms" into a new body when the current one is too badly harmed to heal normally. Each acto ...
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Sounds (magazine)
''Sounds'' was a UK weekly pop/rock music newspaper, published from 10 October 1970 to 6 April 1991. It was known for giving away posters in the centre of the paper (initially black and white, then colour from late 1971) and later for covering heavy metal (especially the new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM)) and punk and Oi! music in its late 1970s–early 1980s heyday. History It was produced by Spotlight Publications (part of Morgan Grampian), which was set up by John Thompson and Jo Saul with Jack Hutton and Peter Wilkinson, who left ''Melody Maker'' to start their own company. ''Sounds'' was their first project, a weekly paper devoted to progressive rock and described by Hutton, to those he was attempting to recruit from his former publication, as "a leftwing ''Melody Maker''". ''Sounds'' was intended to be a weekly rival to titles such as ''Melody Maker'' and ''New Musical Express'' (''NME''). ''Sounds'' was one of the first music papers to cover punk. Mick Middles c ...
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Shaving Cream
Shaving cream or shave cream is a category of cream cosmetics used for shaving preparation. The purpose of shaving cream is to soften the hair by providing lubrication. Different types of shaving creams include aerosol shaving cream (also known as shaving foam), latherless shaving cream (also called brushless shaving cream and non-aerosol shaving cream), and lather shaving cream or lathering shaving cream. The term ''shaving cream'' can also refer to the lather produced with a shaving brush from shaving soap or a lather shaving cream. Shaving creams commonly consist of an emulsion of oils, soaps or surfactants, and water.Thomas Clausen et al. "Hair Preparations," Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim (2006). In addition to soap, lather shaving creams include a humectant for softer consistency and keeping the lather moisturised. Brushless shaving creams, on the other hand, don't contain soap and so don't produce lather. They are an oil-in-wat ...
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Tarring And Feathering
Tarring and feathering is a form of public torture and punishment used to enforce unofficial justice or revenge. It was used in feudal Europe and its colonies in the early modern period, as well as the early American frontier, mostly as a type of mob vengeance. The victim would be stripped naked, or stripped to the waist. Wood tar (sometimes hot) was then either poured or painted onto the person while they were immobilized. Then the victim either had feathers thrown on them or was rolled around on a pile of feathers so that they stuck to the tar. The image of a tarred-and-feathered outlaw remains a metaphor for severe public criticism. Early history The earliest mention of the punishment appears in orders that Richard I of England issued to his navy on starting for the Holy Land in 1189. "Concerning the lawes and ordinances appointed by King Richard for his navie the forme thereof was this ... item, a thiefe or felon that hath stolen, being lawfully convicted, shal have hi ...
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