a few weeks ago I had the pleasure to visit a concert by marc almond. afterwards I discovered the great soft cell anthology “keychains & snowstorms” released in 2018 and got a copy on discogs. I really love the early demos and the daniel miller mixes. the package comes with a dvd featuring a private video of a concert in 1981 shortly before their breakthrough with “tainted love”. it’s very raw but amazing energy.
does anyone know how dave ball performed these tracks in the early 80ies?
on the video I can see him doing some extra percussion and playing a synth. no idea if he has a drum machine or if it’s backing tapes? I definitely hear more than he could play with one hand. as far as I know DAF and liaison dangereuse used tape recorders on stage. it’s not about gear, I would love to hear how people performed in pre-computer times, or was 1981 even pre-samplers?
I never saw Soft Cell live but I saw OMD, another two-person band, in 1981, and they had a reel-to-reel tape recorder on stage. That was too early for up-and-coming bands to have samplers, which were quite expensive at the time.
stems on tape
what does this mean for preparation? did the change the tape or was it one backing tape, with fixed song order, predefined track length? improvisation only with the instrument you played on top the tape?
I noticed the reel to reel machine is very present in soft cell artwork and photos.
No changing of tapes. The player would stop between songs but no one was touching it, probably a wired remote. So, yes, they played on top, in a constrained fashion. I saw many bands in many settings, from free entertainment in small bars to large arena shows, where there was more sound coming out than I could see. Being the analytic type, I spent time trying to figure out who was doing what, and what was backing tapes. A friend saw Human League after their big hit, and complaned, “There were about ten people on stage, and only about three of them were playing instruments. The rest were dancing!”
