When I was a second year student at Secondary
Technical School in Košice (1994) I had an english exam. I spoke about
depeCHe MODE. There's the text:
Depeche
Mode's Story
My name's Steve Györgyi, I'm 17 years old &
I live in a small town called Tornala.
I have
been a fan of depeCHe MODE for 7 years. & I have
heard almoust all of their published songs
& lot of it adorn my collection.
I got acquainted
with dM, when I was 10 years old, before it I was a fan of Modern
Talking. But when I heard some dM songs at my friend's I started
collecting dM songs & I have become a fanatic fan of dM.
The
depeCHe MODE's career started in the
70's at the Nicholas Comprehensive School in a
sleepy small town called Basildon. In this school three boys, Vince
Clark, Andrew Fletcher & Martin Gore were wearing away the tables.
Vince was the first from the 3 friends who bought a sintetizer for
himself & since he has had a guitar, he used an old radio
as an amplifier. So they founded a band. From this time they rattled
every afternoon, for the pleasure of their parents & teachers. Finally
Vince's father, Dennis got fed up with it & kicked them out to the
street.
For this
reason the band had to find a new place. In the meantime
they met Dave Gahan, who was a wild punk that time.
Except for Dave everybody lived in Basildon, he lived in Epping,
but he spent all his spare time in Basildon. The band engaged him as a
singer. They were dreaming about the success, so much, that they
just passed their exam.
But
because of the family's powerful pressure the common
sense won & thus guys turned to different civil
professions. Martin became a bank-clerk, Andrew
an insurance-agent. But finally the punk generation threw
them into a fever too. And in 1980 they changed
their name to depeCHe MODE from a French fashion
paper, & they decided to be a professional musical band. Their
first tour was in 1980. They played as a preview-band
of Fad Gadget. They got a record-contract in the same year, &
their first single was published in February 1981 at Mute Records, &
it was called Dreaming Of Me. The English Record Mirror gave them an attribute
"floppy-fringe", & they compared their style to the
band called Ultrawox of that time highly successful band. So the
band got the techno-pop characteristic after their first record,
& this style was characterized also by their first album,
which was called Speak & Spell.
The album
proved to be a success, the song New Life got to the 11th position
on the top-list. It was a very great result for a beginner band.On 12th
December of 1981 the bomb exploded, Vince Clark said that he was
leaving the band. It was a big loss for the band. Vince formed
a new band called Yazoo with Elison Moyet,
and in 1985 an other band, the
Erasure with Andy Bell.
After
the uncertainity at the beginning boys tried to take care of substitution
by an newspaper-advertisement. "Fairly-famed band find a keyboard
player under 21." - that was legible in an ad in the Melody Maker.
This ad caught Alan Wilder, who was a member
of a band called The Hitman that time. He got introduced
to the band in 1982, & the band was complete
again & essentially they could consider themselves
as one of the most successful bands of the decade of rock-history.
After their
second album in 1982, which's name was A Broken Frame they went to tour.
Their devoted admirers continually grew in England & in America
too. They figured at the top lists with 5 songs in a short
one & a half year. They proved more & more
that the depeCHe MODE isn't one of the many fashion-bands,
but they are a band which demands the fashion.
In
1983 their success-series continued with "Everything
Counts". This song was the first after which the critics didn't
write about them like about the tiniband,
but they tried to analyse & designate their place in the rock-history.
1984
was a new milestone in bands history : their song
People Are People got the 4th position in
Britain, while in America it was a Top-20 hit.
On the other hand the depeCHe MODE's popularity
grew to considerable size in German language areas. The band
allude to pole positions of the lists from this time. The People
Are People is the band's first No.1 hit.
Otherwise
the middle of the decade brought a change in their
career. Martin Gore, who used to be
famous for his eccentric features becomes the
follower of Vince Clark the musician genius. After
his earlier drog-problems with whole his energy he started to write
songs.
The
singer Dave Gahan also exceeded his
earlier wild period. The punk has softened.
In 1985 he married his girl-friend,
Joanne, whom he met in 1978 in Basildon at
the Danded-koncert. She gave birh to a child very soon. Dave
is the only member of the band who has a tattoo on his arm. It was
made when he was 14. In 1986 after a longer recording & tour he wanted
to leave the band, & he had a breakdown. Unfortunately
this his problem accompained him on his career
later too & it played a decainsive part in
his divorce at the beggining of the
nineties.
The
band has anyway bad-luck at the time. In 1985 during
the American Tour Andy broke his collar-bone, in
1986 in Los Angeles Alan had a problem with the police.
And what is more, they imprisoned him for a short time because
he possessed drogs.
In 1988,
during the tour Martin broke his finger. The turning point
of the dM's carrer was in 1989 the American
Tour in the eighties. More than 1 million people saw
them & their song Enjoy The Silence got in the American Top-10, &
they sold more than 1 million copies of it. The song had a
very great success in England too, the listeners
of the BBC Radio voted this song for the best single in 1990
& the band got a BIP prize for it.
From
English Top-20's success in 1984 "Blasphemous Rumours" to the 1989's
"Personal Jesus" we can follow a religion line in works of the band.
This
period of the band's history was filmed
in the "Depeche Mode 101" film, which was shot in Pasadena in California
in the Rose Bowl Stadium with a big audience
of 80 000. This period was very great in the band's
history too. The 1990's VIOLATOR continued this triumphal
road. It got to the second position in England
& to the seventh position in the U.S.A. For this reason the World
Violation Tour was the most successful from all. The people
celebrated them with devotion in Germany & in overseas
too. The band celebrated his 10 years jubilee in 1990.
After
a tour finishing in Los Angels the band had a longer rest, the band's
members could take care of their private life. It was a need because
of Dave Gahan, whose divorce endangered the band's fate. To
record the new, 10th album the band started the work in
1992, & the album Songs Of Faith
And Devotion was published in 1993. They worked on this album for over
8 months in Madrid, Hamburg & London. The first single
after 3 years was published in February 1993, it's name was
I Feel You & after the first audition it was
immediately clear, that the band has changed its musical
style which departed from the tinybopper one.
The album's
world tour, Devotional Tour started in May in London & probably
it will finish after 18 months there too. The band gave 2 full-house
concerts in the Wembley Arena on 20th and 21st December.
I was
at dM koncert on 27th July 1993 in Budapest. There were
35 000 people on this celebration. The koncert
took one & a half hour of light,sound & film show.
It was my best day in my life, surely I saw the members
of dM, my idols alive. & it left an everlasting memory, which
I will never forget.
Steve Györgyi,
Košice, 3rd June 1994.
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My favourite dM Places:
