Mad World

by Lori Majewski

  DANIEL MILLER: Punk rock inspired me because it was a real kick in the teeth to all the shit that I already hated. It wasn’t an awakening for me, because I’d had that years before. By 1970, I’d already rejected most Anglo-American music. I only listened to Krautrock and electronic music. I think Krautrock actually inspired a lot of punk. The very first time I heard the Ramones on John Peel, I thought it was Neu!.

  I made music from the age of 12—very bad music. I had a lot of ideas; I just couldn’t express them at all. I was making music in a very frustrated way for many years before I got my first synthesizer, which is what turned a corner for me. I’d figured out that electronic music was actually pure punk music. Not punk rock but punk music—that’s two different things. Punk rock was a type of music that was very important for a short period of time: ’76 to ’77. The punk aesthetic or ideal, which is the same as the hippie ideal—that do-it-yourself thing—does things that will change people’s perceptions. I was already in my mid-20s. I said, “This is my moment to do something. If I’m going to do anything, this is the climate, the atmosphere, in which to do it.” I started mucking around and realized that I could do a lot of the ideas that I couldn’t with conventional instruments.

  I was able to make the sounds that were in my head, and that was a big moment for me. I had a synthesizer and a tape recorder, and I had to hire a couple of extra things to make it into a record. I could only afford to hire those things for a day, so I cut both [“Warm Leatherette” and “T.V.O.D.”] in a day. I just came up with these songs out of the blue. Well, not really out of the blue: “Warm Leatherette” was very deliberate lyrically. I was a big fan of J. G. Ballard. I’d been working on a film script for Crash with a friend. Nothing came of it, but through working on that, I had a lot of visual ideas, and I condensed what was in my head into that song.

  Most people, when they sing, put on a voice, either an American accent or some drawl or some acting thing. One of the ideas of it was that I didn’t really put on a voice. I wanted it to be as dispassionate as possible.

  When I decided to do this project, I went back to film editing. That had been my job. I can’t remember sleeping; I was either working overtime in the cutting room or I was working at home on music. I earned as much money as I could [so that I could get] some test pressings made. I was going to press 500 copies, because that was the minimum. I went to a couple of shops to see if they wanted to buy any of them. I went to Rough Trade, and they loved it and said they’d like to distribute it. They gave me some money to press up 2,000 copies.

  I left a couple of test pressings at Rough Trade, and they played it to a journalist called Jane Suck, who worked at Sounds. She had a pretty vitriolic tone and didn’t suffer any fools. She gave it an amazing review—called it “single of the century.” Then John Peel played it, and that made everything worthwhile.

  I wanted to make a statement with that record about the possibilities of electronic music—how I felt it was the most accessible, democratic music, except for punk—and I think I did that. I didn’t really plan to have a recording career. I didn’t have songs pouring out of me. It was just one moment in time, which happened to work, and I didn’t really know what I was going to do next.

  The single sleeve had my address on it, so I was getting sent demo tapes because people thought I was a proper record label. Then a friend introduced me to his flatmate, Frank Tovey—Fad Gadget—and his were the first demos I really liked. He was 21 at the time; I was 25. We met up and found we shared a similar aesthetic, and there was humor in what we were doing. So I said, “Let’s make a record.”

  We went into the studio. I had no experience; he had less than me. He made the first single [1980’s “Back to Nature”] and that was Mute 002, which was the first non-me release. That was the start of Mute Records as a label for other artists. It was very day-to-day. I didn’t have any contracts with any of the artists—it was like, “Let’s see how this goes.” I quite liked being the person in the background helping the artist realize their vision. I actually enjoyed that more than making music, and I realized that’s what I should be doing.

  THAT WAS THEN

  BUT THIS IS NOW

  Mute was founded in 1978. Over the years, the label’s roster has included Depeche Mode, Yaz, D.A.F., Moby, Goldfrapp, the Birthday Party, Einstürzende Neubauten, Laibach, Nitzer Ebb, and Erasure. Although Miller never subsequently recorded as the Normal, he found further pseudonymous success as Silicon Teens, a fictional teen-synth band best known for their cover of Chuck Berry’s “Memphis, Tennessee.” “Warm Leatherette” also lives on as the title track of Grace Jones’s 1980 album. “I thought it was so funny,” Miller says of the first time he heard the cover. “The title was appropriate for her, maybe not the lyrics. Her voice suited the song, even though she overacted it slightly.”

  MILLER: Bands like Depeche or Soft Cell, Blancmange, Human League, OMD, Cabaret Voltaire—we were creating something new. You look at some of the big dance techno artists or whatever you want to call it—EDM; I hate that term—they’re all super-influenced by Depeche and Yazoo and Human League and OMD. The number of people who say, “We heard Depeche, and that’s what got us started”—it makes me cry almost, it moves me so much. You speak to Richie Hawtin [Plastikman], and he says, “The reason I’m making music is because of Depeche and Nitzer Ebb.” We did our job. We brought electronic music to a much broader audience.

  MIXTAPE: 5 More Songs from Trustworthy Labels 1. “Is That All There Is?,” Cristina (ZE) 2. “Moments in Love,” Art of Noise (ZTT) “The ‘Sweetest’ Girl,” Scritti Politti (Rough Trade) 4. “You’re No Good,” ESG (Factory) 5. “Song to the Siren,” This Mortal Coil (4AD)

  “TOO SHY”

  ajagoogoo were the first British pop band of the eighties who seemed to fall out of the sky and achieve instant worldwide success. Human League, Depeche Mode, and OMD had indie singles to their names; Duran Duran took a little while to sputter off the launchpad; Spandau Ballet inspired months of discussion and debate. But Kajagoogoo suddenly materialized with a name that sloshed around in the mouth like molasses, a singer with a mass of two-tone hair, and a bass-dominated debut single produced by Nick Rhodes and Duran knob-manipulator Colin Thurston. Kajagoogoo’s success was massive, mocked, and brief. Few mourned their loss. But Kajagoogoo were also a bellwether for what was to come: pop bands without a past, that didn’t look back any further than 1978, and pop bands that wanted to look weird and shocking without actually being weird and shocking.

  JB: Here’s one of the core differences between me and my coauthor: She’s a people person. In fact, she’s a “People Are People” person. I’m neither. But I sort of enjoyed talking to Kajagoogoo singer Limahl. He was fairly candid and had a wry sense of humor and a degree of self-awareness. Which makes it harder for me to act on my natural impulse and shit on his band. So I’ll briefly channel Teen Me, who found “Too Shy” both tedious and grating, and that “Hey girl, move a little closer” bit especially murderous. Older, Decrepit Me is slightly more diplomatic. Yes, that “Hey, girl” line is shameful, but it scored a direct hit on the pleasure zones of the audiences it was aimed at. And one thing I will say in the song’s favor: Along with Gary Numan’s “Music for Chameleons,” Japan’s “Visions of China,” and Visage’s “Night Train,” “Too Shy” is one of the decade’s best bass records.

  LM: Don’t forget “Rio”! As for “Too Shy,” I’d forgotten just how funky it is. Credit the greatness of bassist Nick Beggs. I can still recall Zappa/Duran guitarist Warren Cuccurullo going on at length about Beggs’s ability. Of course, as a young, obsessive Duranie, I was preoccupied with the fact that “Too Shy” was produced by Nick Rhodes, garnering him his first U.K. number one a couple of months ahead of his own band’s inaugural chart–topper, “Is There Something I Should Know?” Oh, and the lyrics, “Moving in circles / Won’t you dilate.” So dirty!

  LIMAHL: I was raised in Wigan [on the outskirts of Manchester]. My dad was a miner. My two b
rothers went down the mines. I was expected to do the same. You got a job, you got married, you had kids, and then you’re trapped. Nobody went to college where I lived; there were no aspirations. I was obsessed with music—that’s how I escaped. I’d do anything to get money when I was younger. I had a paper round, I used to deliver bread, I’d clip people’s hedges. It would take me all day to earn 50p. At the end of the day, I’d go straight down to the record shop with my 50p and buy a vinyl single. My dad thought I was completely deluded. He used to say, “Why have you gone out all day working for that money and then you wasted it on that one record?” And I was going, “But I like music, Dad.”

  I’d auditioned for bands looking for singers. I was really into everything that was synthesizer-based—Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, Human League, Kraftwerk—but every band I went to meet was just thrashing guitars. So I put an ad in Melody Maker looking for musicians, and I got a call from Nick Beggs. He was in a band called Art Nouveau. He said, “I know you’re looking to form your own band, but do you want to come up anyway?” I said sure and hopped on a train to Leighton Buzzard.

  They were very welcoming, and they had a synthesizer: a Korg Pro 1. It was making all these weeee-ooooh-oooh sounds, and it made the band sound modern. The energy was good, everybody was superfriendly, and there was a general desire to make it work.

  At the time, Nick was a dustbin man [garbageman], and over the next year everybody left their jobs. It’s that age when you can take chances like that. It was a lovely period when you’ve got no deadlines, no record company breathing down your neck, saying, “Where’s the album?” I’ve still got a little cassette of when we were writing “Too Shy” in Nick’s living room. It didn’t seem that special. We had this beautiful intro, and then it got to the verse, and it just went off on a tangent. I said to Stuart [Neale], the keyboard player, “You’ve got to keep that going.” That was the bed, the cushion, the lace on the bed. Thankfully, we got it right.

  The name Kajagoogoo shocked people a bit, but we loved to shock. I was quite theatrical. I’d go out to nightclubs in London with a spaceman’s outfit on and weird oil paint over my face, which was a bit punk/Toyah/ Adam and the Ants. I’d spend two and a half hours getting ready. Choosing the name was an extension of that. I remember I’d been to see an Agatha Christie movie called The Mirror Crack’d, and I said we should call ourselves the Mirror Crack’d. But when Nick walked in one day—and Nick’s really left of center, very bright, really out-there—he said, “What do you think of ‘Kajagoogoo’?” I immediately loved it. The other three looked puzzled, but they came round over a few days.

  My name was Chris Hamill when I met the band. About six months into our relationship, I decided I wanted a stage name. I thought Sting was cool, because it was one word and nobody else had that name. Because I’d come from acting, I knew that Judy Garland was Frances Gumm, and I worked with actors who had stage names and they weren’t even famous. I was a big fan of ABBA, and we all know now that they got their name from the first letters of everyone’s Christian names. So I started thinking about letters, and I thought, Limahl. Limahl. I kept on saying it, and I thought, That’s clever that it’s from my surname. So I turned up to the band one day and said, “You’ve all got to call me ‘Limahl’ from now on.” There was definitely a bit of sniggering, but, thankfully, they were respectful.

  I worked at the Embassy Club in London. One night, Nick Rhodes came in. That changed everything. I was so tenacious; I always carried our demos around with me in case I met anybody. I said, “I’m such a big fan, and I’m also a singer, and I’ve done some demos of my band. Could I persuade you to have a listen?” And of course I was incredibly cute at 19. No, I was! I had this amazing energy, this wild look, perfect for London: all this hair with black bits here and there and this pretty face I’d inherited from my mum. He later said in an interview that he was very charmed by me. Of course, he could have just been blowing smoke up my arse, and I’d never hear from him again. But he was already thinking outside the Duran Duran box. He wanted to be a Svengali music character. I didn’t find out till many years later that Nick had a family relation who worked on the board of EMI. And when he called his uncle, or whomever it was, and said, “I want to sign Kajagoogoo,” somebody at the top said, “You better sign them.” It isn’t always just about talent.

  I was in a gay nightclub in London called Heaven. I used to see Freddie Mercury in there, and nobody batted an eyelid. I went up to [expatriate American BBC DJ] Paul Gambaccini, gave him a cassette, and said, “Hello, I’m Limahl. I’m in a band, we’ve just been signed by EMI, and we’ve been produced by Nick Rhodes. Would you have a listen?” He was working at Radio 1 at the time. Paul fancied me. He was round there like a shot, mate—phoned me the next day and said, “I loooove your tape. Let’s have dinner.” Paul went to EMI and said, “I’m making a new TV show, and I’d like to include Kajagoogoo.” And then he was telling Radio 1 about “Too Shy,” and then the Duran Duran fans were interested in what Nick was doing. You know how fans are in that obsessive way.

  STYLE COUNCIL

  “The hair wasn’t a calculated thing,” Limahl says. “I didn’t sit down and think, In six months, I’ll change everybody’s hair. But we were very image-conscious. I started messing around with the band’s hair, and Nick went out and got the beads. They looked fantastic, but they were hard work. He said they were difficult to sleep on. Suffering for his art.”

  In the U.K., “Too Shy” went in at 33. The phone call came through on Tuesday: “You’re going to do Top of the Pops.” Everybody got straight on the phone to their mum and dad. It was like Christmas morning. It went from 33 to 17, then to 5, then to 2, then to 1. They couldn’t press enough to sell them—30,000 copies a day. What a feeling to know you’re number one. It’s every orgasm rolled into one.

  I was very androgynous. I was pretty. I wore makeup. To my family and the band, I was out. I did date a girl, briefly, in Leighton Buzzard, pretty much because there were no gay guys and I had to get some action somewhere. I hadn’t decided if I was 100 percent gay, and it wasn’t an issue. When you’re that age, you love anybody playing with your cock. I wasn’t embarrassed about being gay, but my role as Limahl, my pop star role, had to be more enigmatic. I didn’t want to start talking about gay sex and gays in 1983 when most of our following was teenage girls. It didn’t seem right. They were into our music. They were into our fashion. I don’t think teenage girls really want to fuck you—they just want to love you. Our whole thing was very innocent. Maybe if the band had stayed together, if we’d been in the public eye a little longer, certainly the issue would have come up. But, also, I didn’t feel equipped at 23. I think I would have been terrified if I’d started getting the third degree from journalists about “How can you be gay and be in this band that thousands of teenage girls love?” But nobody talked about it. Of course, looking back, I can realize anybody with a modicum of life experience would have said, “He’s gay—he just doesn’t know it yet.”

  For six months it became like Beatlemania: girls fainting at the front of the concerts; you couldn’t hear the music for the screaming. That’s when it all started to go wrong. The band considered themselves very credible, serious musicians, which they are. Nick didn’t want to be a teen idol. I don’t think they had any idea they would become teeny idols but, looking back, it’s such a fucking cute bunch it was bound to happen. Of course, being naive and not having strong management, they made that fatal mistake to get rid of me, because they thought, We’ve got this pretty-boy lead singer, and if we get rid of him, we can gain a new audience; we can be a bit more credible and change our direction. They just fractured the whole thing, and it imploded.

  MIXTAPE: 5 More Songs by Bands with Interesting Names 1.”Love Missile F1-11,” Sigue Sigue Sputnik 2. “Papa’s Got a Brand-New Pigbag,” Pigbag 3. “The Smile and the Kiss,” Bonk 4. “I Eat Cannibals,” Total Coelo 5. “Doot Doot,” Freur

  “They thought, We’ve got this
pretty-boy lead singer, and if we get rid of him, we can gain a new audience; we can be a bit more credible and change our direction.”

  I was living at Paul Gambaccini’s house in North London. It was Monday morning, and I got the call. It was Paul, the manager: “Hi, Limahl. Having a meeting with the band—we’re all here.” I remember thinking, Why are they having a meeting without me? And he said, “We’ve decided we’re going to let you go, and we’re going to do the next album without you.” You could have knocked me down with a feather. My jaw just hit the floor. I had no idea it was coming. My diary for the next 12 months was full of Kajagoogoo events. I’d just played a huge festival in Finland—40,000 people. We were laughing, and they’d already decided before the festival to get rid of me, so they were backstabbing me.

  EMI tried everything [to stop the split]. They tried to get Duran Duran to stop it. They tried to bring in Duran Duran’s managers, the Berrow brothers. In the end, they called Paul Gambaccini and—he told me this only three years ago—said, “EMI called and said, ‘Can you please step in and somehow save this band?’” To them, this was a major investment, an act that was making them lots of money. Paul said he managed to persuade everybody except the bass player. He wouldn’t do it. Nick was the leader, and the others jumped like poodles when he said “Jump.”