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Music Technology Magazine
December 18th, 1988 by admin
INFORMATION SOCIETY’S LosAngeles debut came as a bit of a shock. Itmade sense that the gig was at ThePalace, one of the larger and lesspredictable clubs in town, and I evencame to grips with the fact that the party wasactually a Spin magazine promotion. The 60-minute fashion show which preceded theperformance was a bit odd, but, hey — that’sHollywood. Already hooked on the dancesingle — ‘What’s On Your Mind (PureEnergy)’ — I was ready to brave anything toget a closer look at the whiz kids, just to seewhat kinds of gear they needed to recreatethe studio perfection of their hip hopingenuity.
“And no, direct from Minneapolis, is theband you’ve all waiting for… InformationSociety!” The crowd pushed forward, jockeying for a close-up position along thestage an J runway. The familiar beat-boxdance groove rose up, and the band madetheir self-consciously dramatic firstappearance. It took about two seconds for.the MT crew to start mumbling. “They’renot really playing. There are no modules, nosequel.. Oh No, Mr. Bill! It’s on tape!”Living in the world of up-scale mega-pilesof techno-gear as’.we do, this was nearblasphemy. But band members KurtValaquen and Paul Robb seemed preparedfor the looming question: Why?
“I’ll bet you were curious,” laughs Kurt.”It’s a very modern idea that’s catching on,believe it or not, called The Track Show.”"Tape is alive!” Paul cackles. “We call itthe Information Society Concert Illusion.”"We started out on the East Coast danceclub circuit, and they did not want liveentertainment,” explains Kurt. “There theywant somebody to do one or two songs,which means they don’t want to mess withthe two-hour soundcheck, or building astage, or calling in a sound system. You doyour one or two songs that the kids in theclub know already. And then you leave themalone, so the DJ can spin again. He’s the realstar.”
“Even in these shows, some of the soundsare live,” says Paul defensively. “We didn’tlip sync, and all the drums are live. But thereason that we don’t get as upset about tapeas most old rock ‘n’ roll people do is that wedon’t feel like hiring 20 back-up musicians toplay all the parts. Let’s face it — we’rerecording artists first and performance artistssecond, which is a turn-around from the wayit used to be. Instead of doing what FrankSinatra does, which is to capture liveperformance on tape, we’re trying to recreateour taped performance live.”Bu..bu..but couldn’t you sequence theparts?
“Well, storing information on a magneticdisk is no more live than storing informationon a magnetic tape,” Paul responds. “It’s justa perceptual difference.”
“The only convincing argument I can seefor sequencing as opposed to tape is thatwith sequencing your show can constantlyevolve,” Kurt adds. “And if you don’t thinkthere’s any good reason for your show toconstantly evolve, then I wouldn’t bother.”"I remember someone saying a few yearsago that he’d rather play a machine than be amachine, like drummers or guitar playershave to be when they do one constant partthrough the whole song. That’s really turningyourself into a sideboard. A tape, or asequencer for that matter, backs you upwhile you do your solos, but you don’t haveto be a slave to it.”
Seeing this hand live, even with tape back-up, is perhaps more engaging than listeningto the album. “They’ve got a great image,”people keep saying — and the photos will tellyou why. Kurt is one of the more eccentricvocalists on the circuit, vehemently attackingthe muted keys of the solitary Yamahakeyboard, playing to the audience as a kindof mad professor; Paul maintains a laid-back,aloof-hut-beguiling presence as the totally-wired drummer. Keyboard bassist JamesCassidy seems a cross between Popeye theSailor and Spike from Our Gang, whileAmanda Kramer on keyboards and vocalscharms with trendy makeup and costume. It’san equation that’s hard to resist.Now that their single has hit the Top 5and their album has crossed into the Top 20on the Black, Pop and Dance charts, a moremajor-league tour is underway. Bandmembers vacillated on using tape orsequencing… but the decision is finallymade.
“After intensive negotiation, it wasdecided that we would use tape,” Paulannounces formally. “I spent about $2000 acouple of months ago on a computer andsequencer, and the program turned out to beworthless. Even as we speak, it’s down. Andbecause I’m so computer based, my wholestudio’s down.
“We’ve heard a lot of horror stories aboutsoftware crashing on stage, and we didn’twant to deal with that. Plus we don’t reallyhave the money to do justice to ourequipment — it would cost thousands andthousands of dollars just to buy modulesalone. What’s the point of doing that! Sowe’re remixing our tapes, so that we can playthe fun stuff ourselves. Nobody wants to playstring pads anyway.”
Sequencing and tape aside, the success ofthis band can he greatly attributed to thecreative use of synths, samplers andelectronic percussion. The samples, inparticular, are worthy of note on InformationSociety (Warner Bros), the self-titled album,and the man primarily responsible is KurtValaquen.
“I was actually introduced to the wholetech world by joining the band,” says Kurt.”Paul already knew about synthesizers, but itwas long after that when I started studyingcomputer science at the University ofMinnesota. Those two interests fed off eachother, and of course now they’re hardlydifferent.”
“Kurt is an obsessive sampler,” Paulchides. “He samples everything in theuniverse, including a lot of things offtelevision. Among those samples are a lot ofclips of Star Trek dialog and sounds, whichare great because those actors are suchhambgones… all of their lines are just soover-dramatic.”
Star Trek s les are, in fact, an integralpart of the album. The first track isannounced by Doc McCoy’s familiar drawl:”It’s worked so far but we’re not out yet.”‘What’s on Your Mind’ features a snippet ofa Spock quote: “Pure Energy” repeatedly.Captain Kirk leads off another great track,’Walking Away,’ with the challenge, “It isuseless to resist us.” And the sound effects,while not easily recognizable, arecharacteristic of the maiden voyage of theinfamous crew.
Lest ye be tempted by following this pathyourself, however,’ heed Paul’s warning: “Wemade the mistake of telling Warner Broswhere the samples came from, and it held upthe release of our album for six months.Asking Paramount for permission was likeapproaching The Pentagon. I’ve hesitated toeven ask Tommy Boy (the original label)what the final deal was; I don’t want toknow. We had to get permission from eachactor, from each director… it was a mess.”
MOST OF THE sampling, as well assongwriting and pre-production,takes place in the two 8-trackstudios shared by the band. Paulbegins the guided tour of his studio,punctuating the equipment list with true-lifesagas of satisfaction and disappointment.”The heart of my studio is an IBM ATclone, which I usually run VoyetraSequencer Plus software on,” he says (which,by the way, is not the package that froze upPaul’s studio). “And then I just havemodules — I don’t have any big old keyboardsynths any more. I use a Casio FZ10Msampler, which sounds great, but it’s verystrange to use. I just realized that if you savea whole keyboard setup, you cannot just callup one sound from that to add it to anotherbank. You have to call up the whole bank.I’m sure there’s a way to get around it, butthe manual… ” He trails off, shaking hishead. “One of the great features is that itdoes have the editing built right in, so youdon’t need to buy a computer for that. Butagain, if I can’t figure out how to use it, it’snot going to be much help.
“One of the reasons I bought the Casio asopposed to the Akai was because it was soDarth Vader-looking, instead of that rococopurple and beige. I’m terribly embarrassed toadmit that, but I’m sure almost everybody isaffected that way.
“I have a bunch of synth modules — theRoland MKS50, Yamaha TX81Z… I usedto hate that because it has those weird littlebird harmonics on every single sound, butthere are some sounds on it that are just sogreat that you just totally take for granted,like the Alto Sax sound. If you produce itright, that’s a really musical sound.”"Once you start using those performancesetups properly and start layering sounds, it’sa whole different world,” adds Kurt.”Yeah, but another suck thing about theTX81Z is that it doesn’t have a knob, it justhas that stupid up-and-down system, which Ihate. I also have an Oberheim DPX1, whichis totally cool for what it’s for… eventhough with some disks, the filter setting willbe different each time you press it.”"Different outputs, different voices,” Kurtinterjects.
“Yeah, but it’s kind of annoying. Oh, and Ilove Ensoniq Mirage sounds. I really loveMirage sounds. I just bought the RolandSuper JX module, and I like that a lot, eventhough the new Roland D110 is the sameprice and can do about 900 times as much.But there are so many sounds on the JX thatare classic, that the new synths can’t do. It’sso rich; for pad sounds and horn sounds youcan’t beat it,”
“Amanda and I share our stuff,” beginsKurt, “starting with an older model Fostex8-track, And we rely pretty heavily on theProphet 2000 sampler, although it was notmy choice. It just happened to be whattumed up in my studio. Everyone seems tosay that the actual sound quality of the 2000is very, very good, better than most, but Idon’t particu1arly like it. I got upset rightaway that you can only transpose it up a veryshort distance. I was using a Mirage before,which is supposedly a much lesssophisticated thing, but you could transposelike five octaves. Other than that, I’ll admitit’s a pretty good sampler.
“We’ve got a Roland JX3P, one of the oldones, which I still really like. I think that couldbecome another classic synth, like theMinimoog, or the classic drum machine, theRoland TR808. I’m not trying to predict thefuture, but… ” he looks over his shoulder,then whispers: “If you have a JX3P, hold onto it!”
“And the Super Jupiter,” Paul cuts in. “Ibelieve that’s the King Synth of All Time,That’s the best there ever was.”"As long as you have the manual,” saysKurt. “It took me over a year to understandhow the memory allocation works. But Iguess I can’t blame Roland for the fact thatwe lost our manual Roland manuals arealways very endearing for their strange grade-school Japanese translations into English.Like with my Subaru, the manual tells youhow to get into four-wheel drive by saying,’Move shift level while drive straight.’ Itdoesn’t take too long to figure it out, but it’samusing.”
The two techno masterminds of the groupdo have their differences — starting with theirbasic approaches with keyboards.”Kurt and I have a philosophicaldifference in the way we go about doingmusic,” says Paul.
“Yeah, that’s true. He’s wrong and I’mright,” Kurt snaps.
“Kurt is definitely a programmer at heart,”Paul smiles, “but since really hefty and good-sounding preset synths have come out — eversince Yamaha’s DX7 — I have notprogrammed a single sound. I still messaround with samples, and sometimes I’llcustomize a sound, but I think searching forsounds is a great aid to creativity. If youspend an hour going ‘Wheeen,’ ‘Bowmmm,’you’ll come upon sounds that you neverwould have thought of in the first place,”"Well, the same applies withprogramming,” Kurt objects.
“I guess,” concedes Paul, “But Larry Fastsaid something about six years ago that reallyticked me off… something like ‘The newdigital synthesizers will really separate themen from the boys, because you simplywon’t be able to program them unless youknow exactly what you want.’ Well, big deal.Let’s have everybody go to college and get amasters degree in electrical engineering be-fore they can play a keyboard.
“I’m almost from the Jamming School ofMusic. Get an acceptable sound, and get itfast enough so that you can use it before youlose your musical idea,”
“Paul’s right,” concedes Kurt. “I havehistorically leaned towards programming, butthe whole world of preset sounds isbecoming so vast and of such high qualitythat even I, the staunch do-it-yourselfer, amrelying more and more on just what’s there,”Part of my programming mania is justbecause I enjoy doing it,” he explains. “I doit when it’s not even necessary. Actually it’ssomething I have to avoid getting boggeddown in. I start to forget that I’m supposedto be recording sounds, not programmingthem.”
Recording sounds is what this band isreally about, and their album is marked byexcellent production values. A lot of thecredit should be given to producer FredMaher, former drummer for the off-beatband Material, and more recently known forhis association with Scritti Politti. But theboys aren’t exactly “Yes men” to their better-known mentor…
“I have arguments with Fred all the time,”Paul says, “’cause he’s the King of ‘Buy theBest Thing in the Universe,’ or at least ‘Getto Use the Best Thing in the Universe.’ Myphilosophy is that 12-bit sampling is plentyfor a drum set, We used the Synclav direct-to-disk to do vocal Fly-ins.”
“It was a big drag, too,” says Kurt.”Fred got the thing (Synclavier) as ademo, and it seemed like a good idea, but ittumed out to be a lot harder than just usinganother 24-track machine,” Paul explains.”Plus it heated up the studio about 15degrees, and the air conditioner wasn’thelping at all. But someday it’s going to begreat… it’s just the power of the computeris gonna have to get so much better andfaster and stronger.”
“We’re looking for just one instrumentthat has 60 minutes of 100K sampling, andcut and paste editing, and everythingpossible, that doesn’t cost a zillion and a halfdollars.”
“By next week, please,” Kurt says.”You can deliver that to the hotel,” addsPaul.
IN KEEPING WITH their eye to thefuture, Information Society was released ina CD+Graphics format. Althoughexcited by the possibilities, Kurt and Paulmaintain a skeptical outlook on futureimplementation of the new digital code.”Even though we did it, we spent themoney and the time, it’s my belief that it willnever catch on unless somebody comes outwith a CD machine that plays everyconceivable format,” says Paul.”3″ CDs, 5″ CDs, 10″ CDs, 12″ CDVs,CD-I, CD+G… they should have a big 12″deck that accommodates anything outthere,” Kurt adds.”I’m afraid it’s not in the hardwarecompanies’ interest to make one finalformat,” Paul mopes, “There’s not even anaccepted format far computers. So I don’tthink they want one universally acceptedstandard. Actually, I think it’s amazing thatMIDI even came about.”
“I remember when I first heard aboutMlDI,” Kurt laughs. “I kept asking, ‘Whywould I want that? Who wants to mix twosynths together’ But then I suppose nobodyfelt that they were being too underprivilegedwhen they had to crank-start their cars,either.”
“Just to go on about CD+ G, though, Ithink people should think of it as anexpanded video album cover,” Paul says,”When you listen to music, it’s really cool tolook at the album cover, and read the lyrics,and look at who wrote the song, especiallyfor techno-weenies like us. That’s whatCD+G is perfect for — it can contain 50pages of information and pictures anddiagrams and lyrics.
“It only costs about $10,000 more peralbum, which on a regular album budget isnot that much, and it’s a way to add value tothe product from the record company’s pointof view.
“But I’m not going to go out and buy anew CD player just so that I can seesomebody’s expanded video album cover; Itwas bad enough just going out and getting aCD player in the first place. I ended upbuying the cheapest one I could find.”You and the rest of the world, Paul.
THIS INCARNATION OF Information Society has beentogether for three years, and it’sconceivable they’ll go on a whilelonger. When asked about theirfuture plans, the visionaries go into action.”We’ve got to be at soundcheck in twohours,” Kurt says,Paul laughs. “We’re so busy right now, andwe’re only on our first single. We want to bereally careful and take our time on the nextalbum so we don’t get the Sophomore Jinx.Your first record takes a lifetime — wc hadfour years to compile material for this one –and then suddenly you’re a star andeverybody’s yelling, ‘gotta have anotherrecord, gotta have another record.’ So youwrite ten songs in a month and they allsound terrible. Then those people who werepushing you say you’re a one-hit wonder. Wewant to make our second album as good asour first.”
Realistic attitudes combined with visionsof the future are what Information Society isall about. Paul suddenly seems entranced.”We’d like to make a prediction aboutmusic,” he says.”It’s gonna be Night of the Living Dead,”Kurt adds, somehow part of the mystique.”New Wave is coming back. 1979 NewWave.”
Paul continues: “Old U2, The Cure,B52s…”
The two of them begin chanting, “NewWave! New Wave!”Paul suddenly snaps back to the present,analyzing the vision. “I think we’re biting ourown tail.”
Maybe, but not likely, Self-criticism,manufacturer criticism and musical criticismare all a part of the energy that will spur themahead. Perhaps, if they’re lucky, they’lldiscover another four-year mission, to seekout new samples… to boldly go where noband has gone before.
- MT DECEMBER 1988
Keyboard Magazine
December 18th, 1988 by admin
THE LORD LOVES THE Unlikely. Case in point: Information Society, also known as “Insoc,” purveyors of a recombinant blend of aggressive funk, soaring Euro-vocals,and sample quotes from the pop culture Gospel According To Captain Kirk And Scooby-Doo. That such a mix should rocket up the dance charts and head for crossover success is not, all by itself, so very strange. But when the rocket in question is a part-time foursome from Minnesota that (a) likes to call its music “disco,” and (b) made it big by accident, when their two-year-old single, “Running”, became a Latino club hit from Miami to the barrios of the Bronx… well, only in America.
“It was so unexpected, so completely unplanned”, says Kurt Valaquen, the group’s nominal leader, primary vocalist, and resident techhead. “Nobody, not us or anyone helping us, tried to make it happen.” Not that Information Society hadn’t been trying to make something happen, off and on, ever since the group’s initial formation in 1982. Their problem was geographical. Heavily influenced by Kraftwerk, Ultravox, and Gary Numan, founders Valaquen and Paul Robb discovered that Insoc’s European synth sound wasn’t something their neighbors were eager to hear. Obviously we were going against the grain in the Midwest,” observes Valaquen. “In a town like Minneapolis, where you are either standard ’70s black funk or white midwestern guitar rock or Prince — one of those three or nothing — it was pretty unusual and difficult for us to try and do superdark semi-Euro avant-garde dance synth music. But we did it anyway. We played a lot of shows, using a really complicated CV/gate network on stage to tie all the instruments together, up until around 1984. But we weren’t closely involved in the Minneapolis music scene; we just did it on our own, without a lot of ties to other bands end musicians.”
Now that InSoc is a success, the group — Valaquen and Robb, plus bandmates Amanda Kramer and Jim Cassidy — have relocated to the more hospitable environs of New York. Back then, however, it was go to school, go to work, and record Especially record. And hope for the best. The first release of “Running” was from Wide Angle, a local Minneapolis independent, in 1984. Nothing happened. When Wide Angle gained a new distributor the song was remixed and released again, with exactly the same results -or so it seemed at first. Being a small label, Wide Angle didn’t command the resources necessary to sell a lot of records; they nevertheless proved adept at getting music heard, if not sold, by submitting discs to record pools. This put “Running” in the hands of influential radio and club DJs all over the East Coast The tune was hot, it was danceable, and its crazy mix at Afrika Bambaataa beat and Ultravox vocal successfully blended both inner city and Old World sensibilities.
Press fast-forward, Scotty. Called to play the Devil’s Nest,a Latin club in the Bronx, Insoc reentered the world of live performance in front of a thousand kids who knew all the words. Signed by Tommy Boy Records, a label ever alert to club trends, InSoc found its first album being produced by Scritti Politti drummer Fred Maher, whose credits include extensive work with such major influences as Kraftwerk. Finally, after a delay over obtaining rights to the Star Trek quotes scattered throughout the record, Insoc’s self-titled debut album sold over 250,000 copies within three months of its June ‘88 release.
“My most vivid memory of the prospect,” says Valaquen, “is probably Fred’sapartment, where we did the preproduction. It was a typical tiny Greenwich Village apartment, and it had all of the synths and computers jammed into it. It was like being in the underground control center for the universe, or something. We used a Yamaha TX816, Octave-Plateau Voyetra Eight, Roland JX3P and Planet-5 for synths — we added a little D-50 later when we were mixing - and an 5900 and Sequential Prophet 2000 for samplers. All the sequencing was done with Voyetra’s Sequencer Plus running on a PC AT. We kind of center our lives around that program. Early on we brought out our E-mu SP-12 and finally confirmed what we always suspected, which is that drum units are an obsolete idea. When you’ve got big well-working sequencers and big well-working samplers, why use a small sequencer with a small sampler that’s been put into one box for convenience? Unless they are very small and very cheap and only intended for stage use, maybe.”
The stage has become a real concern for Insoc, Having completed a “track show” tour — a series of club dates in which bands leave their instruments at home and sing their hits over vocal-less backing tapes — their own success has forced them to wrestle with the creative and logistical headaches of a full-blown show. There’s new equipment to be bought, songs to rehearse, and an image to perfect. “We’ve been walking a tightrope all summer,” observes Valaquen. “It’s a difficult and confusing transition period. One night we’d play in a small club with a capacity of 800 and a very small stage, and then the next night we’d be in a huge 4,000-seat theater that could handle Prince if it wanted to — and we’d have the same show, So on Friday night our show would be too big for the club, and on Saturday night too small. When the next tour starts up in November we’re going to have to make sure that we always are booked into the kind of clubs that are appropriate for our kind of presentation.”
– Freff
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