During the Mute Festival in Tlaquepaque Mexico, i had the great opportunity and honor to get an a meeting with Daniel Miller, the founder of Mute Records after the DJ set in the festival with Vince Clarke.
i asked to him about the demo tape of the Some Great Reward's album, I asked whether they were genuine or a fake.
he was confused about that topic, fortunately i got with me my MP3 player with the songs of the tape, quickly he could recognize them.
he said that the tape is really genuine, but someone unknown stole the master tape from the pre-mixes and demos library of Mute after the studio sessions of the Some Great Reward album in Music Works in England & Hansa Mischraum in Berlin on 1984.
They were actually two tapes, the first tape was Alan Wilder demos and second, with demos made with Martin and Dave on vocals.
he tell me the stories about that season by his own words:
during 1984 after the single People Are People were released in March of that year, Alan Wilder, bring to them a tape with un-named songs, 4 tracks to be exactly. all the songs in my opinion sounds good, but Martin and the others didn't like some songs, but just one track was choosed for be in the upcoming album, that was If You Want, in that week that song didn't have a name, but later during the recording session in Berlin the name were added.
all the songs of that date were written and sung by Alan Wilder during 1983-1984 some of the during the tour to promote the album Construction Time Again of 1983, a lot of people said those songs were of the bands: Red Flag or I Start Counting, but that's not true, nobody of those bands wrote that songs,
I Start Counting was a band which was with the Mute Label during the mid-80's
so the question is who stole the tape? nobody knows that but a second generation tape was uploaded on the internet the full tape in a really bad quality by parts.
but the people and fans added to the un-named song a name, a lot of them based in the chorus of the songs
here are some descriptions of the songs based on the information of Daniel Miller, all the songs have a particular acent.
Violence: recorded in 1983, a lot of people said was a song of Red Flag, I Start Counting or a Martin Gore demo, the song was written by Alan Wilder in 1984, was demoed during the session of Construction Time Again, but was not included in the album included with a demo of Martin Gore, later the song was revealed again in 1984, but the song had the same destiny.
If You Want: the only track of the tape that was on the album, a lot of people confuse that song as a fan cover, the song convinced to the band for be in. was sung by Dave Gahan, the song was played only in the tour to promote the Album during 1984-1985 the demo is so strange and so dramatic, very different than the album version
I Feel No Guilt: the most famous song of this tape, was confused as a demo of Martin Gore or Red Flag, a very rythmic song, with mystery ambience, was never officially released
Until You Saw The Sea: sometimes called as Until You've Sown The Seed or Cliché due to the song's tongue-in-cheek lyrics. a very rythmic song a bit dramatic, amazing sound
as last info, i asked to Daniel a song called "All By Themselves" a Martin Gore's demo It's a very gloomy, depressing sounding song with vocals subdued and difficult to comprehend, he told me about that song was going to be the b-side of And Then... and was planned to be the third single of the album but the single was never released due the construction tour in 1983 was coming very soon, and later the idea was abandoned
in other news Vince Clarke said that the two demo tapes of summer 1980 are not a fake... i will post the info about it soon.
