The beginning of UW mkII?

holden · #1 07-28-2005, 07:43 AM

Okay, question for the big fans, and this is open to debate...

When did Underworld begin as a dance-oriented electronic band? When Daz joined and they began remixing as Steppin' Razor or with releases as Lemon Interrupt? Or, to be literal, would it be the first "Underworld" release as a threesome?

The reason i ask is that the first incarnation of UW released "Change the Weather" in 1989. But then there's the unreleased demotape from 1990, of which Rick said in an interview (i'm forgetting the source) that this was more experimental and electro. The fact that we have a gig from 1990 when they played a version of "M.E." that's very similar to the Dubno version makes that period around 1990 kinda confusing.

Though Darren Emerson def. helped steer them into a dance direction, and wasn't a big fan of their industrial funk, i would like to believe that Rick and Karl were already making steps before they met him...is that a fair assessment?

Holden

stimpee · #2 07-28-2005, 09:36 AM

when the drummer went after the 1990 tour i think. when they went off to make demos. i've heard the demo version of ME and a live version from Hamburg in sept 90. sounds nice but to hear an electronic version is great. it does seem like they are improv'ing at the end of the UW mk1 time.

glasto 92 experimental sound field is probably the beginning (in public anyway), followed by the release of the hump/ME single. I dont think Emerson joined until after that. but thats still Mk2 because theres no Alfie, and theyve gone electronic.

just my $0.02

big screen satellite · #3 07-28-2005, 09:50 AM

well, i'm not gonna try and answer this authoritively, because the history from this period is a little blurred to my mind...

but as far as i know the first Mark II Underworld output was as 'Underworld' (mother earth & why why why) then as Lemon Interupt, then back to Underworld.

Now i'm pretty certain that the ME/Why why why 12" didn't feature Darren Emerson, but probably didn't feature anyone else except R&K, and am almost certain that ME didn't feature any Emerson input because of it being on that demo (which i have a recording of from, 1990), which was before Darren joined...so i think that ME originates from the MK I days, but was left off the last MK I album...but it was deemed 'progressive' enough to be on the dance based why why why 12"....

and as this was the first MK II release really, there was some kind of MK I & MK II overlap.

The way i see it (although this is not in any way confirmed) is that they tested the water with the 500 pressed ME & Why Why Why, and it was popular...then spoke with Darren and asked for some more 'dance' based influences....

i think it was Steve Hall who introduced DE to R&K...and as ME & WWW was on the 'bands own 'Tomato' label, i'm assuming that they hadn't met Darren yet...Seeing as Steve is the label boss at JBO and every release after ME was on Boys Own or Junior Boys Own, i'm assuming that it was at this time that Darren became part of the band...when the band joined JBO...with the release of Lemon Interupt's Dirty & Eclipse 12's

I think they were still on tour with the Eurythmics in 1990, so must have took a bit of time off after that and rethought their plans...held onto the ME track, and then met Darren....and the rest is history...

http://www.bigscreensatellite.co.uk/history.htm

please note that the above link is basically the same info as i've posted above and is not really any clearer!

joethelion · #4 07-28-2005, 10:06 AM

wait... you mean ME / the Hump right?

or is there yet another record I am going to painstakingly search for, and never find?

but yea - I am kinda agreeing a bit w/ BSS on this one...
I think I've got that demo tape somewhere on one of my external harddrives, but I'm not sure. I remember that there's that one live gig in Hamburg, at least one BBC session (or at least some 'live in studio performance'), and maybe also this demo - which features some of the sounds that were later used on some of their other early mk2 tracks (I'll track down the files later and be more specific) -> but you've probably already got them

...but what I want to know is:
so we've all heard about how Darren started spinning Mmm Skyscraper, and how they had different versions of the track, but the one that everyone loved was the vocal mix (this was before dubno). But, are the two 'non-vocal mixes' jamscraper and telegraph? or are they completely different tracks?

I think that, even though Darren isn't credited on the song - Mmm Skyscraper was their first 'proper' track, as that was the one where they released 'hey we can totally do this'

holden · #5 07-28-2005, 10:17 AM

Yeah, it was just so surprising to hear M.E. from 1990. i thought, "wow, that's almost exactly like the Lp version, with a few less bleeps and perhaps live drums"

That must've been an interesting period, 1990-92, as the boys were onto something new and releasing it into the public to much better response than the mkI output. Maybe the climate was right, with acid house having broken and the electro-funk-rock of "change the weather" and "underneath the radar" maybe falling by the wayside.

Then again, from the UWLive posts during the creation of the as-of-yet unreleased new material, sounds like Karl's similrly excited with Rick's new output!

Another question...if Darren Price is onboard for any of the studio releases, does that mean we have UW mkIV?

lloyd · #6 07-28-2005, 11:24 AM

The Glasto 92 gig wasn't the first concert they did as mkII. They did a number of gigis as part of the Megadog thing.
This reminds me that I have to finish to translate the OOR interview/piece about kraftwerk. There's some more info in that about the beginning.

Wouldn't it be time by now that a journalist or writer wrote a book about them?

big screen satellite · #7 07-28-2005, 01:55 PM

yeah i did mean ME/The Hump & not WHY WHY WHY...i was at work and in a rush...now i've had more time to think...sorry for the confusion

but yeah i think there were some Megadog dates too...although the first one i went to was in 1993...was there one before June 1992 - Glastonbury...i thought the first one was in Nov of 1992...

mmm skyscraper · #8 07-28-2005, 08:00 PM

'Faded Love' and 'Yours Faithfully' are the most mkII sounding songs on the 1990 demo. Lots of repetition of the lyrics and the music is cool, but still nowhere near the dubno sound.

big screen satellite · #9 07-29-2005, 02:13 AM

Megadog 3 at Manchester Academey was the first with Underworld (in Manchester) this was 1993 November...not sure how many megadogs that there were before that, in London for example....

the key details are the time between the last MKI gig...(& the demos) and the first gig / recording with Darren...

i reckon that the DE meeting up was probably in very late 1991 or early 1992...with some action almost immeadiately that year...

spoonman · #10 07-29-2005, 07:13 AM

I dont know if all know about that i will say, but for your information in the 1st album (dubnobasswithmyheadman) Darren emerson had not participed to the composition of tracks, but only he gives his help to choice the sounds of the tracks, in this period Darren was only a dj, but not a compositor .

This information i have it from Coda magazine , it's a french techno magazine, and i have the Num who have in the darren interview (in 1996), if ones of you understand french i can write the total interview here.

Sorry for my bad english