Yazoo - In Your Room

I’ve written at length at how completely influential this band was to my own creative development, so why not shell out a few extra clams that housed this electronic duo’s only two albums and a few extra oddities.
Allow me to justify.
My cd of Upstairs At Eric’s recently bit the dust and I used an old strategy of trying to gently rub out the scratches with toothpaste. It didn’t work. In fact, it made it worse. I swear, I’ve gotten it to work wonders in the past but for whatever reason…
I don’t have You & Me Both on cd; only on vinyl. It’s the original copy that I got in ’83 from Disc Jockey in Keokuk. A girl we nicknamed Denda was eyeballing a copy of it at the same time I was at the end cap of “New Releases” towards the entrance. We both picked up a copy and marched straight to the checkout. Shortly after, the store began carrying 12” singles of Yazoo stuff. I still have those too. Thankfully, those are all included in In Your Room.
I got into Yazoo before I got into Depeche Mode. And even then, I only liked Speak & Spell because it was the only album with Vince Clarke in it before he quit and formed Yazoo with Alison Moyet. After Yazoo broke up, about 18 months after they first began, we began scouring the record stores for their last single “The Other Side Of Love,” available only as an import. A friend of mine found it, along with Clarke’s post-Yazoo side project called The Assembly.
Then he formed Erasure and I hated them. The dude sounded just like Alison, but he didn’t write as good as her. I couldn’t understand why he would break up Yazoo for something with less substance.
Then came the reunion shows of last year, a quick outing to bring attention to the In Your Room box and to travel to a few places that never even got a chance to see them during the first round. Actually, that’s just about everyone since Yazoo only played two dozen gigs during their entire existence and only two of those were on American soil.
When I read about the shows, I nearly wept.
When I saw that they were playing Chicago, I nabbed the first pair of tickets that I could find.
Good thing too, the band promptly ended the reunion and any hopes of new material after two more shows were played.
So what is it about this band that conjures up so much emotion and blind allegiance with me? First off, Upstairs At Eric’s is a masterpiece. It’s an exercise of cold electronic minimalism against the warm, soulful voice of Alison Moyet. It’s two things that shouldn’t be together at all, but the way these two put it together, it’s eye-opening.
It also contains one of the best songs in the past 50 years with “Only You,” a timeless love song that should have been a massive hit in the States. I’ve heard dozens of versions of it since then, but none can match Moyet’s original take.
Eric’s also has one of the best dance songs ever put to wax, “Situation,” an ass-shaking bit tune that has been remixed countless times because the original is still so recognizable that it needs new window dressings every five years or so. There are five versions of it on In Your Room and there’s probably another dozen or so floating around.
You & Me Both is the break-up album. Literally. Most of the songs are related to breaking up and the album itself was recorded in the midst of Vince and Alf’s separation. Vince recording his part in the afternoon, Alison came in to do her vocals in the evening.
It’s not as weird as Eric’s and, admittedly, not as good. But there are enough good moments to make it a worthy purchase and it’s home to another fantastic single, “Nobody’s Diary.”
The American version had “State Farm.” The UK version had “Happy People.” I remember hearing “State Farm” on a small college station out of Quincy, Illinois once and immediately calling directory assistance just to find the station’s phone number so that I could thank him. He was playing the extended version (also on In Your Room) and I thought we might make a music connection; a mutual love of Yazoo. Imagine my disappointment when he had no idea what I was talking about. He was merely “following the playlist” that was provided to him by the music director.
So virtually everything is on In My Room. I had to get it. It also contains a short documentary, video clips, songs the two lip-synched on Top Of The Pops (many of them repeated) and 5.1 versions of the two proper albums. It’s perfect for the uber-fan and completists. It’s not the place that a newcomer should start.
I finally found a copy-suspiciously cheap from a dude in Hong Kong-and rolled the dice to see if it was legit. It was. Everything’s cool. It doesn’t appear to be a bootleg of the proper release. I’m stoked. Essentially, I got the thing for under $10 a disc and if you can manage to find a similar deal, then by all means nab it.
If not, or if the idea of jumping head first into a band you’re not familiar with ain’t your thing, then fork over the $10 for Upstairs At Eric’s. Fuck those single-disc compilations; that first album is awesome, like a science project that manages to split atoms or something. From there, I’m sure you’ll be searching for the follow-up in no time, or kicking yourself for not just getting the box set to begin with.
As the documentary title says: “2 albums, 4 singles, and that was it…”
And what it was, was gone way too soon.

Another Page In Your Diary: Yaz Announces Reunion Tour

It blows my mind how there’s probably more youngsters out there that think Yaz is a birth control pill when back in my time they were a nifty little new wave dance band that I absolutely adored.
I’m surfing the internet at work, albeit haphazardly, as I come across a news item from the day prior that I completely overlooked. It was one of those headlines where you read it a few times before clicking on the link because you’re sure…you’re positive…that it’s a typo or, perhaps, an item that doesn’t really apply to your side of the planet.
“Yaz(oo) announces reunion tour dates.”
Holyfuckingshit.
Here’s the thing: Yaz released two albums, toured for only one of them, and then promptly disbanded, proving that the emotional qualities and icy disconnect of their material was very real and those few that had the opportunity to see them live were very lucky.
Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke’s personal break up ultimately meant that their music was like a photograph of an old relationship, with the second album You And Me Both the snapshot of the actual breakup. You logically assumed that the finality, like your own former relationships, was permanent.
And then you read about a brief reunion tour in which, at least at this point, there is no hint at a permanent reconciliation. It seems that this tour, deemed “Reconnected Tour” is the proper swan song they never had a quarter-century ago.
So immediately, I’m excited, to the point where I’m almost in tears in disbelief, searching for anyone in my fucking place of employment to share the news.
“Have you ever heard of Yaz?”
No.
“What about ‘Yazoo’” (like the English nomenclature would trigger something)
No.
“What about Depeche Mode? The guy in Yaz started them.”
Yeah, I have heard of Depeche Mode.
“Well, he left them to start Yaz….and then he left Yaz and started Erasure.”
I think I’ve heard of ‘Erasure.’
The reality was, Yaz was pretty big back in the day, and they could have been bigger had they managed to keep their personal affairs out of their professional ones. But then again, there wouldn’t have even been a band if it weren’t for their personal affairs.
By the time I get around to looking for tickets (read: 10 minutes after learning about the shows) all of the good seats are gone. I did find a pair of 4th row tickets for a hefty price, but understand that I’m going to have to negotiate some supreme skills to get my wife to allow yet another jaunt, which means that I’m going to have to take her. And when you add this together, those 4th row tickets suddenly turn into much cheaper balcony spots because I’m going to half to pace the finances and do a few things for the wife..
That’s not a ban thing mind you. It’s just means that the highlight for her will be something different from what it will be for me.

Upstairs At Eric's In Southeastern Iowa

It’s easier today to find new music, new artists, and become the obligatory small town music snob. At least that’s my perception. The funky cold medena known as the internets is a boon for those teens that check in daily to Pitchfork to learn that there’s a band called Rainer Maria and that the band Rainer Maria recently broke up. The teen can then go to school and weep to all of his/her emo friends that the best band since Pinkerton was released is no longer with us.
There was a time when musical elitism was passed through direct contact. Word of mouth was huge, as was the Maxell XL-II C-90 cassette. For whatever reason, I can specifically remember how one band made inroads in a small town Iowa community.
What makes this story unusual is the style of the band in question, the socio-economic make-up of the community, and the manner in which the musical penetration occurred.
The band was Yaz (known in England as Yazoo) and the album (actually in the form of a cassette) was called Upstairs At Eric’s. It was the summer of 1983, probably a full year after the album was actually issued.

Some background: Yaz was a British electronic band consisting of Alison Moyet on lead vocals and Vince Clarke on synthesizers. Moyet had/has a very rich, deep female alto which was a strange juxtaposition against Clarke’s cold keyboards. Clarke, who was involved in a relationship with Moyet during Yaz’s heyday, had recently left Depeche Mode who had found initial success with their album Speak & Spell. I had never heard of Depeche Mode, and I’m sure that many others in my town hadn’t either; Yaz’s sound was fairly reminiscent of them, but in the confines of a duo, Moyet and Clarke’s sound was sparse and dark with the occasional foray into dance music. Of course, I didn’t know this at the time.
One of my friends had the privilege of having a swimming pool at his home and an even greater privilege of having parent’s that entrusted him with taking care of himself. This glorious lack of parental supervision created a climate in which poor judgment, the illegal consumption of alcohol, and a comfortable area to congregate became commonplace among people in the same age group.
On one such occasion, we gathered on a warm June evening for an impromptu poolside party.
One attendee, a tall, pale fair skinned girl with an even taller mop of red hair, joined the festivities with a girl who was either a relative or friend of hers that happened to be visiting our town from the uber-cool confines of the Northeast. The visitor, in either an attempt to act cool or because of “new kid shyness,” was fairly reserved with a hint of arrogance. To make matters worse: she was attractive. With no time to worry about such dramatics (after all, she’d be gone in a few days, way too little time to break down any perceived walls of conceitedness to get into her pants) she was included in the social environment and even provided the luxury of having a go at the boombox with her own selection. She went back to the redhead’s car and pulled out a cassette of Upstairs At Eric’s. We were probably listening to Pyromania or 1999, both great albums in their own right, but certainly nothing tremendously groundbreaking and certainly not very hip to someone within earshot of a low-wattage college station or similarly located dance club.
Within moments of the pecking, tart synths of “Don’t Go,” some heads turned to ask “What is this?” while the bolder musical snobs looked at the strangely positioned mannequins on the cassette cover of the album. When the album was over, we probably countered with something ridiculous like Frankie Goes To Hollywood, but no matter: some creative soul (perhaps myself or the host of the party) secretly “lost” the cassette with the obvious intention of not returning it. Thankfully, liquor has a strange effect like causing people to forget things like inhibitions, panties, and cassette tapes of Upstairs At Eric’s.
From there, the cassette found its way into the car stereo of my friend’s Pontiac Firebird, where the sonic effects of the music was met with the approval under the influence of marijuana. It became an issue of 1.) either we must conceal the fact that the tape was in our possession or 2.) we must find a dubbing cassette to make a copy before returning it to its rightful owner before she left to go back east.
The first answer was hard to deal with as the red haired friend called the following day to inquire on the whereabouts of the tape. I could truthfully delay the return of the cassette since it was still in the armrest of the Firebird and, since it was summer, it may be a few days to coordinate with the schedule of the friend and the redhead.
Actually, I saw my friend on a fairly regular schedule, and by Monday, I had the cassette back but not before he had made a shitty copy of it on his dual cassette boombox; fidelity, Dolby, and the added tape hiss was not an issue with him.
I then received a couple of phone calls from party-goers who wanted to know the name of the band and if they too could get a copy made for their own collection. One of these calls was from someone who had a dubbing cassette desk in his components that could transfer the noise-reduction and do it at double speed.
Three copies were made (mine, his, and a friend of his) and we were pleased with the results. The original was dutifully provided back to the redhead in time for her to return it to her friend before she left our small town and planted the seed of Yaz among its teenage citizens.
By the following weekend, I ran across two additional people who had made third generation copies of our own, diminishing the fidelity even more, but not the enthusiasm for this electronic duo.
Upstairs At Eric’s was a strange find, particularly for a town that typically preferred heavy metal and who’s main employer was various manufacturing plants that provided high school graduates with minimal intelligence and initiative with a decent paying job until the plants eventually shut down.
The metal kids were actually fairly receptive to Eric’s trippier tracks like “I Before E (Except After C)” and “In My Room.” The chicks liked the love songs like “Only You” and “Midnight.” And, of course, the gay kids who had yet come out of the closet preferred the dance tracks like “Situation” and “Bring Your Love Down (Didn’t I).” It remains a touchtone album for me and it remains one of the best examples of 80’s British electronica today.
It also served as a precursor to gay dance music (Bronski Beat, the Clarke led Erasure, Dead or Alive) which makes the dichotomy between my hometown makeup and the fan base of a lot of these types of bands quite amusing.
One curious footnote to Yaz: My Father only demanded that I remove two music selections during family car trips, thereby securing my understanding that the driver of the vehicle is in charge of all of the controls as well. One tape was Yes’ Drama (ironically, I brought this tape because I thought the Cream-lovin’ guy would like it. We got lost, he got frustrated, and he felt this album was “distracting.” It is a shitty album. But still, let’s place blame correctly.) and the other was Upstairs At Eric’s. He told me to “Turn that shit off!” When I persisted and wanted to know why, he told me it sounded like “A guy trying to sound like a girl with a bunch of synthesizers.”
“That is a girl, Dad!”
It didn’t matter; he turned the radio on and we listed to N.P.R. instead.
A few months later, I was down at the Disc Jockey record store and noticed a strange album cover on the new releases section. It was Yaz’s second and final album You And Me Both released just before Moyet and Clarke ended their relationship together. I picked up a copy and went up to the counter to pay for it. Standing in line ahead of me was the redhead who’s friend introduced a small town to the English electronica band Yaz. In her hand was her own copy of You And Me Both and in her head she was still probably oblivious to the domino effect her friend had on a small town in Iowa the summer before.