Buggles (the official version of the band
name, used on their albums, singles, and publicity material, omits the
prefix "The")
were a New Wave band formed in 1977
consisting of Trevor Horn, born 1949 in Durham (bass
guitar, guitar,
percussion,
and vocals),
Geoff
Downes, born 1952 in Stockport, Cheshire (percussion and keyboards)
and Bruce Woolley.
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Contents
- 1 Early
days
- 2 Video
Killed the Radio Star
- 3 Merger
with Yes
- 4 Downes
after The Buggles
- 5 Horn
after The Buggles
- 6 In
the 21st Century
- 7 Discography
- 8 References
- 9 External
links
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Early days
Horn and Downes had first met in the mid 1970s while members
of the backing band of British singer Tina
Charles of "I Love to Love" fame, though they did not
actually play on that record. After this stint they briefly went their
separate ways, Horn playing bass guitar in the house band at Hammersmith
Odeon for a while, where he met Bruce Woolley. During this period Horn
yearned to become a record producer, but was frustrated by not being
able to find ideal songs or artists to work with. As a result he
reunited with Geoff Downes, and the trio of Horn, Downes, and Woolley
began writing their own songs to record themselves as a studio band.
The Buggles' sound was characterised by a deliberately
synthetic quality in keeping with the technological subject matter of
their songs. Two different stories are claimed for the origin of the
band's name. Horn said he chose "Buggles" because "It was the most
disgusting name I could think of at that time", but the booklet for the
CD remaster of "The Age of Plastic" says that it arose out of a private
joke between Horn and Downes and was actually a pun on "Beatles".
Video Killed the Radio Star
Their first song was "Video Killed the Radio
Star," and in the summer of 1979 a demo recording was submitted to Island
Records, who signed them immediately. This demo featured vocals by Tina
Charles, who incidentally helped fund the project. Although
the song was chiefly a Bruce Woolley composition, he left shortly
before its release to form a new band, the Camera Club, which included Thomas
Dolby and Hans Zimmer. The Camera Club also
released a version of the song. Three months after the demo was sent to
Island, "Video Killed the Radio Star" was at number one.
The female vocalists on the "proper" recording were Debi Doss
and Linda Jardim, now known as Linda Allan.
"Video Killed the Radio Star", released in late 1979, was the
444th number one in the UK charts, spending one week at the top and
shooting Buggles to fame. At the time of the single's original
release Buggles did not actually have an album's worth of material to
record, and so they wrote most of the other tracks for their debut
album The Age of Plastic
(1980) while travelling around Europe promoting "Video Killed The Radio
Star".
Being largely a studio creation, Buggles never toured as such.
There were a couple of Top of the Pops appearances, and
later some performances for promotional purposes in support of the
second album, but the first live outing by the original duo came in a
low-key appearance in 1998.
Later an appearance at a Prince's Trust concert celebrating Horn's
career as a producer in 2004 was billed as the band's
first-ever live appearance.
The novelty value of the song led to the Buggles' being
perceived as one-hit wonders (three subsequent
singles also charted, although they were largely ignored by radio and
did not perform well), but its success was sufficient to launch both
members of the band onto successful careers. The video
for the song, directed by Russell Mulcahy, was the first video
aired on MTV North
America two years later, at midnight on the 1st of August 1981. By this time,
the Camera Club had released their version of the song.
As with other songs from The Age of Plastic album, the songs
were shortened in their music video versions and "Video Killed the
Radio Star" lost the long instrumental coda found on the album. This
also applied to their follow-up album, Adventures in Modern
Recording — all of their videos were shortened from the
length of their original recordings.
Merger with Yes
Later in 1980, Horn and Downes began work on a second album,
working in a studio next door to progressive
rock band Yes, who had recently lost
vocalist Jon Anderson and keyboardist Rick
Wakeman. Both Buggles, and Horn in particular, had been
long-standing fans of Yes, but felt that the quality of their recent
music had been slipping. The Buggles offered a song to Yes, "We Can Fly
from Here", but at the suggestion of Brian Lane, manager of both bands,
Yes' bassist Chris Squire invited them to
actually replace Anderson and Wakeman as fully fledged members of Yes.
This they did, in one of rock music's more surprising shifts of
personnel.
The fruit of their labours was the album Drama
(1980, UK #2, US #18). A track called "Into the Lens" was released in
its full eight and a half minute form, on a limited-edition one-sided 12-inch
single. Essentially it was an unfinished Buggles song originally titled
"I am a Camera," re-worked and completed by Yes. "We Can Fly From Here"
did not in fact appear on Drama, but the band did
perform the song on the Drama tour, and a 1980
performance can be heard on Yes' The Word Is Live
CD set (2005), along with another unreleased Yes track from that era,
"Go Through This." As a point of interest, another track from Drama,
the somewhat brief "Man in a White Car," was extended in live
performance to incorporate sections of "Video Killed the Radio Star,"
much to fans' amusement.
On the whole, the team-up of Yes and Buggles was well received
by fans both on record (the UK chart position for Drama
is testament to that), and on stage. Trevor Horn was the first to admit
that he did not have Jon Anderson's vocal range or style, and many fans
missed this, but most were still keen to give the new-look Yes a
chance. The critics, however, were far less forgiving, especially in
the United Kingdom, and poured scorn on the band. Nowadays, the general
view seems to be along the lines of "It was good, but it was not Yes."
In any event the band broke up, although temporarily, in early 1981,
shortly after the Drama tour came to an end.
Downes after The Buggles
With the break-up of Yes, Geoff Downes, Chris Squire and
drummer Alan White initially
embarked on a project with former Led
Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, ostensibly to be
called XYZ
(ex-Yes and Zeppelin), but when ex-Zeppelin vocalist Robert
Plant declined an invitation to come on board the project
foundered. As a result Downes reunited with Trevor Horn to resume work
on the second Buggles album. However, he left shortly afterwards,
citing musical differences, going on to join his former Yes bandmate Steve Howe in "supergroup" Asia,
together with John Wetton (ex-King
Crimson), and Carl Palmer (ex-Emerson, Lake & Palmer).
There he remains to this day, the only member of Asia to have been in
the band continually since its beginnings. He has still found time for
other projects though, the most notable being a double album (single
CD) which he issued in 1986 under the name New Dance Orchestra, titled The
Light Programme.
Horn after The Buggles
Horn continued to work on the second Buggles album, Adventures in Modern
Recording, with several new players, the most
prominent being Simon Darlow. The album included "I am
a Camera," brought to completion as a Buggles song as originally
intended, and under its original title. Adventures in Modern
Recording did not chart, nor did four singles released from
it—the title track, "I am a Camera", "On TV", and lastly "Lenny."
Shortly afterwards Trevor Horn brought the Buggles to an end, and
finally embarked on his new career as a record producer, achieving
enormous success, with bands like ABC, Dollar, Frankie Goes to Hollywood,
Art
of Noise, and even a re-formed Yes, with Jon Anderson back on
vocals. In 1985, Horn won the Best Producer BRIT
Award. More than twenty years on, he is still active, still producing,
with Simple Minds, t.A.T.u., Charlotte
Church, Captain and most recently Pet
Shop Boys among his many credits.
In late 2006,
Trevor Horn formed a new band, The Producers
with other musicians and producers. At live performances, they mainly
perform songs from each of the band members' pasts, however, they have
played some original material, which shall appear on their upcoming
debut album entitled 'Studio 1' - due for release in September, 2007. At their first
gig in Camden
Town, November
2006, a clip can be seen on the official website of ZTT Records
of Trevor singing lead vocals and playing bass on a performance of Video
Killed The Radio Star.
In the 21st Century
In June
2005, Geoff Downes faintly hinted on his blog at an arrangement with
Trevor Horn for a new Buggles album to coincide with MTV's 25th
birthday, although the blog hasn't been updated for a while.
With the expected worldwide re-release of Adventures in
Modern Recording by Horn's own ZTT
Records however, there is still a sign of Buggles activity.
Horn's current band, The Producers,
have covered Video Killed The Radio Star at all of
their performances so far. A clip of one of these performances at Camden
Town can be seen on the website for ZTT Records.
Discography
Singles
- Video Killed the Radio
Star (1979) UK #1
- Living in the Plastic Age
(1980) UK #16
- Clean Clean (1980) UK #38
- Elstree (1980) UK #55
- Adventures In Modern Recording (1981)
(did not chart)
- I Am A Camera
(1981) (did not chart)
- On TV (1981) (did not chart)
- Lenny (1981) (did not chart)
Albums
- The Age of Plastic
(1980) UK #27
- Adventures In Modern
Recording (1981) (did not chart)
References
- Guinness Book
of British Hit Singles 7th Edition - 1988
- Guinness Book of British Hit Albums 1st
Edition - 1982
External links
