VST like in Alphaville's Forever Young

[Maomoondog]

Nick Beggs played bass on the demo for one of our songs (Summer Rain) a very good player and a very nice person too

If I remember right, after Kajagoogoo he went on to form a great group called Ellis Beggs and Howard ?

[fluffy_little_something]

Nick Beggs played bass on the demo for one of our songs (Summer Rain) a very good player and a very nice person too

If I remember right, after Kajagoogoo he went on to form a great group called Ellis Beggs and Howard ?

Bubbles, I know that song and loved it, the bass line

Chapman Stick, funny instrument he is playing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OurDquEpTrk

[Maomoondog]

Alphaville at the begining was Myself, Frank Mertens (later replaced by Rick Echolette) and Marian Gold. "We" all composed the music together. Sometimes we also worked with a lyricists called Janey Diamond, but mostly we as a group crafted the songs. I left the group in 2003 although I stopped being involved after the release of the Dreamscapes boxset in 1999.

Wow! I would never imagined that I would quote one of my music "Gods". I was a big fan, since 83'. I was just been accepted at first grade in the Uni and heard "Big in Japan" in the FM Radio! Then I was eating and drinking Alphaville!

Few years ago, I remembered "Big in Japan" while I was in Japan. I really felt the song especially after the breakdown with my ex there!

I just wanted to say how much Alphaville songs has influenced me in both my life and the way I have built my taste in music. Great group, and one of the best music/words ever would come to this world

Going to sleep with a big smile on my face

Thank you for your kind words, it is always heart warming to hear what kind of impact certain groups had on peoples lives and how their songs have sound tracked it.

[deastman]

I was a huge fan of your first three albums, and like a lot of people here, Forever Young made a huge impact on me and my future interest in creating electronic music on my own. Prostitute wasn't available in any stores around here, so I never heard that one. But I have to say that in my opinion, Salvation has been your strongest work to date- a truly beautiful album from beginning to end. I wasn't aware of Dreamscapes, so I'll have to go look into that!

[Maomoondog]

I was a huge fan of your first three albums, and like a lot of people here, Forever Young made a huge impact on me and my future interest in creating electronic music on my own. Prostitute wasn't available in any stores around here, so I never heard that one. But I have to say that in my opinion, Salvation has been your strongest work to date- a truly beautiful album from beginning to end. I wasn't aware of Dreamscapes, so I'll have to go look into that!

Thank you

Prostitute was a mixed bag of all styles of music that influenced us. Salvation was IMO our finest work. Dreamscapes is an 8 disc boxset of demo songs, B sides, live recordings, studio sweepings and different versions of previously released material covering the period 1984-97. It is I believe no longer available to buy, being a limited edition, but no doubt the internet and torrent sites will have our work floating around.

[Turello]

I suggest to listen the great Beggs's performances on last Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree) album (The Raven That Refused to Sing)...

[Compyfox]

I could make 1000 pages here as I have so many questions, maybe you should know that I am one of the biggest Fans

1984 was the year I started listening to music, and Forever Young had a big impact on my adolscent mind, pointing out my electronic future

Still listen alot to those albums, especially fond of Sounds Like A Melody

I must say it is nice to think we had some impact / inspiration on people

I can only back this up.
I grew up on 80ies music, since one of my siblings basically soaked up everything around that time. Alphaville, A-Ha, Duran Duran, Eurythmix, Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Yello, Peter Schilling, Yazoo, Jan Hammer, Harold Faltermeyer. Just to name a few.

Pretty much everyhing that was played up and down in the radio back then. In the 90ies, I was then introduced to more content out of the EDM and also industrial genre (like New Order and Front 242), since a friend of mine (from who I picked up my first synths, most of this gear is still in my possession) had a huge vinyl collection of various artists in that area. And he also made minimalistic "industrial" music himself.

In the 2000's and 2010's, I kind of missed all that. So I'm still looking back to the great productions of those times. Not necessarily the overusage of reverb (which was part of the style of this genre), but the songs in general. The music/melodies, the arrangement. Something I miss with a lot of chart productions today.


So yes, I'd say bands like Alphaville had an impact on how I listen to music today. And the best thing on it, these tracks are still great to listen to.


And it's always interesting to see how bands pulled off certain tricks back in the day.
So thanks for the insight.

[Chris-S]

Are you also German? Your name doesn't sound German

Never looked into the avatar box?
212 posts since 16 Mar, 2014, from Berlin

[fluffy_little_something]

Are you also German? Your name doesn't sound German

Never looked into the avatar box?
212 posts since 16 Mar, 2014, from Berlin

Sure, but many Europeans don't live in the countries they are from originally, including myself So he might have been a Brit living in Berlin...

[Maomoondog]

Are you also German? Your name doesn't sound German

Back then we were young fools who would follow (bad) advice from the record label, we made our family names more "fan & DJ" friendly.

Marian Gold -real name Hartwig Schierbaum - Marian being the name of one of his friends, Gold taken from his favourite James Bond movie - Goldfinger

Ricky Echolette - real name - Wolfgang Neuhaus - Ricky being the name of his mothers favourite singer Ricky vallence, Echolette taken from a microphone, effects and amplifier company

Bernhard Lloyd (Me) real name - Bernhard Gößling - Lloyd was chosen from the Lloyds Shipping register a company my father worked for.

Frank Mertens - real name - Frank Sorgatz - Mertens taken from Michael Mertens, a former college friend and later a member of propaganda.

Looking back it was a mistake, Kraftwerk would never play that game, but we did and we can't go back and re-write the past.

[Slarti]

.
This must be your longest interview ever! .

Ever since I saw Alphaville mentioned I got interested. Didn't really know your music, at the time i was more 'into' DM and PSB, but 'Forever Young' is a very beautiful song. Still one of my favourites!

(So cool that one can talk with a real 'rockstar'!) .

So, what music/artists are your inspiration?

And what do you think of the synthbands of today? (Like Hurts or Chvrches.)

[fluffy_little_something]

Are you also German? Your name doesn't sound German

Back then we were young fools who would follow (bad) advice from the record label, we made our family names more "fan & DJ" friendly.

Marian Gold -real name Hartwig Schierbaum - Marian being the name of one of his friends, Gold taken from his favourite James Bond movie - Goldfinger

Ricky Echolette - real name - Wolfgang Neuhaus - Ricky being the name of his mothers favourite singer Ricky vallence, Echolette taken from a microphone, effects and amplifier company

Bernhard Lloyd (Me) real name - Bernhard Gößling - Lloyd was chosen from the Lloyds Shipping register a company my father worked for.

Frank Mertens - real name - Frank Sorgatz - Mertens taken from Michael Mertens, a former college friend and later a member of propaganda.

Looking back it was a mistake, Kraftwerk would never play that game, but we did and we can't go back and re-write the past.

I guess it is normal as pop bands want to be successful around the world, i.e. in an English-speaking realm. In some parts of the world they don't exactly love Germans, and when they hear German names they might lose interest, 30 years ago just like today. So really, I guess I would still do the same if I had any talent and ambition, but not without learning English to a native speaker's degree Otherwise, as soon as you actually are successful and they invite you to the US or to Britain, they can hear you are a non-native speaker as soon as you open your mouth So they will ask you where you are from, then what? Then you'll have to explain why on earth you have such weird names

[layzer]

Didn't really know your music

How can a person only know "forever young" by Alphaville?

thats like only knowing "billy jean" by Michael Jackson!

every song on the album "forever young" was on was great.

back then, i remember getting pissed off if i spent money on a record
album and only one or two songs were good.

greets and thanks so much for the amazing music, Bernhard!

[Numanoid]

...and what a good occasion that this thread was brought to life now as it is in fact 30 years since the album was released this month (wikipedia lists the release date as 27 sept '84)

Is that synchronicity or what?

[codec_spurt]

The Synclavier for that kind of music, sounds like total overkill to me

What do you mean "that kind of music" ?

The same could also be said about using expensive fairlight's to create Welcome to the pleasuredome.

Or some of Kate Bush's albums. They don't all sound like the hounds of love cliched Fairlight. Then again. That was probably her best track...

Fairlight was just a sampler, and as poor as it was, it wasn't always possible to recognize it. Well, some of Kate Bush's stuff surprised me anyway. Maybe I got cloth ears.

And Zappa!

Is it overkill that I use 24 bit sampling as opposed to 16 bit sampling? I also don't know what you mean by this.

The Synclavier is a joke comared to the iPad you wrote that post on. What are you saying, that we shouldn't use the best computers of the day?