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YAZOO - new interview

russt68
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YAZOO RECONNECTED

June 2008

 

VINCE CLARKE AND ALISON MOYET TO REUNITE FOR FIRST UK SHOWS IN 25 YEARS

 

4 DISC BOX SET IN YOUR ROOM - RELEASED IN MAY

 

“Whoever said synthesiser music has no feeling can start eating their hearts out now”

5* - Truly Fab - Record Mirror– 28th August 1982

“Created somewhere inside the brain of Vince Clarke and the soul of Alison Moyet in a spaced out time between Georgio Moroder and James Murphy” – Paul Morley 2007

 

YAZOO - Vince Clarke & Alison Moyet - have announced that they will reunite for the first time in over 25 years for Reconnected, a UK tour in June, starting in Glasgow on the 4th and culminating in a headline show at London’s Hammersmith Apollo on the 18th. There will be an exclusive on-sale opportunity at www.alisonmoyet.com beginning 25 January for one week only. General on-sale begins 1 February.

 

The tour is preceded by In Your Room a 4 disc box set which includes remasters and 5.1 mixes of both Yazoo’s classic albums ‘Upstairs At Eric’s’ and ‘You And Me Both’, b-sides and remixes and a DVD featuring a new short film containing exclusive new interviews with Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet and the promo videos for Don’t Go, The Other Side Of Love, Nobody’s Diary, Situation (1990) and Only You (1999).

 

The joyous, unlikely coming together of Vince Clarke, who had just left Depeche Mode, and Alison Moyet lasted for only 2 albums, saw them performing only 24 concerts worldwide, but left an indelible mark on pop. Yazoo released ‘Upstairs At Eric’s’ in July 1982 then parted company just 12 months later on release of the second album ‘You And Me Both’, which reached Number 1 in the UK. Vince and Alison have since gone on to have their own successful careers, Vince with Erasure and Alison as a solo performer, both releasing critically acclaimed hit albums in 2007. The Reconnected Tour will also see Yazoo perform material from ‘You And Me Both’ for the very first time as well as pop classics Only You and Don’t Go.

 

YAZOO RECONNECTED - UK TOUR – JUNE 2008

 

Wed 4 June Glasgow Clyde Auditorium 0870 040 4000

Sat 7June Manchester Apollo 08444 777 677

Thu 12 June Wolverhampton Civic 0870 320 7000

Sun 15 June Brighton Centre 0844 847 1515

Wed 18June London Hammersmith Apollo 08448 444 748

 

or buy online at www.ticketmaster.co.uk / www.gigsandtours.com or www.livenation.co.uk

 

www.yazooinfo.com

 

www.myspace.com/yazooofficial

 

www.alisonmoyet.com

 

:cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer:

Edited by russt68

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^ This is very very good news.

 

Yazoo - Don't Go (1982 UK#2)

 

Yazoo - Nobody's Diary (1983 UK#2)

 

I always preferred them to the Eurythmics as they had a better vocalist and were less po-faced & pretentious than Annie Lennox & Dave Stewart.

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Very much looking forward to this - I'll be getting tickets for the London show which also happens to be Alison Moyet's birthday. Let's hope the band decide to make some new music together, too - Yazoo ended way too soon, I think.

 

Also, can't wait to see the lady live on Friday in Cardiff - for the encore at her first show last nght in Belfast, she played a rollicking version of The Beatles' 'Come Together' - so hearing that'll be worth the ticket price alone, I think :cheer:

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it's been announced today that this tour will also include some American gigs.... :yahoo:
Oh, excellent, Don't Go is my favourite track of theirs
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We've got tickets for Brighton - yayyy! And Alison Moyet was just incredible in Cardiff last Friday - her best ever performance that I've seen, and I've seen her quite a few times. :wub:

Edited by russt68

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
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Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet have announced that they will reunite for the first time in over 25 years as Yazoo for Reconnected, a brief US tour in July.

 

The run includes stops in Denmark, Germany, Ireland, half a dozen cities in the U.K. and the Sonar festival in Spain.

 

The U.S. trek kicks off July 7 at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, Calif., and includes stops at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles (July 10-11), the Chicago Theatre in Chicago (July 14) and New York City's Terminal 5 (July 16-17).

 

Tickets go on sale in Chicago on March 7, in New York City and Los Angeles beginning March 8 and in Oakland on March 9 at Ticketmaster.com.

 

The tour is preceded by In Your Room, a 4 disc box set which includes remasters and 5.1 mixes of both Yaz classic albums Upstairs At Eric's and You And Me Both, b-sides, remixes and a DVD featuring a new short film containing exclusive new interviews with Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet and the promo videos for "Don't Go," "The Other Side Of Love," "Nobody's Diary," "Situation (1990)" and "Only You (1999)."

 

A limited edition vinyl 12" with new dance mixes will also be released to promote the set.

 

  • 1 month later...
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To mark the Yazoo reunion, Mute are releasing a vinyl and download-only remix release of their last single, the lovely Nobody's Diary - and Erasure vocalist Andy Bell has done one of the remixes...

 

vinyl - 12YAZ7:

A. Nobody's Diary (Andy Bell / JC Remix)

A. Nobody's Diary (GRN's 12” Remix)

AA. Nobody's Diary (Koiishi and Hush Remix)

 

Downloads:

1. Nobody's Diary (Original Remaster)

2. Nobody's Diary (Andy Bell / JC Remix)

3. Nobody's Diary (Koiishi and Hush Remix)

4. Nobody's Diary (GRN's 12" Remix)

5. Nobody's Diary (Soil In The Synth Remix) - MUTE BANK EXCLUSIVE

 

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I'm loving the artwork for the boxset - keeping the iconic mannequin theme they started with the Upstairs at Erics album cover....

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v679/russy68/yazoosmaller.jpg

  • 2 weeks later...
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Hercules and Love Affair have remixed 'Nobody's Diary' - and it's fanbloodytastic.
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We've got tickets for Brighton - yayyy! And Alison Moyet was just incredible in Cardiff

 

I saw a bit of Yazoo on the J Ross show the other night - yeah she was good

 

and if you think most dance records have 'pop vocalists' like Natalie Cascada - i think it was good to have that big booming soulful disco vocal style (even tho Alison Moyet is quite bluesy in tone as well) - which is very much harking back to an era of Hi-NRG dance mucic where i guess Jocelyn Brown, Kym Mazelle and Martha Wash (Sylvester - Two Tons of Fun) would be much in demand.

Back for Moyet

Scotsman.com Date: 24 May 2008

By Claire Black

 

I'M TALKING TO ALISON MOYET IN A bar in north London and realising she's nothing like I expected. Warm? Funny? Down to earth? Setting up the interview had been, well, tricky. The venue had to be opened specially for us, the photographs were on, then off, then on again. The time was changed twice. There'd been a wrangle over every point and it's made me fear the worst.

 

Is Moyet going to be monosyllabic when faced with questions about playing Mama Morton in Chicago? Is she going to storm out if I ask her what it's like to have become a pop star not in the last decade but in the one before that, the inevitable implication being that the best days are gone? Is she going to bridle if I ask her about her personal life?

 

In short, no. As we sit in the empty club in Camden talking about the upcoming tour with Yazoo, among other things, she doesn't do any of that. Being in a musical was "enjoyable but in a twisted kind of a way" because she doesn't really like musicals; having a 25-year career behind her is "liberating" because now she's less worried about what people think of her and happy not to bother second-guessing interviewers like me; and from her kids ("brilliant") to her experience of depression and agoraphobia ("bollocks, really"), Moyet is open and honest. In fact, she's lovely.

 

If I needed physical proof that people who have lived in the pop world for 25 years can be normal, Moyet is it. There's no affectation, no prima donna requests – she drinks a Diet Coke through a straw as she sits across the table from me – and no evasive answers.

 

The venue was chosen because she wanted to see it again after 25 years; she's nervous about getting her photo taken because she finds it uncomfortable posing for shots (who doesn't?); and she's late to meet me because she was looking for a parking space. Ordinary, you see.

 

Dressed in wide-leg black trousers, a black top and grey parka, Moyet is a big and striking woman. With her Birkenstock sandals, and a little clasp keeping her fringe off her face, she is astonishingly youthful- looking for someone who is going to be 47 next month. It might be a quarter of a century since she stood, skulking, behind the microphone on Top of the Pops, all attitude and black eyeliner, but she hardly looks any different.

 

Moyet speaks fast, but she's particular about the words she uses – she won't settle for one that's not quite right, or for one of mine in place of hers. The phrase "Do you know what I mean?" is used a lot and, while that can sometimes be just a filler, a verbal tic, with Moyet, it's clear she really wants to know.

 

Maybe it's past experience. "When I started out I was a bit of an ingenue," she says. "I had no defences and I assumed that anyone who was being pleasant to me was being that way because they liked me. And then you realise that with certain magazines it doesn't matter what you talk about, you might've discussed really interesting things and then right at the end they'll say, 'So how do you feel about not being a size 10?' and you know the whole interview will be about 'My fat hell'.

 

"I just think, oh well, I can't be arsed being there. If you're going to write that stuff then just write it anyway, you don't need me there. Just make it up."

 

But here are some facts.

 

Moyet grew up in Basildon, Essex. Her mother's family were "redheads from Milnathort" and her dad ("a semi-feral street child" who ended up being the first Frenchman to play for the Saracens rugby team) came from Cognac. They met at a dance when her mother was an au pair in France and then moved to England. Moyet's homelife was different from the girls around her and it set her apart.

 

"I didn't fit in," says Moyet, who has a sister and a brother. "Basildon was this new town but I came from this patriarchal French peasant family; we were physically strong and verbally strong. I never had a dress or a doll or any of those things that would've made me fit in with the other girls at school.

 

"I was chubby then – fat was an issue much later – but I was stronger really, with too much to say. There weren't a lot of girls like that in the 1970s so I became obstinate and angry."

 

Moyet started singing in pubs around Essex when she was 15. Where did the confidence come from to do that?

 

"It's not so much that I was confident, more that I was defiant," she says. "We lived in a culturally barren area so you had to make your own entertainment. Everyone made bands. In my class of 30 kids there was a guy who was in Depeche Mode and one that ended up in The Cure. I wrote the words and because of that I ended up being a lead singer."

 

Moyet's pop career has been stellar. As a solo artist she has had a number one album, been nominated for a Brit, the Mercury Music Prize and a Grammy. She might have produced more than her seven albums but for a legal wrangle with record company Sony that prevented any releases for eight years. And stopped her from listening to music entirely – "I couldn't bear to. It was just too painful."

 

Apart from her career, Moyet's home life has been remarkably unstarry. Her husband, David, is a teaching assistant in a primary school. She has three children, Joe, 22, Alex, 19, and Caitlin, 11. She left school with one O Level ("my school had a five per cent pass rate when it closed down") so keeping her own children in education has been a priority. And it has worked. "They're really straight A kids," she says, with a laugh. "It's brilliant. I love it, it's really satisfying. One does computer science, one is doing languages and the youngest is still at school."

 

Ask her about her career and she'll tell you she's worked more in the last five years than at any other time, but that she never plans too far ahead. "I only like to know what I'm doing for the next couple of weeks or I get cabin fever," she says. "I've always felt like water really – I go where the stones go. I don't like it to feel like a career.

 

"People would ask, 'How does it feel to have achieved your ambition to be a pop star?' and I'd just say that never was my ambition. Being a pop star wasn't a goal, it was just an event that happened."

 

MOYET JOINED VINCE CLARKE TO create Yazoo in 1981. He was the songwriter for Depeche Mode and, although she'd been doing the rounds on the Essex post-punk scene, she was unknown compared to him. Not for long, though.

 

The duo – her: big, short-haired, that unmistakable alto voice; him: small, shy-looking, hiding behind synthesisers and looking like he'd rather be having his teeth drilled. Moyet says she's "astonished" by how amateur it all looks now, but the music was an instant success. Their debut single, Only You,went to number two in the charts, the next, Don't Go, went to number three and first album, Upstairs at Eric's, went platinum.

 

Moyet went from mouthy, ordinary Essex girl to fully fledged pop star overnight and the transition was painful. When the band split after only two albums, she experienced her first bout of depression.

 

"I was never the party victim but I definitely had my breakdowns within it," she recalls. "Instead of becoming a party animal I became an agoraphobic. I became a recluse."

 

Lots of people wrote to her, wanted to know her, told her how much they liked her work, but she just couldn't do it. She couldn't put pen to paper, never mind get herself out of the house to do the whole pop star act.

 

"I couldn't go back to where I was before because all of a sudden I was famous and people who I didn't want to talk to wanted to talk to me. I was so recognisable – I don't have the kind of physicality that can be missed. People would be like, who's that big girl? It's Alison Moyet. And that stopped me from going out and contacting people.

 

"But that was a long time ago. I talk about that now in retrospect because that's what happened, not because it's left any great scars."

 

And I believe her. Partly because she seems too together to put a gloss on what happened and partly because she's just too honest about what it was like when it was bad.

 

"I've had certain periods that were really dark and really miserable and I hated it, and that could often be around the time of my biggest-selling records," she says. "And I've had other times when I think I've had a real, sublime creative moment and no-one else has noticed it at all. My high points are not what other people think are the high points."

 

Maybe part of the reason Moyet has triumphed is that she never intended pop music to be where she'd make her living. "I wanted to headline places like this," she says, looking around the empty venue, seats stacked up in piles, the smell of stale beer in the air. "I never intended to make my fortune out of music – it wasn't about money."

 

And maybe the other reason is that Alison Moyet is truly passionate about what she does. "I like the act of singing," she says. "It's not enough to just be doing it, I have to be getting something out of it creatively, but also physically.

 

"That's one reason that I like trying lots of different styles of singing. It's not because I'm particularly enamoured with all those styles but because I'm really interested to see how my voice will sit with them."

 

Moyet's voice is her trademark, deep, sonorous and loud – she tells me a story about singing backing vocals for Dusty Springfield and being so loud they had to turn her mic off. She tells about being able to lose herself in drawing (she's been meaning to go to art school for 20 years although she's never done it – "It's like I say I might book holidays and I never do") so I ask if she feels the same about singing?

 

"No, I don't lose myself in that," she says. "It's like a hook I drag myself out with." What? That painful? "Painful, yeah, but exhilarating and you feel really alive. It's the possibilities with singing that I really love. It's like slitting open your belly and doing that (she mimics pulling her guts wide open].

 

"Not everything is like that; sometimes when you're singing a song you know really well it's like treading water but there are times that you can barely swallow for the fact that you just want to scream."

 

Music is incredibly personal for Moyet, linked to events in her life and her own mental health, so what's it going to be like singing those Yazoo songs?

 

"Remarkably fresh," she says instantly. "There's a whole second album that I've never performed live before. Singing live is the area of my game that I'm most at home with so I've felt deprived of taking one musical thought through to its natural conclusion.

 

"It's a cycle: you write, you record, you play live. With Yazoo, we wrote, we recorded but I never got to perform live and find the truth in those songs. That sounds really pretentious but when you write a song it's only when you perform it live that you find out what the crux of it is, lyrically and melodically."

 

Moyet is concerned about not wanting to sound pretentious, but it's obvious she knows what music is about for her, that she understands her own motivations.

 

"Everyone's going to have an opinion about you and the reasons why you do it," she says. "When you're young and people find fault in you – and trust me, I'm good enough at finding fault in myself – you believe them to be true. When you're older you realise, just because someone said it doesn't make it true. Why would that person know it better than me? The person who's lived it, the person who knows my own voice, who knows what turns me on musically? It's nobody else's business."

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