How did Jean-Marc Lederman end up with The The at The The Marquee gigs in 1982?
A few days ago Jean-Marc Lederman – the man who worked with numerous bands including Fad Gadget, Gene Loves Jezebel, The Weathermen, Front 242, Julianne Regan, Jacques Duvall and Alain Bashung – posted the above picture about him playing with The The. We asked Jean-Marc how that happened.
SL: How did Jean-Marc Lederman end up with The The at The The Marquee gigs in 1982?
JM: The year was 1982 and I was living in London, tired of the belgian music scene. I had moved there shortly after my service in the Belgian Army, gee talk about a waste of time (do you see me as good proctection against the Russians ? Case closed).
Matt had heard my EP “Statistics Mean Nothing When On The Wrong Plane” and he reached out to me through a mutual friend. He told me about the residencey gigs The The had planned 4 thurdays in a row at the Marquee, the legendary London club.
So, I went to a rehearsal and it was real anarchy: everybody banging on petrol tanks à la Einsturzende Neubauten. Jim Thirlwell was there, Zeke Manyaka was playing the drums and Thomas Leer was playing some synths. We both had a Roland Jupiter 4 so we ended up using his. I remember telling them to stop banging the drums and start working the songs…
SL: And how did the gigs itself go?
The gigs were well announced and The The was quite the talk in London so the place was really packed. I was very nervous, I hate playing live as this is definitively not one of my strong points, and waiting backstage was tense. We had a set cut in several parts with some guests. I was starting the show, we all head to wear balaclavas and an early version of “Giant” was the first song, if I recall correctly . Marc Almond was a guest on the first concert, and so was Richard Kirk from Cabaret Voltaire (or was it Malinder ? It’s so long ago…).
We had more or less the same set for the 4 thursday residency shows and it was a bit strange to have to come back to the same place but it was quite common in the UK for bands to have a serie of shows week in week out at the time apparently.
SL: So all in all, how would you describe it?
JM: A great experience. Next week, I’ll tell you how and when Matt and Johnny Marr beat me at soccer-table but I won a Depeche Mode silver disc in the process (laughs).
Side-Line also covered Jean-Marc Lederman’s ‘13 Ghost Stories’.
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Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!
