Depeche Mode demo for the unreleased track ‘Television Set’
Today we’ll look back on a band and a certain moment in their musical history, often recalling things which many have forgotten (you can’t remember everything). We start with the pre-Depeche Mode song “Television Set”, which was never released officially.
The reason it never ended up on an official release was because it was originally written by fellow Basildon resident Jason Knott and not by Vince Clarke. Knott, who was also a member of The Neatelllls together with drummer Peter Hobbs, would sometimes rehearse with Clarke. And that’s when Vince got to hear the song, like dis and included it in the live set of Depeche Mode and on several demos. Kinda weird since he later on would refuse to have it released on an official Depeche Mode release. Back then the song was a fan favourite though, which probably pushed Clarke to shop around to labels with a demo including a track he hadn’t written in the first place.
Here’s a snippet of the song on Composition Of Sounds’ first demo tape. You can hear Vince Clarke singing the lead vocals (Dave Gahan had not joined the band yet).
Although it never ended up on any of the Depeche Mode releases via Mute it did end up on a pre-Depeche Mode demo by No Romance In China (a pre-Yazoo set-up featuring Vince Clarke and Sue Paget) and Composition Of Sound. The track would still be played live though, from the 1980 Tour through the 1982 See You Tour (even as their opening number for a while in 1981).
Here’s a live version live at the Croc’s Glamour Club in Rayleigh back in 1981.
The track, together with other non-released songs would in the end be recorded for an official release by the band Coming Back To You in 1998. On that album (which is available here) they also recorded “Addiction”, “Reason Man” and “Tomorrows Dance” next to versions of “I Like It” (Gerry & The Pacemakers) and “The Price Of Love” (Everly Brothers), covers that Depeche Mode would occasionally perform live.
Here’s their version of the track.
To find out more on this track, check this site.
For more on Depeche Mode, see Depeche Mode says NO to single-use plastics in Los Angeles on Side-Line.
About Depeche Mode
Depeche Mode formed in Basildon, Essex, England, in 1980, initially under the name Composition of Sound. The lineup that became Depeche Mode came together that year around Vince Clarke (keyboards, guitars), Andy Fletcher (keyboards, bass) and Martin Gore (guitars, keyboards), with Dave Gahan joining shortly after as lead vocalist. The band adopted the name Depeche Mode at a gig at the Bridge House in Canning Town on 24 September 1980, where Mute Records founder Daniel Miller saw them and signed the group.
Depeche Mode’s debut single, “Dreaming of Me,” was recorded in December 1980 and released on Mute in February 1981, followed that October by the debut album “Speak & Spell.” Vince Clarke left the band that November, going on to form Yazoo and later Erasure; Alan Wilder joined on keyboards in 1982 and became an official member from the 1983 single “Get the Balance Right!” The band’s catalog through the 1980s includes “A Broken Frame” (1982), “Construction Time Again” (1983), “Some Great Reward” (1984), “Black Celebration” (1986) and “Music for the Masses” (1987), the latter turning the band into arena headliners in the US off the back of their Rose Bowl concert, later documented in the film “101.”
“Violator” (1990) and “Songs of Faith and Devotion” (1993) marked the band’s commercial peak, but Wilder departed in June 1995, continuing his own project Recoil, leaving Gahan, Gore and Fletcher as a trio. The band released “Ultra” (1997), “Exciter” (2001), “Playing the Angel” (2005), “Sounds of the Universe” (2009), “Delta Machine” (2013) and “Spirit” (2017) as a three-piece, touring with long-serving live members Christian Eigner (drums, keyboards, since 1997) and Peter Gordeno (keyboards, bass, since 1998). Alongside the band, Gahan released solo albums “Paper Monsters” (2003) and “Hourglass” (2007), and Gore released “Counterfeit²” (2003).
Depeche Mode was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 7 November 2020. Andy Fletcher died on 26 May 2022, and Gahan and Gore continued as a duo, releasing “Memento Mori” in 2023 with Eigner and Gordeno again on the road. The band has sold more than 100 million records and placed 54 singles on the UK charts. “Television Set” predates the band’s 1980 formation and the arrival of Dave Gahan as lead vocalist.
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