Cabaret Voltaire

And before we get back into music, I want to give a big heads up for Friday, which is going to be a pretty awesome day on the Two Hour in Tongues show with Mr. Mike.

He's welcoming or interviewing Stephen Mallender, founding member of Cabaret Voltaire, who are on tour in North America right now for the last time.

And they're playing at the Knockdown Center on September 25th, but Mike's going to have a chat with with Stephen Mallender can't wait to hear it it's coming up Friday noon to 2pm and they have a new live album out now called But What Time Is It Really maybe we'll throw something on before the show's over I'm ill prepared I don't know what's going to happen today but we're going to move on anyway stay with us the playlists are live as well as the live chat and speaking of EVR hosts our own Mikey Colton who hosts Purplish Radio once a month He's back with his new band, Takat.

They have a new split 7-inch with Psychobob from Japan.

We heard Richard H. Kirk with ID60.

And I'm going to dedicate that one to myself because I didn't get to see Cabaret Voltaire play at Levitation here in Austin over the past weekend.

There's a good reason for that, but I can't tell you.

I can't tell you over the air.

I'm Mark Miller, and this is the XAS Noise Podcast.

In this episode, I'm joined by Stephen Mullinder of Cabaret Voltaire.

We talk about the band's final tour, the return of Chris Watson, honoring Richard H. Kirk, and the remastered edition of Code.

Stephen also reflects on keeping the music alive rather than nostalgic, why Cabaret Voltaire still feels relevant today, and bringing this final chapter back to Sheffield.

If you're new here, please follow and subscribe.

Alright, let's get into it.

So hi Stephen, it's a real pleasure to have you on the XS Noise podcast.

Hi, okay, good to see you.

And then after that, I kind of, maybe this is, now you're putting me on the spot, maybe this is a reflection of my prog rock background, but I was immediately more intrigued by the more left field of punk.

So it was things like Metabolist, I'm trying to think of all the other, Cabaret Voltaire, maybe Throbbing Gristle a little bit.

So all the kind of...

I started to very quickly drift into that.

So once the band started, we could go and see, you know, those.

I remember the Lyceum and they'd have, like, you know, six acts on and it would be, like, you know, absolutely nuts.

So you might get Cabaret Voltaire and I'm trying to think of anything else, you know, Club DVA or I don't know.

Yes, well, there was quite an amazing event that took place in Leeds, wasn't there, sort of Futurama or something? Oh, yeah, Futurama, yeah, yeah.

The Mings and other bits.

I used to love, uh, the first band I was in, I tried to sound like the Residents, The Fall, and Cabaret Voltaire, and I'm still the same.

It's like, oh, fuck Fleetwood Mac.

What? ♪ You can give ...

It was fucking bleak.

[laughs]

Youse, youse and Cabaret Voltaire and probably one or two other bands that, not even, even the Bunny Men had gone off the boil by then.

It was fucking dreadful.

Sick.

And... copy of Mix Up by Cabaret Voltaire and the Nico record with the silver cover um fuck I

was like oh wow

I could use this record to make music like Rob Hogan I didn't think that it's funny when you don't know how to make electronic music And you're coming from some punk rock standpoint.

Which translates to new buildings collapsing like proto-industrial music.

Then with like Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV and Cabaret Voltaire.

It's like, yeah, I can't.

How about like a The Band? The band.

By request from May, she's going to be seeing them and Utah Saints next month.

She asked for something by either one of those, and Adam is going to see Cabaret Voltaire in Chicago in a little over a week, so he asked for something.

Figured I'd throw that in there as well, and since we're on the idea of requests, Sean asked for some Kissing the Pink, the last film, extended version, here on Alternative 80s by request.

In the last film I ever saw They wore suits and they wore ties In

Yeah, yeah, it is, yeah.

It was a one-off collaboration called Acid Horse between the two-man version of Cabaret Voltaire, Steve Mallander and Chris Watson, with Al Jurgensen, Paul Barker and Chris Connolly of Ministry and Revco and several other side projects.

And this came out in 1989.

And I have to say, it comes at the end of a period where, I'm in the minority thinking this, but I feel like in the late 80s, Al Jurgensen was like one of the most talented musical producers on the face of the planet.