THE EARLY DAYS (1985-1986)
We were young, Ronald Reagan was president of the USA, Maggie was busy making a mess of the UK and sketching up the base for wild free enterprise and brutal capitalism, golden boys were fast… but wow!, wasn’t Bo Derek hot or what ?!
The music scene was generally a bore: it was all about expensive studios, vain music, coked-out producers and cliché artists. Just think about it: Flashdance. Yeah, you get the draft: there’s no need for more gore details about how laborious the ’80s mainstream really was.
But some people started messing with synths and samplers, mixing up, with no respect to the elders, electronic generated sounds and ryddimz with loops and beats. These people hadn’t a clue about conventional structures or presets music. White trash I tell ya! Who were we to resist a little fun?
…an unmarked package was delivered to PIAS Records, enclosed was a tape. It was supposedly recorded by some guys from Big Sur, California. The material is raw and features 3 songs of quite brutal electronic music.
Kenny Gates (co-founder of Pias Records): I immediately hated it, but I signed it anyhow: those guys had abducted my poodle…
So, that is really how The Weathermen got their first release, under a ruff gray cover. The poodle, of course, was returned unharmed.
Old Friend Sam
P38
What About Us?
engineering and coup de pouce: Michel van Gijsel
DEEP DOWN SOUTH (The Red Neck Blues)
About three months later, a second 12″ EP came out. Still in a ruff gray cover, it stigmatized the American stereotype of the usual brain-dead truckdriver republican voting Budweiser fatalist.
Bruce Geduldig (of Tuxedomoon fame) was into the spotlight now, and because he was taller than Jean-Marc Lederman at the time, he got to do the vocals.
It also features an introduction by Susanna Stammer, her first-of-many cameo appearances on The Weathermen’s records.Hi, my name is Susanna Stammer, and I’d like to dedicate this song to Bill, the lifeguard at Santa Monica beach.Suzanna Stammer first ever appearance on tape
There she is: the perfect blonde bimbo, the dreamlike groupie that inhabits every rock musician´s wet dream. She got herself quite a job and was about to become her era´s Laura Croft… Later, tho, the story evolved in a way that wouldn’t be as funny for those dumb airheads, The Weathermen: Susanna got into a prolonged hissy fit and decided to make life hell for the band.The equipment used on this song features a rare apparition of a very vicious piece of gear: the very tiny Yamaha CX5, which was supposed to become a standard for the music industry. That was before The Weathermen showed how not to use it.
Deep Down South
The Red Neck At The Controls (Deepdown Version)
BERLIN (Let Them Come To…)
A few months later, The Weathermen decided to show how heavy they could get if nobody was nice with them. They went even deeper for the famous EBM sound (Electronic Body Music, a moniker designed by the genre’s inventors Front 242) So came out ‘Let Them Come To Berlin’, a song dedicated to a man famous for his smile, good-looking sunglasses and beautiful wife: John F Kennedy.
Because Bruce was in New-York at the time of the recording, he had to send a tape made at some wild party with some people’s insights about how they viewed JFK. One of the voice is Steven Brown’s from Tuxedo Moon (Bruce was in Tuxedo Moon, acting as visuals director).
Berlin
Let Them Remix It In Berlin
Only Fools Fall In Love (With Stalin’s Daughter) Sing-It Yourself Version
Equipment used on this EP features the very powerful Oberheim X-Pander.
The bass drum used on this song joined a mormon community shortly after the record was released.
‘Only Fools Fall In Love (With Stalin’s Daughter)’ was the instrumental version of the song released on ‘Imminent’, a UK compilation album of various electro-bands.
note: these three first EP were recorded and mixed with Michel Van Gijsel. Without him, the band wouldn’t have been able to start really. Many thanx!
TAKE IT OFF!
Take It Off! Take It Off On 45 (rpm)
Take It Off On 33 (rpm)The Unzipped Mix
Quite obscure really: the lyrics are so tongue in cheek that nobody (including The Weathermen) could make any sense out of this song:
The Weathermen should have taken off their sunglasses to shed some light on their very perpendicular lyrics… It did however, convince some people to take their clothes off on the dance floor.
TEN DEADLY KISSES (1986)
After four 12 inch singles, the record company was excited about the possibility that just maybe, there was enough material for an album…No such luck, bozos, since more songs were needed to complete an album.
Already in the can was some stuff done with Michel Van Gijsel (the engineer who started The Weathermen with Jean-Marc Lederman and worked on the first three 12inches) but it was time to move on to new aural horizons. Shit! that sounds bad already !
So, The Weathermen met with Belgian producer Ludo Camberlin, who already had a housename working with Neon Judgement. In Ludo’s small ‘Anything But’ studio located in the basement of PIAS, the three fearless men (Bruce, Ludo and JM) decided to have a go at writing new material to complete what would be Ten Deadly Kisses. 6 new songs were created and the other tracks were edited versions of the early records, sometimes with added or re-recorded vocals.
At that time, the equipment affordable to small groups was scarce. On Ludo’s recording, at the time of Ten Deadly Kisses, most of the sequencing was done on the Commodore 16 and the only sampler was the low budget Akai S1200, but that shortage of equipment was ideal for The Weathermen’s very primitive approach to sound design anyway…
POISON, the song that walks by itself (1987)
There you have it: ‘Poison’ is undoubtely the song that gave The Weathermen their 15 mins of fame altho it felt like 15 seconds… Recorded at Ludo’s studio, it was done in two days on an 8 tracks machine. Because of the shortage of tracks available, the vocals had to be recorded with the sound effects. It’s aaaaaaaaaall Poison !
The lyrics are about pollution, any kind of pollution. The pollution that makes this planet the dump that the entire universe is laughing about, the pollution that comes from TV, and that which comes from people who try to force their ideas down your throat.
It features another annoying intrusion of Susanna Stammer, proclaiming she’s about to make our lives misery. And scratch all our Bruce Springsteen records- which The Weathermen honestly couldn’t have cared less about. They didn’t have any.
Unfortunately, Poison was to start a dilemma for The Weathermen: Demands for live gigs were beginning to come in, the need for pictures and promo, the pressure of the record company for more visibility, those minor details were about to smash to pieces The Weathermen’s happy incognito. At the time, The Weathermen were only ‘known’ thru their pseudonyms: Bruce Geduldig was Susanna Stammer, Bubu and Chuck B, while Jean-Marc Lederman took Patricia Hearst and Jimmyjoe Snark III as his signature. They could go shopping without being recognised. Mind you, even after they went public, they still could. Even more so.
So, the band had to come out and tour. There was little money to put some extravaganza show together, so they went for dramatically revamped motocross gear and Super8 movies made by Bruce.
Jimmy, painting by Erica Hinyot
The shows used to do better in clubs than in rock places.Dunno why.
The Weathermen never accepted to do arenas, even tho they were proposed to headline the Grow-Your-Own-Vegetables Aid gig, back in Tulapassee, Ohio.
Daz (the lights engineer), Bruce and Ludo Camberlin Switzerland, 1988&
Jimmyjoe working the Ensoniq, while Bruce rests on the ground. Texan drummer Paul Zahl on drums. The Melkweg, Amsterdam 1988
The Weathermen decided to fulfill promo interests by always trying their best to look stupid and out-of-place. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams!
In order to protect themselves against non-existing mob hysteria, The Weathermen demanded to be protected by female bodyguards.
This is Greta. She’s 2m02 and she likes you very much already !
Bruce, Great, Jimmyjoe in the hands of Daz, pic taken by Ludo Camberlin probably (Koln, Germany 1987)
Poison even found itself as song of the week in Belgium’s main dailypaper Le Soir…
THE BLACK ALBUM ACCORDING TO THE WEATHERMEN (1988)
By 1988, ‘Poison’ was making a few tiny ripples on the European territories. The Weathermen were touring, making interviews and appeared as foolish as originally planned. It was time for them to collect their dues… The tracks backbones were done with Ludo, but most tracks were remixed in London with Paul Kendall and John Fryer at the legendary Blackwing studio….
This is the classic Weathermen album. Or so they like to think…
7″ single SPV
Jimmyjoe really thought it would be a good follow-up to Poison.
SPV released this only for Germany and it did absolutely zilch, nada, zero, kebab, rien.
Now, let’s be honest, everybody was kind of stunned at how well Poison was doing and no one knew exactly what to release next. In fact, PIAS at one stage wanted to release “Trash It”, a song Jimmyjoe did with Ludo and Paul Zahl, The Weathermen’s real cool drummer.
B-side of the Tuff Times 7″ single is ‘The Lift’, one of the rare Weathermen track that didn’t make it to be featured on a The Weathermen album.
just two guys in love with a big sound
(remixes by Daniel B.)
Bias 99
12″ EP + CD 1988
BANG ! is an interesting fellow….It was recorded at Ludo’s new place: Studio Square, and was a good attempt at securing another hit after Poison! but it somehow never made it, altho it did well for the band in the USA and Canada (Waxtrax was minding about The Weathermen in the USA at that time). Good fun lyrics, uplifting chorus and music. Surprisingly light lyrics tho, i wonder what Bruce ate for breakfast ?
Nice covers: Bang’s cover was done by James Nice. It is a pic taken from some US movie called ‘Reefer Madness’.
Bang-Bang is the remix 12″ It was done by Joe Castiers (Poesie Noire) and Ludo Camberlin.
Bang Bang’s cover was done by Erica. It’s an hommage to the great artist Liechtenstein, and is very typical sixties imagery. That cover was awarded by some big German paper as one of the 100 best record covers ever.
BEYOND THE BEYOND (1990)
After 1989, Jimmyjoe couldn’t take it anymore and decided to do his best Howard Hughes impersonation and retire for a while.
A replacement was found for him for the Weathermen’s live gigs. As to show the absurd consumerism machine that rock music had become, a journalist reviewed one of their gigs in France and mentionned Jimmyjoe’s presence on the stage when JJS wasn’t even there…
So, The Weathermen’s activities on the recording front stopped for a year or so.
The following CD/Album saw Nigel Starmill (an anagram for famous French indie producer Gilles Martin) working at the Neve desk for recording and mixing. The songs are quite a departure from the EBM formula. While most bands stayed with the electro/bass drum in your face attitude, The Weathermen went on to explore some other areas too…
Global 851 (1992)
1991 saw The Weathermen at the end of their road. But everybody wanted to give it a last try, and it came under the shape of ‘Global 851’,an album that’s, let’s be frank, not very good and quite bland.
It was recorded at Caraibes’studio in Brussels by Nigel Starmill and mixed in London (mainly at Metropolis studio) by Jeremy Allom (the aussie producer beyond the desk for Massive Attack’s first opus).But equipment and good producers can’t always hide it when songs are missing, except ‘Avon Girl’ or ‘Lowsoul Swamp’ which showed The Weathermen hadn’t lost it entirely…
Pictures of The Weathermen were the works of great belgian photographer Dany Willems.
But it was obvious The Weathermen’s fifteen minutes were over. As a reminder of that, here is an hilarious fax from their German label. It shows the feedback that was given in clubs to The Weathermen’s latest 12″CD: ‘Around The World’
The band was tired and needed some time off. Like a lot 😉
Maybe ‘Poison’ came in too early ?
Maybe less exposure would have seen The Weathermen working a different pace.
It doesn’t matter: some fine songs came, some good points were made and they had their share of fun, as had the people who liked and followed The Weathermen. But long gone was the excitement of the crowd, long gone was the genuine interest of the record companies involved, and to be honest, long gone was The Weathermen’s desire to express their views about love, hate, manipulation, TV, rock, politics, hopes, herpes, shattered dreams and nightmares thru the most popularized form of art in the 80’s: music.
‘Here today, gone tomorrow’ could have been their motto. They didn’t take themselves too seriously until they believed in their own crap. Don’t fall for that, kids!
Maybe ‘Poison’ came in too early ? Maybe less exposure would have seen The Weathermen working a different pace? It doesn’t matter: some fine songs came, some good points were made and they had their share of fun, as had the people who liked and followed The Weathermen. Something was needed to refill The Weathermen’s inspiration. But it wasn’t to happen in the Nineties. And, as often, weeks pass, then months, and soon an entire decade without new material from The Weathermen was gone…
Bruce went on to make some more tours with Tuxedo Moon, made an album with Luc Van Liethout as “Microdots” and worked in movies while Jimmyjoe released some records with Ether (with DJee from “La Muerte” and Luc from “Two Ugly Papas”), and “Jules Et Jim” (with Julianne Regan from “All About Eve”) and got into multimedias (videos and music for videogames). Then, early 2002, it happened again…A website had been put up and mails and messages of people showing their love and/or interest in the band started to come in.
Bruce and JJ soon found out some new steam in that feedback and the desire, and the inspiration, to make new songs and revive the band was there.
Deeper would be the first album of The Weathermen in 12 years…
IN DEEP WITH THE WEATHERMEN (late 2003)
The songs were in fact early versions from the upcoming Deeper album and they do differ quite a lot in places from the mixes found on Deeper. Mixes are often rougher, rawer but there are some rather intersting Lo-Fi production tricks.
“In Deep with The Weathermen” CD Single (Coach and 6)
four new songs + interview exclusively included with: issue #2 of Dying in Style!
DEEPER WITH THE WEATHERMEN (2004)
(the twelve year itch)
After four 12 inch singles, the record company was excited about the possibility that just maybe, there was enough material for an album…No such luck, bozos, since more songs were needed to complete an album.
Already in the can was some stuff done with Michel Van Gijsel (the engineer who started The Weathermen with Jean-Marc Lederman and worked on the first three 12inches) but it was time to move on to new aural horizons. Shit! that sounds bad already !
So, The Weathermen met with Belgian producer Ludo Camberlin, who already had a housename working with Neon Judgement. In Ludo’s small ‘Anything But’ studio located in the basement of PIAS, the three fearless men (Bruce, Ludo and JM) decided to have a go at writing new material to complete what would be Ten Deadly Kisses. 6 new songs were created and the other tracks were edited versions of the early records, sometimes with added or re-recorded vocals.
At that time, the equipment affordable to small groups was scarce. On Ludo’s recording, at the time of Ten Deadly Kisses, most of the sequencing was done on the Commodore 16 and the only sampler was the low budget Akai S1200, but that shortage of equipment was ideal for The Weathermen’s very primitive approach to sound design anyway…
(press release from 2004)
They have been compared to a groovier and politically minded Devo or, more recently, “Front 242 meets Massive Attack and exchange jokes”. Their songs covered subjects as diverse as drunk driving, red necks, Bush Senior love affair with Lybia, pollution, JFK´s berlin, BDSM cliches and mindless sex drive.
What had begun as a private joke soon became a fairly marketable commodity, with over 100,000 records sold, 18 records or CD´s, two video clips on heavy rotation on MTV, three European tours and an American Tour, and wow two songs used on the fabulously successful “Baywatch” series. One Weathermen song, “Poison”; even made it to the German Top 50 singles. The band was signed on Waxtrax records before moving on to Mute USA.
But seeing Pamela Andersons butt moving in rhythm with their music was going to be all too much for The Weathermen and if in the sixties Andy Warhol predicted that everybody would be famous for 15 minutes, the acceleration of time and the utter domination of the audiovisual media 30 years later reduced drastically that window of glory: The Weathermen decided that they had had their 15 frames of glory and disappeared from the scene. They were going to be missed.
Twelve years later, The Weathermen have come back from wherever they went to hide to record a new CD album. Their warped electronics and perpendicular music is indeed very welcome in todays bland music scene who seem to only respond to one word: “endless recycling”.
The new album was started the very same day Bush Jr invaded Irak and contains of course insights about his military industrial complex, samples one of his most famous (and notoriously free of spelling mistakes) phrase ever .The song Daytime TV is already banned on one college radio in Utah. Deeper also goes on to scrap several other subjects such as fucking machines, Hollywood´s lifestyle, mobile phones, self-contained computer controlled condos and gives a whole new perspective to the Bacharah classic Close To You.
In the USA, the CD is available thru Tommy T’s DSBP or CD Baby.
THE WEATHERMEN – DAYTIME TV 12″ VINYL out on WE ROCK LIKE CRAZY 05 (2005)
martin, from we rock like crazy, made this wunderbar flash anim:
12″ EP vinyl 2005
We Rock Like Crazy WRLC 005
EMBEDDED WITH THE WEATHERMEN (2006)
The latest effort by the post-legendary never-imitated, never self-limiting The Weathermen, called “Embedded With The Weathermen” is, again, a shock.
This time, it’s an album full of subliminal messages couched in a not-so-easy listening format, designed “to relax while answering essential meta-physiological un-asked questions”, according to one of the group’s spokespersons. Waves of electro sounds and infected lyrics warrant the listener to a unique aural experience.
Themes of the songs include driving under the influence of a Global Positionning System (also known as GPS), the future of flirtation via implanted microchips (yuck!), larynx-dectomy (yuck!), spy techniques using doubles and various non assertive make believes, exoneration of violence due to stress and the urging of the will-to-do-to-kill-each-other can hardly be called ‘easy listening’, but The Weathermen have once again pulled a seductive negligée of negligence over a thinly disguised un-embedded un-dead Golem.
Once again, ten songs guaranteed to further confuse a public hungry for high-contented content.
Also to be found on the Embedded CD are 2 vintage (real media) videos of Poison and Bang
Poison! video (1987)
Bang! video (1989)
“Embedded With The Weathermen” is available thru The Weathermen, Urgence Disks in Switzerland.
In the USA, the CD is available thru Tommy T’s DSBP or CD Baby.
THE WEATHERMEN – DEAR GOD 12″ VINYL out on WE ROCK LIKE CRAZY 07 (2007)
They done it again. Martin has commissionned some excellent people to remix a few tracks off “Embedded With The Weathermen”.
This 12″ EP was only released as a white label, only 40 copies. Ever.
It was a brilliant label, run by a brilliant man.
Respect is due.
