BIOS

Paul Thompson.

A man whose telephone number is known to very few, and that’s how he likes it. Paul came to music via an art training which left him scarred. Vast outdoor installations and literal tryptichs of his own penis won him few admirers.
Painting and bodybuilding are the only two activities which distract him from the production of Globo’s music. A tacit six-footer, his brooding, stiff persona is rarely seen outside of Globo’s studio, and when it is, it exudes discomfort. Unhappy in the company of the strangers and mistrustful of large gatherings having fun, Paul is strangely at odds with pop music.
Favourite pastimes include taking acid before attending Premier League football matches and lying.

Steve Appleton.

Perpetually shaven headed, quiet and bad-tempered, Steve again has an art training, his chosen media being ink and more recently sculpture. He rarely speaks, a fact most find disconcerting but which suits his role in Worldnet Productions perfectly. He controls the financial dealings of the company and has developed a special relationship with bankers and lawyers. All cheques from Globo/Worldnet Productions feature his stylish signature. His avowed intention is to live in Euro Disney.

Mark Wernham.

Mark is apparently garrulous and often the spokesperson for Globo, his media-friendly demeanour putting fanzine writers at ease. When not writing some of the more trite melodies to be found in Globo’s music, he is manipulating the information war and specifically
gathering data in a pro-pornography anti-censorship battle. He is referred to as Wernham by his closest friends.

James Clayton.

BIO FOR DISTRIBUTORS

Globo formed in 1994 and with a deal from the underground dance label Hydrogen Dukebox, set about recording the two singles which emerged later that year. The debut, “Beautiful Feeling” was awarded Melody Maker’s single of the week, garnered lavish praise and flew into the independent top 30.
A second single, “Autosleeper”, revealed the bass-heavy dub drenching tendencies of Globo, and became another Single Of The Week. Rare live performances of the band, as part of their extravagant Club Globo evenings, baffled and delighted crowds in equal measure, with sumptious visuals and the now-famous information overload. Not many people were sure what to make of the band drifting on and off the stage, jamming with DJ’s, doodling in ambient interludes and ripping into full-on dancefloor assaults.
With Globo’s debut album, “Pro-War” due for release, the provocative four-piece are set to go super-nova. The band’s own radio show, “Worldnet Wireless” will be airing around the country between April and June, guerilla gigs are planned, the first of which will be an appearance at Megatripolis (April 6 1995) and the band have provided the theme music for BBC2’s new comedy series, “Fist Of Fun” which commences broadcast on 31st March, 1995.

GLOBO

PRO-WAR

After two ecstatically well-received 12-inches in 1994, Globo present their debut album, “Pro-War”.
Following on from the upbeat irony of “Beautiful Feeling” and the dubby melody-drenched bass monster “Autosleeper”, “Pro-War” is over an hour in the company of Globo’s swerving and unpredictable musical meanderings.
Globo are no limp bedroom boffins with nothing to say. “Pro-War” is junk-full of ideas, contradictions and evidence of the band’s own adherence to their philosophy of using the telephone to pester large organisations and discover fascinating new experiences. Check out “Phone Fun” to hear Globo make contact with the Brazillian television company, Globo TV.
“Sixties Nineties” is a genuine hymn to The Beatles and specifically to John Lennon, as well as being a comment on the frustration of exisiting in post-modern times.
Elsewhere, Globo return to their perrennial fixations; censorship with the anthemic marching song “Ban Everything”, the soundtrack to book-burnings and tabloid headlines, sex with “Cable Card” a song which tells the story of a man who was hoodwinked by a fake prostitute’s card left in phone box which led him to a religious proselytiser and more sex with “Adult Channel”, music meant to accompany thinking people’s pornography. “Intelligence Is Joy” couldn’t be a more straightforward attack on hedonistic stupidity while “Turn It Down Or Turn It Off” is the LP’s final blisteringly fast pay-off
Undermining, subversive and pro-choice, “Pro-War” aims to provoke and seduce in equal measure.

THIS IS LONDON 1966

Our new album: some things whch may help you in your listening pleasure.

This is not techno

This is not dance music

This is not rock ‘n’ roll

This is the kamakaze

This is the tempest

This is the one way trip

WARNING!
Globo has failed to make an album generically dictated

YOU MAY FIND IT CONFUSING AND FEEL A SENSE OF DIORIENTATION

This is normal and will soon pass.

The following may help:

1) Try to listen to the words in the songs. They include important information as to the purpose of the music’s existence.

2) Try to glean pleasure from the melodies in isolation from the other elements
u S.

3) If you believe Globo to be the harbingers of the new, then it will be true.

4) Pleasure is not a crime.

INDEPENDENT MUSIC ENTHUSIAST

After two singles, both Singles Of The Week in Melody Maker, and the well-received and provocative debut album, “Pro-War”, Globo found the latter part of 1995 heavy going. The band’s third single, “Thirteen”, came close to landing the band in prison due to its use of a genuine police interview tape with a murder suspect. The track had to be hastily withdrawn and replaced with a censored version. This was rapidly followed by the band’s drummer and visuals co-ordinator, Ian McGregor leaving the band at the end of 1995.

Changing labels from the nascent and hip Hydrogen Dukebox to North South Records took a while longer, but now arch manipulators and underground dance lords Globo are back with a new single, “Independent Music Enthusiast”.

As ever with Globo, discerning the real meaning behind the track remains an impossible task. It could be read as a damning put-down of Brit-Pop, of anal record collectors who scour record fairs for Sonic Youth bootlegs. On the other hand, Globo are British, and they claim they are a pop band. They may also rate “Daydream Nation” as one of the best albums of the Eighties.

In a rare lyric, Globo reveal that they have the moves, they have the grooves, and this much is true.

TITLE: CALIFORNIA (I’VE GOT TO GET MYSELF TO)

What does it all mean? An arid, esoteric dancescape with a new take on the American dream?
For Globo, California is the rock ‘n’ roll mecca, and nothing is funnier than that. It’s where old rockers go to die and, uh, get a tan. It’s where Globo belongs.
The pioneer spirit that got Americans to California got them into space, too.
In the Gulf, American and English pilots fought battles that you can now buy for your Nintendo machine.
In California you can reconstruct your face and body.
Hollywood is in California

Globo presents a cinematic widescreen snapshot of rock ‘n’ roll, war, spy paranoia, freedom and ambition.
California was gleaned from cruising the air

AUTOSLEEPER
Globo Conspiracy.

Another hevyweight vinyl only slab of ideas from newly hailed masters of underground dance, Globo.

PRESS RELEASE FOR GLOBO’S NEW SINGLE 13

Following a turbulent summer, Globo return with a new single, their first release since the highly rated album “Pro-War” in May.

Called “Thirteen”, there are seven mixes in all, each entirely different and each springing from the original mix, which has not been released. The original track was based around comprehensive sampling of a police interview tape which came into the band’s posession. Following legal advice and the very real possibility of the band facing charges of Perverting The Course Of Justice, which carries a possible five-year prison term, the track was withdrawn at the last minute. Another mix has had to suffer extensive cuts.

Globo are a band who have been making young people's dancing music to critical acclaim and commercial failure for a little over a year now. So far, they have released two singles, "Beautiful Feeling" and "Autosleeper", both awarded Single Of The Week in Melody Maker, and one album, the controversially titled "Pro-War". Their third single, "Thirteen", is due out any day and has been the cause of further controversy. The use of a police interview tape on one mix led it to be withdrawn and no end of trouble. The full story is told below.
In between creating a hoo-ha, Globo found time to compose the theme tune to BBC2's "Fist Of Fun" programme, which features popular comics Stewart Lee and Richard Herring. It is because of this that Globo are performing at tonight's launch party for the Fist Of Fun live video.
When the Fist Of Fun book comes out, Globo will tour prominent Waterstones Bookshops and engage in various watersports activities while Lee And Herring autograph their shoddy cash-in products.

GLOBO AND THE POLICE INTERVIEW TAPES

HOW WE GOT THE TAPE

Our reputation as fractious trouble-makers in the realm of ideas precedes us, we regularly receive packages that people think we will find interesting. Via a PO Box number which is printed on all our records, We receive tapes, articles, videos, magazines and letters. Some of it is rubbish, some bizarre and some is downright scary. An example of the latter dropped into our laps early in 1995, shortly after we finished our album, “Pro-War”, when a tape, purporting to be a demo of a band based in Ipswich, was given to us. The tape had no music on it, but instead was a police interview tape.

THE CONTENTS OF THE TAPE

On one channel, the computer generated time-code reads out the time every thirty seconds, and on the other, two policemen interrogate a suspect about the murder of a man who has suffered 13 stab wounds, six in his chest and seven in his back. During the course of the interview, the suspect is revealed to be the murdered man’s brother. He claims no memory of the event, saying that he had blacked out due to alcohol and drugs. The police try to get the suspect to confess, they have a witness to the murder. During the interview, the police shock the suspect by telling him the murdered man was unconscious when he was stabbed, as none of the wounds are irregular, which would indicate the murdered man had moved while being stabbed. The suspect refuses to confess, and the interview is stopped after about 30 minutes.

WHY AND HOW WE USED THE TAPE

We used the interview, heavily edited to take out any names and with the pitch of the voices changed, in a song we called “Thirteen”. We then worked up a dozen or so mixes which used excerpts to lesser degrees. We used the tape because firstly, it was interesting. The voyeuristic fascination of listening to the tape is undeniable. We were transfixed as well as unsettled by it. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, we felt that if a tape like this falls into the hands of a stupid pop group who are going to stick it on one of their records, then something has gone badly wrong with the justice system. If evidence as important as this in a case as grave as this is going walkabout, then surely some attention should be drawn to it. We wanted to embarrass whoever was responsible for this cock-up. Thirdly, material like this is right up Globo’s alley. We scour the airwaves for material which will spark us off, give us ideas, get us going. Call us old-fashioned, but we like to have things to think about lurking in our non-utilitarian dance music.

WHAT HAPPENED

Our manager, James Clayton, in his role as our guardian through the choppy waters of the music industry and life itself, took the tracks to a lawyer, just in case. On discovering that we could face charges for Receiving Stolen Goods at the bottom end, and Perverting The Course Of Justice (Maximum prison sentence: five years) at the other, only days before the finished single was due to be cut, much arguing and soul-searching ensued. In the end, we dropped the version which features large tracts of the interview in it, and had to edit out large sections of another version (called “Back Stab Injury Dub”). We were advised against making any copies of the track, even a handful of pre-release tapes. The release is now ruined, having lost its central pivot, but hey, who wants to go to jail for a dumb pop song?
With neither our record company nor our management willing to take any responsibility for the release, we were on our own. We’d rather rob a bank and get some cash for a five-year stretch, thank you very much.

Interview with Fractured Mirror

1. Globo is a band with four members; Mark Wernham, Paul Thompson, Ian McGregor and Steve Appleton. Globo is a part of Worldnet Productions in which the band members plus James Clayton and Push are equal partners. With Worldnet, we aim to be as self-sufficient as possible. This means producing our own music in our own recording facility, generating our own artwork, trying to work in as undiluted way as we can within the music industry.

2. The band came together as friends in the Eighties, when we all lived in Norwich. We were in different bands playing different styles of music with varying degrees of success. When the last band we were in fell apart, due to sheer frustration and exhaustion, we formed Globo. Our interest in electronic music stemmed back to our love of bands like Devo, Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire, Brian Eno et al. When the first Public Enemy album came out we became enamoured of the rap scene (mainly PE and Ice-T) and bought our first sampler. That’s when things started to head towards what we’re doing now.

3. The name Globo comes from the Brazilian TV station, TV Globo. Its history as the mouthpiece of the fascist dictatorship there, together with its chameleon-like transformation to the supporter of democracy, makes it ideal fodder for Globo to enjoy. A rumoured hidden fascist agenda which still prevails at the station makes it even more fun. If Globo is about anything, then it’s probably BELIEVE NOTHING!

4. Glob’s top recordings of all time are, in no order; “Metal Box” by Public Image Limited, the entire Miles Davis back-catalogue, all of Meat Beat Manifesto’s recordings, “Find The Time” by Five Star, “Tago Mago” by Can, all of The Fall’s records, “Ritual De Lo Habitual” by Jane’s Addiction, “I Get Weak” by Belinda Carlisle, “Are We Not Men?” by Devo, All of The Beatles’ music, “The Real Ramona” by Throwing Muses, Led Zeppelin, “O.G.” by Ice-T, David Bowie 1972-1980, “Introduce Yourself” by Faith No More”, Killing Joke’s first LP, Consolidated’s “Friendly Fascism”, “The La’s” by The La’s and “Texturology” by Beaumont Hannant.

5. The music industry broke into Globo. We were in the unlikely position of having been offered a record deal before we had put the band together. The band we were in before Globo had decided to split up, we had one gig left to play. At that gig, Hydrogen Dukebox offered us a deal. We told them we were splitting. A few weeks later we rang them to let them know there was a new project available for signing and they leapt at it. We are grateful for their support. We once believed that getting a deal was a case of sending demo tapes and playing live until you are spotted. This is not the case, you need access to the right telephone numbers, to employ a manager and a press officer and sit back while the industry bullshits itself. All the artist can do is write music and keep his or her fingers crossed.

6. All of our releases have been experiments. We’ve been seeing what happens as we go along. We feel that “Pro-War” is a fairly thorough statement as to what Globo is. The design and the look of the whole package gives a lot of clues, the album did give us the opportunity to be more expansive with our output. There is space for the little jokes, the long versions of songs, to be eclectic and chaotic. We’ve yet to perfect the dancefloor 12” idea, and I doubt we ever will. All our records are meant to be three-dimensional packages, filled with ideas, which isn’t always the best way for a dance record to be.

7. Samples are crucial to “Pro-War”. Certainly the voice of John Lennon inspired the song “Sixties Nineties” and Jonathan Miller’s voice on “Globo Conspiracy” is the central part; it gives the song its meaning. The same with “Phone Fun”, so yes, you’re right. The samples do often spawn the song, but the samples are chosen for their suitability first.

8. Without consulting the rest of the band, I’d say we are most happy with “Sixties Nineties”, “Flirt With Fascism”, “Ban Everything”, “Adult Channel” and “Pro-War”.

9. We use both. When we need to record vocals or drums, we use a studio near Manchester. In our own studio we have the following; Akai S3200 sampler, Hohner HS-1 sampler, Roland S220 sampler, EMU Vintage Keys module, Roland Juno 106, Roland JD 800, Kawai K1r, Roland R8 and R5 drum machines, the usual collection of reverbs and effects, compressors and aural exciters, plus a large amount of foot pedals and old analogue delay lines which we like to use. There’s a Gretsch drum kit, a Fender Precision bass guitar and too many guitars, which Steve plays, for me to attempt to list. I’ve never heard of half the makes of guitar he uses. There’s loads of other bits and pieces, but that’s the bulk of it.

10. Doing the music for Lee and Herring was very sudden. They had used a snippet of “Onward” from our second single on the pilot show, and asked us if we would do some more music for them last year. Stewart Lee has seen Globo and likes what we do. The next thing we heard was that they needed us to do the music for them in something like five days. We are very happy to do work for television and are looking forward to several million people hearing what we’ve done. We are keen to do more soundtrack work for both television and film.

11. We play live rarely. It’s very difficult for us because we like to do large installations which are expensive, difficult and beyond our financial reality. We have done six installations, the last three being quite successful but we have realised we have a responsibility to promote our album, and so have recently agreed to play more “gigs”. The first of these was at Megatripolis which we enjoyed hugely, much to our surprise. We plan to make various guerrilla performances at suitable venues over the next few months.

12. Globo could go anywhere, even the next album may be a suprising change in direction. It all depends on what we get up to.

13. We have done one remix for Immersion, which is one of the acts on Swim Records, the label run by Colin Newman, who used to be in Wire. I think the record will be out in the summer. We are interested in doing more remixing, although it is quite a lot of work for not much money, as a rule, so you have to be careful with it. At the moment we are willing to take on remixes to cut our teeth and see how we like doing it. Globo is interested in getting as much of our music heard as we possibly can.

14. Next up is the second album which we have started on. Also I expect there will be a couple more singles over the next few months. Our internet site will be popping up in a few days which should be quite wild. It’s going to be an uncontrollable area to visit, so we recommend you check it out. We are planning some interesting live collaborations which we can’t tell you about, simply because none of them are confirmed yet. Other than that just the usual infiltrating and being awkward.

15. There is a desperation at the moment with record companies and the internet, a mad scramble to pay people lots of money to set up their dull, corporate sites. Anything that makes the music industry panic as always good to see. The only problem is if they start trying to control it, I imagine Sony would dearly love to have a monopoly on music on the internet, so they can force-feed even more people with their 80% shit roster of dull, corporate music. The great thing about the internet is that is so anarchic and beyond control, at least I hope it is. It is so important that the record industry isn’t allowed to homogenise the internet as well as everything else it has already fucked up. I see enough Meatloaf on cable TV without having to wade through it when I’m trying to find something entertaining on my computer.
As to the impact it might have on buying and listening to music, I feel it’s not dissimilar to what happened to books when computers came out; kind of nothing. You will be able to buy music through the ‘net, and some people will. Most people will still go to shops and gigs, it’s the hunter-gatherer instinct!

Music Notes: Globo take on The Fall
3rd April 2009

Kingsley Harris
This week I was at the Globo vs The Fall gig at the Arts Centre. For those not up with the news, top Norwich electro band Globo, with a history as long as my arm, have remade The Fall album This Nations Saving Grace.

This week I was at the Globo vs The Fall gig at the Arts Centre. For those not up with the news, top Norwich electro band Globo, with a history as long as my arm, have remade The Fall album This Nations Saving Grace.

Formed in the early 90's the band has been one of Norwich's leading and foremost electronic/experimental bands producing modern groundbreaking sounds akin to those of Kraftwerk in their heyday. This is not the first time they've delved into post punk plagiarism as a cover of Devo's Whip It is also among their catalogue.

The Fall were considered one of the earliest post punk bands to come out of the sleeping giant, Manchester. It's widely acknowledge now that post punk is a large all encompassing genre that came along during a hyper productive period within the music industry, in what is seen as the garage band insurrection. The point most purists of the genre will struggle to argue with is that This Nations Saving Grace is a masterpiece. Only rivalled in my opinion by other post punk gems like the Gang Of Four's Entertainment!, The Cure's Pornography, The Smith's The Queen Is Dead, Joy Division's Closer and I'm sure between us we could add a few more.

Monkey Boy, a solo acoustic artist, with great poise and a good sense of humour opens the evening. It was then that the evening stalled, as presumably the gap to build atmosphere and tension only built frustration, because it was far too long. Not quite living up to the rumoured multimedia extravaganza; it takes more than a bit of back projection and a couple of plasma screens in this day and age, just as a box of sparklers doesn't constitute a firework display.

I suspect my disappointment is that I really wanted them to go to town on this production; it was something different, a great idea! However, the reality is just getting this idea with all its guest artists to the stage was spectacular enough. I loved the show, it was on the nose for me the songs, the delivery and the things that they had made their own came off.

As we know The Fall are renowned for their horizontal approach and that's the one thing you can't fake about them, so tracks like LA and Paintwork had a curious bounce about them, and the added drama of guest artists almost made the album seem conceptual.

The band's version of the album does stand on its own two feet but not in comparison to The Fall's.

The Fall captured something you can't describe, as most classic albums invariably do.
Only time will tell how Globos version is regarded in the grand scheme of Fall tributes. However, it is a must for all Globo fans and certainly comes recommended to the more broad-minded of the Fall's fanbase. Globo's This Nations Saving Grace is out now on Comuse records.

It strikes me that you're the opposite of an indie snob's favourite band: instead of it being cool to say "I prefer the early stuff", it's "I prefer the later stuff". Do you ever meet people who hate your Nineties work, and only like what you're doing now?

STEWART LEE: Yeah, yeah I do. Also, people who had never heard of it, which is interesting. Well, with that stuff, right, I mean... I was always doing stand-up on the circuit, and I think in my head, that was my thing, and the double-act stuff was this other thing. Which weirdly became much much better-known. I must have done five gigs a week, club gigs, through the Nineties. And we probably did about 30 a year, for four years, as the double-act. There was one tour where the improvisations got really good, towards the end. And of course it was never documented, because things weren't, in those days, were they? I really liked the first series of Fist Of Fun, and it's what we wanted to do at the time. It had a sort of bricolage, plastered-together sort of feel, which was what my sensibility was at the time. It's not unlike Mr Show, that thing in America at the time with Bob Odenkirk who ended up in Breaking Bad, and David Cross. But then the second series was conditional upon it being more Light Entertainment. With a shiny floor. They even did something to a band's music without permission. There was a band called Globo, who used to be Basti, who did the music. And without their permission, the producer got it and put all tones under it and cleaned it up. And I remember saying, 'You have to tell them!', and the producer said, 'Well, we own it.' And I said, 'You can't really do that to someone's music.' So, things like that happened, and the second series was made in a real rush. The second series, for me, was like a drift into Light Entertainment packaging. And I sort of sleepwalked into the rest of it. There's lots of bits, in things that we did, that I like. But it wasn't my plan, in the Eighties, to be in Light Entertainment-y sketch shows.