Circuit3 Interview 2022 - Technology For The Youth Electro Synthpop 80s
hi i'm mark wibrow and this is the electronic cafe the channel for the lovers of electronic music and this is another very special interview edition hello and i am andy mcnab so let's get started so welcome to another brilliant interview episode of the electronic cafe before i get into the meat of the show just want a couple of mentions um i made an announcement just recently that we've had a couple of milestone moments so the facebook community has now passed over a thousand members our youtube channel just over 3000 subscribers cannot believe how we're just growing really fast now it's starting to get real momentum but i just want to say on behalf of mark and myself a massive thank you to every artist every person we've met from this channel um and the feedback we get is just so brilliant so i just want to say on behalf of mark and myself thank you if you've got friends that you feel should know more about us and check on that and appreciate our music out asking to subscribe that'd be great but just honestly so well by the response and the reaction we're getting from people absolutely brilliant so once again a massive thank you from the electronic cafe right couple of other things one of the great uh friendships we've got is with these guys blitz magazine if you haven't subscribed to it yet you really should it's absolutely packed with some fantastic content i mean it's like if the electronic cafe was a magazine make no mistake it would be this just like i think if this magazine was a youtube channel it'd be us we are such kindred spirits you know absolutely worth getting your hands on us and subscribing to it i'll ask mark to put a link there's some rather good journalism on one particular page i don't know if you've noticed that but we're writing with the guys as well so absolutely delighted to the guys at blitz magazine for allowing us to kind of tell more people about great music on the in within their amazing magazines i say if you haven't subscribed to it subscribe it is amazing um also you probably saw that mark and i said we're getting into live music as well so our first live event is going ahead so we are going to be introducing three incredible bands at the walter rats on march the 25th next year tickets will go on sale on september the 1st mark and i will share all the information you need to get your hands on some there will only be 200 so they are going to go fast but you've got a national milk bar cult with no name and beautiful machines all on the same night this is the start of something very special for the electronic cafe and i am beyond excited as i know market so look out for more information on those tickets and get them while you can right to the interview so mark and i have become really big fans of mr peter fitzpatrick aka circuit three and when this new baby came out just last week we got him on the show to talk about it and i have to say what a lovely lovely guy super smart super funny um just a brilliant musician and be prepared to be absolutely wowed by his collection of synthesizers that you'll see when we go when you see the interview absolutely stunning but you know absolutely just one of the nicest guys you could wish to make was an absolute pleasure to spend the morning chatting with him and he's this amazing piece of work you haven't got this album yet you need to because it's really really really good so sit back and enjoy our interview with a brilliant peter fitzpatrick aka circuit 3. the most striking bit on the cover as well peter is that mine seems to be signed by somebody and that is doesn't so i think once well you see i i i is quite upset but i would i would actually send that album back to analog trash because whoever wrote on that now should be ashamed of themselves oh well okay so i've got a forgery be drink only friends the overviews okay everyone welcome to another interview edition of electronic cafe and today we have a guest that we've been loving and pushing since there's a release of the price of nothing and the rather brilliant value of everything um a couple of years back and now he's got a new newly released album technology for youth look at it there it's the electronic cafe the brilliant circuit free well better thank you patrick peter welcome to china cafe my friend it's so dear mark to finally meet you i am delighted to be here because i've been i've been following the channel for some time and i've seen i've seen who you've interviewed so i part of me is thinking somebody is going to tap me on the shoulder in a minute and say sorry but there's there's something more interesting than you coming along here will you just get off so stop now no no listen he's bringing have you in this new album yeah technology for you it sounds fantastic you must be really pleased with this i yeah so there's a bit of a there's a little bit of a history around the album to answer your question yeah i'm i'm sort of i'm in the middle of what feels like a storm around this album where while i was doing the last album price of nothing value of everything yeah i i got fed up halfway through for various reasons and i thought okay i'm not enjoying this go do something different and i started to write other songs that clearly did not fit into the last album um but all of a sudden after a couple of months i realized oh thematically these are starting to work together so i actually wrote a lot of it while i was recording the last album and i just put it i just parked it put it on hold and said right let me finish this album and i'll do that and then i as soon as the last album went down um i completely neglected really doing pr for it uh which is to my probably to my detriment but i i went out i just went came back in here and said i have to finish this this these songs and the little uh instrumentals and stuff and so it has taken all in all it's taken about four years to do and i think the the longest the most difficult part was just the the the supply chain issues with vinyl production because i had plans for it i i knew exactly how i wanted to present it out to anybody who buys music and i've got a i've got a following of fans and i wanted to i wanted to make something that would delight them visually as well as uh orally you know so yeah it ended up with the with the five color variants um you know you can see you'll actually see here in the band cam page and where you know you've got all those different variants there and i mean they look they look great and you've got you know you've got like this silver one and then the one that everybody's gone for is that one and there's only there's only a couple of those left the sunrise one and the other one that everybody went for was the blue and white one this one yeah yes that's the one you got yeah so it was um you know it was just um the way i visually i had the vision for it which i think is important and then of course the cd and everything so i try what was what's what i did this time which i had never done before i so-called road tested the songs so i i joined the pandemic um i started doing live stream shows which is something i'd thought about doing and finally and then realized okay well now's the time to do it so i i rigged up a couple of little gopro type cameras in the studio and a switcher and stuff and just started doing these live streams um which were were fun it's kind of saved my sanity during the pandemic and i just i discovered i have a fan base out there because really and other artists will probably tell you this you just make the stuff you put it out there you might get to chat to people who've heard it but you're in this little bubble and you don't know does anybody actually listen to this yeah and and it turns out bloody do which was great i i i knew there was i knew i had something because i i i didn't hate it and um i played it to a couple of trusted people and they said yeah go for it i did re-tweak a few of the mixes and i realized okay i need to talk to a couple of labels about this and analog trash within a couple of days we said yeah let's let's work together and uh which is great because i i i i know they're i know they're artists and i know them as a label and then i brought in shameless promotion to help out as well because as you can probably tell i'm keen just to get back to work in the next album which i've already started writing and what i love doing to pr it's the organization of it i'm not great at it and so i'm so glad to have shauna out there just doing that for me and of course analog crashed themselves or setting up things so no i i'm i'm just thrilled with the reception yeah you should be proud of it i mean you know as soon as i put it on and mark said the same as soon as you hear it you just fall in love with it every train thank you so much texture beautiful sounds really great thought-provoking lyrics i mean you know there's obviously a massive sort of small it's like a love letter to that space area you know yeah yeah i think we're all we're all of a certain age i mean yeah yeah i know you're older than you but i mean i'm yeah i'm fascinated by it yeah early space race and the apollo and gemini and i've got books on nasa and all that stuff so yeah this kind of um technology for the youth album this is she's kind of aimed at that era i was all over that yeah me too i mean i i i like i i grew up i was born in the mid 60s and i grew up i remember watching the moon landing i was very very young and i do remember watching it and i was just obsessed with space and science fiction and as a kid if you ask me what i wanted to be when i grow up it was always oh i'm going to be an astronaut yeah and then and then reality kicked in and thought yeah it's a bit dangerous i won't do that and so i but i was i was in love with science fiction all and also i think around the time i was writing it there was a couple of things happening a lot of the apollo anniversaries were happening it was 50 years since so i was seeing some of the stuff on tv and i observed a couple of things when when it was we were getting uh i'm not very well educated in history but what i did observe was it's kind of like who invented the telephone and people automatically say alexander graham bell well alexander gray bell was the person who first patented it which is not quite the same thing and it was so with a space race there is the official story which is heavily influenced by you know us media and then there all the other stories and that's what started grabbing my attention because i started looking at it and thinking so i heard about i read about ed dwight for example the first black african-american who was supposed to be in the space program was supposed to go in one of the apollo missions and didn't and i thought to my shame i'd never heard of him and and that's what the song space walking is about him and in the live show i use video of ed and it kind of explains what went on putting it politely he was shafted by nasa and the us government and it's shameful and when i started reading those stories of what else is out there yeah and then then you get into conspiracy theory stuff which was the best fun ever it's time to begin let's go i would i would fall into youtube and wikipedia rabbit holes and i would have to write things down and just so i could go back to them and i was it was picking out sort of key words for me that i thought oh yeah that'll jump out in the lyric that'll jump out the lyric and then it would just get into this story so it's uh and so each of the songs has got something behind it and uh yeah and i think that helps because um i i think when you're singing it then you're you're relating the story which it makes it a bit easier yeah did it start out as as one song or did you always have it in mind that it would be kind of like a concept album you know that was the form it would take so what happened a thing that happened about let me see i first met her six years ago so i'm sure you know hannah peale who is just it's just an amazing artist and i i got to meet her and chat with her for a few minutes a few years ago and we've had the odd message you know online i'm not even an acquaintance but uh it was uh i i did the journey to cassiopeia you know album and i wanted and i was listening to that i thought yeah gosh i'd love to be able to do something like that and i said that out loud to somebody who said peter you are able to do it you just haven't done it so i thought yeah and as as the song started as all these space race themes started coming into these songs i thought ah so this is it this is what's happening so i i then made sure that if i was gonna spend the limited free time i have for writing music in doing that i would orient myself toward those stories and it almost became a race to try and capture as many stories that i was interested in until i had enough material for an album so it was it was intentional but it didn't start out that way yeah it was kind of just a very happy accident and i'm in no way comparing myself to han appeal but she was really inspirational and in a couple of the messages she sent to me just i just thought yeah she's right i should think about it differently and i'm glad i did i mean you've got you've got the public service broadcasting race for space and you've got daniel speech by omd yeah there's a there's a few albums out there which go along the same lines i mean you're you're always going to be under you had tough competition there wasn't you you weren't yeah you did it well i've flattered to be mentioned in that sort of space but it's pardoned upon but it's a um it's a it's i think i think when you when you look at that and you you just see there is a there's a really great scene to mine with all of that because there's so much in it like even the album title for example so you know omd just got slagged off by journalists for tesla girls oh they're making up words now and i remember that happening and i'm thinking really just don't display your ignorance for everybody to see yeah and so you know that that was going on and then i thought yeah i need to capture little little phrases and things and i ended up looking at i thought i want to have a soviet inspired image and visual and aesthetic around this and i found this magazine called technology for the youth which has been around since the early 50s mid 50s and it's this wonderful i i describe it as washed out pastel color uh you know low-cost print yeah and if you if you just even go searching for technology for you you'll see the images and they're just so wonderful and there's a mixture of propaganda in there but also pure science and a little bit of science fiction in it um and that's where the title came from and it was all it all just started coming together rather too easily and maybe it was because i i just i had that focus and i i knew i was going to be searching for all of this stuff so maybe that's why it worked but it does feel like it came together quite easily yeah it's a great looking album cover and you're right but that you know the the 1960s russian propaganda posters for the space race and yeah and other things yeah is visually great i mean franz ferdinand used it didn't they uh yeah yeah they did that they they did the the very the the yeah it's the like forward rusher type stuff and it's like it's a striking cover i of mean yeah my daughter alison is a is an artist um allison did all of this and there's little hidden things in there like the astronaut cosmonaut we're not sure on the left if you look is actually dead yeah the skull yes yeah so they go with the lost cosmonauts conspiracy theory which we deal with in the song transmissions yeah um and then you know it's like the tape sticking on it it's almost like the how the designers were just at to some extent they were building the aircraft on the runway with some of this stuff yeah and you know bakelite components and gaffer tape like how many gigs have we done where everything is held together gaffer tape the most striking bit on the cover as well peter is that mine seems to be signed by somebody and andy doesn't so i think once well you see and he's quite upset i would i would actually send that album back to analog trash because whoever wrote on that now should be ashamed of themselves oh well okay so i've got a full drink sorry so so addy we will definitely we will definitely have to meet and i will make sure to sign that out you sign my first one so it's fine did i oh great you might wait did you get your signed no he went all right everyone it's great mate i'd listen about it and i'm sure there's people watching thinking does that matter i collect vinyl it does it does matter that's why i i'm flattered when somebody asks me to deface their album when we make but honestly i just love you just going back so i read some of you in rock bands back in the day about that journey oh a photograph a photograph appeared on social media three or four days ago oh really and it's on my timeline if you care to look for it i must i'll i'll try and post it on the circuitry facebook page and maybe on twitter so it's from late 1988 and there's a row of people one of whom is um a former member of thin lizzie and then there's at this um this very youthful looking individual with with long peroxide blond hair who is not that far from a roland synthesizer over on the stage and it's me so yeah i am so when i was in university uh i i was in a band of course and i was approached by somebody after a gig in dublin asking me look would you be interested in joining something that's a paying gig and i figured yeah okay so it turned out it was former thin lizzy drummer drummer brian downey um and i thought it was cool um and i i knew you know like any kid growing up in ireland in the 70s you know you knew lizzy where yeah and but i wasn't a i wasn't i wasn't an obsessive fan which probably helped because it meant i wasn't asking questions all the time and we had to just get down to it and learn the songs um and it worked out great because i being in university paying my hr university i was working in a supermarket packing shelves a couple of nights a week and all day saturday and after the first gig i did i realized i'd earned more for a two hour gig um than i did for a full day and a couple of nights in the supermarket so i i went i went into work the next day and handed him my notes and said right i've joined the band good luck wash away the and gary moore the late gary moore came down to the gig one night we did a residency in dublin and he came down to the gig one night just to try and persuade brian to go on the road with him and um gary walked up the stairs we played upstairs and i was setting up with the guitar player and i had my back to the door and you know typically you'll get people coming in asking to see brian to one of the scientific lizzy album or whatever and some voice comes in is is brian there and i said no he'll be here later we're setting up if you wait down in the bar and the guitar player is looking at me and his draw his jaws just dropped and he said you just told gary moore to f off downstairs man and i said and for that i almost responded yeah well just so we showed that i went oh crap whatever just done and he was he was well he was quite popular at the time because he had he just had a hit single uh the loner and he played he actually played with us that night and there was so this is pre-mobile phones you have to understand and there was one pay phone in the pub where we played we played up there was a big venue upstairs and the line of lads who would come in every week phoning around dublin saying you have to come in tonight you have to come in tonight the place was rammed people up the street and it was good fun i mean we played with him and eric bell who was the original guitar player in the band he played in whiskey to jar and stuff but the only stuff i ever asked brian about was the stuff that went on with um you know around the area here of the blitz club and all of that because he was living in london at the time and he knew rusty um and but also i wanted to ask him about mage because mitch had been in thin lizzy and he was telling me that he told me two things he said first of all he he guided me she kind of looked after him and said no you don't want to go to that party and midge had a little small little road case with him on tour and he was doing stuff in this hotel room and i was fascinated by all of this and you know in my in my mind i was thinking god if mitch came to dublin someday maybe come and check out brian i might get to play with him of course that never happened but um that was the one the one thing i would i wish i wish could have happened um but i got to ask him about all of that and he would he would explain to me about the concept the push and the beat and the sort of things that you you need somebody to teach you so brian was great and i i see i saw him a couple of years ago he's doing wonderful but yeah that's what i did all the rock and blue stuff with a junior 106 which was great i got away with it and long haired out there not at all electronic i mean he'd worked with tony visconti for crying out loud yeah and and like i grilled him about that and just like it's it's amazing when somebody has been in that orbit and has worked with those people they learn a lot of stuff and whether you like that type of music or not it's which is irrelevant the the fact that they understand production techniques and songwriting like he explained the boys are back in town to me yeah the song that everybody knows so anybody who doesn't know lizzy boys are back in town it's from toy story it's used in all of these american stadiums so brian cole wrote that with feline he explained to me it's actually four different songs that they were working on and i've seen i i've done a bit of that the beatles used to do that like the side two of abby road with all these sort of half-inch songs and it's actually and the next time you listen to the boys are back and down you suddenly realize oh yeah it's there's there's one song they were trying to finish there's another and they just joined them together which was for the year that it came out and for the type of music they were doing that was really clever and innovative and it resulted in a huge hit single for them so you learned stuff like that and that was the first time i'd ever heard of that being done yeah i mean i thought you wrote a song from beginning to end no you don't yeah i like bohemian rhapsody i mean you could say that that's not three songs put together when and i ask you this through gritted teeth looking at what's behind them do you use any software sims on in your process or do you you you try and stick with the the analog sims that the i i do use yeah i do use software since i i have a it's it's not so much a sponsorship but i have i have role in cloud um so i have a vip on that and basically i will use that because if you're on a laptop and you're away you need something to work with so no i will use software since and indeed i'll even use them um i'll use them live because you have to travel light so if i'm playing so if i have to travel somewhere i'm not hauling any of these with me it's just not going to happen so i'll use controllers and i'll use soft since but um by and large i think almost i'm trying i'm trying to remember if i used any soft synth on the album i don't think i did writing it certainly because sometimes it's easier but increasingly i found myself over the last year when i'm writing stuff i'm actually doing much more um mono synth work even though i've got a stack of poly synths um so just for anybody who's not familiar with the demonic synthesis where it's one node at a time and it's led me down on a certain path um with the textures i'm doing and the the the type of pieces i'm writing but yeah i i've and i've been against stuff since i think there's there's two things going on with the love of hardware like you can get in and like hit say and you can immediately just touch it and just change what's going on yeah and you know it just make it it's that tactile feeling that was the prophet 10 by the way so it's that feeling of actually touching actually let me show you the couple of them here if you if you like let me see i have a little handheld camera which may or may not work for me this is where i get really good pressure get your credit card out uh so you can't quite see it at the top there that's the the role in juno 106. so that the first synth i bought was a juno 106 and the voice ships failed mid gig um oh yeah because there's there was a thing then i got them replaced i had i was i emigrated to new york and i lived and worked in new york for a few years and i had to sell it just to i needed cash um but i managed to replace it the roland system 8 which i'm a big fan of if i was to bring us synth to play live i bring this because it's quite light and it's got very very brilliant um recreations of their classic synths so you know at a push of a button you can switch to a jupiter eight which is great um this is the poly synth rack so that's the that's the sequential ob6 which is the collaboration between the late dave smith and tom oberheim and this was the pandemic sid the prophet 10 because i i i wasn't going out so i found myself with a little bit of cash and went a bit mad um i've i have a friend who enables me and i if i ever say to him thinking about buying something i've put away the money for it he says yeah go do it so he you know he he's he's enabling my my my habit here um i think behind me uh i have a lot of mono synths over there so from the top there's a pro one which of course is the vince clark synth all over yazoo's album there's an sh-101 there there's the reissue of the arc odyssey the with the full-size keys there's the very lovely moog song the third lay laying down on the left is the mogs sub and then the one to the right is a little arturius in um the mini brute which is the one that i i bring to giggs if i'm ever going to meet somebody and it's been signed by all of owen yeah all of omd have signed it vince assigned it gary newman signed that martin signed it um and the one person i forgot to bring it with me was uh tom dalby thomas dalby and i should kick myself but i'll find another opportunity anyone else signatures oh there's a quite a few yeah and there's a there's a lin drum there on the bottom and a bearing right away and i've more over there we can get back to those i think i'm i i try not to overpay so like the juno 106 i managed to get that for a very reasonable price um and then so a lot of the others you're just buying them new it's it's it's a very expensive hobby but it's all it's all i do i i you know i don't really do an else and a younger man again try to be a savior a soldier like you where back then become a night good guy a wise guy what you don't have to pay some of them are very very good and some of them are rubbish like the vc 340 over there which is the vocoder string machine is superb it really is but i've tried some of the others and they're not great i'm not a fan of the 101 that they did um it didn't sound quite right but what i do like about what they've done is they've enabled this is something that wasn't available for me when i was younger they've enabled a whole new group of people to get into hardware which i think is brilliant and it's admirable as for that alone we should appreciate that famously as well um martin ware was very complimentary about your music people oh thank you lentima jupiter for didn't you oh yeah um i had met martin at a heaven 17 show in the jazz cafe maybe four or five years ago and glenn as well two very personable people and we just got chatting and that was it bumped into him again another heaven 17 show said hello um i happened to have his email address and after i read the interview he had said he had been asking it are you going to use the original equipment and instruments and the answer was along the lines of would love to uh we'll try to but we like for example i don't have a jupiter 4 anymore and you know it's an integral part of those albums and i'd have to hire a buy one and i just thought don't do that here look i'll lend you mine i just gotten one the previous year um and i just emailed and i said look you're welcome to borrow it i'll bring it over and at first he was like are you sure and i said i want these shows to go ahead as well so i want to see i want to see the show happening and he was very gracious and then the pandemic hit he was meant to have it for like three or four months and then at the end of 2019 the problem pandemic it and bless him you know he uh we we kept in touch quite a lot martin was great so we i brought the synth over really i had a lot of time for martin and glenn musically and politically and we went out to lunch and stuff and he's he said uh i said look i i'll probably head off i'm gonna fly back to dublin in about three or four hours and he basically said look do you want to come down we're going to um the groucho club i'm meeting uh alex james for blur uh joanna do you want to come along and i just found myself saying i know it's okay martin just just go ahead there and then i as i'm walking away to get it to get trained back to heathrow i said what did you just do but he was big he was being polite because you know i would have been a spare wheel there but he was very he was very appreciative and he listened to my music and you know um that's what i like about him there's no us on them with martin and then during the pandemic we were keeping in touch and it was a running joke that like you know i have a jupiter for but it's it's in a bubble in london and eventually the shows happened and it was kind of cool looking on the stage um because you know i grew up in those albums and yeah i was like wow they're using my bloody synthesizer to do this and he was playing it but i've actually got the presets i've saved as presets and i'm not overwriting them yeah and they're great and it was all of that and he's used them in one of the songs i have yes yeah in the after show after the the travelogue reproduction gig in the roundhouse we were we were in the aft show and there was various people there and i was just chatting with glenn and some reason we started talking about the scent it had gone out of tune just before the gig or whatever and i said yeah well martin's sounds are on it you know what i'm going to do i'm going to do a song called jupiter city you know toyota city jupiter city and he started laughing and i said oh no i am now i'm going to do it the album hasn't been pressed i could put another track on and uh and i said at the martin and he looked at me like okay whatever you think man but i i that's basically what i did i um every sound on jupiter city is one of martin's presets which which was just i just wondered could i actually pull this off could i get away with it yeah i got away with it that's a great thing to do so also listening to your music i mean is classic era synth pop we we know that you must be kraftwerk thomas dolby depression yeah all of them all of those all those classic classic artists and you know what you do does have that dna going through it so that's why we love it but you also covered in its entirety the upstairs at eric's album the yazoo album which yeah which i think is one of the great clubs one of the best great albums of the 80s it really it really it really is yeah it really is um so anybody who knows me i bored him to tears with it i'm a huge yazoo fan they were my band when i was 15 16 17. i i actually did that for me
well i wasn't going to release it um i did it for me and i got some guest vocalists in because i thought let's just make it a bit more interesting than just listening to me and you know i that was a some people like the album some people don't like it and i can understand why because when somebody touches a sacred scripture and you start you know putting it in comic sans font you think why did you do that so i i i intentionally didn't try to be original with the arrangements because you know what you can't improve on perfection and i didn't have much time i wanted to get it out but when i read when i agreed like okay i will put this out i wanted to time it with the it was the 30th or 35th anniversary or something of it and i thought no i'll just i'll just stick with the way they did it because it sounded great and have great fun doing it um it's sold out like i did this lovely little metal tin and my daughter alison did the artwork where it's the american footballer from the only you single and um the um in the bath from the bathroom from the nobody's diary sleeve yeah and i i managed to meet alison moyer before dublin's show uh and gave her a copy and she was laughing saying she was just talking about the nobody's diary cover to somebody and she loved it i got a hug so that was you know my 16 year old my 16 year old self thought that's it i can retire now she was most gracious a truly uh wonderful wonderful human being um and you know delight that she signed a load of stuff abroad with me including my live aid program and uh she she said to me you're too young to have been at live aid and i said please tell my friends tell my friends where she came and then i got a copy to vince and i very funny um i had there was a there was a running joke when he started the very records twitter account and yeah i said i replied said oh welcome to twitter where can i send my demo tape and he replied to me saying i'll need a tape machine for said dental tape and i thought okay so i was in the us on a business trip and i brought a little old tape machine with me and um through his through his wife tracy i i got she sent me their home address and i i mailed to him and he was he he emailed me some months later and said uh thank you for the for the the yazoo album that's very complimentary stuff about it uh recommended a charity that because if i made any money off it i wanted to go to a charity and then he said oh yeah thanks for the tape recorder it was useful ish that's very vincent so i was delighted because you know both of them have heard it and it was it was kind of a dream that i had when i was a kid obsessed with that album um i'm not doing the next one people have asked me i'm not doing the next one because i'll get nothing else done but you know any anybody who's a hardcore fan of this will do it um and actually i can say it now because time has passed uh you know deb danahay so deb deb was vince's girlfriend back then and deb is very active in social media she she started the so the first depeche mode gig was for her birthday party so deb then helped started the pesh fan club back then and she ran the yazoo fan club for a long time and uh lovely person she's still you know somewhat in touch with depeche and we know each other through social media we've met a few times she's come to some of my shows and i i persuaded her for i before e except after c i persuaded her send me something to put in it and she said oh don't put my name in it though cause people will get weird about it and i just thought finally because everybody like eric's mum was on the yazoo album but deb who was at some of these sessions wasn't on it so she finally appears on a yazoo track which i think is very so she's in there and i've never mentioned that actually so if somebody actually finds the azu tribute thing i did go to i before you accept that to see and try and spot deb's voice it's in there 17. the broken frame album in its entirety as well didn't it yeah they did yeah yeah i thought i i enjoyed that i liked my show a lot and so what i love about what they did with it they put their stamp on it i i didn't really do that i i just for all the reasons i've explained but i'm on different artists i mean obviously mark and i set this whole show up to obviously talk to great people i can also promote new bands is anyone you're listening to and loving currently you can share our audience anyone who just brings to the mind that you kind of love or you've loved the last few years gosh i've i became obsessed with roshi and murphy during the pandemic yeah um i started listening to this artist so when i'm at work in the home office i can't really listen to stuff with lyrics it's too distracting um right there's a lot of rubbish ambient music out there really poor but i found one person um who actually was doing live stream shows through the pandemic um his name is martin sterzer i'll try and put it in the chat there's two things i love about martin's music it's all analog instruments um and he's got no notions about himself to use an irish expression and he's very modest and i really love him but also he's got a cat called neptune who frequently interrupts and just well as he say like he says playing something the next thing you know is cat in the middle of the performance going out to many hundreds of people on youtube will just sort of walk over sit on the keyboard or start nudging his hand or whatever and you can't get rid of them um and you play the game you're trying to spot neptune where is he sleeping in the studio but his music is lovely it's um it's not that wishy-washy ambient stuff he's got actual melody behind it and he does some berlin school stuff so martin sterzer is definitely one and i think there is also an album that i started listening to again by a dublin artist called polly droid um whose real name is brian o'malley he's a film director and he's a really good friend and i'm glad i have the cd because it's all out of print i must try and persuade him to re-release it but it's probably out there polly droid i think the album is called a human is only a cell or something i love that that's all instrumental stuff yeah and i think nation of language yeah yeah i think nature of language yeah we saw them in dublin um and it was yeah and they're coming back they're back in the in the winter so yeah i'm hoping to see them again you can't see me again but there's great recommendations buddy because yeah i'm sure our guys uh our viewers will go and check those out so thank you for what's next for circuit three um well the album is only out matter days um i'm starting to get the stats coming in from different streaming services and wow it's kind of getting a lot of attention so i've got to just ride this way for a little while longer i'm i'm doing lots of pr um and we're doing let me see the physical product is going out so i'm spending a lot of time going to the post office to send sign sleeves over to did you say signed ones sorry yeah sign sleeves because when people buy it and they want it signed you know they remember in the band camp coming to ask for it you know i mean i got mine signed yeah so you did i mean what sort of person doesn't ask for it to be signed all right some idiots sorry you're breaking up yeah you're on mute you're on you um next up is august 21st of course if people are watching this in 2023 you've missed it um august 21st 2022 i'm doing a live stream of the entire album from the studio um i i've said it out loud and now i actually have to practice and i've got and now they're there the fear has just kicked in what i've realized i've just said that out loud i'm going to do it so we're working with uh with the analog trash team to do it unlike my other live streams we're not doing it on facebook and youtube etc for various reasons not least is just how badly they they're treating artists when you try to do this stuff we're going to do it through band camp that's that's in itself is fine they do it and it looks great and it that will work it just means people have to go to band camp to see the stream and so we're going to do the full album from beginning to end and then i might just do a couple of old songs at the end so that's on august 21st it'll be at 6 00 pm uk time which is kind of lunch time on the east coast of america it's just after breakfast time on the west coast of america but then after that um we are going to do live gigs in the uk it's just too soon because summer stuff is still going on we are going to do some live stuff it will be around sort of the west yorkshire leeds type area if i can get invited to a show in london i would go there at a drop of a hat um i'm already working on the next two releases um i've got something special in the pipeline as well um so there's there's there's actually three things on the go and then last night um a local artist got in touch with me and asked me if i'd help finish a song with them so yeah i'm gonna be busy getting back into just doing this i've missed i have missed doing all of this you did an amazing thing last week when you know a lot of a lot of people are struggling financially at the moment and you put that message out saying oh yeah yeah if anyone wants a download of the album just get in touch i mean you know i'm gonna tip my hand give you full kudos for that thank you that's a great thing to do yeah thank you i i didn't yeah it's just it's what you do right look i i've been that broke student where you just didn't have the money for it and i want people to hear this like it's like with your channel you're not doing this because you you want to make money out of it like there's there's ways to make money that don't involve nearly as much effort that you put into the channel right like if you if it was about money do it and similarly with me look if i can if i can recoup i could the label like i'll probably watch it just now saying peter shut the hell up stop giving stuff away um but if i can break no they they they're great they're socialists like me but they i want people to hear it and i think money is should not be an acceptable reason for somebody to not be able to hear something you've made and also i don't want people having to make a decision between this sounds pompous but it's happening people are making a decision about food or utilities and what they love doing and it would just kill me if i thought somebody was not doing something essential because they wanted to blow some money on their passion and look i joke about the vinyl selling it is selling it's not going anywhere fast there'll still be some copies left and there will be cds so i'm happy for people just to get the download codes um because it is just about getting the music out there um and i've done it before with with other releases um and actually anybody watching this look if if if you're if you're prioritizing your builds you can't be going out buying vinyl cds or even digital like just send me a message i'm on i'm on twitter i'm on facebook under circuit three music twitter circuitry music just send me a note i'll happily send a couple of download calls i want people to hear this um you know it's your spot on that's a great gesture and uh yeah it is a great gesture it's uh well received i think yeah yeah we will do another promo for the album so people want about environment if we just say if they send you notes to sign it and i'm not taking the what i do is i've held a few sleeves back in dublin most of the physical stock is with analog trash but i i have some and i just i just sign them and i know i'll send i send them over so it's no it's not it's no problem at all it delays the shipment a few days because i have nice yeah did i use the gold pen for that was that was that was that the gold sharpie i used on that one i've got the black shell it was beautiful yeah the gold sharpie is for the the vip sales one final question yeah of two actually where did the name circuit three come from ah so back in 2014. so i gave up doing electronic music i thought nobody wanted to listen to the type of electronic music i knew how to make because i used to do it professionally i was when i lived in new york i was a sound designer and music composer and i did everything electronically and i'd given up i had zero confidence in myself um i had started dipping my toes back in the water of actually performing as a solo artist so i got a guitar went out i did a workshop with tom robinson you know john robinson man which had heard of through his bbc show and he gave me great advice great coaching great encouragement and i went out i started writing songs again just on the guitar kept it simple and just improved my confidence a little bit and then i treated myself to some soft synths and started writing songs and in the first day what songs came new blue diary and those who were dancing came on the first album came in one day just goofing around with the synths and i thought i'm enjoying this and i said look just for once in your life period just do it because you enjoyed it save it thought not more of it and i sent one of the songs then to somebody who didn't realize it was coming from me and he said oh we're doing a little festival in dublin you want to play and that's where it all started and i got back into it just built a bit of confidence and um i was i thought well i have to have a name so i chatted with a friend of mine and he said well circuitry circuitry and basically it was it was a pawn on the irish accent and how we say circuitry yeah um i said to oh that's brilliant see i'll use that and i did a search online nobody else is using it great register the domain you know grabbed the youtube channel all of those things and then i a few months later a couple of interviews and i realized this is a stupid idea peter because you have to explain it to everybody so that's where it came from it was a joke with a friend about how we how irish people will say the word circuitry is a good name with a winner three on the end as well yeah yeah i should i should have just gone to um i should have taken the heaven 17 route and uh the maloco route and just gone through the film um with clockwork orange and just figured out is there and that nobody else has taken yet could i use one of them and i did entertain i did entertain the thought for for a week or two and then i thought no that's just no somebody somebody will have stolen it okay i might the final question would be what has been the highlight for circuit three so far i'll give you three i think seen in the circuit i'll give you three i think one of them was just getting this album out because it's it i had this i had the vision for what i wanted to do so that's been hugely satisfying i think the second one is um realization during the pandemic that i actually had a fan base it's not huge but i was getting a few hundred people coming out of time to the youtube shows that was hugely helpful because i've struggled to get live gigs in ireland it's that's a whole other story um and it's really difficult and there's an ageism problem here and i that was just so satisfying and i was able to connect with people and then i think the third one was um as a result of doing my little yazoo thing i got to chat with and meet vincent and alison which was such a huge deal a huge deal for me uh every part of it has just been so rewarding amazing and you met some incredible musicians on the journey mate but i mean amazing yeah i i just yeah it's it's mind-blowing and then when you meet them you find out you know how kind they are i mean thomas dolby we had a great shot because we we he's he's his adult son is transgender and as is mine and we had a great chat we were talking as parents which you know if he said to me at 16 oh you'll meet thomas dolby and you'll be chatting about your kids i just thought wow that's uh that's not going to happen it happened martin and glenn were just so pleasant so nice um you know any of those people that i've met have just been great even gary you would we had a great laugh yeah you know we me and andy started this i mean we'd never thought that when we was watching craft work we would ever get to speak to wolfgang fleur i mean yesterday we had a little chat with cole bartos i saw the pictures how how cool was that you know he was lovely yeah we spoke to martin well we you know you know you know yeah you mentioned neil arthur there's an artist who has evolved in the 21st century and he doesn't get the credit for it which kills me and you know if there was somebody who in the realms of possibility i could work with neil would be very interesting i mean obviously i i you know talk to people you want to work with vince clark obviously but that's not going to happen martin that's not going to happen but neil maybe because i've observed he does like to work with new people and the stuff he's putting out was so good so you know i i i got to meet him you know do you know the blemange documentary uh you keep me running round and round no i haven't cleaned it don't you mention ah there's a documentary um this is how i met neil um so long story short they came to dublin the date was moved i was traveling for business missed the show but it turns out they were making a documentary about it which is available online i'll send you the link to it and the documentary is a mix it's the blemange the live show interviews with neil all the rest of it and then interviews with various members of the electronic music community in dublin or as we we used to so everybody had their tribe and we were the synth heads and i was interviewed in that and uh met neil that day with during door film in the interviews and then i went to a blue on show somewhere in hoxton um and i heard a voice behind me hello peter it was him he he'd remembered my name that's the caliber of the man you're dealing with peter thank you for your time this morning uh pleasure we genuinely love the album it's a great thank you it's a great piece of work i mean um love the sound of it love the concept of it um we love your stuff in general but we really appreciate your time no no this is this has been a ton of fun a ton of fun more people should come on this channel definitely absolutely great to meet you and uh let us know about those dates and i will we'll happily come up to north to see you man we're where it's grim i believe it's grim i'm not gonna stay in too much got a lot of friends at that part of the world my daughter's living up that way now she'll kill me for saying that i'm i'm going to play with my sins now because it's it's saturday i'm going to play it all since you might get your knock on the door a bit later for mister brown well you're always welcome to visit dublin um thank you so much i love you guys definitely thanks looking forward to it take care enjoy the rest of the day but something's not quite right so that's it for another brilliant interview edition of the electronic cafe i hope you enjoyed markham's conversation with the very talented peter fitzpatrick circuit 3 peter thank you again mate for coming on absolutely enjoyed every second of our conversation hope to see you soon and you know i hope you're coming over here to play some live gears because we will definitely be there to see you right we'll see you very soon uh next episode of the electronic cafe in the meantime again thank you for all your amazing support stay safe we'll see you soon bye bye for now thanks peter it was a real pleasure talking to you and hopefully this episode shines a light on the brilliant music of circuit 3. thanks again for watching see you all next time take care bye bye
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2022-07-30 16:18
