![]() "A week later Tony Wilson was calling us the future of pop music. "But she popped it in the player, heard Electricity, and said 'That's a hit single.' "Tony told her 'yeah, they're two hairy blokes from Wirral wittering on about electricity' "She rummaged in the bag, saw our name, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, and said 'what an unusual name'. "That's when his wife, Lindsay, got into car, said 'What are these?' and he replied 'Oh just bands who want to get on telly that I've rejected'. "He listened to it, decided we weren't punky enough for his liking and put it in a bag of rejects on his car floor. Our 'manager', who was really just the fella who set up our gear, had cheekily sent a cassette to Tony Wilson. "It was October 1978 and we'd played one gig at Eric's and one at Factory in Manchester. Until he bumped into the one person who would know, Lindsay Reade, the former wife of musical impresario, record label owner, TV presenter and nightclub manager Tony Wilson. There's a story about the origins of OMD which Andy had long believed was apocryphal. In late autumn of 1978 synth pop pioneers Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark went from "two hairy blokes wittering on about electricity" to the "future of pop" almost overnight.Īnd the propulsion of two 16-year-olds from the small Wirral village of Meols into the musical stratosphere may have had plenty to do with that esoteric band name.Īfter all, would a band called Margaret Thatcher's Afterbirth have had quite the same mainstream appeal?Īndy McCluskey, the self-effacing and enormously engaging front man of the band now universally known as OMD isn't so sure. When you've sold 40-million records, have pioneered an entire musical genre and influenced bands as diverse as Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys, quite a lot as it happens. ![]()
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