Are there any pre-Dreamscapes Big In Japan demos?

[MarianGoldfan123]

I just barely recall hearing a very different Big In Japan demo which may pre-date the 1978 demo found on Dreamscapes CD 1. It had an electric guitar to it and it had some different lyrics. Can anyone clarify on if this exists? I heard it on YouTube, but I cannot find it now.

[humanracer]

Are you sure it wasn't the live version from History? There are many fakes on YouTube.

[MarianGoldfan123]

It sounded like a studio recording, actually. I'm sure it wasn't fake. It kinda irks me that I didn't save i to my computer...

[humanracer]

Well it wasn't demoed until 1982 so any earlier versions would be live versions. I seem to remember a demo on youtube I am sure it was a live version.

[MarianGoldfan123]

Wait. What about the studio demo found on Dreamscapes Revisited CD 1? That one was apparently recorded in 78 (at least according to Alphaville's Dreamscapes Revisited page:

http://www.alphaville.info/portfolio/3104/

[humanracer]

1978 is the date it was written but it was not recorded until years later. You can find the "real" recording dates here http://www.alphaville.it/ds.htm

Here is an answer from Marian from the mailing list, replying to a question about the recording of BIJ.



…First of all, thanx for the compliments and, yes, you're absolutely right,
the song was quite ahead of its times, what explains a lot. Concerning the
groove it is just as simple as that: We built it up on the bass line, which
was the very first idea for the song. The drums just interact with it. The
drum sound itself was created with an Roland 808 and a Simmons drum kit, one
of the very first, not the one with those hexagonal drums that became famous
during the eighties but the very first edition (forgot the name of it) with
a synth in black, brown and blue colours with wooden side-panels connected
with some very basic tom-pads. Our equipment at that time as far as I recall
consisted of a Roland M100 system (which was responsible for the
dadamdadamm-bass-groove in BIJ), a Jupiter VIII (for strings, pads and
polyphonic arpeggios), an Arp Odessy (which, for instance, created the
trumpet sound in "Into The Dark"), two Korgs (MS10 and MS 20), a Korg
analogue sequencer, the said 808 (for the basic drums and the hats) and a
Solina string section. Most of these instruments are probably heard on that
version of BIJ. We recorded it on a Tascam-8-track (before that we used a
Tascam 4-track cassette recorder). From that tape we sampled everything for
the Dreamscapes-version. No overdubs had been made. Everything derived from
the original tracks recorded in our studio in Münster/Dahlweg in 1983 were
the Nelson community was located at that time. The cast of the musicians
inside Nelson consisted out of Bernhard Lloyd (rhythm-programming, synths),
Frank Mertens (synths), Michael Lehnhoff (synths, keyboards), Fred Gerber
(fretless bass) and myself.





Another one that really amazes me is Forever Young Demo Remix with its
frenetic rhythm which seems the precursor of the 'jungle' wave from the mid
90s. This track is so ahead, it's very hard to think about it being a demo
from '82.

...but it is. The rhythm section (as well as the trumpet solo) was the sole
work of Bernhard. He created most of it at home in Enger in his sleeping
room with a Korg MS10 and this funny little toy-sequencer called MFB 601.
That was an unimpressive looking plastic box with lots of tiny sticks at its
front and, in terms of our modern times, unbelievably tricky to program.
Most of those "frenetic" lines went overboard when we decided to turn the
song into a ballad (basically the idea of our at that time co-producer Andy
Budde, God bless him) but you still can hear some of it in the original
12"version.

[MarianGoldfan123]

Thanks a bunch for that. That is awesome. I wonder if I should get into the mailing list so I don't bombard the forum with questions? I'll keep the question amount low though, as I don't want to annoy him.