The Buggles

The Buggles
Geoff Downes (left) and Trevor Horn (right)
Background information
Origin	United Kingdom
Genres	New Wave Synthpop
Years active	1977–1981, 2010
Labels	Island, Carrere
Associated acts	Yes, Asia, The Producers
Past members
Trevor Horn Geoff Downes Bruce Woolley

The Buggles^[1][2] are an English New Wave band consisting of Trevor Horn (vocals, bass guitar, guitar) and Geoff Downes (keyboards, drums, percussion). They are remembered for their 1979 debut single "Video Killed the Radio Star" that was #1 on the singles chart in 16 different countries.^[3] Its music video was the first to be shown on MTV in the U.S. at 00:01 on 1 August 1981.

[edit] History

[edit] Early days (1977–78)

Horn and Downes first met in the mid 1970s, while members of the backing band of British singer Tina Charles, though they did not actually play on her studio releases. After this stint they briefly went their separate ways, Horn playing bass guitar in the house band at Hammersmith Odeon for a while, where he met Bruce Woolley. During this period Horn yearned to become a record producer, but was frustrated by not being able to find ideal songs or artists to work with. As a result he reunited with Geoff Downes, and the trio of Horn, Downes and Woolley began writing their own songs to record themselves as a studio band.

The Buggles' sound was characterised by a deliberately synthetic quality in keeping with the technological subject matter of their songs. Two different stories are claimed for the origin of the band's name. Horn said he chose "The Buggles" because "It was the most disgusting name I could think of at that time"^{[citation needed]}, while Downes claims that it arose out of a joke and was actually a pun on "The Beatles":

It was originally called The Bugs. The Bugs were studio insects—imaginary creatures who lived in recording studios creating havoc. Then somebody said as a joke that The Bugs would never be as big as The Beatles. So we changed it to The Buggles.^[4]

[edit] "Video Killed the Radio Star" (1979)

Their first song was "Video Killed the Radio Star", and in the summer of 1979 a demo recording was submitted to Island Records, who signed them immediately. This demo featured vocals by Tina Charles, who incidentally helped fund the project. Although the song was chiefly a Bruce Woolley composition, he left shortly before its release to form a new band, The Camera Club. "Video Killed the Radio Star", released in September 1979, was the 444th number one in the UK charts, spending one week at the top and shooting The Buggles to worldwide fame. All in all, the song reached #1 on the singles chart in 16 different countries.^[3]

The video for "Video Killed The Radio Star', directed by Russell Mulcahy, was the first video aired on MTV two years later, at midnight on 1 August 1981.^[5] By this time, the Camera Club had released their version of the song on their only studio album, English Garden.

[edit] Debut album and follow-up singles (1980)

At the time of the single's original release, The Buggles did not actually have an album's worth of material to record, and so they wrote most of the other tracks for their debut album The Age of Plastic (1980) while traveling around Europe promoting "Video Killed the Radio Star". Three subsequent singles were released from the album. They also charted in the UK, although they were modest chart performers at best.

During this period, the band performed live on BBC Radio 1: "The Plastic Age" on 2 July 1980 and "Clean Clean" on 4 October 1980.

[edit] Joining Yes (1980–81)

Later in 1980, Horn and Downes began work on a second album, working in a studio next door to progressive rock band Yes, who had recently lost vocalist Jon Anderson and keyboardist Rick Wakeman. Both members of The Buggles, and Horn in particular, had been long-standing fans of Yes. The Buggles offered a song to Yes, "We Can Fly from Here", but at the suggestion of Brian Lane, manager of both bands, Yes' bassist Chris Squire invited them to actually replace Anderson and Wakeman as members of Yes.

Horn and Downes accepted the offer, and joined Squire, Steve Howe, and Alan White to record the album Drama (1980, UK #2, U.S. #18). A track called "Into the Lens" was released in its full eight-and-a-half-minute form, on a limited-edition one-sided 12-inch single. Essentially it was an unfinished Buggles song originally titled "I Am a Camera", re-worked and completed by Yes. "We Can Fly From Here" did not in fact appear on Drama, but the band did perform the song on the Drama tour, and a 1980 performance can be heard on Yes's The Word Is Live CD set (2005), along with another unreleased Yes track from that era, "Go Through This".

On the whole, the team-up of Yes and The Buggles was well received by fans both on record (the UK chart position for Drama is testament to that), and on stage. Trevor Horn was the first to admit that he did not have Jon Anderson's vocal range or style, and many fans missed this, but most were still keen to give the new incarnation Yes a chance. The critics and some fans, however, were far less forgiving, especially in the United Kingdom, and poured scorn on the band. Yes officially disbanded, although temporarily, in early 1981, shortly after the Drama tour came to an end.^[6]

[edit] Second album and breakup (1981)

After Yes broke up, Downes and Horn resumed work on a second Buggles album, entitled Adventures in Modern Recording. As originally intended, "I Am a Camera" was brought to completion as a Buggles song under its original title. However, Downes left the group during the recording of the album, citing musical differences, and Horn completed the album with several new songwriting partners and musicians. Adventures in Modern Recording was released in late 1981. The album and the five singles released from it—"I Am a Camera", the title track, "On TV", "Lenny" and "Beatnik"—did far less well on the record charts than the first album and its singles, and shortly after its release Trevor Horn brought The Buggles to an end.

[edit] Hiatus (1982–98)

After leaving The Buggles, Downes joined his former Yes bandmate Steve Howe in supergroup Asia, together with John Wetton (ex-King Crimson), and Carl Palmer (ex-Emerson, Lake & Palmer). There he remains to this day, the only member of Asia to have been in the band continually since its beginnings. In parallel with Asia he has also been working on other projects, including several solo albums and production of acts like GTR.

Trevor Horn embarked on a new career as a record producer, achieving successes with bands like ABC, Dollar, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Art of Noise, and even the albums 90125 and Big Generator from a re-formed Yes, with Jon Anderson back on vocals. In 1985, Horn won the Best Producer BRIT Award. More than twenty years on, he is still active, still producing, with Seal, Tina Turner, Paul McCartney, Tom Jones, Cher, Simple Minds, Belle and Sebastian, t.A.T.u., Charlotte Church, Captain and Pet Shop Boys among his many credits.

[edit] First live appearance (1998)

Being largely a studio creation, The Buggles never toured. There were a couple of Top of the Pops playback appearances, and later some performances for promotional purposes in support of the second album, but the first live outing by the original duo came in a low-key appearance on 3 December 1998.^[7] In 2004, The Buggles reunited on stage again, this time with Bruce Woolley at the Wembley Arena to perform "Video Killed the Radio Star" and "Living in the Plastic Age" as part of a Prince's Trust charity concert celebrating Horn's career as a producer.^[8]

[edit] Second hiatus (1998–2010)

In 2009 Horn teamed up to produce the album Reality Killed The Video Star for British singer Robbie Williams. The album title pays homage to Horn's first single with The Buggles back in 1979. The two performed the song together at the BBC Electric Proms on 20 October 2009.^[9]

[edit] The Lost Gig (2010)

The Buggles reunited to play their first full-length live concert on 28 September 2010, more than three decades after "Video Killed the Radio Star" topped the charts around the world. The event, billed as The Lost Gig, took place at Ladbroke Grove's Supperclub, Notting Hill, London and was a fund raiser with all earnings going to the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability.^[10][11]

Playing live on stage were the three founding members Horn, Downes, and Bruce Woolley.^[10] They performed their 1980 debut album The Age of Plastic in its entity, divided into two sections: The original vinyl albums side one and two.^[10] After playing side one, they were joined on stage by original 10cc guitarist Lol Creme for a version of "Rubber Bullets", followed by "I'm Not in Love" sung by Chris Braide and a version of "Slave to the Rhythm" with vocals by Alison Moyet.^[10] The concert also included a guest appearances by Gary Barlow singing "Hard to Handle" as well as Richard O'Brien.^[11][10] "Johnny On The Monorail" was played as "Johnny On The Monorail (A Very Different Version)" instead of as the album version. The concert finished off with an encore of "Video Killed the Radio Star" featuring lead vocals by a member of the audience that won an auction.^[11] The opening act of the night were Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.^[10]