Voice Farm - Modern Things // Sleep (Optional Records) 1981. Here are the two things I know about Voice Farm. The B-Side of this 45 was on Let Them Eat Jellybeans. It was on the B-Side of that record. You remember the B-Side right? The other thing I know about Voice Farm is that their first LP cover is pretty dorky. They also have a non-wikified(!) wikipedia entry and it says that “Voice Farm was a San Francisco electronic music band formed in 1981. The history of Voice Farm can be traced back to the chance meeting of Charly Brown, an artist and musician from Portland, Or., and Myke Reilly, who served a three month prison sentence in Berlin for experimenting with pirate television there.” Wow I hope Myke wasn’t dressed like he is on the first LP cover when when he was arrested. Three months in a German prison. Not good.
Anyway, this 45 is a prime slice of synth-wave music. Everyone lists Modern Things as the A-Side and I shall follow the herd but if you look at the 45 cover Sleep is listed first. I think Modern Things is listed as the A-Side because it is more poppy. I like Sleep more. I always thought it just had this great ominous riff to it. Yes, I made it through side B of Let Them Eat Jellybeans back in the day, a number of times.
I have nearly the entire Voice Farm catalog, and really REALLY hope they will follow through with their promised return now in 2008. YouTube has a whole slew of live tracks and music videos available now (do the search…), and there seems to be a voice-farm.com up which threatens to be live in mid June 08… it’s now Oct, and there hasn’t been much movement. Here’s hoping! I’m ready!
Negativland’s first album came out around the same time as Voice Farm’s “Modern Things” single. They (Negativland) very kindly let me sit in on their very first gig, which was at the Savoy in SF’s North Beach. Since Negativland had an actual album, we headlined and Voice Farm opened for us. I was quite apprehensive aboutg going on AFTER Voice Farm since they actually had, you know, SONGS. All went splendidly, though. Someone shouted, “I love you guys!” I shouted back, “Why?” The Savoy paid Negativland $100. They let me have $10 of it. Eventually they’d be sued by U2 and Casey Kasem. But that first night it looked like blue skies ahead. I don’t what they paid Voice Farm. Good times.