Alan Wilder's 1984 "Some Great Reward" demo tape

Notes

The second generation tape that contains these tracks.

Handritten information sheet detailing contents of the tape that contained these tracks.

Alan Wilder provided at least four demo tracks for "Some Great Reward". These tracks are thought by many to be demos by the band Red Flag or I Start Counting (in the latter's case, band member David Baker even claimed two of the demo tracks as his), however that does not seem to be the case; these demos are almost certainly Alan's.

These tracks have all circulated before on various bootleg releases, but in poor quality at best and horrendous quality at worst. The tracks were transferred by the webmaster from a second-generation cassette. There is some slight distortion and hiss present, no doubt stemming from the normal position cassette that was used, but it is easily dismissed. Many, many thanks to a kind collector for generously lending me his tape.

Revision A notes: The tape was transferred again on a serviced and upgraded Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck. No speed correction or automatic phase correction was employed this time. There is also slightly less hiss, tighter bass, and a better soundstage as a result of the better cassette deck used for this transfer.

Michael Lyons, Andy Fletcher's brother-in-law, affirmed that these tracks are Alan's demos, with PeterToo agreeing, on the Home forum (requires registration to view; quoted below):

excitermode on 2010-01-21, 20:47:31:

Quote from: ruskprick on 2010-01-21, 14:24:34

Not to be nosey, but could you be a little more specific? This song has been deemed a fake for years and years. A source for the opposite would be nice... ;)

It come from the same cassette tape that 'if you want' was on. This tape was presented to depeche by Alan for the recording of SGR. Only 1 song made it. There were 4 songs if memory serves correctly. They had no titles listed on the inlay card, so the titles that exist today are ones made up by fans many years ago when the tape was found and started to spread. When Alan was asked about 'i feel no guilt' I can understand why he had no recollection of it. My source cannot be revealed I'm sorry. Take it or leave it.

---

PeterToo on 2010-01-22, 05:59:39:

That's the definitive answer. End of discussion.

Alan has denied the tracks on an older revision of the Shunt Q&A:

• From: Johannes K. Arnason
• E-mail: [email protected]

Did you create the tracks 'Violence', 'I Feel No Guilt' and 'Cliche'?

Alan: No.

Two questions down from that one, Alan states that the tracks are a maybe and that he doesn't remember them:

• From: Brian Hodge
• E-mail: [email protected]

Please finally end an argument amongst the fans, did DM have two songs 'Violence' and 'I Feel No Guilt' (circa 1986) that were demo'd but rejected for the LP?

Alan: It's possible but I don't remember these - there have been many demos over the years.

Furthermore, a fan has asked Alan during a webchat whether the I Feel No Guilt demo is fake, and Alan replied that it is indeed a fake. However, I Feel No Guilt is not necessarily the true name of the track, as these demos had no titles listed on the inlay card as mentioned in the above quote. All of the track titles are made up by fans except for If You Want, since that is the only track from this demo tape that appears in Depeche Mode's catalog, specifically as the penultimate track on the 1984 album "Some Great Reward". It is possible that Alan replied that the track is fake because he is unfamiliar with the track when referred to as I Feel No Guilt, or he was embarrassed at the track and did not want it attributed to him. He has mentioned disappointment with the tracks he penned for Depeche Mode on his Shunt Q&A site:

• From: Jam
• E-mail: [email protected]

If you think 'But Not Tonight' and 'It's Called A Heart' were too pop, what do you think of If You Want and Fools?

Alan: I think they're too poppy as well. I don't like any of my old songs.

Handwritten information sheet mentioning 7 Alan demo tracks.

Until You've Sown The Seed is sometimes referred to as "Cliché" due to the song's tongue-in-cheek lyrics, and due to misheard lyrics the song is also sometimes referred to as "Until You Saw The Sea".

On another handwritten information sheet, a total of seven Alan demo tracks are mentioned, but my contact does not have a copy of this tape. I am unaware of any other Alan Wilder demo tracks at this time. A photo of this info sheet is provided to the right.

On September 10, 2015, wiki & forum member Guilmon1998 posted about his meeting with Daniel Miller in which he inquired about these four tracks. Please note that I am somewhat skeptical regarding this recollection; it is up to you whether you decide to believe the below information. The entire text is quoted below:

During the Mute Festival in Tlaquepaque Mexico, i had the great opportunity and honor to get an a meeting with Daniel Miller, the founder of Mute Records after the DJ set in the festival with Vince Clarke.

i asked to him about the demo tape of the Some Great Reward's album, I asked whether they were genuine or a fake. he was confused about that topic, fortunately i got with me my MP3 player with the songs of the tape, quickly he could recognize them.

he said that the tape is really genuine, but someone unknown stole the master tape from the pre-mixes and demos library of Mute after the studio sessions of the Some Great Reward album in Music Works in England & Hansa Mischraum in Berlin on 1984.

They were actually two tapes, the first tape was Alan Wilder demos and second, with demos made with Martin and Dave on vocals.

he tell me the stories about that season by his own words:

during 1984 after the single People Are People were released in March of that year, Alan Wilder, bring to them a tape with un-named songs, 4 tracks to be exactly. all the songs in my opinion sounds good, but Martin and the others didn't like some songs, but just one track was choosed for be in the upcoming album, that was If You Want, in that week that song didn't have a name, but later during the recording session in Berlin the name were added.

all the songs of that date were written and sung by Alan Wilder during 1983-1984 some of the during the tour to promote the album Construction Time Again of 1983, a lot of people said those songs were of the bands: Red Flag or I Start Counting, but that's not true, nobody of those bands wrote that songs,

I Start Counting was a band which was with the Mute Label during the mid-80's

so the question is who stole the tape? nobody knows that but a second generation tape was uploaded on the internet the full tape in a really bad quality by parts. but the people and fans added to the un-named song a name, a lot of them based in the chorus of the songs here are some descriptions of the songs based on the information of Daniel Miller, all the songs have a particular acent.

Violence: recorded in 1983, a lot of people said was a song of Red Flag, I Start Counting or a Martin Gore demo, the song was written by Alan Wilder in 1984 (editor's note: this is most likely meant to say 1983; awaiting confirmation from forum member), was demoed during the session of Construction Time Again, but was not included in the album included with a demo of Martin Gore, later the song was revealed again in 1984, but the song had the same destiny.

If You Want: the only track of the tape that was on the album, a lot of people confuse that song as a fan cover, the song convinced to the band for be in. was sung by Dave Gahan, the song was played only in the tour to promote the Album during 1984-1985 the demo is so strange and so dramatic, very different than the album version

I Feel No Guilt: the most famous song of this tape, was confused as a demo of Martin Gore or Red Flag, a very rythmic song, with mystery ambience, was never officially released

Until You Saw The Sea: sometimes called as Until You've Sown The Seed or Cliché due to the song's tongue-in-cheek lyrics. a very rythmic song a bit dramatic, amazing sound

as last info, i asked to Daniel a song called "All By Themselves" a Martin Gore's demo It's a very gloomy, depressing sounding song with vocals subdued and difficult to comprehend, he told me about that song was going to be the b-side of And Then... and was planned to be the third single of the album but the single was never released due the construction tour in 1983 was coming very soon, and later the idea was abandoned

I have transcribed the lyrics to all of these tracks with the best of my ability, along with some help from Ronny. They are included in this torrent as lyrics.txt. You can also find the lyrics for each track if you click on their title in the track listing below.

Track list

1. [4:35] Violence
2. [4:25] If You Want
3. [4:58] I Feel No Guilt
4. [5:12] Until You've Sown The Seed

• Total time: 19:09

All tracks written by Alan Wilder. Track titles may not reflect the true titles, which are unknown, except for If You Want.

Stream

• Violence:

• If You Want:

• I Feel No Guilt:

• Until You've Sown The Seed:

Lineage

• Lineage: second generation Sony HF 90 normal position cassette, 1990 - 1992 stock -> Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck, serviced and upgraded (details) -> Blue Jeans Cable LC-1 8-foot RCA cable -> Creative Sound Blaster ZxR (RCA Line In) -> Adobe Audition CC 2015 (32-bit / 88.2 khz) -> normalized to -0.1dB and any DC bias removed -> WAV (32/88.2) -> FLAC 16-bit 44.1khz using FLAC 1.3.1 64-bit (level 8 compression) and foobar2000 v1.3.8 with its Resampler (SoX) component v0.8.3 (best quality), dithering enabled
• Generation: second
• Transfer: DMLiveWiki
• Cassette tape photo and auCDtectTaskManager log included

Download

• Download via torrent - FLAC 16-bit 44.1khz - 123MB