DAVID BAKER has had a pretty varied career in the British music scene to date; but as Dave the Keys he’s decided to give something back: he’s releasing a little swingin’ Christmas nugget to save his local.
David began his musical career back in ’87 as a DJ at Middlesex Poly. He met fellow disc-spinner Simon Leonard and together they began work on electronic pop project, I Start Counting. They released their debut single, “Letters To A Friend”, on a Mute in 1984. Two albums and a European tour slot with Erasure followed.
By 1990, in the afterglow of the acid house revolution, the pair had moved from the purer pop toward a more bandana ‘n’ bliss-compliant halcyon dancefloor style, and a change of name followed to Fortran 5, putting out grooves such as “Love Baby”. They spread their collaborative net wide as Fortran 5, working with Thrash, of The Orb; Rodney Slater, of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band; and Neil Arthur, of Blancmange.
A trio of albums leading into the middle of the decade of Britpop led to a further reaction to the six-stringed status quo and a move back to a more Kraftwerk-inspired synth-originator sound as Komputer, who released cult favourite World Of Tomorrow in ’97; here’s the title track.
But now he’s dusted down the optics and he’s released a charity single to benefit his local, the mid-Victorian The Lamb, on London’s Holloway Road.
Originally conceived as a Londoner’s answer to “Fairytale Of New York”, the track has plenty of that happysad Yuletide feel, and soon evolved into “The Lights Of The Pub”, when David connected the track to the plight of The Lamb and in turn all those other pubs across the UK closed due to ‘rona.
Dave says: “Everything in the song is connected to that road, but it applies equally to other pubs in the same unfortunate situation at the moment.
“The picture on the cover of The Kinks album Muswell Hillbillies was taken in The Archway Tavern at the top of Holloway Road. The Kinks and Kraftwerk are two of my greatest influences and I like to think they come together quite well on this song.”
We’ve embedded the video for you below; but as it’s for a worthy cause and we love a cheeky one (two) with a few mates, we strongly recommend getting yourself over to Dave’s Bandcamp page and buying it – it’s only a quid and it might help keep those lights shining.
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