Spoons (band)

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Spoons
Sandy Horne and Gordon Deppe performing at the 2007 Festival of Friends in Hamilton, Ontario
Sandy Horne and Gordon Deppe performing at the 2007 Festival of Friends in Hamilton, Ontario
Background information
Origin Burlington, Ontario, Canada
Genre(s) New Wave, synth pop
Years active 1979–present
Label(s) Ready, Anthem
Members
Gordon Deppe
Sandy Horne
Rob Preuss
Derrick Ross
Scott MacDonald
Steve Kendry
Colin Cripps
Former members
Brett Wickens
Peter Shepherd

Spoons are a Canadian New Wave-new romantic synth pop music group who formed in 1979 and were popular in the early 1980s. In 1983, they won Group of the Year at the U-Know awards. Their most popular songs include "Romantic Traffic", "Nova Heart", "Old Emotions" and "Tell No Lies".

Contents

[edit] History

Spoons were formed in Burlington, Ontario in 1979. The band initially consisted of Gordon Deppe (lead vocals and guitar), Sandy Horne (vocals and bass), Brett Wickens (keyboards, synths) and Peter Shepherd (drums). All four attended Aldershot High School, and Deppe and Horne (the only constant members of the band) were high school sweethearts.

In late 1979, Shepherd left the band and was replaced by Derrick Ross on drums. Spoons then released an independent single, "After the Institution", in 1980. Shortly thereafter, Wickens left the band, to pursue a career as a graphic artist. He was replaced by keyboardist Rob Preuss, who was only sixteen when he joined Spoons.

The band's first album, Stick Figure Neighbourhood, was released in 1981, and is notable for being one of the earliest New Wave albums engineered by Daniel Lanois.

The following year, Spoons released their breakthrough album Arias & Symphonies. This album spawned three Top 40 hits in Canada: "Nova Heart", "Arias & Symphonies", and "Smiling in Winter". All were dance-oriented New Wave hits.

Around this time, Spoons' higher profile allowed them to become the opening act for bands such as Culture Club, Simple Minds, and The Police.

Spoons' 1983 album, Talkback was produced by Nile Rodgers and included the hit "Old Emotions". Following that, the band expanded their sound somewhat, releasing a two-sided hit in 1984 with "Tell No Lies" b/w "Romantic Traffic". The upbeat "Tell No Lies" featured a more mainstream pop sound than was customary for Spoons, while "Romantic Traffic" was a downtempo song with adult contemporary leanings that would become the group's most enduring hit.

Both "Tell No Lies" and "Romantic Traffic" later found their way onto the soundtrack for the film Listen to the City, in which Horne was featured in a supporting role. However, Listen to the City was not an official Spoons album, as it consisted largely of instrumental music and was credited solely to Gordon Deppe.

In 1985 both Preuss and Ross left Spoons, and were replaced by Scott MacDonald (keyboards) and Steve Kendry (drums), respectively. The band also switched from New Wave imprint Ready Records, which had folded after the release of Listen to the City, to the more rock-oriented Anthem Records label. Accordingly, Spoons' 1986 single "Bridges Over Borders" marked a departure from their characteristic sound and showcased a harder rock orientation, as did later single "Rodeo".

The new Spoons line-up released the album Bridges Over Borders in 1986, but it did not chart in the Canadian Top 100, nor did any of the three singles pulled from the LP. The follow-up LP Vertigo Tango reunited the band with Arias & Symphonies producer John Punter, and was a partial return to the band's New Wave roots. The album featured the band's final hit single, "Waterline" (1989), a languid, introspective ballad.

Spoons broke up at the end of the 1980s, but Deppe and Horne, along with various other players, got back together for several Spoons reunion gigs in the 1990s and into the next decade. In 2007, Spoons released Unexpected Guest at a Cancelled Party, a collection of previously unreleased material recorded between 1982 and 1985 by the Deppe, Horne, Preuss, Ross line-up.

[edit] Post-Spoons careers

  • At present, Gordon Deppe is an 80s music programmer for Galaxie,[1] and he has a new pop rock trio called Five Star Fall.[2]
  • Sandy Horne is now a member of the band Crooked Trail, a First Nations rock group from the Niagara Region.[3]
  • Rob Pruess went on to play with Honeymoon Suite on their Racing After Midnight album. He is currently the Associate Musical Director for Mamma Mia! at the Wintergarden Theater in New York City.
  • Brett Wickens stayed involved in music, collaborating with Andy McCluskey of OMD, amongst others, but is probably most well-known for his design work with Peter Saville Associates.
  • Derek Ross was working with a subsidiary record label owned by EMI Music Canada

[edit] Discography

[edit] Singles

Year Title Chart positions
CANADA
Flag of Canada
RPM TOP 100
1980 "After the Institution"
1982 "Nova Heart" #40
1982 "Arias & Symphonies" #18
1982 "Smiling in Winter" #30
1983 "Old Emotions" #28
1983 "The Rhythm"
1984 "Talkback"
1984 "Tell No Lies" #34
1984 "Romantic Traffic" #55
1986 "Bridges Over Borders"
1986 "Be Alone Tonight"
1987 "Rodeo"
1988 "When Time Turns Around" #68
1989 "Waterline" #44
1989 "Sooner or Later"

[edit] Albums

[edit] DVD

  • Spoons Live in Concert (Toronto 1982 & Montreal 1984) (September 12, 2006)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Gord Deppe at MySpace
  2. ^ Five Star Fall: effervescent pop rock
  3. ^ Crooked Trail at MySpace

[edit] External links

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