DESCRIPTION:
After releasing their independent EP Unamerican Activities Go Fundamental set out to become a bona fide live act. The band was now had a fixed lineup of Steve Van-Deller, Neil Brockbank and Glenn Skinner. Using drum machines, sequencers, cassette recorders and a reel to reel tape recorder to play in samples, and a barrage of home made percussion as well as conventional instruments they started to adapt their home recordings to the stage. This was before midi and when samplers were unattainably expensive. Everything was driven by and held together by enthusiasm and old fashioned musicianship despite their futuristic post punk approach.

The band also developed the visual aspect of their act, playing all the music through gigantic dub reggae style bass bins and with a stage set resembling some kind of post apocalyptic army camp. They has backdrops of camouflage and arctic camouflage purchased from Lawrence's Corner, bamboo screens, tin cans and percussion hnging from ropes across the stage, and the only lighting was from bare light bulbs that the band members could turn off and on at will. They also had speakers placed around the hall for playing sampled sound effects such as jungle noise and explosions.

All this of course meant that one night stands and multi band nights were generally an impossibility and so they decided to set up their own "club night" at their local venue the 101 Club at Clapham Junction, where Neil and Glenn occasionally worked as live sound engineers. They called the gigs the "Fourth World Preview" and as well as performing with the band Steve acted as DJ playing world music, bebop, rockabilly, dub reggae and soundtrack music. The gigs were alternate Fridays and on the other weeks local rockabilly maniacs King Kurt had their own club night which involved free haircuts, offal, fire eating and exploding fridges!

The band started to get major label interest especially following a New Years Eve 1982 gig supporting Shriekback at the ICA. Pretty soon they had a publishing deal with Chrysalis, management and a record deal with Arista. The deal was for three singles and an option for an album and the band received a decent advance to spend on equipment and had control over production of their recording. However it came at a price, they were discouraged from gigging except for showcase gigs with additional musicians including backing singers Richard Morton (now a well known comedian as well as musician) and Steve Bennett (a songwriter friend of Steves), percussionist Phil Overhead, their former drummer Mike Gaffey and various other guests. Although these gigs were more professional they lacked the magic of the "Fourth World Preview" nights.

Arista also demanded a "radio friendly" first single, rather than the track everyone assumed they would release "Giving It All Away" that had been their showstopper since day one. They opted for a song by Glenn Skinner called "People On The Top Floor", it didn't get the hoped for radio play but did have a 12" release featuring a long "zulu jive" instrumental section.

The band ploughed on and recorded demos of a CDs worth of material that included stage favourites such as "J'Accuse(Jacuzzi)", "A Rich Man In Nigeria", "Global Visions", "Hiba-Kusha" and "Dancing In The Debris"as well as the tracks mentioned above. The majority were written by Steve Van-Deller but Glenn Skinner contributed a bunch of new songs including the waltz time "Man Of War".

The track here, "Novacaine" was scheduled to be single number three by the band but Arista weren't keen on a song about drugs and suicide that included a copyright brand name, even if it was a highly commercial mix of Michael Jackson and electronic rock...

In the end it was all academic anyway as there was a change of management at the top of the record label, leading to sackings of A&R men, and the dropping of any bands that hadn't had hits. For Go Fundamental things got messy, they became embroiled in a three year legal battle with Arista.

Though they continued recording and gigging pretty soon Neil and Glenn changed their focus to production, which they both still do and after a few cassette only solo releases Steve Van-Deller went to college and became a motion graphic designer and documentary maker, though he has never stopped recording or performing right up to the present day.