I missed this, because I'm terrible at keeping up with pop culture news... on purpose... but apparently Andy Fletcher, one of the true founding members of Depeche Mode from before even they were Depeche Mode, died a week or so ago at age 60 of "natural causes" in his home.
It's probably a bit gauche to ask if he had the Covid vaccine. Besides, I'm sure he did.
Fletch was a bit notorious near the end as the "unproductive" member of the band, and it was a running joke that he had little role other than to clap from time to time, but of course that wasn't really true. His true calling just wasn't with the musical side, but rather with the management of the band. But he was there from the start; when Depeche Mode first started... and they weren't even Depeche Mode yet, it was two high school friends, Vince Clark (or Vince Martin, his real name) and Andy Fletcher putting together a band called No Romance in China influenced by the Cure. Only later, after hearing some of the very early OMD stuff did they get involved in becoming an electronic act, recruit Martin Gore and last of all Dave Gahan, to form their initial line-up under their initial name.
Now, it's been five years since Depeche Mode released anything, the bitter, and frankly kind of crappy pseudo-politico-social virtue-sniveling Spirit, which does not seem to have been particularly well-received. (I don't like it very much. Then again, I don't like much of what they've done since Ultra at least, other than Playing the Angel and even then, I'd go back to Music for the Masses since they produced something that I really liked.) With Fletcher now dead, I think it's an open question if they'll ever record again. With Fletch's death, there are now more former Depeche Mode members than there are current members. Personally, I kind of feel like they shouldn't. For the most part, as near as I can tell, fans who still talk publicly about their fandom, such as we are, kind of feel like they've hurt their own legacy by going beyond when they should have quit, and they've gone in a different direction in most respects than their own fandom. The concept of quitting while you're ahead seems to be a lost art.
I suppose this isn't a very tasteful or tactful tribute post, honestly. But it is what it is. I do find myself grateful that my wife took me to see the band in 2005 on the Playing the Angel tour. While I'd have been happy to see them again after that date, I also feel like that was probably the last pretty good tour. And I'm also chuffed that I didn't go see the Devotional tour, because I was available to see it, and my younger brother even went, but it didn't seem important to me at that time. And the Masses tour! It totally hadn't occurred to me to go to concerts in 1988, and I wasn't really all that familiar with their work yet anyway. But that's the one I wish I could take my time-traveling DeLorean to go back and see. Sigh. I'll see about playing through the best three albums: Some Great Reward, Black Celebration, and Music for the Masses while coddling a drink (I don't drink; I mean a Vernors or something) and being thoughtful tonight.
And in spite my feelings about the decline in their music over the last three decades from their high point in 1987 (1987!) and my other personal feelings about having learned about the weird, unlikeable and antisocial behavior of Gore and Gahan in particular, I still feel a little... I dunno, it's a shame, isn't it? Fletch always seemed like the decent guy of the bunch, along with Alan Wilder. Kind of the peacemaker in some ways among the band when tensions arose. I know he had his problems with anxiety and alcoholism...and frankly, it's a shame that we know that. One of the things that I used to really respect about Depeche Mode in the 80s and early 90s is that we didn't really know much about them personally, and that's a good thing. Like all entertainers everywhere from every era of human history, once you get to know what they're like behind the scenes, it's not often a pretty picture. They were born for the stage, and if only that's all that we knew of them!
Sigh. I can't seem to write a decent tribute without throwing in jabs about the things about our culture which they partially represented about which I've become bitter and cynical myself. Maybe I should take my own advice and quit while I'm ahead, or at least not keep digging myself in deeper.
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