IF MALCOLM MCLAREN WAS THE MAVERICK OF THE 70S, SOME BIZZARE’S STEVO WAS THE PRIME ANARCHIST OF THE 80S. IN THIS ARCHIVE FEATURE, WE SPOKE TO THE ARTISTS HE INTRODUCED – AND THE GREAT MAN HIMSELF…

JOHN EARLS

Cabaret Voltaire’s Red Mecca was one of the albums of 1981 – Some Bizzare signed them in 1983

In the late 70s, while New Musical Express and Melody Maker were belatedly catching up with punk, two magazines predicted the synth-pop explosion – and both Sounds and Record Mirror thrived because they had a teenage DJ called Stevo writing for them.

Long before establishing his own label, Stevo gained notoriety by DJing naked, while spinning up to six songs at a time in order to give clubbers as intense an experience as possible. Future superstars Depeche Mode, Blancmange and ABC (then Vice Versa) played live at his shows.

“My mother bought my DJ set-up on hire purchase,” recalled Stevo, who dropped his surname, Pearce, in the 70s due to its family association with a far-right politician. “My gigs started to get noticed and I got lots of demo tapes sent to Dagenham, where I lived at the time with my parents.”

Stevo began planning a sampler to showcase all this unsigned talent he was hearing. In among the now-forgotten likes of The Fast Set and Jell on 1981’s 12-song Some Bizzare Album were future stars Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, Blancmange and The The.

Soft Cell were thrilled to be involved. As keyboardist Dave Ball remembered, “I had borrowed money off my mum to release our first EP, Mutant Moments, and here was a guy who had a distribution deal with a major label, Phonogram. Also, it was clear that Stevo had an incredible ability for talent-spotting.”

“I followed my gut, the same as I always have,” shrugged Stevo. “I looked for musical imagination, attitude, musicians who are irked – that was normal for us.”

Stevo was happy to let Depeche Mode sign to his friend Daniel Miller’s label, Mute, while Blancmange were steered towards Phonogram’s established offshoot, London.

“Our management wanted us to take a slightly different path,” smiled singer Neil Arthur.

“Stevo didn’t half spook a few people in the industry, which management were wary of. But I’m all for his maverick spirit.”

Indeed, Some Bizzare became almost as well known for Stevo’s shock tactics as for the music itself. Test Dept signed their record deal on the back of a rocking horse named Horace. The The were licensed to CBS while Stevo and CBS boss Maurice Oberstein sat on a stone lion in Trafalgar Square.