OMG! It’s OMD!
EveN within the context of eric’s, which prided itself as a haven for outsiders, there were some who seemed like perennial misfits. Andy mcCluskey and paul Humphreys emerged from unwieldy prog outfit the Id to form the electronica-driven Orchestral manoeuvres In the Dark.
“We did and didn’t feel part of it,” mcCluskey recalls of their experience at eric’s. “there was the element of us being from the other side of the river - weirdos from the Wirral - and using synthesisers when everyone else played traditional instruments.
“but Orchestral manoeuvres In the Dark wouldn’t have existed without eric’s. they might not have liked us, but it was our own little universe. paul and I told roger eagle and pete
Fulwell that we had this mad idea about writing songs without the Id and they suggested we play a set. so we formed to do a one-off gig on a thursday night in 1978, which is why we gave ourselves that preposterous name. We were just daring ourselves to go on stage and perform these songs that we’d been writing for the past three years and which our mates had been fucking up with drums and guitar solos. We wanted to play them clean, just once.
“We didn’t get any applause, but roger and pete thought it was interesting and booked us to play the Factory club in Hulme a few weeks later. We still looked like a couple of hippies though. It wasn’t until peter saville heard us that we changed. He said: ‘You don’t look like the music you make. You’ve got to cut your fucking hair!’”