North, Ian / John Howard

To celebrate the release of All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synthpop 1979 - 1985, Night School is releasing a double A 7" through its archive label School Daze. All The Young Droids is an overview of the post-punk synth explosion curated by Phil King, when alongside chart superstars like Depeche Mode, Soft Cell et. al a whole generation of musicians embraced new technologies that democracized pop music. This includes established artists who hoped to jumpstart their careers with drum machines and upstarts inspired to release DIY 7" records by the first waves of synth stars.

Ian North of power pop pre-punkers Milk N Cookies bought his first synth after supporting Magazine on tour while still in his group Neo. When guitarist Robin Simon was poached for the end days of Magazine and John Foxx-period Ultravox, North then returned to New York after his visa expired and recorded his synth pop album ‘My Girlfriend’s Dead’ album in his apartment in Brooklyn – which was released in 1980 – and from which ‘We’re Not Lonely’ is taken.

Credited to John Howard and Cal Mylar on the single 'I-Tune-Into-You (I-2NE-IN-2-U)' on CBS in 1980 - which is featured on All The Young Droids, 'We Can See' is a previously unreleased song from the same recording session. Cal Mylar was actually an imaginary character thought up by John Howard - who had previously released an album on CBS in 1975 called 'Kid In In A Big World' (which got rave reviews on its reissue in 2003) - for a proposed album called The Strange Case Of Cal Mylar. Mylar was the creation of Carl Miller, a computer geek who dreamed of ruling the world with computers. Unfortunately CBS refused to pay for the album to be completed - and the plug was pulled.