Anthology is a self released (CD digipack with 12 page booklet) compilation ment as a remembrance for the still many 1000 Ohm fans out there.
It's a very limited edition that won't be available in shops , only through this website.
It's a very limited edition that won't be available in shops , only through this website.
Anthology : The history of the band told by founding member Frank
It’s 1979 and together with schoolmate Koen Van Assche on drums we start jamming in a small cellar beneath our local youth club.
Just guitar , vocal and drums.
As young science students we choose to go by the name “1000 Ohm”
Johan Van Herck, also schoolmate , joins us on keyboard shortly after, followed by Erwin Vermeulen on Bass.
Erwin arranges for a better rehearsal place, an old abandoned farm house in our home town Aartselaar, near Antwerp.
So by 1980 , 1000 Ohm has its classic line up ; Frank, Johan, Koen and Erwin, all 18 year old school mates.
We never intended to play covers.
So right from the start, we started writing our own songs. “Writing” isn’t even the right word…we all knew how to play our instruments more or less but it’s all done by ear.
No real theoretical musical knowledge (that is to change later on ).
As we were in fact a school band, soon we were much in demand for playing , yes.. in schools, youth clubs and at small festivals.
Right from the start we sounded different than most of the local bands of that time.
We were more influenced by early international New Wave bands than by the then ubiquitous Punk scene (although we weren’t too shy to add a Ramones or Undertones cover to our live set to get the audience going).
The fact that Johan had a synthesizer also made us stand out of the crowd !
I was soon to join the keyboards, but for now , …well someone had to do the guitar.
By 1981 we had done enough live gigs to be able to afford us our own PA system and more important , book us a professional recording studio to record our first single . (the studio was Antwerp based ACE studio, of which years later I was to become the owner, but that’s another story).
The advantage of having played many gigs with our own songs, is that we knew which two songs our audience liked best.
They were the synth driven “A.G.N.E.S.” and the more guitar driven “Look Around”, both very New Wave.
But A.G.N.E.S. was the more special one , so this had to be the A side.
A.G.N.E.S. came about during a rehearsal, the time I had fallen in love with a girl Agnes (so for all speculations about what the song title’s abbreviation could mean, look no further).
Johan came up with that grooving bass synth line (he composed on his home piano being influenced by Kraftwerk) going together with Koen’s grooving and very tight drumming, perfectly matching with the melody lines and lyrics I had in mind.
I remember that song took not much longer to make than it’s own length, 3 minutes !
When the single was released in May 1981 it quickly became a radio hit, especially given a lot of airplay by the many , then illegal, pirate radio stations.
As A.G.N.E.S. had some studio overdubbed synth lines, we needed to be able to reproduce this live and so I also got me a synth.
This felt as a relieve to me ,because I was playing the piano at home since the age of 12 and so I considered myself a better keyboard player than guitarist. From then on a lot of our guitar based songs had to make way for newly composed synth songs…we had become a synth band.
By 1982 , Depeche Mode, broke through, also in Belgium, with their big hit “Just can’t get enough” and as a result 1000 Ohm was quickly referred to as “The Belgian Depeche mode” .
I don’t think we were 100% happy with that, but sure were happy to be the support act when they played Belgium .
So anyway, from 1982 we had become a “signed” band , meaning we could spend lots of time in recording studios across the country, releasing 7” singles and of course 12” maxi versions which was the way to go in that era.
We did have some more international successful releases like the 1984 “Love in Motion” (re-released a couple of years ago and still my personal fave 1000 Ohm song) and the 1985 “The Claim”.
In 1987 Johan left the band , Erwin had already left , and I wanted to become a professional producer working on other projects and with other bands.
So that was the end of 1000 Ohm. ( there has been one more release under the 1000 Ohm name in 1988. I’ve never regarded this to be 1000 Ohm, we had split up . It was in fact made for a side project of mine, Taboo, but it was the record label who more or less insisted that it should bear the 1000 Ohm name, making it easier to sell. I still regret having agreed with that, and so it’s not on this compilation ! )
Looking back at the 1000 Ohm years I realize they were the best schooling I could have had as preparation for my producer’s career, but most of all…they were some of the happiest years I’ve had in my life and I believe that also goes for the rest of the band, it made us “friends for life”.
It has also been surprising to see 1000 Ohm, throughout the years, becoming way more popular than when we were while actually being together, achieving cult status, ending up on endless eighties compilations and played continuously in “best of….” radio playlists.
I had much fun in restoring and remastering these tracks (some tapes even had to be baked to be able to play them one very last time ) and would like to thank all 1000 ohm fans for keeping on asking, or should I say begging, for a compilation.
Frank Van Bogaert, 2025
Just guitar , vocal and drums.
As young science students we choose to go by the name “1000 Ohm”
Johan Van Herck, also schoolmate , joins us on keyboard shortly after, followed by Erwin Vermeulen on Bass.
Erwin arranges for a better rehearsal place, an old abandoned farm house in our home town Aartselaar, near Antwerp.
So by 1980 , 1000 Ohm has its classic line up ; Frank, Johan, Koen and Erwin, all 18 year old school mates.
We never intended to play covers.
So right from the start, we started writing our own songs. “Writing” isn’t even the right word…we all knew how to play our instruments more or less but it’s all done by ear.
No real theoretical musical knowledge (that is to change later on ).
As we were in fact a school band, soon we were much in demand for playing , yes.. in schools, youth clubs and at small festivals.
Right from the start we sounded different than most of the local bands of that time.
We were more influenced by early international New Wave bands than by the then ubiquitous Punk scene (although we weren’t too shy to add a Ramones or Undertones cover to our live set to get the audience going).
The fact that Johan had a synthesizer also made us stand out of the crowd !
I was soon to join the keyboards, but for now , …well someone had to do the guitar.
By 1981 we had done enough live gigs to be able to afford us our own PA system and more important , book us a professional recording studio to record our first single . (the studio was Antwerp based ACE studio, of which years later I was to become the owner, but that’s another story).
The advantage of having played many gigs with our own songs, is that we knew which two songs our audience liked best.
They were the synth driven “A.G.N.E.S.” and the more guitar driven “Look Around”, both very New Wave.
But A.G.N.E.S. was the more special one , so this had to be the A side.
A.G.N.E.S. came about during a rehearsal, the time I had fallen in love with a girl Agnes (so for all speculations about what the song title’s abbreviation could mean, look no further).
Johan came up with that grooving bass synth line (he composed on his home piano being influenced by Kraftwerk) going together with Koen’s grooving and very tight drumming, perfectly matching with the melody lines and lyrics I had in mind.
I remember that song took not much longer to make than it’s own length, 3 minutes !
When the single was released in May 1981 it quickly became a radio hit, especially given a lot of airplay by the many , then illegal, pirate radio stations.
As A.G.N.E.S. had some studio overdubbed synth lines, we needed to be able to reproduce this live and so I also got me a synth.
This felt as a relieve to me ,because I was playing the piano at home since the age of 12 and so I considered myself a better keyboard player than guitarist. From then on a lot of our guitar based songs had to make way for newly composed synth songs…we had become a synth band.
By 1982 , Depeche Mode, broke through, also in Belgium, with their big hit “Just can’t get enough” and as a result 1000 Ohm was quickly referred to as “The Belgian Depeche mode” .
I don’t think we were 100% happy with that, but sure were happy to be the support act when they played Belgium .
So anyway, from 1982 we had become a “signed” band , meaning we could spend lots of time in recording studios across the country, releasing 7” singles and of course 12” maxi versions which was the way to go in that era.
We did have some more international successful releases like the 1984 “Love in Motion” (re-released a couple of years ago and still my personal fave 1000 Ohm song) and the 1985 “The Claim”.
In 1987 Johan left the band , Erwin had already left , and I wanted to become a professional producer working on other projects and with other bands.
So that was the end of 1000 Ohm. ( there has been one more release under the 1000 Ohm name in 1988. I’ve never regarded this to be 1000 Ohm, we had split up . It was in fact made for a side project of mine, Taboo, but it was the record label who more or less insisted that it should bear the 1000 Ohm name, making it easier to sell. I still regret having agreed with that, and so it’s not on this compilation ! )
Looking back at the 1000 Ohm years I realize they were the best schooling I could have had as preparation for my producer’s career, but most of all…they were some of the happiest years I’ve had in my life and I believe that also goes for the rest of the band, it made us “friends for life”.
It has also been surprising to see 1000 Ohm, throughout the years, becoming way more popular than when we were while actually being together, achieving cult status, ending up on endless eighties compilations and played continuously in “best of….” radio playlists.
I had much fun in restoring and remastering these tracks (some tapes even had to be baked to be able to play them one very last time ) and would like to thank all 1000 ohm fans for keeping on asking, or should I say begging, for a compilation.
Frank Van Bogaert, 2025