Fad Gadget

Francis John Tovey (8 September 1956 – 3 April 2002) was born in Bow, England, and became the British electronic musician known as Fad Gadget. After studying visual arts and mime at Leeds Polytechnic, he turned to sound manipulation, building a home studio in a London cupboard with a Grundig tape recorder and later a Crumar electric piano and Korg synthesiser. His breakthrough came with the demo of "Back to Nature", which led to a contract with Daniel Miller’s Mute Records; the single was released in 1981 and set the stage for his avant‑garde synth‑pop style. Fad Gadget’s debut album, Fireside Favourites (1980), followed by Incontinent (1981) and Under the Flag (1982), established his reputation for blending synthesisers with found‑object sounds. The 1984 release Gag marked a shift to collaborative recording at Berlin’s Hansa Tonstudio and featured the single "Collapsing New People". During this period he toured with Mute artists and performed theatrically, influencing contemporaries such as Depeche Mode and Vince Clarke. After releasing The Best of Fad Gadget (2001), he worked on new material under his real name before his death from a heart attack in 2002.