2 posts tagged “novelty”
I didn't get to hear a lot of new wave music when I was in high school; my intake was limited to what they played on WHFS and what I could afford to buy. All that changed when I went to college in 1982 and got involved with the college radio station (WJHU). All of a sudden I had unlimited access to a 50,000-record library! It was incredible! So I spent a lot of time in the library, sampling and catching up, and that's where I first listened to Classix Nouveaux. Look at that picture: I had high hopes for unique, otherworldly music from them; I wanted weirdness. But no, most of their output was mildly interesting pop-rock. The only song I felt lived up to their image was their first single, "The Robots Dance," from 1980:
I suppose that qualifies as a "novelty" song; it's novel in their catalog, at least. Classix Nouveaux broke up after the release of their final album, Secret, in 1983. After that, according to Wikipedia:
Solo went on to become heavily involved in Catholicism, releasing several Christian-oriented albums after Nouveaux's break up. Mik Sweeney went on to move to Los Angeles, California where he build fretless basses and recorded studio session work, he currently lives in Ireland. Gary Steadman went on to join A Flock of Seagulls. Jimi Sumen became a record producer in Finland and release a number of successful solo works there.
I haven't heard any of that.
Back in July I posted a track from Yes' Tormato album, and described how I had acquired the album in a trade for Frank Zappa's Sheik Yerbouti, which I had purchased on the strength of the anti-disco novelty song, "Dancin' Fool." Here is that song:
It's amusing, but why in the world would I buy a double album based on that? Disco provoked the most virulent cultural backlash in my lifetime, with "Death Before Disco" and "Disco Sucks" t-shirts, songs like this one, Chuck Wagon and the Wheels' "Disco Sucks," Steve Dahl's "Do Ya Think I'm Disco," disco record burnings, etc. Why such vitriol? Sure, most of the music was vapid and annoying (especially the reliance on the damned high-hats!), but that's true of every genre (see Sturgeon's Law). Maybe it was the feminization of male fashion (satin jackets, polyester pantsuits, necklaces, and blouses fercryinoutloud) and behavior (dancing, singing like girls), the widespread use of cocaine instead of the traditional alcohol and pot, and the promiscuity that the haters weren't in on. Whatever the reasons, I now think that intergenre sniping is a waste of time and an aesthetic dead end, but it's been interesting revisiting the Disco Wars, briefly.
I never became a hardcore Zappa fan, but I did get to see him play at the Warner Theatre in Washington, DC, in February, 1988. (That's another thread I'll have to pursue now, bands I saw at the Warner.) I wasn't familiar with most of the material, but it was a fun, zany show. His book, The Real Frank Zappa Book, written with Peter Occhiogrosso (which I think means "told to Peter Occhiogrosso, who actually typed it all up") contained some useful information about the music industry, which I put to use for some papers in business school. Mostly it convinced me to stay the hell out of the music business, apart from a couple years owning a used record store. That got the record bug out of my system. Not so for my partner in that venture, who now has a pretty sweet virtual store on ebay.
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