4 posts tagged “postpunk”
"Postpunk revival" or "dance-punk" is enjoying some staying power as a genre, but what is it, exactly? You could try to define it, or you could take my favored approach, i.e. "I know it when I hear it." It all boils down to trying to sound like "To Hell With Poverty" by Gang of Four:
I always assumed that Gang of Four was named after Chinese Communists, but I've been wrong all this time, according to Wikipedia:
In fact the term "Gang of Four" refers to the "big four" Structuralist theorists: Claude Lévi-Strauss, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Lacan, not to be confused with the Maoist Gang of Four in China.
You learn something new every day. I'm content to let Structural theory trickle down to me via rock bands; I've tried reading the stuff but can't get through more than... well, I can't get through any. Back to dance-punk, even better than emulating Gang of Four would be to sound like Medium Medium's "Hungry, So Angry"--
What both songs have in common is a killer bassline, and in fact they can serve as my first two "Postpunk Bassline Hall of Fame" entries. To give credit where it's due, that's Dave Allen in Gang of Four, and Alan Turton in Medium Medium. I'll give Turton the edge for the top slot. Dave Allen will appear again in the Bassline Hall of Fame; see if you can guess for what song. Medium Medium has even reformed, 20-odd years after breaking up, to play very occasional gigs and record a new album. Word is that the album is finished and in search of a label; the anticipation is palpable at Burl Veneer's Music Blog. In other words, I can't wait! Meanwhile I'm wading through a spate of new and newish dance-punk releases, trying to separate the cream from the chaff, or something like that. I'll report my findings soon.
On a high from finding so much long-lost music, I scoured my brain for more to look for, and came up with 54.40. Everything about 54.40's first record, the six-song EP Selection, fascinated me from the moment I found it in the campus radio station record library my freshman year (1982). First there was the cover art: lots of gothic black and unhealthy green, a design combining modernity (the lettering, the electric light in the picture) with antiquity (the decrepit brick building), and even the cover stock itself, that thin, supple white cardboard with the ultra-glossy finish that only came from Canada. Then there was the label: MO=DA=MU, from Vancouver. That seemed so magickal and mysterious, though I now know it's simply a shortening of Modern Dance Music. The music revealed a band who knew their Factory Records, from the Joy Division-ish "snare drum in a big cavern" of "Yank"--
...to the horn-driven mutant funk of A Certain Ratio on "He's Got"--
When 54.40's first full-length LP, Set the Fire, came out in 1984, I was taken aback by the cover photo of the band: dressed in "all those plaid shirts, assorted vintage hats and 1930's depression-era attire" (as label co-founder Allen Moy writes in the notes to the CD reissue), they did not look like the gloomy rockers of Selection. And alas, they no longer were, as was borne out in the grooves of the record. They had adopted the bland, vaguely rootsy indie rock style that they still churn out today (in the vein of my musical nemeses, R.E.M.), and thus ended my 54.40 fandom. They're doing quite well* without me, though, so it's all my loss.
Anyway, I never did get Selection, but it was reissued on CD along with Set the Fire as The Sound of Truth: The Independent Collection (with the earlier tracks from Selection placed last for some reason, hence the high track numbers on my files), so I just got a copy of that. I still don't like Set the Fire, but Selection sounds as fresh as ever, or as fresh as Manchester-derivative post-punk ever sounded. I only wish Sony Canada had included the original cover art bigger than a two-inch square black-and-white copy; check out the hideousness they put on the front:
Oh well, it's the music that matters, and 40% of the music on this disc is great.
Update: oops, forgot something: that cover looks like a David Allan Coe cover, fercryinoutloud! And I don't care if it came out first.
* in Canada
Yesterday I wrote about my continuing search for music by 1919; today I found it! The Killing Joke followers' 1983 mini-LP Machine (which I used to own, but sold on ebay in the 90s) was just posted last week on the Sickness Abounds blog, or as blogger Metalminx writes it, ╬ §ĬÇҜИ ΛБΘЏИЧ ╬. 1919 were known to Killing Joke; Metalminx writes:
KJ and 1919 played quite a few gigs together, so one can only speculate. 1919 also played supporting Danse Society and Playdead, while Southern Death Cult and New Model Army supported 1919. It was just a big happy family.
I've been meaning to post some Danse Society and Play Dead here for some time, but I like both bands' catalogs so much I haven't been able to narrow my selection down to even five tracks, let alone one or two. So in the meantime, here's 1919's "Slave"--
Coming up: more long-lost treasures!
I've been meaning to start a "crooners" thread, but it just hasn't worked out yet; maybe soon. In the meantime I've been listening to The Pop Group's catalog, and wishing I hadn't missed it all by a few years. Through the 80s I was a fan of all the groups borne of the late Pop Group: Mark Stewart + Maffia, Rip Rig & Panic, Maximum Joy, Pigbag, Float Up C.P., and possibly more, but I never got around to tracking down the source of it all. Thanks to the Internet, though, I can do that now, and it's been a revelation. In trying to find one song that encapsulates all the aspects of The Pop Group, I've decided on "We Are All Prostitutes":
Listening to this song from 1980, I think, "This is the blueprint for Rage Against the Machine!" Mark Stewart is even more hysterical than Zach de la Rocha (ranting hysterical, not funny hysterical) (not intentionally funny, at least) , the guitarist (John Waddington or Gareth Sager, or both?) takes cues from Sonny Sharrock instead of Ron Asheton, and everything is a bit sloppy and anarchic, but wedding shouted, social-justice-themed lyrics over a funky rock beat is something both bands have in common. The Pop Group had disintegrated by 1981, before I even heard of them, but Mark Stewart continued to carry the torch of political paranoia throughout the 80s, and a little bit in the 90s, and apparently still plays live gigs even today. I was lucky enough to catch him at the 9:30 Club in 1987 on an On-U Sound bill with Gary Clail and Tackhead (with Adrian Sherwood himself on the boards). Stewart only did a few songs but he emanated a powerful vibe that made it clear that his lyrics really are his own fears and convictions, not just an act. Perhaps he'll come play in Ithaca someday. Hahahaha!
