12 posts tagged “postpunk”

As an addendum to yesterday's post of C Cat Trance's cover of The Tymes' "Hypnotized", here is the other cover from their first EP, the Chairmen of the Board's "Dangling On a String".  CCT added a hard edge to "Hypnotized", but they change the tenor of "Dangling" entirely, transforming a rather average uptempo Motownesque number into a charging locomotive of desperation with angry outbursts of sax:

(This version included on the 1988 CD release of Play Masenko Combo restores about three minutes that were excised from the original EP with an abrupt fadeout.)

Medium Medium were responsible for what may be the definitive postpunk single, "Hungry, So Angry".  Two of their members, Rees Lewis and Nigel Kingston Stone, left the band to form C Cat Trance, a band I hold in such esteem that to even begin to write about them is an overwhelming proposition.  They hit upon the perfect combination of rock, funk, skronk, and Middle Eastern music, and while many rock bands who try to incorporate world music into their sound end up with watering down both genres, C Cat Trance kept a sharp edge through the course of several albums and singles.  So while I'm still thinking about postpunk bands covering R&B songs, I present C Cat Trance's version of "Hypnotized" from their first EP, a song that I found out just tonight, after 26 years of searching, was originally by The Tymes on their 1976 album Tymes Up.  Thank you Google, Discogs, and DISMARC!

 

My favorite discovery of the last week is the San Francisco band Tussle, whose 2006 album Telescope Mind finally worked its way to my ears.  They are solidly in the vein of the great Postpunk Minimal Funk bands from New York in the 80s, Liquid Liquid and ESG, with a bit a 70s Krautrock thrown in.  Music critic Sasha Frere-Jones's band Ui, also from New York, purveyed a similar stripped down groove.  So I've assembled a little playlist that mixes up Liquid Liquid, Tussle, ESG, Ui, and some vintage British postpunk funk from 23 Skidoo and A Certain Ratio.  It all goes together quite nicely, I think.

Unexpected link with a previous post: one of Sasha Frere-Jones's great-grandfaters was Edgar Wallace, the writer whose initials were used as a song title by the Stockholm Monsters.

On my latest excursion into Norwegian jazz I discovered Wibutee, a band from Trondheim whose first three albums were released on Bugge Wesseltoft's (there's that name again!) Jazzland label.  Listening to "Dubelec" from their second album, Eight Domestic Challenges, I heard echoes of some of my favorite British postpunk groups of the 80s:

The rhythm reminded me of "Forced Laugh" by A Certain Ratio, from To Each... (and Simon Topping keeps my trumpet theme alive for another post):

A Certain Ratio had the misfortune of being a Manchester band on Factory Records but not being Joy Division/New Order, in whose shadow they labored for years.  Some of Tony Wilson's attempts to popularize the band are depicted with comedic effect in 24 Hour Party People.  More power to ACR for sticking with it and producing an excellent and extensive body of work, from the gloomy funk of their early days through their electro period to their Latin jazz phase to whatever is on their 2008 album Mind Made Up, which I haven't heard yet.

Sheffield's postpunk sound was defined to a great extent by Cabaret Voltaire and related groups, the best of which was Hula.  The sinuous bassline from "Dubelec" hails from the same family as John Avery's bassline on "Invisible":

"Postpunk" loosely describes a style of music from the 1980s that combined elements of rock, jazz (especially free jazz), funk, electronic music, and anything else that a band might think of to include.  I think a lot of today's more interesting jazz was born out of that scene, as I hope this example illustrates.

One song I played several times on my college radio show back in the 80s, but which I never got my own copy of the record of, was "Bones Brigade" by Animal Slaves.  It appeared on the album Things Are Still Coming Ashore, a 1981 sampler LP from the Vancouver label Mo=Da=Mu.  The album featured four songs each from Animal Slaves, 54-40 (as "fifty four forty"), and Junco Run.  One reason I've been thwarted in getting this album is because 54-40 got so popular (in Canada), so it's a bit of a collector's item.  I thought I had hit pay dirt last year when I found Animal Slaves singer Elizabeth Fischer's website, on which she has made all of the Animal Slaves' records available for free downloading; but not the Things Are Still Coming Ashore tracks!  Argh!  Just this week I snagged my own copy for a reasonable price, it arrived in the mail today, and I finally got to hear "Bones Brigade" again after 20-odd years!  Rachel Melas' slap-bass work places this one in the Bassline Hall of Fame; coupled with Rosco Hales' rock-steady drumming it brings to mind Medium Medium's "Hungry So Angry".  Update: I heard from Fischer herself: the Animal Slaves tracks on this album are pre-Rachel and Rosco.  The actual players were from other Mo=Da=Mu bands, chipping in while Fischer fished (heh-heh) for permanent members.  Or with the female vocals maybe it's more akin to the Au Pairs, though Fischer's voice is much more rich and distinctive.  In short, "Bones Brigade" is nothing less than a lost postpunk classic:

The guitarist on this track must be, in Fischer's words, "the ubiquitous and given-to-alcohol stan, [who] fucked off to mexico and forgot to return" to record their first record, 1982's self-titled EP.  Elizabeth Fischer now sings in the band DarkBlueWorld, and her voice has gotten even deeper and richer over the years.  It's really quite spectacular and mesmerizing, and I'm always delighted to learn that someone whose music meant so much to me decades ago has kept right on creating and performing while my attention was elsewhere.

In the midst of my Bill Murray spy-movie high I dug out one of my old favorite spy songs, "I Spy for the FBI."  I first heard it sung by John Hiatt on his album Two-Bit Monsters, but I can't find that version.  The second one I heard was a radical reworking by the early-80s British postpunk-swing band Blue Rondo a la Turk.  They combined the edgy funk and jazz of bands like Pigbag with retro swing sounds for a style that was truly unique, and which unfortunately only lasted for one album, 1982's Chewing the Fat.  (Their second album, Bees Knees and Chickens Elbows, omitted the swing elements for a smooth funk-soul sound more like, say, Level 42.)  But that first album is a bag of treats, of which "I Spy" is the only cover:

If you listen to all the lyrics, the song reveals itself as more about stalking than spying, but that's by the bye.
Later in the 80s, L.A. ska band The Untouchables recorded their own version, more in keeping with the original:

Who did do the original version, anyway?  By some accounts it was Jamo Thomas, who had a big hit with it in 1966:

But it was actually written and first recorded by Luther Ingram in 1965:

So there.

Having had access to the college radio station record library during the 80s, not to mention the constant stream of new releases that came in, and then spending all my disposable income (plus future income, once I got a credit card) on imported British records, I felt sure I must have uncovered everything I could possibly like.  But the sharity blogs keep dishing up records that I somehow overlooked, and occasionally one will make me go, "Damn, I wish I'd heard that back then, I would have been totally into it!"  Given my Sheffield band fandom, I was surprised to find I'd missed one: Leitmotiv.  Their "Big Money" single is not quite as hard as my favorite Sheffield bands, but has a big, muscular beat that I would have loved anyway:

So I missed it the first time around, but at least I can dig it now!  Another band I missed out on was FourWayCross, a California band who, coincidentally, also were on the same label as Drowning Pool (recently seen here).  "Apologize" from their Product One album should appeal to the Killing Joke fan in anyone:

Actually, that sounds more like Play Dead than Killing Joke.  That reminds me, I've got to get some Play Dead on here, I just don't know what to pick.  Anyway, thanks to the sharity blogosphere for helping me fill in the gaps!

It always galls me when a new band takes the same name as an old band; for one thing it's an annoyance to have net searches mucked up with the pretender's name, and at worst they end up overwriting the history of the original band.  How infuriating that the name of transsexual rock great Wayne/Jayne County's early band, the Backstreet Boys, has been forever tainted by the boy band's appropriation.  Apropos of my last post, The Prodigy's band name is now diluted by a rapper who goes by Prodigy.  And the metal band Drowning Pool has taken the name of a fascinating band from the 80s.  I recently dug up my copy of the original Drowning Pool's Satori double album, released on the Nate Starkman and Son label in 1987 in a gorgeous hand-printed heavy cardboard gatefold sleeve.  It's a mix of studio and live recordings spanning several postpunk musical styles--drum machine workouts, renaissance madrigals, funereal dirges--while listening to it I was reminded of Dead Can Dance, but one track sounded uncannily like the Abecedarians.  I swear I came up with those references before opening their MySpace page and reading their "Sounds like" list, which begins with Dead Can Dance and Abecedarians!  There is a liturgical feel to some of the songs, especially the vocals, similar to music by the more recent Arcanta.  Here is "Festival of Healing"--

The members of Drowning Pool have resurrected their own label, Scarface Charley, to reissue their records on CD.  Two have so far been produced (Green and Aphonia), with the "magnum opus" Satori still to come.  This rediscovery has also opened up new avenues of musical exploration for me, returning me to the punk tribalisms of Drowning Pool labelmates Savage Republic, and introducing me to the similarly-inclined Red Temple Spirits.  And all because there's a metal band called Drowning Pool!

"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