Burl Veneer’s Music Blog

Gothic slap-bass

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 07:26:19 -0700

Do you ever get a song in your head, that maybe you haven't heard for years, but it won't go away and you just have to dig it out and listen to it again? Sure you do. I've had this symptom this week for "Beat Me 'Til I'm Blue" by Colour Me Pop, an English band from the mid-80's who put out one single (on the misnamed American Phonograph label) and a few tracks on compilation albums. The song has several of my favorite ingredients: prominent slap-bass, bongos, both male and female vocals, and a nice (but short) breakdown:

A5 Colour Me Pop - Beat Me Till Im Blue

Colour Me Pop

That doesn't qualify as Gothic in and of itself, but its presence on a Gothic-heavy compilation LP, Breaking the Back of Love, makes the connection. And it's not far from some of the music that bona fide Gothic bands were creating at the time, most notably The Danse Society. Now that I've brought them up in a slap-bass post I have to present their slap-bass song, "Sensimilla." It was released as a bonus 12" with the club hit "Say It Again", in a gatefold sleeve. (A double 12" in a full-color gatefold sleeve; all that packaging cost for just four songs? That couldn't have been cost-effective, what was Arista thinking?) This is bassist Tim Wright's shining moment, laying down a rubbery, funky groove that won't allow you to sit still (and by "you", I mean me), and Paul Nash's syncopated rhythm guitar does a great job to accent the flow. The lyrics are on the embarrassing side (condensed version: "I love to smoke pot"), and I could do without the toasting from "Sooty" Brown (but I guess you have to have toasting in a marijuana song); but it's the funkiest song The Danse Society ever recorded, and therefore it's my favorite.

3 Sensimilla

The Danse Society

(I was all set to rip this myself, but it just turned up on New Romantic Rules, saving me the trouble. NRR is an incredible source of 80s music; many of the obscure singles I've been holding onto have turned up in Rambul's amazing 20-volume Lost Hits compilation series. Chances are if you have any favorite "lost" 80s songs, they're in there too.)

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So here's what happened to Brilliant...

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:32:28 -0800

Picking up where I left off yesterday: "Colours" was actually the second single credited to Brilliant, the first was "That's What Good Friends Are For..." on Limelight Music in 1982. After "Colours" came a couple of anthology placements: "Coming Up for the Downstroke" on the high-profile Batcave goth club compilation, Young Limbs and Numb Hymns, and "Screaming Like An Angel" on The Whip, a soundtrack for a movie (imaginary, I believe) based on Lautréamont's Songs of Maldoror and featuring all the usual goth-rock suspects. Then Brilliant was signed to Food Records, releasing some more singles and another compilation track, "Subtle Manoevres" [sic] for the Imminent One sampler LP:

Brilliant - Subtle Manoevres

Brilliant

I think that came out in SUMMER NINETEEN EIGHTY-FIVE, if memory serves. I loved this song, especially all the percussive slap bass, the catchy melody, and those bells and blocks popping into the mix. Now it's almost painful to listen to that rudimentary drum beat, but I didn't know any better back then. Things were looking up for Brilliant, but then it all went wrong. WEA had taken over distribution for Food, and Brilliant got a major contract (courtesy of A&R man Bill Drummond) and a huge recording budget, so they... brought in dance-pop schlockmeisters Stock Aitken Waterman to produce! WTF??? At this point Brilliant was the trio of Youth, Jimi Cauty, and June Montana, perhaps trying to capitalize on the Colour Box group format. So what did SAW do to their sound? Check out the "after" version of "Subtle Manoevres," now called "I'll Be Your Lover," from the first and only Brilliant LP, Kiss the Lips of Life:

Brilliant - I'll Be Your Lover

Brilliant

That was supposed to be better?! They gutted it! And got paid a lot of money for it, too! Needless to say, the album flopped. Drummond himself said, "We spent £300 000 on making an album that was useless. Useless artistically, useless... commercially." But it turned out not to be so useless to him personally; after Brilliant disbanded, Drummond and Cauty got together as the Justified Ancients of Muu Muu, a.k.a. the JAMMS, a.k.a. the Timelords, finally settling in as The KLF. They made some wildly popular records, made a ton of money, and then burned it all. Jimmy Cauty now makes pop-art postage stamps that sell for ridiculous sums. Youth became a top producer himself and occasionally rejoins Killing Joke. June Montana had a brief solo career and then dropped off the face of the earth. Oh, what might have been.

(Then there was the ordeal I had to go through to even get a copy of the album. I was the assistant manager of the Record World at the Georgetown Park mall in Washington in the fall of 1986, when Lips was released in the U.S. on Atlantic. I wanted to get it ASAP, and the fastest way to do that was to order three copies from the warehouse: bulk orders (3 or more) got phoned in on Monday for delivery on Thursday. Anything else was ordered on a paper form via overnight mail and delivered on Thursday of the following week. But oh, at headquarters they just couldn't believe someone ordered Brilliant in bulk, so they called the district supervisor, who called the store manager, wanting to know why the hell we did that. Well, I knew I was going to buy one copy, then it would take nearly two weeks to get another one in, and surely there might be at least one other person who wanted it? (There wasn't, but that's not my point.) They punished me for this transgression by sending us zero copies, and I had to buy it from a different store. That's right, they would rather have me spending the money they paid me at other stores instead of pouring it back into the company. Which is long gone, by the way.)

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Gothic funk: Brilliant

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:36:46 -0800

At the forefront of the 80s gothic funk bands was Brilliant, the band formed by bassist Youth (Martin Glover) after leaving Killing Joke in 1982. (And they weren't the only one, I can think of about two more.) If Wikipedia is to be believed, the band lineup on the 1983 "Colours" 12" is Youth and Guy Pratt on bass, Marcus Myers on lead vocal and guitar, and Andy Anderson and Peter Ogi on drums; no word on who played the keyboards (probably Youth) or who supplied the sexy moans and groans (probably not Youth).

Colours

Brilliant

The sleeve design is by Mark Manning, who would later team up with Jimmy Cauty (of the final incarnation of Brilliant) , adopt the nom de musique Zodiac Mindwarp and spearhead the "grebo" fad. (The art itself is not by Manning, but Gustave Doré.) Brilliant became a Uriah Heep-like revolving door for musicians, which didn't stop them from putting out a string of great singles. When their album deal was announced I was overjoyed, because that meant I'd be getting a whole bunch of new Brilliant songs all at once. What a disaster that turned out to be. I can demonstrate exactly what went wrong, but later; right now I'm grooving on what went right.

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Bass porn + Sheffield = Chakk

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:32:18 -0800

Back once more to Sheffield and Damon Fairclough's "Destroyed by gods" annotated musical tour. Fairclough writes:

As the Designers Republic made their first assault on Sheffield's graphics/music interface - in tandem with Leeds' Age Of Chance, it has to be said - they seemed to usher in, or at least popularise to a degree, an age of shouty slogans, sub-graffito clamour and statements smartly-dressed: 'Release the heat'; 'You can live forever'; 'Work Buy Consume Die'.

"Release the heat" comes from Chakk's first single, "Out of the Flesh," released in three mixes as a 12" on Cabaret Voltaire's Doublevision label in 1984. Mark Brydon's rumbling, elastic bassline is really the song's central motif, echoed by Sim Lister's sax, then there is the other shouty slogan, "Out of the flesh, out of the flesh, taste the sweat!", followed by the vocal "Ooooh oo-eee-ooooo ooooh" referenced by Fairclough, and bashing along above everything is the gated snare turned up to eleven that marred nearly every single song of the 80s. Listen closely to the four-tap drum bit at the beginning of the song: isn't that the sound that MTV used between ads and clips for years, along with samples of "There Is No Love Between Us Anymore" by Pop Will Eat Itself and "Peace Sells" by Megadeth?

Chakk - Out of the Flesh Mix 1

Chakk

The way I recall it, music journalist Amrik Rai was so taken with the Sheffield scene in general and Chakk in particular that he started a record label in Sheffield, FON Records. FON released Chakk's second single, "You," then Chakk got signed to MCA, got a huge advance, spent it all (?) to build FON Studios, added John Stuart as a second vocalist, recorded their album for MCA, Ten Days in an Elevator, the album tanked (it just wasn't that great, they completely lost whatever it was that gave their independent singles a sense of urgency), released two more singles on FON, one as Chakk ("Timebomb," which did recapture the spark) and one as the backing band for South African band Swanhunters ("Bloodsport") (why did a band need a backing bad? I never understood that), then split up. FON released a John Stuart solo single ("Black and Blue" backed with a gorgeous version of Seals and Crofts' "Summer Breeze"). Mark Brydon became a producer and then formed Moloko (way too camp for me) in the 90s with singer Roisin Murphy (now a solo artist, recently seen bashing her head on a chair on PerezHilton.com); other members joined other bands that I've never heard at all. In other words, it all just fizzled out. But it was great fun there at the beginning! You can stream a few more Chakk songs at the Chakk MySpace page.

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Bass porn: Mark King

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 15:08:30 -0800

No thread about Bass Porn would be complete without Mark King; here he is at his most indulgent in a live performance at the Jazz Café. Can you listen to the opening notes without thinking of Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine?

Mark King live at the Jazz Café [Mr Pink bass solo]

For all the slapping and pulling, it's just not very funky; they're too close to the "smooth" end of the Smooth-Funky continuum. Which is not to say it's bad, it's just very safe-sounding. For some meatier content, here is a fresh vinyl rip of what I think is Level 42's best song, "Good Man in a Storm" from the World Machine album. That album opens with "Something About You," which was rewarded for its rather dumb, anthemic chorus with worldwide hit status, while the melodic, understated "Good Man" wasn't even a single. Go figure.

Level 42 - Good Man in a Storm

Level 42

Now that's nice, as in prime Bill Withers or George Benson nice.

And finally, a bit of levity. You probably don't associate Level 42 with comedy at all, but their appearance on The Fast Show is pretty darned funny. (There are a couple shots of long-haired guitarist Jakko Jakszyk, most recently playing Robert Fripp's parts in 21st Century Schizoid Band, the Fripp-less band of King Crimson alumni who perform King Crimson songs.)

Level 42 on The Fast Show

Stay tuned for more bass porn and divers other delights.

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Bass porn

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:04:18 -0800

That's what the Freekbass show at The Haunt was last night: pure bass porn! Nearly two hours of thumb-slapping (and occasionally fuzzed-out) bass, hard-rocking guitar, and funky drums, and that's after two good opening bands, all for a five dollar cover charge. Now that's living! I wasn't familiar with Freekbass's material going into the show, but "Mission," part of the opening medley, was especially catchy:

Freekbass: Mission

The touring band is a trio, but a highlight of the show was an impromptu jam with four members of Yo Mama's Big Fat Booty Band on tenor sax, trombone, and percussion. Freekbass also worked a couple of covers into the set, the funkiest-ever renditions of "Fame" (David Bowie, not Irene Cara) and "Come Together."

Freekbass is well-regarded in his home town of Cincinnati. Here's the video of his song for the Cincinnati Reds where you can check out his "custom-built Mutron bass":

"Reds Fan" by Freekbass

I meant to write up a little about the Rozatones too, but I'm too exhausted from my late night out. So that'll be next.

Update 11/10/07: The Ithacan, the Ithaca College newspaper, published senior writer William Earl's interview with Freekbass on the 8th. It's worth a read as it goes well beyond the standard bio material that you find everywhere else on the web. Why is his bass shaped like that? Freekbass explains, and now it makes sense.

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James Blood Ulmer

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:27:21 -0800

Nowadays James Blood Ulmer is making blues albums, produced by Vernon Reid, and they're pretty good. But it's his albums for Columbia in the 1980s that I love the most: the upbeat tempos, Ulmer's growling voice and singular guitar soloing, Ronnie Drayton's angular rhythm guitar, and Amin Ali's funky bass-slapping all swirling together in a melange of rock, funk, and jazz, it all makes me want to shout and jump around. The frenzied "Black Rock" could be considered the manifesto of that phase of Ulmer's musical career:

Black Rock

James Blood Ulmer

(Drums on that track are by G. Calvin Weston.) I saw James Blood Ulmer in 1991 (roughly) at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, of all places, in the Baird Auditorium. The opening act was the Ritual Trio, who played a lively and enjoyable world-jazz set, but I never followed up on them. Ulmer's band was a trio for this occasion, with Amin Ali on bass (I think) and ... maybe ... Cornell Rochester on drums? About four or five songs in, as Ali was just starting to bust out some bass-slapping, Ulmer abruptly ended the show, saying, "There are people who don't want you to hear this music!" I assume the show was too loud for someone at the museum, who must have complained and got the show shut down; but I never found out for sure. That was a bummer.

Matthew Brown has written a meaty musical biography of Ulmer at Musicianguide.com. I wish such detailed information was easily accessible for every musician and band, instead of the hit-or-miss content on Allmusic and Wikipedia. Maybe someday...

Tonight I'm off to The Haunt for the first time since moving to Ithaca a year ago; Bootsy Collins protege Freekbass is playing, with local opening acts the Rozatones and Monkmeat. It should be a funky good time!

1/11/08 update: New! Demand James Blood Ulmer in your city! I did, and that makes one of us! I don't know if it actually works, but it certainly won't if nobody uses it.

Demand James Blood Ulmer!

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Jonas Hellborg's ultimate slap bass track

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:04:34 -0700

Bootsy's bass is awesome, but he doles out the slapping-and-popping very sparingly. I feel Howard Moon's frustration in waiting to get to the slap-bass solo:

The Mighty Boosh

What Howard needs is Elegant Punk, a 1984 album of solo bass pieces by Swedish bass guitarist Jonas Hellborg. Actually all he needs is track five, "It's the Pits, Slight Return" on an endless loop (if Ivan the bear will let him listen to it):

05 - It's the Pits, Slight Return

Jonas Hellborg

A three-minute-forty-seven-second slap bass solo will give anyone their fill, and then some. If slap bass is the icing on the cake of funk, listening to this song is like eating a whole tub of icing. It's great at first, but you have trouble finishing it, and when you do you vow not to eat any more icing for a long time. (That's not strictly true, I just listened to it three times and I might not be done yet, but then again I'm multitasking.) All bass matters eventually come around to Bill Laswell, it seems: Hellborg and Laswell were partners in Greenpoint Studios in New York in the late 80s/early 90s, and Hellborg appears on several Bill Laswell productions.

The slap-and-pop technique of bass playing was supposedly invented by Larry Graham of Sly and the Family Stone, and was first heard on record on "Everyday People." Check out Larry's magnificent necklace at 1:58--

Sly and the Family Stone

I want one like that!

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