55 posts tagged “us”

One of the more fun musical subgenres to come out of England in the late 80s was "grebo" (for "greasy bastard"), which combined riff-oriented hard rock with punk energy and over-the-top lyrics (Zodiac Mindwarp, Gaye Bikers on Acid), often with synthesized beats (Pop Will Eat Itself). The only American band (that I know of; suggestions are welcome) in a similar vein was The Wild, shortened to simply Wild for their only album release on Columbia Records in 1988. At the time I watched a lot of MTV; I'd keep it on in the background while they played music videos (remember?), and that's how I first heard of Wild. The post-apocalyptic heavy-metal imagery, crunchy guitar riffs, and near-dance beats of "Hurricane" totally hooked me:

Wild was the brainchild of Dizzy Reed, who then became the regular keyboard player for Guns'n'Roses, effectively killing off Wild. I was going to write an essay in praise of Wild, but "Sleazegrinder" has already written a far better piece than I ever could, so I'll just cherry-pick some juicy lines from it:

“Wild 1” is, quite simply, exactly what would happen if Zodiac Mindwarp joined Sigue Sigue Sputnik. It is sex-disco played by sleaze metal bikers-from-Hell. It is the thump and bleep of a cyber-erotic beatbox welded onto the back of a crazy motorcycle with a gas tank fulla blood and glitter.... The Wild not only sounded like they invented this new noise, they sounded like it ALREADY made them a million dollars. And it wasn’t just the FUTURE-NOW sound that the Wild were peddling either, it was a whole post-apocalyptic sex, drugs n’ death cyber-fantasy, complete with an over the top murder-glam look- although I’m assuming Barrone and Wildblood/Reed had live co-conspirators, the two Wild honchos had the helldesert sleazebeast look down cold, man. Leather, spikes, bulletbelts, jet-black dreadlocks down to their waists, full, Zodiac-like chest tattoos, skulls, chains, handcuffs, mirrored shades, the fuckin’ works, man. These were not just bad asses, man, they were KING HELL SUPERDADDY CADILLAC BAD ASSES FROM HELL. And I know, it’s hard to remember these days, when bands wear sweaters and corduroys, but in 1988, that meant something, man. That was a COMMITMENT to the ROCK.

I could quote the article, but just go read the whole thing here. One additional point I would like to make, though, is that when Billy Idol released his Cyberpunk album in 1993, it was doomed to failure because what he was trying to do had already been done by Wild, five years earlier. His career would have fared much better if he had simply licensed Wild 1 and released it under his own name. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure Wild were strongly influenced by Billy Idol in the first place; just listen to the intro to "Mean Dream Queen" and tell me you don't expect to hear "White Wedding" (then listen to the rest of the song, cuz it rocks):

It's been a year and a half since my last big post on soundtrack music; after gorging on Ghost Box albums last week, it's time for another one. The Ghost Box label purveys music in the style of "modern" 70s library music, a nouveau retro-futurism to succeed the old retro-futurism that looked back to the 1950s, the era of Mid-Century Modern and a zeitgeist of limitless technological possibilities. By the 1970s space travel was a reality (to the moon and back, at least); a greater cultural awareness of both the difficulties of space travel and the incredible reaches of outer space, coupled with advances in electronic music synthesis, lent "futuristic" music a new tone, both physically (synthesizers replacing big bands) and emotionally (an air of we-can-do-it determination replacing the we'll-all-go-zing-zinging-through-space giddiness of the first wave of Space Age Pop). Going back to my categories of soundtrack music as defined in that first post, here is an example of real library music from the 70s by Alan Hawkshaw, one of the giants of library music, from the 1978 Bruton Music library album Terrestrial Journey:

Vangelis' "Pulstar" from his 1976 album Albedo 0.39 was not necessarily written as soundtrack music, but it has been used numerous times as theme music for radio and television programs. Indeed, I first heard it as the intro music to the news segments on my college radio station.

Echoes of "Pulstar"'s melody can be heard in "Wildspot" by Belbury Poly, a.k.a. Ghost Box co-founder Jim Jupp, on the 2004 album The Willows. Ghost Box's interest in 70s futurism extends to their cover art as well: 

Though from 1982 and not technically the 1970s, the St. Elsewhere theme (by soundtrack hack veteran Dave Grusin) contains all the elements of 70s musical futurism and thus belongs in this survey. Would you believe I'd never heard this until my wife played it for me last week? (I wasn't much of a TV watcher in college. Nor am I now, for that matter.)

70s retro-futurism has crept into today's TV programming as well, with two series of the 70s popular-science show spoof Look Around You having been produced for BBC2 in 2002 and 2005. The theme music from the second series could be original to the period:

Interestingly, the program that was the most obvious target of Look Around You's satire, Tomorrow's World, did not use futuristic music in its 1970s opening sequences, but engaged in some retro-futurism of its own, looking back to the sunny, uptempo big band music that accompanied so many "world of tomorrow" featurettes in the 50s:

Welcome back to the future!

On the other hand, a lavish arrangement (i.e. with lots of instruments) can be very enjoyable, conjuring up classic soul from the 70, sunshine pop of the 60s, and bittersweet areas in between. Platters That Matter Records turned me on to Liam Hayes and Plush, whose "Take A Chance" would be right at home on Ronco's landmark Get It On! hits compilation LP:

Tom M. hipped me to Brendan Benson. I've finally figured out that he is the "other" singer of the Raconteurs, the one who isn't Jack White, the one whose lead-vocal tracks I skip over in favor of the Jack White tracks. On his own, though, he can do the retro trip quite creditably, as on "Garbage Day":

Brent Cash of Athens, Georgia, packed his debut album full of catchy pop hooks and sunny arrangements, with some Bacharachian chord changes thrown in for good measure:

And finally, while synthesized strings and flutes barely count as lavish arranging, Josh Rouse's "Come Back" closes out this set rather nicely, I think:

With an album title like Instrumental Action Soul to announce their intentions, how could I not love the Diplomats of Solid Sound? With a Hammond-centric sound courtesy of Nate Basinger, this band from Iowa City delivers a spot-on mix of Booker T. and the MG's, Isaac Hayes, and Lalo Schifrin.  Here's the whole album, but if you only have time for one track, make it "Chinese Connection":

Perhaps you remember listening to Styx's Pieces Of Eight album, scratching your head at "Aku-Aku", the mellow instrumental at the end of the album, and writing it off as filler.  But I posit that young Robin Guthrie took it as divine inspiration, forming the basis of his guitar and composition style that would come to fruition in the Cocteau Twins.  Compare "Aku-Aku" with a representative track from Blue Bell Knoll:

Martin Perna not only leads Antibalas, the most politically hard-hitting of American Afrobeat bands, he also creates the most blissful grooves imaginable under his Ocote Soul Sounds alias, in conjunction with Adrian Quesada of Grupo Fantasma.  This year saw the release of their third album, Coconut Rock, on the Eighteenth Street Lounge label, the home of blissful grooves:

 

Tonight the kids and I watched the Star Trek episode "The Way To Eden" -- the one with the cult of space hippies who commandeer the Enterprise to take them to the legendary planet of Eden.  Apparently the Star Trek writers thought that any group of hippies must include a troubadour who would recount the group's story as it happened, so here we have Adam, the space-guitar-slinging space-hippie who has a song for every occasion and looks uncannily like Will Forte (which makes it even funnier than it is already):

Don't worry, that space-hippie-chick's bicycle wheel but turns out to be yet another variety of space-guitar, and she jams out with Spock on it:

And now for something completely different: a trip into my vinyl vault!  John Fred and his Playboy Band had been together, off and on, for over ten years by the time their song "Judy In Disguise (with Glasses)" (my one and only karaoke experience) rocketed to #1 in 1967.  While the song is always described as a parody of the Beatles' "Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds", I think it's more accurate to say that the song's title is a parody of the Beatles' song's title; that's where the similarities end.  Still, John Fred remained in the shadow of the Fab Four; despite having a crack Lousiana R&B band behind him, his songwriting always leaned towards Beatlesque pop.  This holds true on his last album for a major label, 1970's Love My Soul (with a largely reconstituted Playboy Band).  The leadoff track, "The Big Show", is an intro song in the manner of "Magical Mystery Tour" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", and even links the Playboys to the Beatles with the lyrics, "While Judy in disguise, her glasses hide her eyes, is walking hand in hand with the leader of some lonely hearts club band" (cue trumpets):

(Oddly, "The Big Show" was not written by John Fred but by Robin Hood Brians, owner of the Tyler, Texas, studio where the album was recorded, and two co-writers.  Amazingly, Brians and his studio are still around.)  And then, when the Playboys stretch out into a real southern groove, it's on... a cover of a Beatles song!

Daptone Records of Brooklyn is the acknowledged US leader of the soul-funk revival, and the membership of their bands is so intermingled that I can't keep track of which players are in which bands.  The Budos Band mixes together everything great about instrumental music (funk, soul, jazz, reggae, afrobeat, and rock) and plays it with a healthy dose of horns.  They released a self-titled EP in June which is a mix of old songs and new ones; Lala.com is the only streaming site that has the whole thing, so I'm using their widget for this entry*.  If you had a party and put this album on repeat, you would have no complaints.

I think I'm safe in reproducing the promotional copy from the Daptone website, so here it is:

From the vaults of Daptone Records, comes a collection of 6 unreleased tracks from the infamous Budos Band. Recorded after the Budos Band I sessions but before those for the second album, this EP is a fascinating glimpse into the group's evolution as musicians and recording artists.

Listeners may be familiar with two songs previously released and universally recognized as “Budos classics.” The Proposition, a hit single released on 7-inch by Daptone Records, incorporates the style now known worldwide as Budos swing responsible for drawing so many a listener onto the sweaty dancefloor. Mas O Menos, included on the band's smash hit album The Budos Band II, exemplifies the group's feel for soul with its infectious bass, tightly intertwined guitar and organ and soaring horns.

Smoke Gets In, created on the anniversary of the six hundred sixty-sixth rotation of the Budonian lunar calendar, finds the band returning to its dusty roots. It is both sonically and literally other-worldly. The psycho-tropic venom found on the Budos Band II may have originated in this very session. Is this actually happening or are your ears melting?

Named for the goddess said to have bestowed powers upon the knights of old Budonia, Ephra incorporates rollicking guitars, juxtaposed with haunting horns and pervasive highlife rhythms. The existence of such complexity within a seemingly simple tune is the truest metaphor for the Budonian knight himself. Nobody's Bulletproof references the ever-evolving relationship of the Budos Band with their ancestors and predecessors. The stabbing horns and break-neck percussive pace hearken back to the band's Afrobeat roots. The near-militaristic cadence is a constant reminder that no one is safe from the scorpion's sting. As the greater warrior has said, “The sword cometh and hath not yet purged the depths of thine soul.”

The Budos Band EP is a must have for Budos and Daptone fans alike. It stands as a vital account of the band's movement between musical styles and records a singular moment in the group's existence. It will indeed stand the test of time and remain a bedrock of Budos lore.

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.)