Random mumblings and mundom ramblings on music (mostly), and whatever else pops into my mind . . .
[The files attached here are for review only, and should be deleted after two weeks. If you like the bands, go buy the albums . . . like I did!] . . .
And yes - EVERYTHING posted here is still available!
Sad news: Andy Gill (shown pictured at left with bandmate Jon King), the founding, stalwart and only constant member of the various formations (and reformations) of post-punk giants Gang Of Four, died over the weekend at the age of 64. Here's his obituary from The Guardian:
I got into Gang Of Four way back in the early '80s, when a friend of mine loaned me his vinyl copy of their debut album Entertainment! To say I was blown away by it is an understatement... I LOVED every single song on that album, and after I got my own copies (successively on vinyl, cassette and CD over the years), I played them to death! At one time, "Anthrax" was my favorite song; I once told a story in an earlier post about how I coerced a short-lived alternative radio station in Norfolk, Virginia to play it during weekday rush-hour drive time... quite possibly the one and only time Gang Of Four was ever broadcast in that area.
And years later, when I was in my own band, made up of middle-aged finance executives (the full story of which I have yet to tell), playing rock and pop standards, I somehow convinced those guys to include a cover of "I Found That Essence Rare" on our playlist - the drummer Bill used to refer to it as our "punk set"!
After an equally great follow-up album, 1981's Solid Gold, the original group lineup began to splinter, with bassist Dave Allen leaving the band to form Shriekback, replaced by Sara Lee. The first release with this new bassist, 1982's Songs Of The Free, signaled a subtle shift away from the jagged, scabrous, Situationism-influenced bent of their earlier music and into a more commercial sound, a move signified by the centerpiece song on the album, "I Love A Man In A Uniform".
Still, there were enough good tunes on this release (I especially loved "Life! It's A Shame" and "I Will Be A Good Boy") to satisfy fans of their signature sound and attitude - including me. And I remained a Gang Of Four
devotee even through the following year's widely-panned album Hard, recorded by a trio of Gill, King and Lee in the aftermath of original member drummer Hugo Burnham's departure. Hard was a blatant bid by the band for wider radio airplay, and it failed miserably, with Gang Of Four devolving into little more than a disco-influenced funk band. The remaining members called it quits the next year, undertaking a "farewell tour" through the spring and summer of 1984 (I'm still disappointed in myself for skipping the opportunity to see them on that tour).
However, that wasn't the complete end of Gang Of Four; various members got back together in the following years in various iterations to make new band recordings. Gill and King collaborated on 1991's Mall and 1995's Shrinkwrapped (the latter being more well-received than the former, although in my opinion, neither were up to the standards of the group's first three releases). Finally, in late 2004, the original lineup of Gill, King, Allen and Burnham reformed, and spent most of the next year touring the world. I saw them that summer when they played The 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, finally seeing one of my
old favorites live; they were, of course, excellent. Later that year, the reconstituted band released Return The Gift, rerecordings of songs from their earlier albums - an interesting, but somewhat unnecessary product. Afterwards most of the band members immediately scattered, although Gill and King continued working together until 2011.
In the following years, Gill kept the Gang Of Four flag flying, with different and various members, and issuing new releases (2011's Content, 2015's What Happens Next, and most recently last year's Happy Now) from time to time. I saw the group for the last time just about a year ago (the same week I saw Martin Phillips and The Chills at a nearby venue), when they played at a small club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was good to see Gill up on stage again, but the show made me long for the original sound and the original band, as I heard them all those years ago.
So here, in memory of and tribute to Andy Gill and his seminal group, Gang Of Four, I offer up the following:
Their first release, the Damaged Goods EP, put out by Scottish indie label Fast Product on vinyl on October 13th, 1978 (this disc features the original version, with different lyrics, of "(Love Like) Anthrax");
The 100 Flowers Bloom two-disc compilation, a mixture of demos, album cuts, live versions and remixes, released on Rhino Records on November 3rd, 1998. This one has been a long-time go-to source for Go4 music for me!; and
The Peel Sessions Album, a collection of all three of the group's appearances (in 1979 and 1981) on BBC1's John Peel Show, put out on Strange Fruit Records in 1990.
Enjoy, remember, and as always... well, you know; I always enjoying hearing from you all.
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In the day since Mark E. Smith's passing, there have been tributes and commentaries galore about the nature of the man and his music. In addition to the Guardian's notice I posted yesterday, here's but a small sampling of what's been published in the past 24 hours:
I don't feel that I'm up to the task of matching this worldwide outpouring of eloquence in regards to the life and work of this man. Nor do I feel the necessity to reiterate how much Mark and his band have meant to me over the years; I've coveredthat topicseeminglycountlesstimes in this blog. Smith and The Fall have been a reliable constant in my life for decades, and I looked forward to each new offering that appeared like clockwork year after year; no matter if the band's latest disc was brilliant or banal - it was The Fall, and that was enough for me. It is odd to contemplate the fact that there will no longer be any new music arriving from that quarter; Smith's voice has been stilled, and his brilliant, strange, obtuse and thought-provoking wordplay will no longer grace my eyes and ears. His death leaves a giant hole in my musical life, one that I can't foresee will ever be adequately filled again.
Enough of my overwrought prattle about a singer and band that the vast majority of people in the world were profoundly unfamiliar with, uninterested in and/or indifferent to. Mark E. Smith and The Fall's music was definitely an acquired taste; I'm just glad I was admitted to the banquet... and brave/open-minded enough to sample and appreciate the wares being offered. If you're a fellow Fall fan, you know exactly what I mean.
I think that, instead of words, the greatest tribute I can render unto the man on this blog is to provide to you all over the next few days with access to some of my favorite, most obscure works of his (either with The Fall, individually or with other artists) from my collection of Fall-orabilia. I'll start with his first solo spoken word release, The Post Nearly Man, released on Artful Records in August 1998.
Enjoy, remember, and as always, let me know what you think.
More to come...
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Most of the stuff on these discs was recorded during the tension-fraught Levitate sessions in mid-1997, studio time filled with financial pressures, band member walkouts (Simon Wolstoncroft) and reentries (Karl Burns), unpaid producers quitting in disgust, and creation of semi-coherent, structureless songs, most of which for some reason vocalist and group leader Mark E. Smith refused to sing (Smith later admitted that, at the time, he was "drinking heavily", "paranoid" and "losing it"). Somehow out of all of this confusion and turmoil (a portion of which I alluded to here), an album was produced, but neither the methods to create it nor the final product were particularly inspiring or pretty.
Levitate was the last in a series of weak and generally unmemorable 1990s Fall albums issued in the wake of 1993's The Infotainment Scan, considered at the time of its release the band's most accessible and commercially successful album (debuting at #9 on the British album charts). As I wrote in an earlier piece I did regarding The Fall during this era:
The 1990s were an iffy period for The Fall, in my opinion. Brix had left Mark E. Smith and the band, and her presence and ear for pop-friendly hooks was sorely missed. Her absence did serve as the inspiration for one of the best Fall albums of that era, 1990's Extricate . . . From there, the albums began a gradual decade-long slide into mediocrity. There were some high spots here and there: Code: Selfish and The Infotainment Scan had many high moments. But other releases like Middle Class Revolt and Cerebral Caustic seemed to lack the imagination and fire of some of the band's best material from the 1980s. And, of course, the infamous onstage punchup in New York in 1998 that led to the departure of longstanding Fall stalwarts like Steve Hanley didn't help either. The Fall really didn't start to get its shit back together until 1999's The Marshall Suite.
At the time of its release in September 1997, Levitate was The Fall's worst performing album since 1979's Dragnet (which did not chart), only making it as high as #117 on the British charts. The tragedy of all this is that even with all of the craziness going on during the recording sessions, there were some great songs produced during that period, that for some ungodly, unknown reason were not included on the album itself. Instead, these songs were bundled with various versions of album cuts onto a couple of CD singles released in early 1998, shortly after Levitate dropped.
Masquerade (Disc 1) contains the following track listing:
1. Masquerade (Single Mix)
2. Ivanhoes Two Pence
3. Spencer Must Die (Live)
4. Ten Houses Of Eve (Remix)
Songs 1, 3 and 4 are versions of songs included on the album. The only "new" song here is "Ivanhoe's Two Pence", a shambling, chugging workout of a song set on a strong rhythmic foundation - no wonder, since longtime Fall bassist Steve Hanley co-wrote it (his 100th (and as it turned out, last) songwriting credit with the band). Despite the rudimentary, almost slapdash nature of the song, it's still better than much of what ended up on Levitate.
Disc 1 is OK, but for my money, the real gold of the Levitate sessions is contained in Masquerade (Disc 2). Here's the track listing:
The first and last tunes here are album track versions. But the second and third songs, "Calendar" and "Scareball", are some of the great "lost" Fall tracks, and probably my favorite Fall songs of the past twenty years.
The circumstances behind the recording of "Calendar" are weird and interesting, as all good Fall stories are: In the early winter of 1997, shortly after Levitate was released, Mark E. Smith went out on the town in Manchester and tied one on. Stumbling out of the Night & Day pub late that evening, Smith jumped into what he assumed was a cab and ordered the driver to take him home. However, it was no cab; it was the private car of a local musician named Damon Gough — aka Badly Drawn Boy — who just happened to be idling outside the pub at the time. Gough was still relatively unknown at the time; his first EP had been released only three months earlier, and he was still two years removed from worldwide acclaim with his album The Hour Of Bewilderbeast. Gough agreed to drive Smith home, but only after getting Smith to commit that the Fall record one of Gough's songs, the instrumental "Tumbleweed", which was reworked by the two in the studio later that month into "Calendar". Badly Drawn Boy even guests on guitar, resulting in an interesting collaboration between two of Britain's leading independent musicians. Just a great song:
As for "Scareball", this song was written by keyboardist (and Smith's then-girlfriend) Julia Nagle; it was based on a demo that Nagle recorded with her previous group, the Manchester-based What? Noise the year before. The tune is essentially a point-counterpoint duet between Smith and Nagle, with some excellent guitar work and a catchy little keyboard riff thrown in for good measure:
I found these discs for sale at the old Virgin Megastore at Grapevine Mills Mall in Texas in early 1998. I noticed the similarities in the design of the singles covers to that of the parent album, which I had purchased a couple of months prior and, frankly, didn't particularly like. But as a longtime Fall fan, I was damned if I was going to leave any band product up on the shelf, unpurchased. I'm glad I did - I find the music on these two EPs superior to the majority of what could be found on Levitate. Apparently, others did as well - the Masquerade singles charted in England significantly higher than The Fall's previous album release. Now, I am not by any means claiming that the addition of these songs to Levitate would have made the album that much more acclaimed or successful. It just seems to me that the disc could have used a bit more of the innovative spirit and "pep" inherent in these sidelined works.
It would be nice to claim that the songs off of these EPs were precursors for The Fall's future success, and pointed the way towards the band's critical and creative reemergence in the late 1990s (sparked by the release of The Marshall Suite) - but that claim just doesn't hold up under scrutiny. After the disastrous 1998 American tour, punctuated by the Brownies on-stage altercation that led to the departure of longtime Fall members Hanley and Karl Burns, Smith was forced to reconstitute the band with all new members, which necessitated a return to basics - specifically to the more simplistic rockabilly-influenced sound of earlier group lineups. The new band members brought a new level of spirit and energy to The Fall's music, similar to what the best of the Masquerade songs offered, but it wasn't as if they were in any way influenced by or building upon that sound.
It's still an open question as to which direction The Fall would have moved in if the pre-1998 members had stayed in the band - whether they would have followed the Masquerade singles trend, or just continued to simply crank out uninspired, half-assed albums like Cerebral Caustic and Levitate. Who knows? All I can say is that, in many ways, the New York bustup was a blessing in disguise, and may have saved the band.
But enough of all that. Here you go - The Fall's two Masquerade EPs, released by Artful Records in January 1998. These discs are fairly hard to come by now - Artful went belly-up more than a decade ago, and all of their releases are currently out of print. So enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.
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Found this one over the summer at a hole-in-the-wall vinyl record store in Mystic, Connecticut, situated in a side alley
midway between the town's river drawbridge and the original Mystic Pizza location, namesake of the famous Julia Roberts movie. I was in town for the afternoon, taking in a few of the scanty sights and browsing the tourist trap shops along Main Street, when I recalled the existence of this record store, Mystic Disc, from a previous visit many moons ago.
Mystic Disc is exactly what you would expect in a classic, longstanding record store - a ramshackle space about the size of
a living room in a building that has seen better days, with old-fashioned wooden album racks taking up every possible square foot of floor space conceivable to display the voluminous wares but still allow the minimum amount of free space required for customers to actually move around, and the walls jammed to the ceiling with album covers, concert posters, t-shirts, photos, and other music paraphernalia. The air in the shop is close and semi-humid, with a low, latent scent of dust, the nearby river, armpit sweat from the hippie-fied proprietor, and that 'old record' smell - a staple of old stores like this.
Now, while that description of Mystic Disc may sound a little condescending and depressing, that was not my intention in the least. I LOVE old records stores like this, and whenever I come across one, wild horses can't drag me away until I've had a thorough look through what these places have to offer. I'm always hopeful in my searches through these stores that somehow, someway, that rare overlooked gem that I'd been searching for for years will magically appear and justify the hour or so I spent churning through crusty old Olivia Newton-John and obscure early '70s prog-rock albums. Of course, that very rarely happens . . . but I'm an optimist, and therefore hope always springs eternal.
I wasn't exactly looking for B-52's music that day, but I came across this disc anyway during my peregrinations. "Debbie" was one of two new songs the band recorded for the release of
their 1998 single-disc compilation Time Capsule: Songs For A Future Generation (the other one being "Hallucinating Pluto"). Being a big Bee-Fives fan, I of course bought the comp when it came out all those years ago, but to be honest neither of the two new songs did all that much for me. In my opinion, the sound of both of those songs veered dangerously close to the overall sound of their 1992 album Good Stuff, a disc I've reviled for years (as I've mentioned before in detail). However, of the two, I guess that if I had to choose, I would have to favor "Debbie" over the other one. Here's the video:
[In addition, I consider Time Capsule to be a flawed compilation. Again, it's only a single disc, with fully half of it weighted towards the later-period B-52s songs off of Cosmic Thing and Good Stuff. In doing that, they leave off some some group classics, like "Give Me Back My Man", "Dance This Mess Around" and "Devil In My Car". I
think that even the band themselves realized what a half-assed job Time Capsule did in summarizing their legacy; it was less than four years later that the vastly superior (in my mind) double-disc Nude On The Moon anthology was released. Anyway, I digress . . . let me continue:]
The factor that tipped me towards purchasing this EP that day was the price; Mystic Disc was practically giving it away. Here's the song lineup:
There's nothing particularly essential here in these remixes for B-52's fans; this offering is basically for completists (like me) who want every note, burp and gurgle associated with one of their favorite groups.
So here you are: The B-52's Debbie 12", a promo copy of dance remixes released in the wake of the band's 1998 compilation album, burnt off of glorious vinyl. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.
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I heard about this band in early 1997, as I was finishing up my final year of grad school in Virginia. The movie Scream (directed by the great and recently departed Wes Craven - God rest his soul) had come out just before Christmas 1996, and was doing boffo box office across the country. I personally didn't go to see it; slasher films of that ilk were not and still are not quite my bag. But the presence of the film (which went on to gross more than $170 million worldwide and spawned three sequels) was everywhere during the winter of 1996-97, including the airwaves. The movie soundtrack album, featuring alternative and post-punk tunes by the likes of Moby, Nick Cave and Julee Cruise, had been released the week after the film opened, and while the album itself didn't chart, a number of the songs featured on it received some fairly significant airplay.
In the movie (semi-spoiler alert), after a number of teenagers are murdered, school is suspended while the authorities hunt for the killer or killers. Students gleefully leave the now-closed high school while Alice Cooper's classic "School's Out" plays as background music. For a song so prominently featured in the film, you would expect that it would be on the official soundtrack album, right? Wrong . . . instead, the original was replaced by a cover version done by The Last Hard Men, a short-lived alt-rock "supergroup" of sorts, instigated by former and current Breeders guitarist Kelley Deal.
According to Deal, the genesis of this band came from an article regarding hair metal bands she read in an issue of Spin magazine in early 1996. The article's low regard for and generally condescending, dismissive tone for this genre of music apparently pissed Kelley off:
". . . here they were making fun of these bands, but what were the interviewers wearing? Grunge flannel? Baggy pants? I was bothered that Spin made fun of style because everything is style, and it was done in a really mean way . . . It just didn't seem fair."
In response and reaction to Spin's article, Deal made an effort to seek out vocalist Sebastian Bach, who had just parted ways with his longtime band Skid Row; she considered him one of the best hair metal band singers out there. The two finally connected in New York City in the summer of 1996, backstage at a Kelley Deal 6000 gig, and made plans to record together later that fall.
The original idea was for Deal to recruit one additional alt-rock member for their one-off recording, and for Bach to get one of his metal friends to join in. For a while, there was talk that Motley Crue's Tommy Lee would be that member, but those plans fell through, and in the end Deal gathered the remaining group members from the alternative spectrum, namely Frogs guitarist Jimmy Flemion and former Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin (Chamberlin had been fired from the Pumpkins the year before, due to his involvement with the heroin-related death of keyboardist Jonathan Melvion in New York while the band was on tour; ironically, The Smashing Pumpkins finished the tour with new hires, Matt Walker on drums - and Jimmy Flemion's older brother Dennis on keyboards . . . so I'm sure the two Jimmys had much to talk about during their time together . . . )
Word of the formation, which had yet to be named, got out to certain quarters, and the producers of Scream quickly requested a song contribution from the group for the soundtrack. The four got together in a Minnesota studio in the fall of 1996, just to record their version of "School's Out". But the song and the session went so well that Deal extended the studio time, and in four days the group (now dubbed The Last Hard Men) hammered out an additional dozen or so songs.
And that was that; the members of The Last Hard Men immediately went their separate ways. Sebastian Bach started a solo world tour a month of so after the Minnesota sessions and took Jimmy Flemion along; a couple of Last Hard Men cuts were added to his set list. Deal went back on tour as well with her band, but the momentum behind The Kelley Deal 6000 was petering out, and it was only months later that the group went on permanent hiatus. Chamberlain reconciled with Smashing Pumpkins founder and front man Billy Corgan and was reinstated in the band in the fall of 1998. He continued his association with Corgan (in both the Pumpkins and Zwan) for the next decade.
As for the recordings, Kelley Deal began shopping the tapes around to various labels, but found little interest. Atlantic Records made mouth noises about a possible release at the end of 1997, but in the end they declined their option. Finally in 1998, Deal scraped together enough funds to press about a thousand copies of the album, and quietly released it under her own Nice Records label. Due to its limited availability, it was an extremely hard-to-find disc. But in 2001, a small independent producer out of Long Island negotiated to give the album a more widespread release under its own label.
I purchased this disc during a visit I made to DC in 2002, at Olsson's Books & Records' Georgetown store, shortly before that location permanently closed its doors (the remaining branches of this beloved and venerable independent bookstore chain shut down in 2008, a tremendous loss to Washington's cultural and retail presence). When I went into Olsson's at that time, I wasn't actually looking for this album; back then, you could count on the bookstore having unusual/hard-to-find music buried in its stacks, and I whenever I visited the store, I always took the time to thoroughly browse through their CD racks. As I mentioned above, I'd heard of this project years earlier, so when I came across the disc, I just had to pick it up.
To me, this is sort of a weird record. Musically, it's all over the map - some songs, like "Sleep", are straight out of the hair metal playbook; others sound like cuts left off of Kelley Deal 6000 albums ("The Last Hard Men"). There's acoustic pop ("When The Longing Goes Away"), punk ("Spider Love"), and alternative tunes ("Candy Comes") interspersed between band member interviews - there's even a cover of "I Enjoy Being A Girl" from Rodgers & Hammerstein's 1958 musical Flower Drum Song! I can't say that this disc holds together as a coherent album. But there are pieces and parts of it that are interesting and superb, which is I guess the best that you can hope for from a one-off band. I can't say that I highly recommend it . . . but I recommend you give it a listen nonetheless.
So here you are to hear for yourself - The Last Hard Men, the only release by the group of the same name, put out by Spitfire Records fourteen years ago today, on September 4th, 2001. Run it past your ears and, as always, let me know what you think.
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Here's another one of Stereolab's many collaborations during their long band history, this time with New York City-based post-rock instrumental group Ui. UI, founded in 1990, was known for its frequent use of two bass guitars in their sample-heavy, electronica/dub music, along with other uncommon instruments such as the banjo, tuba and timpani. These guys (Sasha Frere-Jones (now a writer with The New Yorker), Clem Waldmann and Wilbo Wright) were active for well over a decade, releasing three LPs and numerous singles and EPs before breaking up in 2004.
This particular EP was recorded at Southern Studios, London in the summer of 1996, while Ui was on a European tour with Stereolab serving as their opening act. However, the label didn't get around to mixing and releasing the EP until well over a year later, in late October 1997. This EP features, among other songs, an excellent cover of Brian Eno's "St. Elmo's Fire", off of his 1975 Another Green World album, along with three radical remixes of the same song.
I don't have any long-winded story related to this disc, other than I recall grabbing this at the old Virgin Megastore in Grapevine, Texas shortly after it was released. I was just listening to it the other day, and thought that others might like to have a listen to it as well. Sometimes, brevity is best!
So, here you are - Uilab's Fires EP, released in February 1998 on Duophonic Records (Stereolab's privately owned label). Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.
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In my opinion, this is the single best story EVER presented on National Public Radio. I heard this show when it was first aired in the late summer of 1998, as I was driving home from work in Texas and listening to NPR. The Sunshine Hotel is one of the last of what used to be scores of flophouses in the Bowery section of New York City, places where the transients, hoboes and alcoholics in that area could find cheap temporary lodgings while sleeping off their latest bender. At one time, tens of thousands of men lived in the scores of cheap hotels lining the streets of this area.
For several months earlier that year, two radio producers from a foundation called Sound Portraits.org, David Isay and Stacy Abramson, were given unprecedented 24-hour access to the Sunshine Hotel and its denizens. They recorded dozens of hours of audio, which they then edited down into a combination documentary/sound collage that captures not only the story of the place, but the ambience and feel of living there. The
narrator of the piece was Nathan Smith, the hotel's longtime manager, who, despite his gravelly voice and 'Nu Yawk' inflections, exudes personality, warmth and humanity as he describes the grim way of life there. And what he describes is not pretty - dank, tiny cubicles with ceilings of chicken wire and beds full of fleas and bedbugs, occupied by a motley collection of addicts, mental patients and other castoffs of society. But with Smith's words, and the stories of some of the dwellers there, the people occupying this filthy, nearly forgotten throwback to another era became more than just a collection of losers, head cases and down-and-outers on the tail end of society. They are real people, with issues and adversities that most of us will hopefully never have to face. I found the entire story fascinating, so much so that I continued listening to the show long after I arrived home, sitting in my driveway to hear it in its entirety.
Many years later, I was in New York City visiting an old friend from New Zealand, who was over in the States on a brief vacation. She had an artistic bent, so we spent most of the time going through some of the city's top art museums: the Guggenheim, the Metropolitian Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art. She was staying with some people who had an apartment on St. Marks Place, and the plan was that we were all supposed to meet downtown later, then decide where to go for dinner. The location selected for our meeting place was the lobby of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, a funky, modern building located on Bowery, about two blocks south of where CBGB's used to be. Everyone was there at the scheduled time, and the decision was made to try a restaurant up on East Houston Street, so we all walked out and headed north. Just past the museum facade, I happened to glance up, and noticed this sign:
The legendary (in my mind) Sunshine Hotel was RIGHT NEXT DOOR to this place! I was momentarily tempted to stop and go inside, but I don't think the group of people I was with would be too keen on waiting for me while I explored what no doubt appeared to them to be nothing more than a nasty old tenement. As far as I knew, they hadn't heard the story of the place, so they just didn't know what it meant.
A couple of months after "The Sunshine Hotel" aired, the same producers presented another piece on NPR, "Charlie's Story", as an adjunct to their earlier show. Seeking a more first-hand look at life in these transient hotels,
Isay and Abramson befriended Charlie Geter, a long-time resident of the Palace Hotel, another Bowery flop. They gave Geter a tape recorder and asked him to interview other residents of the Palace Hotel and also tell his life story. It took Geter two years to finish the project, hampered by the reluctance of other hotel residents to tell their stories to him, and also facing his own serious health issues during that time.
But he DID complete it, and turned in a narrative just as compelling as that of "The Sunshine Hotel". This was another story that I sat in the driveway listening to from start to finish. The last voice heard on the recording is that of Geter, describing his troubled upbringing and his lack of accomplishment at any phase of his life, and how by finishing the project Isay and Abramson entrusted him with, how proud he was at finally completing something of substance and worth that will live on after he's gone.
Of everything in that story, those final words were the ones that got to me; I think of them often. Everyone, no matter what their rank or station, wants to leave some part of themselves behind that people will recall and remember. It makes me think about what part of my work or legacy, if any, will be remembered when my time comes . . . or if I'm destined to be just one of the anonymous, unnoticed billions who have come before and will eventually come after me, contributing my own small part to my miniscule corner of the world, but having no impact or influence on the great events or movements on this planet. We'll see, I guess.
Apparently, David Isay has the same sort of thoughts that I have, about the stories and histories of ordinary people. He eventually founded StoryCorps, a non-profit organization set up to record, preserve, and share the stories of Americans from all walks of life (if you listen regularly to NPR, you've no doubt heard some of the stories collected by this group).
But enough about that for now. NPR released both of these Bowery stories on CD at the tail end of 1999, and I wasted no time in purchasing the disc. So here, for your listening pleasure, is The Sunshine Hotel and Charlie's Story, produced by Sound Portraits.org and aired on National Public Radio on September 18th, 1998 and December 30th, 1998, respectively. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.
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More upcoming-holiday-themed madness for you - the final volume of Rhino's classic Just Can't Get Enough series, compiling New Wave hits from 1979 to 1985. Rhino originally released fifteen volumes in this series between June 1994 and June 1995, then in following years releasing discs containing New Wave selections based on particular themes (New Wave Xmas and New Wave Women, for example). I bought every one of these albums religiously when they came out back in the mid/late 90s, and own the full set.
The entire Just Can't Get Enough oeuvre is a must-have for any true connoisseur of Eighties music. Each and every disc contains not only classics from that particular period, but also have at least one or two New Wave obscurities, songs that may have flown under your radar back then. As such, each album is full of "ah ha!" moments, and this one here is no exception. There will be songs here that you immediately recognize (like Ministry's "Every Day Is Halloween" (in my opinion, the peak of the band's "pop" period, before moving on to their more groundbreaking industrial sound) and Oingo Boingo's "Dead Man's Party"), along with unfamiliar gems like the "Halloween"-titled tunes by Dream Syndicate, Sonic Youth and Siouxsie & The Banshees.
Rhino has no plans to release any additional compilations in this series, or for that matter to rerelease the original volumes (reportedly due to licensing issues). And frankly, they don't need to put out any new ones - for a nearly complete overview of the entire history of New Wave music, these albums are hard to top. And New Wave Halloween is a fine addition and fitting coda to this set.
So, enjoy your soon-to-be-with-us Hallowed Evening with some fine left-of-center music! Here's the album - as always, let me know your thoughts on it. Boo!
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For my birthday in 2002, my girlfriend gave me two tickets to see The Breeders play at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City later that month. Rob, one of my New Zealand buddies, was over in the States that summer, working as a swim instructor at a summer camp for underprivileged urban children in Vermont (his normal gig is as an actor and print and TV model in NZ - here's his website if you're interested: http://www.robertfaith.com). So I invited him to come along (my girl wasn't a big Breeders fan). Rob was pretty psyched to learn about our upcoming trip; he'd been stuck up at that ramshackle camp for weeks, and was itching to get away and get back to New York, a place he had visited only one time previously but instantly fell in love with.
The only issue was that I had to schlepp my way up to Vermont to get him, as he had no transportation. I didn't see that as a major issue. On the week of the show, I was to be away in Atlanta until early Friday afternoon. The plan was that I would fly back to Providence, drive home to pack my stuff, then shoot up to Vermont to pick Rob up en route to NYC. The camp managers had only given him two days off, so it was going to be a quick trip. Up to that point in my life, I had never been to Vermont - really didn't have any reason to. But it looked small on the map, so how long could it take to get there?
[Well, I found out EXACTLY how long it took to drive through that stultifyingly boring state. I'll spare you the details of that journey - a tragicomedy of plane delays, traffic jams and assorted errors that began in Atlanta and didn't end for another 18 hours or so. Let me just say that, no offense to the good citizens of Vermont, but I'll live just as long and die just as happy never having to visit that boring-ass state ever again . . .]
By the time we finally got to New York in the very wee hours of that Saturday morning, we were dead beat. But we were also starving, so we threw our stuff down at the Helmsley and went to the Carnegie Deli (which is open until 4 am) for a feed (even at that late hour, there were famous faces there - Tommy Lasorda sat gorging himself at the table next to us) before stumbling back to the hotel and collapsing exhaustedly into our beds.
We were up fairly early the next morning - I was worn out from all of the traveling and delays, but Rob only had 48 hours of leave from the camp, and didn't want to waste it sleeping. The show didn't start until 8-ish, so we killed the day running around town, from Central Park to Canal Street and points in between. Rob hit the city wearing his "party/concert" attire, which consisted of bright orange jeans with cargo pockets and a black mesh shirt . . . I nearly collapsed with laughter. His outfit looked like something the Festrunk Brothers from SNL would wear in New York to look 'hip'.
[Of course, I ended up eating my words and guffaws - as we walked around Soho that afternoon, a guy with a camera came up to us, told Rob he was a professional photographer for a nationally-known men's fashion magazine, and asked to take his picture for an upcoming issue (the bastard completely ignored me - guess I wasn't dressed 'hip' enough). And sure enough, a couple of months later, a small shot of Rob sporting his 'look' appeared in the magazine. So that shows how much I know . . .]
After a few drinks (at the Cub Room on Sullivan St. - great place) and some chow (at Blue Ribbon Sushi just down the street - highly recommended), we hopped a taxi for the show, soon arriving in front of the venue. I was really looking forward to seeing the reformed Breeders, with both Kim and Kelley Deal back in the band (they were touring on Title TK, their first new album in nine years). In the years since the last show I saw with them together (in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1995 (detailed in my previous Kelley Deal 6000 post)), I'd seen Kelley's band play several times all over the country. And in 1997, I was part of a very disappointed packed house at DC's 9:30 Club listening to a set performed by what was touted as a "Breeders" band fronted by Kim, but stocked with lame, no-name musicians playing lame, no-name songs (I discovered later that most of those ersatz Breeders were actually members of Kim's more recent band The Amps). In both cases, some of the spark and chemistry was missing; it just wasn't the same as seeing the sisters perform together. So I was pretty jazzed (I was also secretly hoping that Kelley would remember me, her old friend from years past, and take the time to say hello - but I wasn't going to press the issue). Rob and I went up the stairs to the main stage area of the Bowery Ballroom, got a couple of drinks, and milled around waiting for the show to start.
I didn't know anything at all about the supporting band, Imperial Teen, so I was sort of surprised when, in speaking with some of the other concert attendees before the show, a fairly good number of them were there to support this band. Although they were the opener, they were touring on their own new album, 2002's On. Others there were enthusiastic, but I honestly didn't know what to expect as Imperial Teen took the stage.
Imperial Teen was formed in late 1994/early 1995 by Roddy Bottum, keyboardist for Faith No More. Soon after the 1992 release of Faith No More's Angel Dust, the band's most commercially successful album, Bottum began going through a series of personal crises (including the death of his father and coming out of the closet) that significantly limited his input and activity with that band. After getting through his rough period, he started a band, Star 69, as a side project with another San Francisco-area musician, former Sister Double Happiness member Lynn Perko (they later changed their name to Imperial Teen). They were joined by Perko's friend and former bandmate Jone Stebbins and local rocker Will Schwartz.
Imperial Teen released their debut album, Seasick, in 1996, followed by What Is Not To Love in 1998. From what I understand, these albums, featuring alternative/college radio hits like "You're One", "Yoo Hoo" and "Lipstick", were very well received in certain quarters. And due to relentless touring (including opening for Courtney Love's band Hole in 1998), they had established a pretty strong following. I don't know why I was so clueless, and hadn't heard of them . . . (oh yeah, now I remember - I lived in Texas).
Well, that night in the Bowery, I discovered what I had been missing all of those years. Imperial Teen was absolutely FANTASTIC. The songs were all outstanding, but what really struck me was the dispositions of the four band members; it's nice to go to a show and see a band actually having fun up on stage, and enjoying one another. And they were all completely unpretentious and 'precious' regarding their musical input - I was stunned when, after a couple of songs, the band members switched off on instruments - Perko left the drum kit and grabbed Bottum's guitar, Schwartz moved from guitar to bass, Stubbins took over guitar and lead vocals, and Bottum settled behind the drums. During the course of the show, every band member played every instrument. But it didn't come off as a sort of musical circuit training - it seemed totally natural, and of course for every variation the band sounded great.
Combined with a great set by The Breeders (who were in perfect form that night - it was as if that nine-year hiatus never happened), the entire show was superb. I arrived there a big fan of one band, but left there that evening a big fan of two.
We had to leave NYC on Sunday mid-afternoon, in order to get Rob back up to his camp on time. But I used some of our remaining time in the city to track down all of the Imperial Teen music I could, and we left the city with all three albums in our possession. Listening to those tunes in the car eased the hateful trip back up to Vermont (somewhat). Rob was bumming about having to go back to that mosquito-infested hellhole and resume his camp duties with those sullen city kids. But I was glad that I had the opportunity to show him a bit of fun that summer. And of course, getting new tunes out of it made it all worthwhile for me as well.
So, here's Imperial Teen's second album, What Is Not To Love, released by Slash Records in 1998. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think:
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
Here's another one to add to my holiday selections:
I've long been a sucker for those Christmas compilations that Starbucks has for sale every year about this time. I've got several of the doggone things. Why? Well, say what you will about them, but most of them are actually pretty good collections of classic and modern holiday music.
Here's one I picked up during the Christmas season back in 1998 when I lived in Texas, Hi-Fidelity Holiday:
1. Jingle Bells - Esquivel
2. Jingle Bell Jamboree - Keb' Mo'
3. Winter Wonderland - Cocteau Twins
4. Baby, It's Cold outside - Dean Martin
5. Sleigh Ride - Combustible Edison
6. Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen
7. Thanks for Christmas - Three Wise Men (XTC)
8. Christmas Wish - El Vez
9. Merry Christmas Baby - James Brown
10. Happy Christmas (War Is Over) - The Alarm
11. Little Drummer Boy - Temptations
12. I Like a Sleighride (Jingle Bells) - Peggy Lee
13. Christmas Must Be Tonight - Robbie Robertson
14. We Four Kings - Blue Hawaiians
16. Christmas Auld Lang Sang - Bobby Darin
Favorites include the songs by XTC and The Blue Hawaiians, but pretty much every song here is a winner.
So here you go - bon appetit:
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
In 2000, I almost got a job with Hewlett-Packard. The company I worked for in Texas had suddenly and unexpectedly been acquired by Citigroup, and as a member of the corporate staff, I knew that my ass, like the asses of many of my compatriots, was going to be grass once the merger was complete. I started trolling around for a new position, and very quickly heard from H-P. They seemed pretty eager to speak with me, so much so that they very quickly sent me a plane ticket to Silicon Valley, California and $150 in cash for any "incidental expenses" I might encounter during my morning-to-evening visit there. I was pretty psyched.
I took an early-morning plane out of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, and by 9 a.m. local time, I was at the airport in San Jose, picking up my rental car (again, reserved for me by H-P) for the drive down to Sunnyvale. The interview there went pretty well, although I was surprised that I was not the only person the company contacted for the position in question - there were a few of us there, from places as far afield as Chicago and Boston, invited to interview for the job. But H-P kept things moving on an assembly-line basis, and every one of us was in and out of there in less than three hours.
My plane back to Dallas didn't leave until six that evening, so I had several hours to kill before the flight. I decided to head into San Francisco for a couple of hours, grab a bite to eat and have a few laughs. However, one destination in that city was in the forefront of my mind - Amoeba Records on Haight Street.
I don't know how many of you are familiar with Amoeba . . . nowadays, there are a couple of branches of this store - the other ones I know of are in Berkeley and the most recent one that opened in L.A. about eight years ago. But the Haight Street location is the flagship. Now, being as crazy about music as I am, I've been to music stores and record shops all over the world, and seen some good ones and some not-so-good ones. I have to say, unequivically, that Amoeba Music San Francisco is THE best record store on the planet. Bar none. It's a huge open warehouse of a space, the main floor of which is covered with bins full of all sorts of CDS and records. One side of this barn is devoted to "new" albums; an equal amount of space on the other side is reserved for "used" records. In previous visits to Amoeba, I'd found things there I'd been searching for for literally YEARS - dirt cheap. For me, that place was and is the Capital of Music . . . and since at that point I hadn't been to San Francisco in a while, and had no idea when I might be back there again, I was eager to spend some time once again browsing those stacks.
I made the hour-long drive into San Francisco with the radio on, scanning the dial, listening for something interesting (great radio stations in San Fran, BTW). I can't remember what station there it was where I heard "Would You . . . ?" during my drive, but the song captured my ears instantly.
Touch & Go was formed in England in 1997 by David Lowe, the only official member of the group. Lowe's day job is as a music producer for British television shows and commercials (all of the music you hear on the BBC News since 1998 was composed by him). He formed Touch & Go as a creative outlet, away from the constraints of TV production. In addition to writing, arranging and producing most of the songs, Lowe plays the keyboards, drums and bass on every release, assisted by various guest musicians who provide vocals, guitar, brass, what have you.
Touch & Go's first release was the Would You . . . ? EP on V2 Records in October 1998. The song's mix of horn-driven Latin jazz, house and electronic elements backing a sexy female voice mouthing laconic come-on lines was a sensation in England, where it shot to Number 3 on the UK Pop charts. Touch & Go began a European tour in late 1998/early 1999, taking their sound to several locations in Eastern Europe, where the song proved equally popular there and in several other worldwide locations (Australia and New Zealand especially).
The song did nothing of any chart importance here in the U.S.; but like I said, it caught my attention during my drive into the city. After a nice lunch at a seafood restaurant on Fisherman's Wharf (great crabmeat sandwich), I made a beeline for Amoeba. There, I proceeded to blow EVERY PENNY of the $150 in "expense money" H-P gave me on music - I got some great stuff, including the Would You . . . ? EP. I made it back to the San Jose airport in time for my flight, with a big bag of CDs tucked under the seat in front of me. I didn't end up getting the job with H-P, but no worries - in my mind, it was still a productive journey (and anyway, inside of another two weeks, I found a better, more lucrative position in New England . . . so there you go)!
On the strength of that single, Touch & Go cut an album, I Find You Very Attractive, in 1999. After a couple of other lesser-received EPs in the early '00s, Touch & Go's star has sort of faded in Great Britain. However, the band remains popular in Eastern Europe, and still tours regularly there.
Here's the Would You . . . ? EP I purchased in San Francisco over ten years ago. This is the U.S. version of the EP (there are about nine versions overall internationally), containing five different iterations of the title song. I still think this tune is pretty cool - have a listen, and let me know what you think.
Enjoy:
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
Saying "Thanks" for the music you receive from here costs you absolutely nothing, and yet is worth quite a bit to me… If you can't bother leaving a comment on this blog for the first album/set we send you, don't bother making a request For a second album…
