[I guess with my recent couple of posts regarding disasters, I've been getting some folks down. A friend here on this blog recommended that I lighten up a bit . . . so I'll put the bad tales aside for a bit, starting now:]
I spent a good part of my second summer at the Academy at sea, sailing up and down the East Coast on a small yard patrol (YP) craft with about 15-16 other classmates and a couple of upperclassmen. We were part of a flotilla of three or four of these boats, doing training on maneuvers, navigation, etc. Initially, I was disappointed to be on a YP, rather than over in Europe or the Far East as others were, but it turned out to be great. We took those puny vessels everywhere, and made a lot of extended stops in great places like Boston and New York City (my first long visit there). It was during one of those early stops that I first noticed HER.
She was a fellow classmate, beautiful and cool and athletic, part of the crew of one of the other YP boats in our group (somehow, I had never noticed nor run across her during the entire first year of school, which was strange because the campus and student body was not very large). Anyway, I was instantly smitten. Since she was on a different boat and off doing other things with her friends on shore, my encounters with her that summer were brief and fleeting, and in all of them she was cool and aloof and mysterious, which only piqued my interest further. By the end of the summer, I had a major crush on her . . . and she, no doubt, had little, if any, idea or interest in who I was or what I was all about.
But the Gods of Random Probability like to have their little jokes every once in a while - our class was the first in several years to be "scrambled"; that is, moved to different companies at the end of plebe year. And as fate would have it, she and I ended up in the same one, living just a few doors away from one another. Not that that helped my cause; I was a goof, and initially she wanted nothing to do with me at all.
But as time passed, slowly and steadily, our 'relationship' (as it were) progressed. In her eyes, I think I moved from being an annoying pest to a tolerable distraction to an acceptable acquaintance, and in time we became friends. We found we had the same sense of humor, and would find hilarious ways to make fun of the people we knew. I used to challenge her at racquetball, and she responded by kicking my ass every time we played. But mostly, we bonded over music. I had a large and growing collection of cassette tapes back then, probably the best selection on the floor, and she would sometimes come over to borrow music or talk about bands. We were supposed go with a group of people to see Book Of Love in DC one weeknight during our junior year, a show that necessitated that we go "over the wall", that is, leave the Academy grounds without permission . . . in the end, I couldn't go, but she did; the entire group got busted coming back, and received days of restriction and heavy demerits. She got me a Fishbone T-shirt from another show she went to that I didn't attend; I treasured that shirt, and wore it for years, until it literally disintegrated.
But with all of that, we were still 'just' friends. And that was cool by me; by that time, the old crush had cooled considerably. I still liked her, but I figured if we were to be just friends, then so be it. She had a boyfriend or two at school, and we each went to the Ring Dance at the end of our junior year with someone else. She was as aloof and mysterious as ever, but in a different way, now that we were closer. But I could still never 'read' her, or figure out what was on her mind.
So I was surprised when, on a Friday evening during the winter of our senior year, I found myself driving with her to my parent's house for the weekend, just the two of us. To this day, I still can't figure out how this came about; I don't really recall asking her. I might have mentioned that I go home on weekends from time to time, and she asked if she could join me - I simply don't recall. All I knew was, there I was, driving down a snowy Route 50 towards the Beltway and Virginia with the girl I'd liked for years sitting next to me.
The roads were bad and the going was slow, but I brought plenty of music along, which we played in my Subaru's tape deck. In addition to being the driver, I also served as the sort-of DJ, swapping cassettes out frequently, putting on stuff that she might not have heard before. One 'new' song really captured her interest, a simplistic melody called "Da Da Da" by a German band called Trio.
Trio (made up of Stephan Remmler on vocals, Gert Krawinkel on guitar, and Peter Behrens on drums) was formed in Grossenkheten, Germany in 1980. They were part of a strange but unorganized and unofficial hybrid of European new wave that appeared during that time, featuring simplistic melodies, songs with no more that three-chord progressions, and monotone vocals. Other practitioners of this sound back then included Young Marble Giants (
previously covered in this blog) and The Flying Lizards from England. In many ways, Trio took that minimal sound even further than the other bands mentioned, utilizing only guitar and drums on their songs until late in their career. In a lot of ways, Trio was like the "new wave Kraftwerk" of their time.
But even with these limitations, the band still managed to put out some catchy, popular numbers, including the aforementioned "Da Da Da". This song was on their debut German-language album released in 1981, and eventually made it to #2 on the national charts there in April 1982. An English-language version of this song was released in England in the late spring of that year, and saw similar success, also reaching #2 there and selling over a million copies. The English version was also a hit in Canada later that year, making the Top 5 in that country.
With this international success, Polydor Records rerecorded Trio's debut, adding some English songs, and rereleased the album in the U.S. as
Trio & Error in 1983 (the label retained the services of the band's long-time producer, the legendary musician, artist and Beatle friend Klaus Voorman). But the album and their international hit song did nothing here in this country; outside of a few college/alternative stations airing it, Trio's music went unheard by the majority of Americans. WHFS in Washington, DC used to play it once in a while, though; that's where I first heard it, and liked it enough to look for a cassette copy.
It was that cassette that was played over and over that weekend, as she and I rolled through DC. Even with the weather, we had a fun time. We went out to eat in the city, and hit a lot of the clubs, bars and dance places there (including the late, lamented new wave club Poseurs in Georgetown, at the foot of the Key Bridge - sadly, it's a bike shop now). My parents loved her, and made her feel completely welcome in their home. And she and I just laughed, and talked, and bonded. All in all, it was the best time I had all year; it was one of the best times I had during my entire time at school.
Trio released a final album,
Bye Bye, in 1983, before breaking up the following year.
Speaking of "bye-bye" . . . as for that girl and I, that trip was sort of the high-water mark for anything serious. We remained friends for the rest of school and after graduation, but she moved to one side on the country and I moved to the other, and we just sort of went on with our lives, contacting one another occasionally. In time, even the memory of that time I spent with her that snowy February began to fade.
In 1997, I was watching something on TV; I can't remember what. When it went to commercial, the first ad up was an ad for the Volkswagen Golf. The commercial was simplicity itself - just two guys riding around in the car, with music playing.
I instantly recognized the song - it was Trio's "Da Da Da"! Somehow, the music completely fit the visuals of the ad. And in a flash, it brought back to me every detail my own road trip ten years earlier with that fetching passenger at my side, where that same song featured prominently. I never asked her, but I hope that she saw that ad too, and it brought back some fond memories for her as well.
Due to the popularity of the commercial, Trio's album was rereleased in the U.S. that year as
Da Da Da, and finally gave the band some long-overdue chart success here. I've always hated the retitling - seemed like pandering to me. I'll always refer to it as
Trio & Error.
So, here you go - enjoy:
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Ed's all-time favorite album is Live At Leeds. Many years ago, he began hearing rumors that what was released on Live At Leeds was not the band's complete set recorded at Leeds University on February 14th, 1970. He assumed that with the release of the expanded Live At Leeds: Deluxe Edition in 2001, he would finally be hearing the full show. But even that release had issues, specifically in that it wasn't fully 'live', but "augmented" in some places in the studio to either expand the sound or hide some of the flubbed notes and sloppy riffs. Ed was still itching to get his hands on the complete, unadulterated set, complete with errors and extended stage banter. I told him I'd help him track it down. A friend of mine in the Rockies had a copy, a bootleg released on Midas Touch Records a few years ago, and at my request he immediately sent one to me.
Probably my favorite of all the B-52's shows I've seen was the one they played Providence in March 1982, in support of their latest album Mesopotamia (I think it was called the "Meso-Americans Tour"). At the time, I was living and going to school in Newport, RI, and I had recently turned one of my new buddies there (we'll call him "Camob") onto the band. Camob came to Rhode Island straight out of the San Fernando Valley of suburban Los Angeles, and though he did his best to hide it, his unconscious mannerisms and vocal inflections pegged him as a straight-up early '80s "Valley Boy". He was like a bigger, beefier, less aggro Billy Zabka - only if Zabka had brown hair, no karate skills and a more normal, formative childhood. Camob was also smart as hell, although he was doing his level best to murder his cerebral cortex every weekend by liberally dousing it with as much ethanol as he could procure (the man had a stinging, insatiable yen for stinkwater that was truly remarkable for someone of his tender years, and positively hair-raising for a teetotaling geek like myself back then). Couple all of that with his Devo fandom, and it's no wonder we quickly became fast friends.
[Sorry that I've been kind of slow in posting stuff this month - it's been pretty busy here, which has sort of limited my time to put together the erudite, pithy writeups on this music that I know you all love so well (ha ha!) . . . I'm trying to make an end-of-month push here, and get a few more posted to at least meet my monthly average of 10-12 albums/EPs (you might have noticed that the number of posts has increased in the last week - or then again, maybe you haven't . . .). So on that note, here's another one:]
For example, I loved the song "Balloon Man" (off of the great Globe Of Frogs album) when it came out in 1988, and figured the guy had finally found a sound that appealed to me. But his follow-up, 1989's Queen Elvis, was terrible, and I found the lead single off of that album, "Madonna Of The Wasps", to be weak and somewhat whiny. Once again, he lost what little goodwill he had with me.
With that being said, I paid little attention to his next release, 1990's acoustic solo outing Eye, and by the time he reunited with The Egyptians for his 1991 album on A&M Records, Perspex Island, I was all but completely ignoring his output. However, that perspective changed once I began hearing cuts from the new disc on the radio. I was living in the Washington, DC area at the time, and WHFS there put the lead single, "So You Think You're In Love", in heavy rotation. I thought to myself, "Pretty good song.".jpg)
All in all, it turned out to be a valuable and productive trip to the city for me that night (I also picked up that night, on a whim, The Sea & Cake's Oui, which turned me into a fan of that band as well). We ended up not bidding on that portfolio we were there for. But I got cool new tunes out of the trip . . . so it was all good.
Speaking of "bye-bye" . . . as for that girl and I, that trip was sort of the high-water mark for anything serious. We remained friends for the rest of school and after graduation, but she moved to one side on the country and I moved to the other, and we just sort of went on with our lives, contacting one another occasionally. In time, even the memory of that time I spent with her that snowy February began to fade.
I hadn't seen The Fall in a while; they were touring on Are You Are Missing Winner, one of the weakest Fall albums in recent years. I was still looking forward to seeing them, though. The opening band was a local group I had never heard of, The Rogers Sisters out of Brooklyn. I paid little attention to them while they set up, but that changed once they began playing.
and watching the operation, and seeing the dust and smoke rise through the klieg lights . . . well, that was something else, and something I'll always remember.
before breaking up in late November 2006, almost five years to the day of their Knitting Factory show.
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.
Even moreso than The Head On The Door (released the previous August), Staring At The Sea/Standing On A Beach was really the album that broke The Cure into the American market. The album was their first Top 50 U.S. disc, sold over two million copies, and got rave reviews from nearly every American reviewer. And that's where the wheels started coming off . . .
It started in 1987, with their first post-compilation studio album, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. Prior to 1986, The Cure were known for catchy, punchy, concise bursts of distilled New Wave gold. All of their most well-known songs from that period - "Let's Go To Bed", "The Caterpillar", "The Upstairs Room", "Primary", "Three Imaginary Boys" - clock in at no longer than 3-1/2 minutes. Heck, "Killing An Arab" and "Boys Don't Cry" are barely TWO and a half minutes long. But starting with Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, the songs began to get longer and more heavy-handed - but not because The Cure had anything weightier or more profound to say. The best songs on this album - "Catch", "Just Like Heaven", "Hot Hot Hot!!!" - were the shorter ones, coming in at around the 3:30 mark as usual. But Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is full of long, meandering, ponderous shit - "The Kiss", "How Beautiful You Are", "The Snakepit" - that essentially say nothing and go nowhere, despite their length.
Young Marble Giants was formed in Cardiff, Wales in 1978, and was made up of brothers Stuart (on guitar and organ) and Philip Moxham (on bass) and singer Alison Stratton. Being from the comparative outback, as far as music was concerned, Young Marble Giants developed their own distinctive, stripped-down sound, far removed from anything coming out of London's post-punk scene at the time. They first appeared on a local compilation album, Is The War Over?, in October 1979, and from the strength of their contribution, were immediately signed to Rough Trade Records. Their only album on Rough Trade, Colossal Youth, was released the following February, followed by two EPs, the Final Day EP in June 1980 and the Testcard EP in March 1981. But by the time Testcard was released, Young Marble Giants had broken up.
With this heavy promotion, Jones had great success on the local concert scene, usually accompanied by Don Dixon (who saw some chart success of his own that year, moving in front of the mixing board for his debut album, Most Of The Girls Like To Dance But Only Some Of The Boys Like To, featuring the hit "Praying Mantis").
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