Incurable

There's a lot of retro-nostalgia(?) these days for the 80s. Most of the contributors of this blog grew up during the 80s. And guess what!??! It WAS awesome. We just didn't know it at the time. It was a bunch of shitty pre-adolescent sexual frustration and Republican yuppies. And Michael Jackson was big. Except he sucked then. But now he's cool. I guess. I don't know. The first CDs I bought were in the early 90s. Some Cure, some Skinny Puppy, Ministry and Front 242. There's some Cure I can listen to. They have some great singles, Just Like Heaven, Love Cats and what have you. I obsessed over Disintegration when I was a teen. I still like the titular track, but really it's teeny-bopper shit.

For the real Cure, you got to go to Echo and the Bunnymen. Or as an alternative, The Sound, an enduring obsession of mine. The mastermind behind The Sound was a man named Adrian Borland, and succumbed to crippling schizo-depression in 1999 and committed suicide.

My parents always made fun of me when I listened to my Cure records--"Why is that guy in so much pain?" Well, ma, dad, it's an act. For all I know Robert Smith might be the most depressed man alive. But there is a much more profound quiet pain in The Sound. It is post-punk stripped of most of the glam/punk-kid affectations. Quite in the same genius vein of label mates Echo and the Bunnymen--but less cinematic and much more introspective.

And unlike the Bunnymen, The Sound never had a hit single. The first couple of albums are incredibly, Ian Curtis-inspired, austere and dark (and I love them QED.) They were urged to write more accessible tunes; they certainly were capable of it. Listen to "One Thousand Reasons."--a song Bobby Smith could have written--if he had any decency. (And I guess his indecency is his appeal.) But The Sound didn't sell-out their sound. They released another barely commercially viable album Thunder Up and then broke up. I guess Borland had minor success in the Nederlands and released a number of solo albums (which I'm processing now--seems to be excellent stuff). So it wasn't all for naught. Except he killed himself.

I'm giving you some of my most well-worn mp3s: the mid-period 1985 EPs Shock of Daylight / Heads and Hearts.

So, the sound of The Sound: Dark post punk. But not goofy gothic. (Though I like 80s gothic--don't get me wrong.) This mid-period stuff has quite a lot instrumental movement going on it; but on songs like "Longest Days" all the parts mesh like a smooth ticking, bitter-sweet alarm clock. The bass sound is amazing. The guitar sounds great. The keyboards sound great. Hell, even the saxophone sounds great. Enough talk. Time for the delicious pop-pain of The Sound!

ICI.

{Side note, trying rapidshare. Let me know if this is a problem.}


Post Script: I think some of the details of the history are wrong. All Fall Down was the album that Borland wrote in response to his label's request to make more accessible tunes. The EPs here are after all that. I don't know. Go here and figure it out with me.

Touched the Parts You Couldn't Reach

My first, and most personal, encounter with Mr. Hitchcock's distinct blend of jangly folk-rock and misdirection-filled lyrics. Bought on cassette in high school. It still sounds great to me two decades later. Peter Buck (of REM) plays guitar, mandolin, etc. Despite somewhat 80s-ified production, it's aurally gorgeous, and the songs are among his catchier and most approachable. Not a jangle out of place, and lyrics tend toward the almost-normal, with very few insects or vibrating fish guts... though the line "He's a long kebab through your ovaries" (from The Devil's Coachman, about the devil presumably), always makes me squirm a bit. Anyway, it's good stuff.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/tu1qii0z1jt/Robyn Hitchcock- Queen Elvis.zip

Watch Us Fall

Great gloomy 80s psych. Definitely a glam crash, not the pop Bunnymen of the mid-to-late 80s, nor the crisp post-punk Bunnymen of Crocodiles, this is a twitchier, sobbier, drunker and stoneder collection of dour imagery, full of late-night collapses and horror flashes, a world in which all that was ever good in the world is lost forever and nothing that remains is worth saving. (Which is more or less how I remember most of the 1980s, actually). The band sounds driven, though, and the songs are beautiful.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/2oygjjujywn/Echo & The Bunnymen- Heaven Up Here.zip

Pushing the Extreme

Deeply satisfying over-the-top guitar punk. A secret classic of American rock and roll.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/2lk13yyylzz/Wipers- Youth of America.zip

Moon Still Tries to Steal the Tide Away

The album I listened to in the parking lot on my walkman at age 13, on that weird shivery day when I told the Sunday school class I'd been teaching, and my mom, that I didn't believe in God and wouldn't ever be coming back to church.

The song 'Dear God', however, is sort of an anomaly (Andy Partridge complained that it was the only song he ever wrote that didn't have a sense of humor), and though it's sort of a perfect mission statement for a disaffected young i-wish-i-could-believe-but-i-can't angster such as I once was, it's not necessarily the best anthem for a more complicatedly spiritual person.

Whatever. The songs on this album are all pretentiously lyrical, soaringly melodic, and working very hard at changing the listener's life. Obviously at least one succeeded.

The sound of XTC here (basically reduced I think to Andy Partridge and a studio full of instruments) bears very little relationship to the earlier albums, which are manic condensed punk-prog-pop full of intricately rocking microgrooves, with clever guitar-bass-drums interplay. (I love love love Black Sea and Drums and Wires, for instance, both of which sound nothing at all like this album).

Skylarking is basically a solo-songwriter's-attempt-to-be-Beatlesy, and as such occasionally falls over the edge into pomposity. But, it's still gorgeous and wonderful.

Post's in two parts due to size, just unzip 'em to one folder and proceed.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/n1tiyhyvmne/XTC- Skylarking.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/vojdlhhtm3k/XTC- Skylarking 2.zip

Song #30,084 that has been stuck in my head

Here is a great reason why nobody hates the Pretenders: Glam, Post-punk, Classic, New Wave...It's all there:



And in case you don't already have a huge crush on Chrissie Hynde:

Mixtapes for Mason- Satan- 80s Metal!

The second 'side' of the mixtape series. This one's 80s metal oriented. The metal I grew up on. None of this silly 'growl vs. screech' stuff with the quadruple kick drum. We're talking dudes with bleached moussed bouffant hair and a bondage-dude's leather vest with studs, ripped jeans with a codpiece and knee-high high-heel boots. We're talking dueling FLYING V GUITAR SOLOS in which the two guitarists stand back to back and lean their sweaty shoulders against each other as they shred, two-hand-tapping toward the sky.

As I put this together I realized just how awesome these bands actually were.

I'd intended a mix that was a little silly, but most of these songs kick total ass regardless of context or irony or the hypothetical and probably mythical greater sophistication of today's music listeners. Fuck the haters. This music was powerful and fun enough to have earned its own self-aggrandizement. After all, it is indeed a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll. (and how did I make this mix without AC-DC? What was I thinking?)

That doesn't mean I can ever entirely forgive & forget. There was a time when the obligatory guitar solo ruled rock. And rock suffered as a result, in ways that are easy to forget nowadays, when rock's biggest threat is total airwave irrelevance... and the previous Worst Thing was fake-sensitive manly men with bad goatees and tanning salon tans, making gruff moany sounds on shitty power ballads.

Wait a minute, you're telling me the Post-Grunge Fake-Sincerity Die-Off of the 90s was directly descended from the worst elements of hair metal?

That, in fact, wimpy fakeness is the same in all genres?

My head just imploded. Better make the devil-horn gesture and go back to headbanging.

OK, that's better.

Obligatory Note (in case you can't be bothered to read the previous post):

These mixes were originally put together for a teenager, so the content is designed to do a little educatin' and a little mind-blowin'.

They were formatted to fit on cassette, so each 'side' will be around 42 minutes.

Most of them are genre-specific, and sort of strike a balance between trying to cover the bases in that genre (i.e. reflecting the 'great artists' in the canon), and reflecting my taste (which is erratic, mystically-oriented, and limited by ignorance), and fitting well together. Occasionally this leads to odd results. But I think they're good listening.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/jyzkjzcizrm/VA- Satan- 80s Metal for Mason.zip

Up next: blues.

Mixtapes for Mason- Was Once An Angel- 80s Goth

A few months ago I embarked on an ambitious mixtape-making project for a teenage friend (Maze-On New), after being encouraged by his bad-influence uncle Ry Toast. I began small, but quickly spiraled out of control and wound up making a LOT of CDs worth of music. I'm going to post them here. This is the first of many-- the series will take us well into September...

it's the Goth I grew up on.

Kids today, they don't understand the real 80s... I'm gonna teach and preach.

Actually, a couple of these songs aren't quite 80s goth in one way or another. The style itself, like metal or most any other defensive subculture, was constantly redefining folks in and out. Who can keep track? Musicians themselves don't wanna be pigeonholed. Hell, neither Bauhaus nor Joy Division, the Two Most Goth Bands In The Universe, considered themselves goth (Hmmm. I didn't include any Joy Division. That's lame). And my own experience with the genre didn't really kick in until 1990 or so... I was more a Depeche Mode Black Celebration vs. Echo & the Bunnymen Lips Like Sugar kind of kid before then. Are they more or less goth than Sisters of Mercy? And... who cares?

So, like all mixes, this has some compromise. Still, it's got the flavor of clove cigarettes and the footprint of Creepers, with some Manic Panic in the hair. Hope you enjoy it.

Mmm. Clove cigarettes...

Note: these mixes were formatted to fit on cassette, so each 'side' will be around 42 minutes. Most of them are genre-specific, and sort of strike a balance between trying to cover the bases in that genre (i.e. reflecting the 'great artists' in the canon), and reflecting my taste (which is erratic, mystically-oriented, and limited by ignorance), and fitting well together. Occasionally this leads to odd results. But I think they're good listening.

Enjoy!

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ayejddmiz3t/VA- Was Once An Angel- 80s Goth for Mason.zip

Up next, the flip side of this 'tape': 80s metal.

Cheese-boigah!

I was originally doing some light research about another Clash song ("Ghetto Defendant") for this blog, when I came across this performance of "Magnificent Seven". It, too, has been on my mind lately as I wrote a short screenplay a few months ago that used it in a scene. But this live version is so, um, alive that I decided to write about it instead -- especially because it nicely bookends the other song from 1981 I wrote about the other day.

"Magnificent Seven" was apparently the first rock/hip-hop song recorded and released, beating out "Rapture" by a few months. The lyrics were a stream of consciousness doing by Joe Strummer, and in that the song is pretty amazing by itself. The recorded version on Sandanista! is a great dancey-punk number, and I suppose the funky bass and beat were the first to hook me on it.

In this live version, recorded for the Tom Snyder Show in 1981, many more themes and influences play out. There's a heavy dub flavor with the guitars. The lyrics are delivered with more of a punk growl. It's less night club-oriented and more rock-club oriented. Above all, this is a rock band, and they could/should (have) give(n) lessons on TV performance.

But addressing the lyrical content: this song is about the post-modern urban rat race.

Ring! ring! its 7:00 a.m.!
Move yourself to go again
Cold water in the face
Brings you back to this awful place
Knuckle merchants and you bankers, too
Must get up an learn those rules
Weather man and the crazy chief
One says sun and one says sleet.

It's about consumerism, superficiality, and the silent toil of the masses. And then there's a little economics lesson about opportunity costs:

Wave bub-bub-bub-bye to the boss
Its our profit, its his loss
But anyway lunch bells ring
Take one hour and do your thaanng!
Cheese-boigah!

But ultimately, it is not rich versus poor. It attacks what lurks for all of us. After it describes the hollowness of the salary man, it preaches about the emptiness of the workingman:

So get back to work and sweat some more
The sun will sink and we'll get out the door
It's no good for man to work in cages
Hits the town, he drinks his wages
You're frettin', you're sweatin'
But did you notice you ain't gettin' anywhere?



There's also a video for the ensuing interview, but it's a little disappointing. They are all kinda nervous without guitars in their hands, and for the first two thirds they resort to Sex Pistols-style rhetoric.

Grace Jones - Pull Up To The Bumper

I recently went on vacation. And, being a music lover, I filled my mp3 player to the brim with old and new stuff before I left.

While I have my morning coffee each day, I let Rhapsody generate song lists for me based on my listening history. And from those song lists I pull the interesting songs and dump them onto playlists with snappy titles like "Pinch n Poke" or "Map Maker, Make Me a Map" or some other label that doesn't help me remember what in the hell I put on them. It was a combination of these mixes mostly that I dumped onto my mp3 player before I took off.

So, there I am, on a train crawling along the coast, when I decide to listen to one of the aforementioned mixes; this one had a theme of world-y, Afro-poppy funky stuff from different decades. I hit play and zone out while I stare out the window. The music starts -- kinda bouncy and disjointed with sporadic 80's percussion. "Hmmm," I think to myself as the singer begins, "this must be that Grace Jones song I threw on there. Not bad."

I keep listening, tapping my finger on the arm rest, but not really concentrating on what I'm hearing. Then the lyrics start to become clear:

Pull up to my bumper baby,
In your long black limousine,
Pull up to my bumper baby,
And drive it in between.

Pull up, to it, don't drive, through it,
Back it, up twice, now that, fits nice.

Huh?!? Wait a minute -- she's not singing about parking cars! Now I'm paying full attention to the Jamaican chanteuse crooning in my ears:

The lines are short,
I'll fix you up so won't you please come on,
That shiny, sleek machine you wheel,
I've got to blow your horn.

The lyrics create mental images that are in stark contrast to the foreign shoreline and towns I see through the window. I laugh at my private joke and vow to research the Lp when I get home.

Produced by Sly and Robbie, the album "Nightclubbing" has great dub-flavor, but there is a New Wave edge to the grooves. I recommend it (especially for the Iggy Pop cover), but this post is really about the song and not the whole record.

The video (1981) does a great job of conveying the nocturnal city as a living thing. There's a post-modern feel; like the technology that was able to make the pastiche of the chaotic city was also responsible for its unruliness. Watch for the great shot towards the end of a wall of TVs exploding. Good ol' Regan-era, pre-MTV video.

With the Dead Sun Shining On Our Backs

Mid-80s pretentious Australian psychedelia.

Pretty great at that.

I want those paisley shirts.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/5wyjgzidnmd/The Church- Heyday.zip

Soft and Discreet As Uranium

Rubbery British space-funk from the 1980s, and far more clever and subtle than that would imply. This is a fairly wicked party album and one with lyrics good enough to dwell on at length.

I bought this in high school because of the single "Gunning for the Buddha", but the other songs on here are pretty diverse & startling. Seriously decadent gay-buddhists-on-quaaludes kind of vibe, brainy and horny and wierd. As always, your mileage may vary.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/uzetzwomdki/Shriekback- Big Night Music.zip

There's No Turning Back

For fans of the Wipers, whose relentless gorgeous fuzz-punk splendor is legendary, this 1991 Greg Sage solo album might be a little disturbing-- the drums are horribly processed/fake sounding, for instance; and the rhythm guitars are (relatively) strummy and mellow.

At first, in fact, I was going to post Youth of America. But then I realized, folks already know about the Wipers. It's music I love, sure, but it's not obscure music I love. Why not post something that would otherwise be overlooked?

This solo record from the early 90s is very personal to me-- i love it for reasons I can't entirely explain. Mostly the fake drums bother me, though a couple of the songs strike me as a little cheesy too. But 80s production aside, there's creamy/silky and shimmery guitar, and oh the melodies are truly melodies. And Mr. Sage's naive and mostly very direct lyrics get caught in your head, and the songs ache, and you remember them days later, and when you're sad they help you feel like you're not alone.

Or at least, that's how I feel about this album. As always, your mileage may vary. But see what you think.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/jltzzw5q1n2/Greg Sage- Sacrifice for Love.zip

I Shift The Blame To The Worm In The Bottle

The first vinyl LP I ever purchased new. 14, I convinced my mom to drive me to an alternative record store (this was long, long before the word 'alternative' was a genre of music- in this case what was notable about the record store was that it had vinyl by independent record labels), where I searched the bins of punk and postpunk (fascinatingly obscure and entirely mysterious to me) until I found this, which I'd read a review of and in fact came specifically for. (The review, a sort of head-shaking equivocation in Rolling Stone, somehow indicated something so wierd I had to hear it immediately).

On the way home I read some of the lyrics to my mom out loud. She shook her head. "Methamphetamines", she said. "They make you unable to express yourself properly."

For those of you who know Wire as an angular minimalist punk band, this is liable to be a bit startling- it's lush, sort of decadent, world-weary, surrealist synth-pop. Though, lyrics from the chorus in the catchiest song, "Kidney Bingos", run "money spines paper lung/kidney bingos organ fun", so pop might not really be the proper word. And despite the terrible 80s gated reverb snare drum sounds, the synths and guitars are very muted and sombre. The overall mood is sort of a decayed afterparty where everyone is ready to go home and cry, except the acid is only just settling in and the band is a little freaked.

As a 14-year old, I actually thought the only explanation was that the band members must be both gay and insane. I always thought that was a neatly transgressive combo... In retrospect, I can think of other explanations. Like, the horrific experience of being on lots of acid in the 1980s. My mom's explanation may even be correct, who knows. Some of the lyrics, I've been listening to for 20 years now, and still don't have a clue what they mean.

Though, meaning isn't everything.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/tvl2jyr2tnl/Wire- A Bell Is A Cup Until It Is Struck.zip