Plausibly positable as the best possible combination of smarm and songcraft. Not the helium-freakout Ween, nor the classic-rock extendo-jam Ween, nor yet the 'make fun of a genre' Ween. Well, maybe this is the 'make fun of many genres' Ween... which means that what you get is delicious songwriting that's only half tongue-in-cheek.
You get lyrics like "mutilated lips give a kiss on the lips to wormlike tips extending tentacles expanding in my mind I'm fine accepting only fresh brine you can get another drop of this yeah you wish" matched to catchy melodies, with bits of prog-rock pomposity, dreamy guitar lines and pastoral clouds of sweetitude.
Importantly, you can more or less take a lot of the songs seriously, if that's how you prefer to roll.
I've had this since I was a kid, got it on vinyl when I was 15 or so. I doubt that I've listened to it all the way through more than 3 or 4 times. But I'm really glad it exists, because this is hands-down the weirdest music I've ever heard.
Every now & again the songs slip momentarily into a recognizable form-- perhaps in a 'quirky geeks trying to out-clever the Residents' sort of mode. But then the insane gibbering insects start their choral music again and the wolf spiders crawl all over your face and the moon starts beating its big plastic drum overhead and everything goes fractal grid, and it goes back to bearing no relation whatsoever to any known variety of human music.
Interestingly, this is completely non-electronic, instruments are all tweaked objects and modified sound sources. You can't get this particular kind of bizarreness from oscillators.
Gently gorgeous twang and cheese. A broad harmonic imagination and sensuous attention to tone. Not just for guitar geeks and recording nerds, though certainly anyone who's stroked some frets or mounted a microphone will get extra pleasure from it.
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.
Found an LP version of this in a crappy overpriced-junk store in my neighborhood in Queens. What I'm posting though isn't that (I digitized it but badly, and it sounded dull & quiet, so I downloaded it) but the first half of a CD re-release. (The second half was all newer stuff and bonus tracks, and I really like albums that feel like albums.)
Totally wonderful.
She was a labelmate and friend of Etta James, who duets here on tracks 1 & 5. If you like Etta, you'll like this. If you don't like Etta, fie upon you. If you aren't sure, tell me in the comments, and I'll post some Etta James for you right away.
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.
Pure party start to finish. These guys were on a serious rip-roaring youngster-with-funk ride to the far side. Nowadays Buddy Guy is an elder statesman and Junior Wells is on Saturn with Sun Ra. But at the time of this recording, they were punks with fire in their eyes.
I saw Junior Wells at a big street-festival thing in San Diego, circa 1994 or so. I remember he seemed sloppy drunk and embarrassingly bad; doing half-ass James Brown moves and sort of slobbering into the harp. It was musically competent mostly because of the backing band. In retrospect he was probably in terrible health at the time. But it was a big disappointment after hearing the energy displayed in this album.
