Live! @ Rossi Musik Fatmawati, Jakarta. Minggu, 22 November 2009. Direkam oleh Dede.

Live! @ Rossi Musik Fatmawati, Jakarta. Minggu, 22 November 2009. Direkam oleh Dede.

1. “Bang!” – 2:54
2. “Gone Forever” – 3:36
3. “Last Dance” – 3:47
4. “Boys Who Rape (Should All Be Destroyed)” – 3:04
5. “Heart of Stone” – 3:55
6. “Oh, I Buried You Today” – 1:22
7. “Suicide” – 3:13
8. “D.R.U.G.S.” – 4:30
9. “Breaking into Cars” – 3:08
10. “Break Up Girls!” – 4:00
11. “Wine” – 3:41
12. “Echoes” – 3:27 [iTunes Store bonus track]

[RS] [MU]

I lived my life at 45 RPM

I’m in the middle of a two-part feature concerning three of the best groups of the ’60s (Herman’s Hermits, The Young Rascals and The Turtles) and figured I’d make this week’s theme about ten bands whose 45’s were a staple of my collection. For those born later, AM radio was king, and WMCA and WABC in New York City were among the kingmakers. After an era of crooner pop and teen idol mania, the charts were invaded by surf rock, Motown soul, garage/psych sides and that multi-wave British Invasion. Radio would never be the same.

Many artists have gotten their due critically and financially, from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones to The Beach Boys and Simon and Garfunkel. Many have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, although several are either awaiting nomination or seemingly have no shot despite making a huge impact in a short and magical time.

I’m going to use today’s list to tout ten worthy artists who I feel are very under-appreciated. They’re enshrined in my Hall of Fame and I still enjoy hearing their music today. Not all have decent video clips, so I’m linking to a site where you can at least hear some audio samples and hopefully pick up a greatest hits collection, if not a few of their catalogue albums or a larger anthology.

If you’re a powerpop or garage fan, there are probably no surprises here. But if you only know these bands from a hit or two on oldies radio, I promise you there is more worth digging for.

Tommy James and the Shondells: A pretty fascinating story of how a guy accidentally becomes a bubblegum idol, hates it, and then becomes one of the more interesting purveyors of commercial psychedelic pop. How can a guy who strung together that many hits not be more highly respected? One of the era’s better producers as well.  Wiki.

Gary Lewis and the Playboys: Even the involvement of Snuff Garrett and Leon Russell couldn’t overcome the fact that Gary was the son of Jerry Lewis, so how could you take this stuff seriously. But Gary was no Dino, Desi and Billy; the band kicked out seven Top Ten hits in two years (!) and this new collection reveals how much great stuff you never got to hear. Wiki.

The McCoys: The band that spawned Rick Derringer had an immediate hit with the iconic “Hang On Sloopy” and never hit #1 again, but their singles included covers of “Fever”, “Come On Let’s Go” and the underrated “Don’t Worry Mother”. Great stuff on the albums, too; “Mr. Summer” is an unknown wonder. The core of the band would up backing Johnny Winter during his transition from Texas bluesman to arena rocker.  Wiki.

The Buckinghams: Another band whose hits came fast and furious and then they were gone. Catchy songs that added horns and time changes resulting in songs more progressive than most. Sometimes it didn’t work out (the middle section in the expanded version of  ”Susan” doesn’t age well) but Chicago and Blood Sweat and Tears leveraged some of these tricks in their arrangements. Still  kicking today. Wiki.

The Grass Roots: Not certain why they never get included in the discussion of great groups of the era. Like The Turtles, they recorded the work of great songwriters (P.F. Sloan was even an original member) and had a string of radio hits that extended into the 70s. The songs were not only ear candy but many were socially observant, and they featured a great lead singer in Rob Grill. And yes, that’s Creed Bratton from The Office on guitar.  Wiki.

Paul Revere and the Raiders: Started as a raucous garage band in the Pacific Northwest, launched into America’s living room on an iconic television program and parlayed the opportunity into a string of hit singles, yet those costumes they became famous for led many to dismiss them as cartoonish wannabees. Wrong! Mark Lindsay’s looks got them onto teen magazines but singles like “Kicks”, “Hungry”, “Just Like Me” and the dynamic “Him or Me” cemented their legend. Wiki.

The Box Tops: I’m still amazed how powerful “The Letter” is forty years later, especially for a song that didn’t even hit the two minute mark. And while “Cry Like a Baby” was their only other Top Ten, that only scratched the surface of this great band. “Neon Rainbow”, “Soul Deep”, “Sweet Cream Ladies”…Alex Chilton would reinvent himself with Big Star and time has proven just how valuable Dan Penn, Wayne Thompson, Spooner Oldham and Chips Moman were to have around. Soul Deep was not only a great song, but a perfect description of the band.  Wiki.

The Troggs: Another band often mistakenly dismissed as a one or two hit wonder, they had several great sides. And as anthemic as “Wild Thing” might be, “With a Girl Like You”, “Love is All Around”, “All of the Time” and “I Can’t Control Myself” are superior songs. A great blend of garage band and druggy music with Reg Presley’s nasal sneer the icing on the cake. (Also famous, of course, for  the legendary taped argument where one member suggests that a track needs a little more fairy dust on it). Wiki 

Mitch Ryder: Mitch and The Detroit Wheels burned like a comet and recorded arguably the hottest rock’n'roll single of all time in “Devil With a Blue Dress / Good Golly Miss Molly”. Bad management and naive decisions broke the band up within a couple of years, but they had a few great singles and recorded a treasure trove of killer rave-ups. Most don’t know that Ryder continued to make great albums over the next forty years because he gets no airplay. (Hell, even his Wikipedia page isn’t up to date). Wiki.

The 1910 Fruitgum Company: Yeah, I know it’s a bubblegum group, but I will unashamedly put “Indian Giver” out there as one of the best singles of the late ’60s. “Simon Says”, “1-2-3 Red Light” and “Special Delivery” all got serious spin time at my house and remain irresistable hooks. Listen – if Joan Jett covers your song, you’ve passed the cool test. Wiki.

This is Man or Astroman? with “Name of Numbers”.  These guys are great.  Have a listen they won’t disappoint.

ALLIGATOR: St. Augustine, FL: Prehistoric Reptilians: TAPE

Listen up youngsters. This is the future. Crust and doom noise have finally been defeated and the forces of good and danceable punk are alive again. (Thank god!) So, turn up the treble, crank shaft that reverb, grow out your Mohawk /beard and get your pasty ass to the beach. St. Augustine Beach to be exact, and make sure your blasting this 8 song tape the whole fucking way. To say this shit rocks would be an understatement. Its like a surfy punk dance party and everyone in Florida is invited. While listening to this I can imagine chilling on the beach, smoking a fat joint and dancing with a bunch of pale dirty punks next to a bon fire like those cheesy 60’s surf movies. The music is an amalgamation of CCR and THE STOOGES with a reverb surf guitar strut that had me thrusting my arm right out the window of my bitchin Camaro. (actually an Altimi) Amazing vocals and lyrics that are sung intense and insightfully, like the first FUGAZI record. You can feel these fuckers rocking the fuck out of their living room and loving every second of it. And shit, It really was recorded in a living room. Jacobs living room to be more precise. Hopefully this tape isn’t a sign that we are all about to be taken over by REPTOIDS. If so, I hope ALLIGATOR is the soundtrack to Armageddon. 8 songs. RECOMMENDED. (Scottanimo Bay)

WEBSITE: http://www.myspace.com/alligatorsucks ,  http://thepeoplesrepublicofrockandroll.wordpress.com 

AVAILABLE AT:

The Peoples Republic of Rock n Roll
1195 St. rd. 206 East
St. Augustine, FL
32086

The girls of Paran Maum

I finally got around to rewatching Linda Linda Linda last week, a Japanese movie released in 2005 I saw for the first time last summer after several people told me “you gotta check it out, you’ll love it, it’s totally your kind of movie.” And it really is. In fact, it might be your kind of movie too (especially if you’re my friend Caitlin, and I’ve been meaning to watch this movie with you for over a year). A touching, feel-good movie about a group of teenage girls putting a band together for a school festival? It’s pretty much a crowd-pleaser, especially for feminist music geeks who like movies.

The plot is as follows: guitarist Kei Tachibana (Yuu Kashii), drummer Kyoko Yamada (Aki Maeda), and bassist Nozomi Shirakawa (Shiori Sekine of Base Ball Bear) have a band and are playing Hiiragi-sai, their school’s annual festival. They’ve got a great set list of covers from The Blue Hearts, a popular Japanese rock band. Problem is, their singer-guitarist has quit the band, leaving them down a frontwoman days before their gig. They need a replacement and are adamant about it being a girl. They decide on Son (Bae Doona), a shy exchange student from South Korea whose Japanese is shaky and has never sung in front of an audience before. They rise to the occasion, with a little bit of struggle and growing along the way. Might sound like familiar territory, but it’s totally delightful.

One thing I really enjoy about this movie is how rehearsal is central to the girls’ interactions. For one, the time and effort they spend in practive, is critical in any band learning how to play together and key to their homosocial interactions. While some movies might document a band’s progression in one “rockin’” montage, this movie devotes several scenes to the band’s improvement, as well as the frustrations and tensions that result from feeling like they’re not getting their sound right. In their first rehearsal, they muddle their way through The Blue Heart’s hit “Linda Linda,” only to giggle at how horrible it was before trying again. Later, we find the girls forced to practice quietly at Kei’s ex-boyfriend’s studio space well into the night.

I also enjoy their commitment to the band. While the girls do have ex-boyfriends and crushes, they choose to balance boys with other issues their band usually comes first. In a key scene, Son is asked out by a male classmate named Mackey at school. The rest of the girls look through the window of an abandoned classroom, watching their lead singer choose the band, and her friends, over some guy who happens to like her but that she doesn’t know.

Sometimes the band wears on the girls, and the movie reaches a climax when the girls have worked so hard that they collapse after an all-night practice that makes them late to their gig. Their ambitions sometimes eclipse reality, as is clearly evident with Kei dreams about opening for The Ramones while sleeping through much of the festival. Yet, their drive still gets them to the gig, with their talent ultimately ensuring a rousing success at the festival and the promise of this new band.

Kei Tachibana, future seasoned professional; image courtesy of cinemastrikesback.com

I do find the girls’ fandom of The Blue Hearts, whose songs they cover, to be quite interesting. For one, girls identifying with a fast, hard-rocking all-male rock band, while at no time talking about how cute certain members are, seems to suggest a wider range of possibilities for who can influence a girl. The band even goes so far as to call themselves Paran Maum, which is “blue hearts” in Korean (an indication of Son’s importance to the band). There’s a lot of talk on this blog about the importance of women and girls influencing one another in popular music. However, we shouldn’t short shrift what it means for girls finding their sound and voice through boys and men or ignore the progressive and possibly queer potential in girls identifying with boys. Like Patti Smith, PJ Harvey, and Sleater-Kinney before them, these girls don’t plug in and rock out to be with the band — they are the band and want to thrash just as hard as the boys.

Nozomi, Kyoko, and Kei help Son learn The Blue Hearts; image courtesy of cinemastrikesback.com

And, of course, we cannot ignore the obvious queerness of an all-girl band who work closely together to perform a song clearly written for a girl from a boy and maintaining the boy’s words and intent. It’s where the movie gets its name and the band gets its purpose, after all.

As there are queer dimensions to the girls’ fandom, they also have an interesting relationship with fashion, ethnic identity, and music history, perhaps in some ways analogous to Mitsuko’s relationship to Elvis Presley and rockabilly fashion in Mystery Train. Kyoko rocks a Joan Jett-style mullet and weave punk fashion into their school wardrobe. She also shorten the length of her skirts, sport funky sneakers, and plays with accessories. Son and Nozomi opt out of fashion-plate status, feeling more comfortable in frumpy attire, while Kei prefers a more athletic, clean-cut look. In short, while they’re all required to abide by standardized dress, like many girls, they figure out a way to create and play with looks that better reflect their personality, and some are clearly influenced by rock music in constructing their identity.

Just as Paran Maum are influenced by The Blue Hearts, The Blue Hearts are clearly influenced by The Ramones. I don’t want to suggest that the Japanese cherrypick through relics and artifacts of bygone western pop culture because they are uniformly obsessed with American culture. For one, The Blue Hearts were active and popular in Japan during the late 80s and early 90s, in large part because they were heavily informed by classic British and American punk.

For another, The Ramones themselves had a similar relationship with their own American past, turning to surf rock and girl groups from the 50s and 60s. For them, while most 70s rock bands were trying to set a record for the longest organ solo, rock music needed the return of the three-minute pop song.

In addition, it’s worth pointing out that the movie itself has an interesting relationship with Japanese and American music culture via the presence of former Smashing Pumpkins’ guitarist James Iha, who is Japanese American and composed the movie’s instrumental tracks.

James Iha writes the songs; image courtesy of smashingpumpkins.com

As this movie depicts a band’s need to improvise, make quick decisions, and embrace makeshift situations, encouraging girls to be independent thinkers, so to does it showcase ingenuity. A tremendous example of this for me is Son’s ability to find surprising rehearsal spaces like empty karaoke rooms in order to become more comfortable with her voice and the microphone. In a lesser movie, Son’s scene in the karaoke bar would come off as oppressively quirky. Here, I find it touching. We see a girl negotiating with a male employee over the room and witness her becoming increasingly comfortable, if not still a bit awkward, with her voice, an unfamiliar language, and a developing stage presence. That she’s doing it on her own, in a space she’s found for herself, seems as good an example as any of how girls have to be creative and free-thinking for the assurance of their own maturity.  

Admittedly, I haven’t seen too many Japanese movies and have nothing more than a cursory, Criterion-approved understanding of Asian cinema, along with its influence and heterogenity. One thing that struck me is how much like a Wes Anderson movie Linda Linda Linda felt in terms of its reliance on long tracking shots, wide angles, deadpan humor, panoramic framing, and meditative pacing. That said, I hasten to add that Anderson has stated an indebtedness to the French New Wave and American directors like Hal Ashby, I’m assuming Japanese filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujirō Ozu left an impression as well. Having never seen an Ozu movie at the writing of this post (though I do have Good Morning at home), I can’t help but wonder if Linda Linda Linda is actually continuing its nation’s film tradition and that the only folks who’d argue an Andersonian influence are just Western viewers with a shallow scene of cinephilia.

I’m also not entirely clear about the nature of Japanese schools. I came through an underfunded, less-than-superlative Texas public school system. Thus, Paran Maum’s school seems like a tony liberal arts magnate where teenagers are given considerable support and resources for their artistic inclinations, thus implying that the students come from respectable middle- to upper-middle-class families. But I’m not sure if this high school is exceptional in Japan or an indication of the country’s to education and their status as an economic superpower. So while I initially feel the need to mention the classed dimensions of privilege that allow the girls the fine arts education and leisure time to form a band (instead of, say, take jobs or quit school to support their families), I don’t want to suggest that what I see as an American viewer is in accord with Japan’s classed realities.

That said, despite my unfamiliarity with Japanese culture and my clearly raced position as an American white woman, I felt the band’s ambition and spunk tremendously inspiring and universal for anyone wants to see girls tear it up. I rooted for them through their hard times and had a smile on my face when they plugged in and finally let it rip.

Like Kei, I'm really glad Son is in the band; image courtesy of bateszi.animeuknews.net

“2009 beach-pop was about texture and haze, with artists like Washed Out, Best Coast, and many others spreading lo-fi gauze on otherwise upbeat pop ditties to conjure that sense of sunny abandon that comes with being at the ocean.

You could lump Brooklyn two-piece the Drums in the same category (their upcoming EP is entitled Summertime!) if their approach wasn’t so different from such acts– crystal clear by comparison– and refreshingly devoid of obscuration. With its bright, sparkling melodies, “I Felt Stupid”, a track that doesn’t appear on Summertime!, is a good example of the group’s unabashed pop. Displaying a clear love of new wave and synth-pop, the song bounces along with a giddy energy that plays off its melancholic lyrical content, which addresses the lost love of many summers ago (“Your arms around me seemed to be the only good thing that ever happened to me,” singer Jonathan Pierce laments). But the track is so danceable that it’s hard to worry much about his heartbreak. When the Drums mention the coast (“We can take a walk now, down the to beach… where we’re finally free”), it’s only in passing, more of an idea than a destination, and it seems to drive home the feeling that this music isn’t just for one season of the year.” – p4k track review

The Drums – The Drums EP (2009)

Working at the school newspaper has made me unable to write anything but cutlines as these blog titles. Lame. It’s true though, Surfer Blood is one of those bands whose influences are numerous and are pretty easy to pick out, and they’ve got some good ones. Cheap Trick meets Piebald. It’s The Living End of surfer pop. Like The Replacements grandson. Pounds out the melodies that Set Your Goals failed so miserably to deliver on their latest album(not worth linking). The rhythms are a little Silversun Pickups. Like if Fugazi and Quicksand are Surfer Blood’s all too serious older brothers. Hints of “Chutes too Narrow” Shins are obvious at some points. Surfer Blood is most of all crushing and comforting, perseverance in the face of futility. Listen to “Swim(to reach the end)” and “Floating Vibes” here.

As regulars here know by now, Lucid Culture HQ is undergoing some big renovations and for that reason we have to leave this site more or less in limbo until about the middle of October  when we  return with more of the stuff you may have grown accustomed to: the NYC live music calendar, cd and concert reviews, Song of the Day and our Tuesday Top Ten Songs list. This will also serve as a test of sorts to see how much traffic we get while there’s not much going on here. In the meantime, here are the songs of the day that we’d scheduled to appear, a new one every day through October 15, 2009  as the countdown to #1 on the Top 666 Songs of Alltime list continues.  If this isn’t enough to satisfy your curiosity, look around a little, browse the index above and we’ll be back before you know it.

304. Joy Division – Walked in Line

“All dressed in uniforms so fine/They drank and killed to pass the time/Wearing the shame of all their crimes/With measured steps they walked in line.” Nazis as metaphor for conformity as a whole, stepping to a ridiculously simple, potent descending punk riff. An early, 1977-era song released on the posthumous 1981 Still lp, available in a ridiculous number of live and studio versions: peek around.

303. Dick Dale – Misirlou

The lefty guitar genius and surf music pioneer is Lebanese-American and probably heard this iconic Greek melody as a kid in the 50s. Nice to see him healthy again and back on the road. New York Greek party rockers Magges also do a tremendously fun version.

302. The Dog Show – If I Laugh Anymore I’ll Break

Blistering and catchy, sort of a cross between the Dead Boys and 50s R&B. One of the more obscure tracks here, this is on a rare ep by the NYC mod punks from 2003 or so and well worth seeking out, whether on a live bootleg (they exist) or otherwise.

301. Elvis Costello – Riot Act

One of Steve Nieve’s finest, most poignant moments in the band with all those hauntingly restrained piano arpeggios. From Get Happy, 1980; mp3s are everywhere.

300. The Grateful Dead – Days Between

Every now and then, Jerry and co. would pull out the gravitas and this is a prime, extremely poignant example from right before the end, an elegiac epic that in its dark, determined way might just be their best song. Not that it really mattered, but the Dead never released it during their lifetime as either a studio or live recording. So you need to go to dead.net or archive.org, where this 12-minute gem resides in several places.

299. The Go-Betweens – You Can’t Say No Forever

Haunting, percussive janglerock cautionary tale about the dangers of succumbing to the lure of marriage. An apt companion piece to the Fun Boy Three’s Tunnel of Love…and a million blues and country songs. It doesn’t sound much like anything the artsy New Zealand pop band ever did before or after. From 16 Lovers’ Lane, 1989; mp3s are everywhere.

298. The Rolling Stones – Black Limousine

A poignant requiem for a good time, Ron Wood’s warmly fluid blues solo one of his finest moments in the band over a neat hesitation-step series of basic blues changes. From Tattoo You, 1981; mp3s are everywhere, and don’t be shy about downloading it because like all major label releases, this one will never make the band any more money. Not that they need it anyway. The link above is a spirited live version from the tour of the same year.

297. Telephone – Au Coeur de la Nuit

The title translates as “heart of the night,” which to songwriter Jean-Louis Aubert’s credit transcends cliche here. One of the most iconic songs in French rock, it’s a blistering requiem, title track from the Parisian rockers’ 1981 lp. Which you can download all over the place; the link above is a careening live version from German tv.

296. Zager & Evans – In the Year 2525

OK, some of you may find this cheesy and over-the-top. But we think the 1969 one-hit wonder is spooky in a psychedelic California Dreaming kind of way. Whatever you think, the video above is hilarious – and it screams out for someone with a little more depth to cover the song and bring out all its apocalyptic angst. By the way, the song was a last-minute addition to the band’s first album (if you find it, pick it up, it’s rare). Available for taping off your favorite oldies radio station as well as all over the web.

295. Randi Russo – Wonderland

Arguably the iconic indie rock siren’s signature song, this is a bruised, towering anthem about being left behind. And the injustice and cruel irony of it. From her classic Solar Bipolar cd, 2000; the link in the title above is the considerably faster but still dangerous version from the Live at Sin-e album, 2005.

294. Amy Rigby – Rode Hard

Culture shock has seldom been more amusingly, or more poignantly portrayed: fearless big city girl goes south and she doesn’t understand the natives any better than they understand her. She might be jealous of their brightly lit homes and seemingly secure lives, but she’s not sure. And are there any eligible guys within a hundred mile radius? Is there one? From the Sugar Tree cd, 2000, which you could download, or you could get at her site, she’s an independent artist so none of your money will go to any sleazy record label exec.

293. Erika Simonian – Bitter & Brittle

Best song on the classic 2003 All the Plastic Animals cd by the NYC underground songwriter/chanteuse and Sprinkle Genies guitarist, grimly yet wittily contemplating a fullscale breakdown with one of her characteristically gemlike lyrics.

292. Elvis Costello – Love Went Mad

“Do you know how I feel? Do you have a heart, do you have a heart of iron and steel?” the King inquires with a savage amphetamine insistence. A fast, anthemic smash from Punch the Clock, 1983, driven by Steve Nieve’s incisively bright piano. Mp3s are everywhere.

291. Curtis Eller – After the Soil Fails

Apocalyptic opening track on the fiery NYC banjo rocker’s 2008 cd Wirewalkers & Assassins:

This time the dream is a Russian oil tanker

Fidel Castro and Cuban sugarcane

Richard Nixon’s having the same old nightmare

Jack Ruby’s black secret crawling up through the drain…

When the hurricanes finally take out New Orleans

And scarlet fever has finally left Philadelphia bare…

There’s a ghost that we remember hanging in the air

290. Ninth House – Your Past May Come Back to Haunt Me

Catchy, swaying Nashville gothic existentialist cautionary tale: “I know all your secrets,” frontman Mark Sinnis intones ominously. From Swim in the Silence, 2000.

289. Elena Zazanis – Stingray

The highly regarded indie film actress is also a terrific singer and songwriter, with a powerful alto wail and a haunting chromatic edge that reflect her Greek heritage. For a few years during the early part of the decade, she led a first-rate, dark New York powerpop band and this is their finest moment, a towering anthem vividly depicting a surreal nightmare scenario that doesn’t end well. Never recorded, although live bootlegs exist.

288. REM – Find the River

Arguably their best song, about as far from their indie roots as they ever got, lush and anthemic with a string section. It’s about getting old, and failure, and death. “All of this is coming your way.” From Automatic for the People, 1992. Click on the video in the link above.

287. Latin Quarter – Truth About John

For about a year the British rock press were all gaga over this lyrically brilliant, Costelloesque band who were one of the first to bring Afropop flourishes into rock. This is probably their most straight-up rock song, a bruising anthem about Albert Goldman’s hatchet-job John Lennon bio. From the Modern Times lp, 1985. The Pip Hoyle style organ solo out is luscious. Frontman Steve Skaith now fronts his own band, continuing to play and record intriguingly polystylistic, lyrical songs. The link in the title above is the stream at imeem.

286. Flash & the Pan – Restless

A few years after their legendary 60s garage-pop band the Easybeats had run its course, Australians Harry Vanda and George Young led this pioneering, truly extraordinary dark new wave studio project best known for their big 1979 hit Hey St. Peter. This apocalyptic number sets a haunting Middle Eastern melody to a fast, hypnotic dance beat, the lyrics as offhandedly disconcertingly as ever. From the classic Lights in the Night lp, 1980, more easily downloaded than you would think – the link above is a torrent.

285. The Room – Naïve

Best song on probably the best ep ever made, the Liverpool new wave legends’ 1985 release Jackpot Jack. This updates noir 60s pop with a jazzy tinge and haunting Hammond organ, Dave Jackson’s ominously breathy voice and characteristically biting lyrics. It’s also a great drinking song – who knew beer goggles could be so lyrical. Jackson and bassist Becky Stringer would carry on in the equally captivating Benny Profane and currently the Nashville gothic act the Dead Cowboys.

We’ve been doing this every Tuesday – to cut down on the workload here while we attend to some infrastructure things, we meant to suspend the feature for awhile. Before we do, here’s this week’s top ten. As always, you’ll see this week’s #1 song on our 100 Best Songs of 2009 list at the end of December, along with maybe some of the rest of these too. This is strictly for fun – it’s Lucid Culture’s tribute to Kasey Kasem and a way to spread the word about some of the great music out there that’s too edgy for the corporate media and their imitators in the blogosphere. Every link here will take you to each individual song.

1. Bobby Vacant & the Weary – Never Looking Back

So far this is the best single song we’ve heard this year, a defiant look back on a checkered past. Suits us just fine. From the new cd.

2. The Joel Plaskett Emergency – Drunk Teenagers

We’re late in picking up on this snide classic by the Canadian powerpop rocker. He’s at  Union Hall on 10/15.

3. Karine Poghosyan with the Kokolo String Ensemble - Haydn F Maj. Piano Concerto

The fiery pianist with an equally inspired chamber orchestra behind her.

4. Sarah Lov – Tell Me How

“It is all I ever feel, like nothing good is ever real,” she laments over a catchy Aimee Mann-esque midtempo anthem. She’s at Union Hall on 10/16 at 8.

5. Izzy and the Kesstronics – Hanging Death Waves

Izzy from Uncle Fucker on guitar plus a sax and rhythm section playing weird funny surf/garage/roots stuff. They’re at Beauty Bar in Bushwick on 9/27 at 9ish.

6. String Driven Thing – Suicide

Every now and then we run across a classic like this. This is from a reunion concert by the 70s art-rock cult favorites sometime in the 90s, a bitter, somewhat brutal graveside scene for a dead rocker:

The T in contract

The I in empire

The M in muzak

The E in Ex-Lax

The S in suicide

7. Erin Hill – Girl Inventor

Classical harpist who sounds absolutely nothing like Joanna Newsom playing psychedelic pop.  More like Kate Bush actually.

8. The MK Groove Orchestra – MCP

Woozy, inventive groove-driven big band jazz. They’re at Spikehill on 9/26 at 10.

9. Kulu Kulu Garden – Taking the Tray Away

Danceable Japanese noise-rock with a real screamer on vocals, cool stuff.

10. Don’t Give Small Money Chance Brass Band – It Is Raining

Brooklyn big band playing horn music from Ghana! Pretty wild.

Możemy narzekać na World Wide Web, na rosnącą głupotę użytkowników sieci, psioczyć na tzw. dzieci Neostrady, ale gdyby nie internet to… no właśnie – co? Otóż gdyby nie jego przepastne zasoby, to być może nie poznałbym (lub poznałbym dużo później) wielu wartych uwagi wykonawców. A oto i ich krótka lista (kolejność nie ma znaczenia)…

Captain Beefheart (& His Magic Band)
Już nawet nie pamiętam, jak trafiłem na wzmiankę o Beefhearcie. Chyba po prostu grzebałem w Wikipedii. Tak czy inaczej znajduje się on teraz w pierwszej piętnastce najczęściej słuchanych przeze mnie wykonawców (a znam go stosunkowo od niedawna). Jego twórczość najczęściej charakteryzuje się słowem “awangarda”. I rzeczywiście – jeśli ktoś z was spróbuje posłuchać sztandarowego dzieła Kapitana – “Trout Mask Replica” (1969), to z pewnością zgodzi się z owym określeniem. Ja jednak ukochałem sobie bifhartową twórczość ze względu na jego wcześniejszy (pierwszy) longplay, który zwie się “Safe As Milk” (1967). Nie jest on jeszcze tak dziwaczny, ale widać tu już zarówno nietypowe podejście Dona Van Vlieta (bo tak zwie się naprawdę Kapitan), jak i umiejętności Magic Bandu, z którym gra.  Najmocniejszymi fragmentami albumu są wg mnie: “Sure ‘Nuff ‘n Yes I Do”, “Zig Zag Wanderer”, “Dropout Boogie”, “Electricity” oraz “Abba Zaba”. Wymieniłem prawie połowę płyty, ale co poradzę – taki to dobry album. Jeśli tylko ktoś lubi blues rocka, (wczesnego) rhythm & bluesa oraz nietypowe podejście do spraw muzycznych, to powinien się “Safe As Milk” zdecydowanie zainteresować.

The Ventures
Kilka lat temu szukałem w internecie surf rocka. Natknąłem się m.in. właśnie na The Ventures, ale ich utwór, który wtedy przesłuchałem nie był dokładnie tym, czego pragnąłem, więc wrzuciłem chłopaków w zakurzony kąt mojego umysłu i szukałem dalej. Jakiś rok temu trafiłem natomiast na wzmiankę o albumie “The Colorful Ventures”, na którym to każdy utwór ma jakiś kolor w tytule. Uwielbiam takie koncepty, więc dorwałem ich składankę i… są wspaniali! Grają instrumentalnie (nie-ma-wokalu!), więc ci, którzy stawiają głównie na sferę liryczną, mogą się nieco zawieść. Ja jestem jednak zupełnie usatysfakcjonowany twórczością Venturesów. Najdoskonalej nadaje się ona jako tło przy codziennych zajęciach. Taki życiowy, osobisty soundtrack. Zresztą posłuchajcie tylko motywu z “Hawaii Five-O” w ich wykonaniu!

Tom Waits
Tego koleżkę poznałem całkiem niedawno. Jego twórczość dzieli się zazwyczaj na dwie części. Na początku Tom był jakby Frankiem Sinatrą z gorszej dzielnicy. Śpiewał ballady chrypiącym głosem, z nagrań sączył się zapach zadymionego pubu. Już samo to jest stosunkowo oryginalne, jednak Waits na klimacie nie poprzestał i od płyty “Swordfishtrombones” (1983) zauważamy wzrost wartości artystycznej jego twórczości. Od tej pory można ją już z powodzeniem określić jako wypadkową między Bobem Dylanem i wspomnianym w tej notce Cpt. Beefheartem. Jest groteskowo, jest chrypiąco, jest nietuzinkowo zarówno pod względem tekstów, jak i aranżacji. Póki co najlepszą jego płytą wydaje się mi być “Rain Dogs” (1985). Co do utworów natomiast, to najbardziej przypadły mi do gustu:  “Singapore”, “Clap Hands”, “Big Black Mariah” oraz “Gun Street Girl”.

New York Dolls
O tym zespole nie mogę również powiedzieć tyle, ile bym chciał, a to dlatego, że słuchałem tylko jednej ich płyty (nie wydali ich zresztą wiele więcej).  Mogę jednak z pewnością stwierdzić, że jeśli ktoś sądzi, iż punk rocka zapoczątkowali Sex Pistols, czy też Ramones, to jest w niejakim błędzie. Pierwsi byli właśnie New York Dolls! I ja osobiście nie nazwałbym ich wcale zespołem proto-punkowym w rodzaju wczesnych, garage rockowych The Stooges. To punk pełną gębą: szybki, ordynarny, oparty na prostym rock & rollu. Prawdziwości temu stwierdzeniu dodaje fakt, że Malcolm McLaren, uważany za współtwórcę sukcesu Sex Pistols, był wcześniej managerem… właśnie NYD. Chłopak podpatrzył co dobre i czym prędzej skopiował. Debiutancki album zespołu z 1973 roku rozpoczyna się mocnym uderzeniem – “Personality Crisis” i jest to chyba mój ulubiony utwór Dollsów. Warto też zauważyć, że image zespołu dał początek aparycji gwiazd późniejszego glam rocka.

The Pretty Things
Ich również znalazłem na Wiki podczas poszukiwań albumów konceptualnych. Preety Things początkowo byli jednym z wielu brytyjskich zespołów grających rhythm & bluesa, później zaczęli nieco kombinować z freakbeatem i psychodelą. Najważniejsze dzieło wydali jednak w roku 1968. Była to płyta “S.F. Sorrow”. Nie dość, że na owym krążku znalazło się kilka wspaniałych, melodyjnych i znakomicie zaaranżowanych utworów, to wszystkie one opowiadają ładną, składną i sensowną historię tytułowego pana Sorrowa. Nie można owego albumu nazwać pełnoprawną rock operą, bo w całej fabule nie połapalibyśmy się, gdyby nie krótkie notki wydrukowane w książeczce załączonej do płyty. Jest to jednak z pewnością jeden z pierwszych concept albumów. Przy tym bardzo dobry. Najbardziej lubię “She Says Good Morning” – wam też się spodoba. Nie kończcie jednak procesu poznawaniu Preety Thingsów na “S.F. Sorrow”. Możecie też sięgnąć chociażby po “Emotions” z 1967.

No i to by było na tyle, chłopcy i dziewczęta. Niedługo kolejne artykuły z serii “pięciu wykonawców”.

Como me disse o @comedordexis “É um rock honesto”. Confiram!

Faixas do álbum:

1. Surfin Bird

2. King of the Surf

3. Henrietta

4. Miserlou

5. Malaguena

6. It’s So Easy

7. Tube City

8. My Woodie

9. Bird Bath

10. Kuk

11. Money

12. Sleeper

13. Surfin Bird (Demo Version)

14. Bird Dance Beat

15. Walkin’ My Baby

16. Dancin’ With Santa

LINK – Surfin Bird

Parece com? The Sonics, The Troggs.

Vídeo com a música Surfin Bird.

Enjoy o/

Cover of Changing Tunes; image courtesy of musicweb-international.com

Since a lot of folks (including many friends) are back in school, I thought I’d do another book report. Tonight, I’ll jot down my notes on Changing Tunes: The Use of Pre-existing Music in Film. Just as my friend Kit pointed me in the direction of this useful, diverse anthology, I thought I’d do the same, especially for any other burgeoning feminist soundtrack/score enthusiasts there may be. Term paper deadlines will come closer than you think.

As Robynn Stilwell was one of the co-editors of the collection who penned the particular essay Kit recommended to me, what better place to start? After all, her piece is called ”Vinyl Communion: The Record as Ritual Object in Girls’ Rites-of-Passage Films.” Here, Stilwell looks at four movies featuring girl protagonists and preoccupied with such themes, two of which I’ve yet to see (Little Voice and Heavenly Creatures) and two of which are all-time favorites (Ghost World and The Virgin Suicides). As Stilwell’s reading of Little Voice aligns with Pamela Robertson’s, I will refer you to a previous entry where Robertson’s essay is discussed. And while I would’ve liked more development of each text (hell, I could read a whole book on each of these movies) and would have appreciated some movies that consider the mediated representations of vinyl practices from girls of color, I still found Stilwell’s insights valueable. And obviously, I’m going to need to watch all these movies.

To Stilwell, Ghost World’s Enid believes that vinyl, and its technological apparatus, has no instrinsic value as an object. In one scene, she pretends to break her record collector friend Seymour’s vintage LP. She also has no interest in creating an authentic listening experience, playing old vinyl releases on a  33 1/3 record player that were meant to be played on a 78. Instead, Enid turns to record-playing for its transportive and transformative qualities. She wants a form of escape from her suburban SoCal surroundings, trying on punk, retro, and gothic fashions and turning to Bollywood, Indian rock music, and blues singer Skip James’s hauntingly androgynous tenor in “Devil Got My Woman.”

With Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures, itself based on the Pauline Parker-Juliet Hulme murder, the schoolgirls’ fandom for tenor Mario Lanza serves as a buffer for true homosexual feelings, a development that Stilwell explains by using late theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s notion of the homosocial triangle.

Thus, in order to own those feelings, Pauline and Juliet must disavow themselves from Lanza, burning their records to aver these feelings in the process.

Record burning is considered in a much different context in Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, instead constructed as authoritative punishment rather than a declaration of one’s identity. The Lisbon girls, a mysterious and cloistered quintet, consider records to be a form of communication between one another and to the neighbor boys with whom they’ve been forbidden to interact with by their parents. Songs like Heart’s “Magic Man” and “Crazy on You” speak on their behalf, conveying the lust and sexual agency that girls feel and Lux Lisbon acts upon for high school heartthrob Trip Fontaine. Thus, mother Lisbon’s command that Lux burn her rock records after Trip Fontaine sleeps with and abandons her on the football field after the Homecoming game suggests a tragic loss of voice, demanding that she align with soft rock male singer-songwriters like Gilbert O’Sullivan and Todd Rundgren instead of continuing to listen to libidinous cock rock bands like Aerosmith.

With Vanessa Knights ‘ “Queer Pleasures: The Bolero, Camp, and Almodóvar,” we have a consideration of how Pedro Almodóvar asserted a queer identity in his earlier films, utilizing the campy potential of bolero, as well as acknowledging the contributions bolero singers like La Lupe have given to queer fan culture, particularly among gay men.

While Almodóvar may have more often utilized Cuban musicians’ contributions to movies made within a strictly Spanish context, Phil Powrie’s “The Fabulous Destiny of the Accordion in French Cinema” considers the accordian, originally an Italian musical instrument, as a French national symbol. He considers the accordian’s heroic period between 1930 and 1960 and how the instrument was used as an audiovisual marker of utopian community in movies like René Clair’s Sous les toits de Paris. While Powrie does not make it clear, I hazard to guess that there may be some connection, however tenuous, between this period and the chanteuse réaliste movies Kelley Conway has discussed elsewhere.

By 1949, Powrie notes that movies like Jacques Tati’s Jour de Fête were commenting on the decline of the accordian’s ubiquity in French culture as the country shifted from a working-class country with a strong sense of history to a modern society with tremendous interest in other cultures and a particular interest in American life. This is a point Powrie argues that Tati makes aurally, as Jo Lefevre’s accordian opens and closes a film about a character who tries to emulate American customs, cued through the film’s use of swing music.

The move away from the accordian’s aural connotation of national identity is evident in 80s French cinema. The accordian instead becomes a visual, unheard marker of community demise in movies like Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva. From the 1990s on, the accordian has become a post-modern instrument for French cinema to Powrie, suggesting both a utopian ideal and evident of self-aware nostalgia, most evident in Yann Tiersen’s score for Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie.

And finally, we have Ronald Rodman’s “The Popular Song as Leitmotif in 1990s Film,” which considers how the use of theme music written for specific characters in classical music and film can be translated into contemporary film’s use of popular music and how leitmotif is used as a connotative signifier. This seems like a tremendously useful exercise that I’ll make sure to remember when I get to be a boss professor lady.

Rodman considers Pulp Fiction and Trainspotting, two successful movies made noteworthy, in part, because of their exclusive use of popular music. With Pulp Fiction, protagonist hit man Vince Vega becomes associated with surf rock and Elvis as a means of connoting his class and white ethnic cultural positioning as an Italian American with a working-class background. In Trainspotting, Scottish heroin addict Mark Renton is associated with art-damaged, anti-establishment classic rockers like Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, and David Bowie, before getting clean and making his classed ascent into the bourgeoisie, which is highlighted by his musical association with Brit pop and popular techno.
  

While I appreciate Rodman’s argument for Trainspotting, I do wonder what he’d make of the wave of regional pictures in the UK during the 1990s and early 2000s. Just as Trainspotting focuses on Edinburgh, so to did 24-Hour Party People depicted Manchester’s singularity. That said, I do value Rodman’s effort to reconsider how popular music functions similarly to classical music in movies, and look forward to reading more on the interplay from similarly-invested scholars. Please feed me titles if you’re so inclined.

Raise your fist. Now extend your index finger and pinky. This album rocks. The second album by Eyal Maoz’s Edom, just out on Tzadik, is a nonchalantly dark blend of pounding instrumental metal and surf music with brooding Middle Eastern flourishes. The obvious comparison is Texas cult instrumentalists Intodown, with a slightly more ornate, noisy sensibility. In this power quartet, multi-faceted guitarist/composer Maoz is backed by keyboardist Brian Marsella (of Cyro Baptista’s band and the fascinating melodic jazz ensemble the Flail) along with a plodding rhythm section. From the first few bars of the first song, it becomes clear that these guys really don’t have a clue about surf music. But that’s cool. That’s what gives them an original sound. The Yardbirds didn’t have a clue about blues either, and nobody can say that they didn’t rock.

As you would expect from a bunch of guys with a jazz background, they vary the tempos and dynamics. Maoz sets down eerie, often anguished layers of noise and feedback over simple, catchy chromatic vamps. Marsella utilizes several keyboard patches: quavery Vox organ, smooth Hammond and seemingly every bleep and bloop stored within the memory of whatever he’s playing (a Nord Electro seems a good guess). Most of the craziest noise passages are his, although, predictably, the most beautifully lyrical moments – particularly the Vox solo on the fifth track – are his as well.

The best song on the cd is Shell, a terse, catchy, macabre number that sounds like the Coffin Daggers gone to the Golan Heights, especially menacing as the organ doubles Maoz’ sinister guitar line. The best single solo is by bassist and producer Shanir Ezra Blumankranz, on the same song – it’s long and bluesy and deliciously terse and you don’t want it to end. Beyond the chromatic metal vibe of most of the other tracks, there’s also one that nicks a familiar hook by the Cure before going all hypnotic with a two-chord vamp, a bizarre attempt at a bubblegum surf song and a big, cinematic track simply titled Two with a noise breakdown evocatively colored with Maoz’ hammerlike attack. It’s nothing if not original and probably sounds terrific live. Shesh shesh shesh (that’s 666 in Hebrew).

In 1937 an eight year old boy cruises the traveling carnival as it passes through his town. To any eight year old buy there is no doubt that the juggling acts, carnival games, exotic animals, and rides stood out as highlights of the adventure of the time. All of these things were something not seen since there was no Internet, TV, not even Disneyland! The only way you were able to experience something like this was to make down to traveling carnival.

Carnival 1937.

Now any normal eight year old would have told their friends how they saw a man breath fire, or about the tigers, or even about their ride on the Ferris Wheel. But the young eight year old we are talking about was not impressed with any of those things. Instead, etched into his mind was carnival worker. He was playing an acoustic slide guitar in way that he had never heard before and it stayed with him.

Hambone Willie Newbern

This young boy grew up, moved many states, forged the Korean war, survived a brush with Tuberculosis and grew up to be Link Wray.

Like most musicians, Link had humble beginnings with local bands. Playing gigs, backing other artists, and making “first” recordings.

A daily gig was the house band for Mil Grants House Party TV show. Link became best know for his instant hit Rumble. If you don’t know it, you will probably recognize it as soon as you hear it. It’s one of those “Oh! I know that song” tunes. Check it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E4kFolxUum
For the time, this was one of the rawest, trashiest forms of music know to man. The name alone was slang for a gang fight. To get that raw, live sound or for more distortion before there was distortion (depending on who tells the story), Link punched holes into his speakers. Link’s career was launched, followed by more hits like Raw Hide, Batman Theme, Ace of Spades. The “Best Of” is a must for every music collection.

http://www.amazon.com/Rumble-Best-Link-Wray/dp/B000003308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1251491602&sr=8-1

Link’s guitar licks influenced the music you and I love today. Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Hendrix, Neil Young and Bob Dylan are among the few that have cited Wray as an influence. Link recorded two albums with Robert Gordon. And his songs have been heard in a number of movies.

Link’s ability to drive music with no lyrics brought stardom not only to himself, but branded an opening for popularity of music without strong backing vocals. One such form of rock and roll that emerged from that backing was Surf Rock. Groups like the Surfaris, Dick Dale and the
Del-Tones, the Challengers, Eddie & the and Showmen sprang up and began to drive the surf culture. The Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, Orange County hosted many surf-styled acts. Many of the sounds we hear today have roots back to Mr. Link Wray.

Link was recognized not only as an influence to musicians. He was named as one of the hundred greatest guitarists of all time by Rolling Stone. And was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

There is no doubt that Link’s influence on modern rock n roll continues through today and will show itself time and again. Like the “missing link” between Slide Blues, Rock n Roll, to Surf Rock. There’s nothing better than hearing a teenage band covering a song that originated half a century ago and still inspires crowds today! Link passed away in 2005, but his music and influence will live on, especially in SurF KulTure.

I drew this Illustration as a reminder of where the music we love today had it’s first beginnings. It was from Link’s obituary page.

The words below the Illustration are from Link’s contemporary Ronnie Dawson, speaking about when he dies. It refers to fact that the music lives on, personified by Link Wray.

Rock on!

-the SurF MonSteR-