Family Fodder B-Sides

I just received some ebay-purchased Family Fodder 7", and they are the cutest little 7" ever. The singles are old favorites of mine, but the B-sides are new to me and are, like most of their stuff, totally great and fascinating.

Family Fodder - Savoir Faire (1980)
Family Fodder - Carnal Knowledge

Family Fodder - Film Music (1981)
Family Fodder - Room

Dalek I Love You

Dalek I Love You were a synth-pop band that formed in Liverpool in 1977. The name is the result of a band compromise, a combination of Dalek, the evil alien mutants from Dr. Who, and "Darling, I Love You." I'll butcher history by paraphrasing that in their few early years they shared and lost members to The Teardrop Explodes and OMD, and by the time they released their debut album Compass Kumpass (1980) they were a duo, Alan Gill and Dave Hughes.

For the release of the album, the sneaky petes at Phonogram shortened the band's name to Dalek i without even telling them. Compass did well in the UK, reaching #54 on the pop charts, but didn't receive a whif of attention elsewhere. NME writer Andy Gill reviewed the record upon its release:

"A prime example of living-room music construction, it features catchy,
interlinking little riffs over a plodding beat formed by combining
elements of both drums and drum-machines and Gill's calmly urgent
vocals. Ingeniously simple but infuriatingly infectious -- rather like
an adult Human League on speed -- "Freedom Fighters" is one of the
year's best singles so far, and from what I heard of their other
material, there's plenty more where that came from."

Dalek i - Destiny (Dalek I Love You)
Dalek i - Freedom Fighters
Dalek i - Mad
Dalek i - Good Times
Dalek i - Heat

And that was it for the initial period of the band. Get the exhaustive, unbutchered full story on Dalek I Love You here.

The Tapes on Vinyl

The Tapes were a dutch new wave band based out of Amsterdam, and that's all google wrote. In English at least. I did find some info on dutch-language sites, but it didn't lend itself nicely to translation in a crappy online translator. The one thing I garnered (and could have figured out by reading the album cover) is that their third and final album "On A Clear Day" (1981) was produced by John Leckie, who's production hand also grazed the likes of XTC, The Fall, PiL, Simple Minds, and Magazine.

I'm patting myself on the back - I finally checked my laziness for a second and figured out how to convert vinyl to MP3, so this here is fresh from vinyl. Still working out how to get a nice LOUD recording, and put an awful knick in "Good Riddance" (fuckfuckfuck) before I made some tweaks that resulted in a more tolerably pitched "Night After Night," so my apologies for the lowered volume. Anyhow, enjoy, and I'll be posting more rare-ish stuff that I only have on vinyl soon (with better volume hopefully).

The Tapes - Night After Night
The Tapes - Good Riddance

do the quango

Quando Quango was an early 80's electronic dance band formed by Hacienda DJ and Factory A&R man Mike Pickering and dutch siblings Hillegonda and Reinier Rietveld. Hillegonda does a better job than I could of describing the music:

"...Fela Kuti meets Kraftwerk somewhere between Manchester and Rotterdam, part of a new wave of post-punk electronica, with a whole lot of Mike Pickering's admirably broad knowledge of soul, disco, reggae and pop to stuff the gaps."

And Trouserpress says:

"Playing and production are uniformly sharp, but Quando Quango was best served by 12-inch dance mixes; an entire LP's worth becomes redundant and forgettable."

I totes agree. These two 12" singles rock, but some of their other stuff is a little chintsy.

Quando Quango - Love Tempo (12" mix) (1983)
Quando Quango - Atom Rock (12" mix) (1984)

For you winos

From the fertile valleys of Manchester, in some very pristine years for this locale, Dislocation Dance are a spritzy new wave outfit with a french pop bouquet and a post punk nose. Enjoyed best over a coastal drive or an upbeat cheese party, this spirited offering is free of harsh aftertastes and noisy elements. The flavors are clearly defined and in unique balance - crisp and tasty!

From mini-album Slip that Disc!, released by New Hormones in August 1981:

Dislocation Dance - Spare Concern
Dislocation Dance - We Can Work it Out (Beatles Cover)
Dislocation Dance - This Problem

From LP Music Music Music, released by New Hormones in October 1981:

Dislocation Dance - Meeting Mum and Dad
Dislocation Dance - Friendship
Dislocation Dance - Roof is Leaking

Taste it for yourself on the jam-packed LTM reissue of the above releases plus bonus singles, available for purchase from the fine folks over at Darla

New Year New Wave

Be Bop Deluxe get swept up in the New Wave and go electronic-ish on 1978's Drastic Plastic. I would like this more if it had less guitar solo, but frontman Bill Nelson was regarded as quite the guitarist at the time so I guess he's entitled to some soloing. Shit, I hate guitar solos, I can't believe I'm posting this as my first post of the New Year. Bah, just listen. "New Precision" sounds like talking heads, but Byrne and company would never have abided by all the soloing because they just get it.

Be Bop Deluxe - Electrical Language
Be Bop Deluxe - New Precision

P.S. that kind of sizzly fuzzy blown-out speaker sound that the drums and bass have is inherent in the actual recording, not due to a bady copy.

Are you ready for this?

Are you ready for a show of devotion? Shriekback channels Wham! on this jazzy little number from rom 1984's Jam Science:

Shriekback - Mercy Dash

sweet zounds

Zoundssss his wounds iswounds zwounds zounds. I guess I can see how slurring british drunks confessing their sins to one another in a dark bar could get "zounds" from the oath "his wounds." It's a stretch, but those cockney brits say some fucked up hot shit.

In the late 70's Zounds were squatters, punks, into anarchy but an intellectual strain of it a far cry from what your average pimply teenage anarchist idolizes these days. They were somehow linked to Crass, but weren't as noisy and in your face, favoring instead a more stripped-down, rigid sound. They recorded and mixed their only LP The Curse of Zounds (1980) in five days. It's a classic, and has been reissued with a spat of singles they released before the album proper, so buy it from Insound

Zounds - Cant Cheat Karma

No Words

This here gem is from Clan of Xymox's self-titled first album - ugly cover, beauteous song. So simple and pretty and New Order-like.

Clan of Xymox - No Words

Early Ants

This is my jam today, from Dirk Wears White Socks, the only LP from the original Adam and the Ants lineup. This album is obviously a favorite of mine, where I got the name for this blog etc. So yeah, it's great, Mr. Ant is all like contemplating creation and religion and the crazy animals he sees at the zoo.

Adam and the Ants - The Idea

"I could be religious - if they set the hymns to disco, like this..."

Buy it from Amazon

Totally Taco

Taco. So eighties. So bad that it's amazingly good. For all you haters, I give you Taco. Totes.

Taco - Livin' in my Dreamworld

You gotta love the irony of the most 80's dude you've ever heard hating on the 80s and wishing he was Cary Grant instead.

Buy it at MusicStack (or not)

Big in India

Last weekend when I was running around my apartment all crazy looking for a suitably dry white wine to throw in the fondue pot, my pal Tyler did me the favor of putting on a new record. He picked at random and on popped Boney M Night Flight to Venus, and all the kids wanted to know who it was

In the late 70's Boney M were like super-mega-ultra stars in Europe and the Soviet Union and Southeast Asia and all over the world really, but relatively unknown in the states. So while your average foreigner knows and loves Boney M (they are the featured act to wrap up this years International Film Festival of India), their kitschy retro-futuristic pan-continental discofunk is new territory for many. Some superfun tracks from Night Flight to Venus(1978):

Boney M - Night Flight to Venus
Boney M - Rasputin
Boney M - Painter Man
Boney M - By the Rivers of Babylon

Buy it from Amazon

Bonerus:

Boney M was put together in 1975 by German producer Frank Farian after his song "Baby do you Wanna Bump" became a hit in parts of Europe - he needed a group to present to the media and perform live etc, so rounded up some West Indian dancers and called them Boney M. Interestingly, this wasn't the only time this guy ghostwrote - he was also the mastermind behind the whole Milli Vanilli controversy. Can't really blame the guy - he presaged the wildly successful forumula that is a staple of (bad) pop music today - get talented people to write and record music for a marketable performer type who takes all the credit.

Boney M - Baby do you Wanna Bump

postcard artifact heart attack

I'm tired of scouring Limewire at strange hours of the night trying to find yet-to-be- pirated-by-me Josef K songs, so I was very smiley back in August when I heard that Domino was releasing an anthology of their bestest things titled "Entomology." Yay, on November 20 the shitty quality copy of "Radio Drill Time" I'll be sharing in a few lines will be upgraded to a bright shiny CD quality version. And how.

Here are some tracks:

Josef K - Radio Drill Time
Josef K - Crazy to Exist
Josef K - Fun 'n' Frenzy

Mm? They're all included on the album - buy it here.

Bonerus:

At the peak of it all frontman Paul Haig left the band to pursue solo projects, ending up a sort of bland synthpop cliche as seen on here on this track from his first album "Rhythm of Life" (for some strange reason I love the silly vaguely oriental riff in this song):

Paul Haig - Adoration

The Raincoats, girl drummers, life 2.0

I love girl drummers, espeically the ladies from ESG, Kleenex/Liliput, the Raincoats. These are my girls. They keep their drumming simple and sparse, rarely riding any noisy cymbals, rarely cluttering things up with overly-complicated and show-offy fills, never bound to the standard repertoire of mainstream manly drumming convention.

Palmolive from the raincoats is a perfect example - totally creative, totally crafty and homespun in feeling. The Raincoats remind me a bit of Delta 5, especially the staggered stiff vocal harmonies, but their sound is decidedly less muscular and polished. From their self-titled debut (1980):

The Raincoats - Adventures Close to Home
The Raincoats - No Side to Fall In

Early Simple Minds

From Real to Real Cacophony (1979):

Simple Minds - Factory
Simple Minds - Changeling



From Empires and Dance (1980):

Simple Minds - Travel
Simple Minds - Constantinople Line
Simple Minds - Thirty Frames a Second

Bonerus:

Simple Minds - Thirty Frames a Second (demo)

the moves moves makes me nervous

Sometimes no wave has too much no and not enough wave. For example, I prefer the more accessible work of James Chance to the noisy mess of DNA. It's probably better to assume that most no wave acts did it all, not restricting themselves to one style or genre or "wave," but rather producing accessible pleasant work as well as noisy challenging feedback puke - that breadth of output is what makes them no wave - but I still tend to put no wave groups into one of those two boxes.

I always thought Lydia Lunch belonged more to the DNA camp, full of noisy scary things, but "Lazy in Love"from her group 8-Eyed Spy had me thinking otherwise - until I listened to the rest of the album and some live stuff. Don't let the polished, tight, melodic bliss of this song fool you, the rest of the stuff is pure no wave abrasion. Obviously she's a woman of many talents.

8-Eyed Spy - Lazy in Love
8-Eyed Spy - Diddy Wah Diddy (Captain Beefheart cover)

Bonerus:

Awesome free no-wave mix + annotated tracklisting from the Optimo guys, and

Awesome no wave photo archive!!!

The Importance of Being Synthetic

Daniel Miller is best-known for his behind-the-scenes work as producer for early-period Depeche Mode, as well as his role as founder of experimental/industrial label Mute -- but he also released some excellent material as an artist in his own right.

As "The Normal,"  Miller used the sharp and piercing sounds of early electronic instruments to full effect on 1978's "Warm Leatherette," a futuristic noire whiplash inspired by J.G. Ballard's car-crash-fetish novel Crash. You've all heard the song - it's been covered by everyone and their mother (Grace Jones, Chicks on Speed, Vitalic etc). Here's the original.

The Normal - Warm Leatherette



Somewhat more obscure is his subsequent work as Silicon Teens, a completely fabricated group that he invented to take responsibility for Music for Parties, an album of electronic versions of 50's and 60's rock tunes. The covers are cutesy and fun, but the best tracks from the album are the three original songs - including this one with vocals by one-time Depeche Mode tour-manager Daryl Bamonte

Silicon Teens - Sun Flight

Bonus - video for Silicon Teens' version of "Memphis Tennesse"

In the Beginning there was Rhythm

If you've read here before it's no surprise that I like to remind people of the early work of bands who's success and fame have resulted in a generally singular idea or notion of said band at the expense of other facets. A perfect example, and one of my favorite bands (often a shock to people who know my tastes), is R.E.M., mostly their early work, especially their first album Murmur.

Before mainstream success, R.E.M. was THE bridge between punk/post-punk and alternative. Along with bands like the B-52's and Pylon they spawned a whole scene of early-80's Athens art-rock that helpfed fertilize alternative movements throughout the country. Taking the minimal rhythms of post-punk and adding lots of pretty guitar work and simple and unexpected melodies, Murmur is a far cry from R.E.M. as most people know them. If you recoil at the thought of "Everybody Hurts" balladry, give this a listen and allow me to prove myself right - this early shit is good.

R.E.M. - Radio Free Europe
R.E.M. - Pilgrimage
R.E.M. - Laughing
R.E.M. - Moral Kiosk

These waters once were clean

I recently saw Urgh! A Music War at the Egyptian, thanks to a heads up from Bret over at post-punk junk, and man was it fantastic. Klaus Nomi, thirty feet tall? Yes please. I highly recommend seeing it larger than life, but screenings don't appear to happen all that often, so do what you need to do to see it (your local indie video store maybe?). In honor of Urgh! here are some of the finer new-wave moments from the film, alongside the studio versions of said moments for comparison and contrastison.



After The Police's intro (Stewart Copeland's brother Miles produced Urgh!), Wall of Voodoo kick things off with crazy eyes and flesh-crawling blurbling bass and synths on "Back in Flesh."

Wall of Voodoo - Back in Flesh
Wall of Voodoo - Back in Flesh (URGH!)



Later on is Oingo Boingo doing "Ain't this the Life," a song so intricate and well-crafted it's no surprise it's the product of someone who aspired to more erudite forms of composition.

Oingo Boingo - Ain't this the Life
Oingo Boingo - Ain't this the Life (URGH!)

Bonerus - Gary Numan's performance of "Down in the Park" in Urgh! is a futuretastic neon-deco eye-feast that will change your life.

Gary Numan - Down in the Park

You can see most of the Urgh! performances on YouTube, but the quality is awful so beware, you might be underwhelmed. Once you've seen it big there's no turning back.

Let's skip the history lesson

I'm going to the Oregon Coast tomorrow morning, and this means quiet time with the family, long drives along the sea, and long sits in the "sun" room listening to my ipod while looking out at the inevitable rainy oregon sky. Houses in oregon shouldn't have sun rooms. Also: bonfires, hiking, biking, berry-picking, pie-making, tennis, boardgames, and lots of eating and drinking. Sound like some good old fashioned fun? It is. This is what the beach in front of our house looks like:



Whenever I go up there I end up with a lot of time on my hands. My mind slows down and thoughts that I haven't thought in a while linger back to my conscious mind. I mostly think about old people that are no longer in my life - old friends, old crushes, old enemies, people from my past in general. And I always end up listening to early OMD, it complements the vaguely sad never-again-will-that-happen feeling that old memories often bring. These two songs in particular from their self-titled debut LP with the beautiful Peter Saville designed sleeve:



OMD - Messages
OMD - Almost

Andy McCluskey's singing on "Almost" is amazing. The perfect song for dwelling on past lives.

I also usually end up listening to Soft Cell, who I could devote a whole weeks worth of posts about because they are one of my favorite acts ever. A few words about soft cell and my love affair with them. It started out with Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, I was SO surprised to discover that they weren't a one hit wonder and that they actually had an album full of good songs (frustration?! sex dwarf?!!) I would defend them to my friends - "they're not a one hit wonder, check this out!" - and sit back in satisfaction as I watched them helplessly jerk around to sex dwarf.



THEN....then I discovered that they weren't even a one-album wonder, as I secretly thought. The Art of Falling Apart is also fine, fine fine, home to my favorite Soft Cell song "Loving You, Hating Me." And now I love it all, every single song about the same tired subjects - pills, alcoholism, anonymous sex, blackmail, lies, and the narrowing of eyes. It's so godamn trite and I love every minute of it. Here are two of my favorites.

Soft Cell - Seedy Films
Soft Cell - Loving You, Hating Me

The relationship Marc Almond sings about in Loving You/Hating Me is pure gay truth. That's all, thanks for listening.