video: Saga - Only Time Will Tell

Saga are one of those 'guilty' pleasures one has. This is from their only un-remastered and re-released album, Wildest Dreams, which for some bizarre reason, Atlantic refuses to give up the rights to, even though it has such a limited gain in keeping it (I would actually think none since it has been long out of print anyway).

Saga are what happens when 80s neo-prog meets pop metal and a weird mutant strain of AOR results. The video caught my eye because it encapsulates the short after-school-special like narratives so common to late 80s videos. Also, the girl i the video has some upscale Cosmo version of Markie Post hair, which made me guffaw out loud. And I never guffaw.

video: Royskopp - What Else is There

I have been on a bit of a Royskopp kick today. That being said, even if I hated Royskopp, I would love this video. The tonal quality, the muted tones with the stark contrasts, all work so well. And the floating Skandanavians with their floating houses...always am I happy to see those.

Good News...

...as taste and decency, in a rare public appearance, makes us all have a collective sigh of relief. That megalomaniacal effete bloatus, Elton John, and his insipid attempts to put out a musical based on the work of former vampire fetishist Anne Rice, has failed miserably.

As it should.

To quote,

David Rooney of Variety said of the musical:

"It seems like the prosaic plot of a gay vampire soap opera that's simultaneously overwrought and coy."

Desmond Dekker R.I.P.

I just heard the sad news that reggae legend Desmond Dekker passed away at 64. Rest in Peace.

video: Eddi Reader - Patience of Angels

I am just on a video binge these days. Well, I was working on a review of Eddi Reader when I found this, so I will post this up in the interim. Good little folk pop and a video that actually is not all bad. Very indicative of the dreamy absurdist stuff from the mid 90s.

video: U.K. 2fer

And here we have one of those severely unsung bands from the late 70s/early 80s that was there and gone way too soon. U.K. was a supergroup of ex-Yes, King Crimson, Roxy Music, Lifetime! and Zappa. They had good melody lines and straightahead rock grooves coupled with a muscular art-rock approach. After their dissolution, Bozzio went to found Missing Persons, Wetton to Asia, and Jobson to go into film and TV music (his latest was the music to Nash Bridges). Bruford and Holdsworth go off and do a number of different projects.

Here are two videos with their two lineups. Neither have exceptional sound, and Night After Night was never a personal favorite, but it is what is out there, and the Ceasars Palace Blues section of the second vid shows you what would happen if Jimi Hendrix was a violin player.

video: Hipsway - Honeythief

In the land of US one-hit wonders, we have Hipsway (which I picked due to their connection to previous video band Altered Images via their use of the same bassist).

This was their one big hit, which I think they followed up with a minor second single in the UK, and a second album that went less than nowhere. That same bassist is now in the Scottish band Texas (I don't know either).

video: Coldfinger (live)

There are few electronica bands that impress me as much as Coldfinger. I initially found their album Lefthand by fluke at a Rasputin's Record Store, and I have not looked back since. Equal parts Leftfield, Portishead and Esthero, these guys are great.

While this is far from their best sounding performance, it is the only one I can find available online for general consumption.

video: Material/Bill Laswell

Well, I will keep it simple: 15 minutes of Material (the band) featuring an opening guitar salvo by Buckethead and segue then into the typical pan-rhythmic freakdown of Bill Laswell's most sonically virile "band" these days.

Philly Phunk of a Phinicky Phlavor.

Funky 16 Corners covers a very specific and quite underappreciated niche: Philly Soul from the 60s and 70s...we are talking the largely obscure but largely listenable.

The Blowhard Speaks Once More

So that crass, low-talent bloatus Elton John is in the news again for being a whiny, snivelling, petty, shrill little twit. Oh the poor fame-monkey all of a sudden hates the paparazzi, yet seems to be seeking ever more obnoxious ways of getting attention, now that he can't get respect for catering to the parameters of Disney soundtracks and Vegas wash-out shows.

You were barely listenable at your peak Eltie, and now you are one step below Paul McCartney in the complete waste of carbon rankings.

Say You, Say What?

First he terrorized us with songs like Say You, Say Me and Hello. Then he bred terror with his fantastic spoiling of second banana social damage plan Nicole. Now, we have clear links between the liberation of Iraq and former Commodore Lionel Ritchie.

The truth is out there.

video: Altered Images - Insects

Jon Anderson - In the City of Angels

Jon Anderson

In The City of Angels
1988 Columbia/CBS

Now imagine the androgynous angelic vocals of spaced out Yes frontman Jon Anderson, and the pop mechanics of LA studio monkeys Toto. Together.

No really.

Now before you start bleeding from both ears, let me explain that this odd pairing actually happened. In 1988. We know only in the late 80s could such a bizarre combination occur. Never mind that Jon Anderson had just left Yes again because of its too commercial direction (when really it was more likely because Trevor Rabin was a better Napoleonic figure than Anderson, which may have bugged the shorter of two imps). Funny, since this album is much more commerical.

I have to admit I actually liked half of this album at its release. Having not listened to it in at least a dozen years, rexamining it I find I a few observations can be stated:

There are no tracks that truly are memorable as they stand.

There is at least two tracks that sound like carribbean-prog fallout similar to the Teakbois cut from the Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe album: New Civilization and Sundancing (For the Hopi/Navajo Energy).

And that brings me to observation number 3. The song titles are often deeply, stupid, even by Anderson standards. The aforementions Sundancing subtitle, there is also If itWasn't For Love (Oneness Family), Hurry Home (Song From the Pleaides), Top of the World (The Glass Bead Game), and, get ready for this.......Betcha. Talk about covering the range of bad (and overuse of parenthesis).

Half of this album musically would make for a decent AOR-style EP by Toto. meaning they would have to rewrite the lyrics to be simple pop fluff, as opposed to Anderson's inscrutible acid-coated gooberisms, and then sing them in a normal human register. David Paich or Steve Lukather could easily pick up the slack. I will give the Toto guys credit for doing what they do well, but talk about a weird gig. And Toto are not fully responsible, as the worse backing tracks are usually populated by even more faceless LA studio hacks like Dann Huff and Michael Landau.

The other half of this album should be killed and buried. We are talking some of Anderson's worst tracks (which of course admits that he has in fact done worse, but not by much). Hold on To Love is Vegas buffet show schlock, only in a rather screwed up tenor/alto (what the hell is Anderson's range technically anyway?), as is In a Lifetime. Bad. So much badness.

Betcha and Is It me were co-written with Mariah Carey collaborator Rhett Lawrence. Imagine how horrid that is.

In a Lifetime and Hold On To Love were co-written with Motown maven Lamont Dozier. I have no idea how such a pairing occurred. My guess is they paid Dozier handsomely and somehow he forgot to ask to be taken out of the credits.

Bad Jon. No more peyote and Steve Perry records for for you.

Suffer the Little Morons

Two cases of things celebrities do that annoy me:

So Sir Macca (aka the bitter git) is getting slapped for divorce. Good. He is a lousy human with bad taste and hasn't provided anything of consequence to society in ages. Given his recent God-complex tantrums (i.e. not performing on Live 8 unless he could headline or changing writing credits from Lennon-McCartney to the reverse just to salve his fragile ego), I hope he gets taken to the cleaners.

And in a case of venality that is sadly par for the course with this particular harpy, Babs does a Babs. This car crash of a human being is nither diva nor singer of any consequence...ever. She's avarice in a hideous rose pink wardrobe. Someone needs to wrap her head in a foot thick cashmere wrap so we have to neither see nor hear of this crass wretch again.

Kool Keith - Black Elvis/Lost in Space

Kool Keith

Black Elvis/Lost in Space

Kool Keith is different. Different in a perplexing way. The former Ultramagnetic MC has never been conventional, and this album is no exception; a buzzing, funky, off-kilter, satire laden effort that starts itself off with a three minute intro piece of boasting and hazing, and spends the next hour running through a collection of alternating goofy and serious narratives that only Kool Keith could pull off.

The sounds of the album itself maps itself to a landscape of P-Funk groove, Kraftwerk sci-fi, and hints of 80's retro R&B kitsch. This is prevalent on several tracks, including Lost in Space, Supergalactic Lover, and I'm Seein' Robots.

Rockets on the Battlefield is a theme song for a ghetto-fabulous Star Trek spin-off show. Master of the Game harkens back to Zapp and Sugar Hill (complete with vocoder). High tech sound effects aremixed with horn samples, snapping snares and sludge-thick basslines for a slick and catchy concoction.

There are some more pedestrian tracks, but only in terms of the music, not the rhymes; Static just kinds of dials in a standard hip-hop backdrop. Maxi Curls sports one of the most annoying choruses I have heard in ages, and Clifton is just kind of a snoozer. But these do not put too much downward pressure on an otherwise stellar release.

If you like your hip hop a little off the beaten track, and more classic b-boy than thug, this may be for you.

Fun Boy Three - Waiting

Fun Boy Three Waiting
1983 Chrysalis/EMI

There once was a UK ska/2 Tone outfit called the Specials, and they were a great band. They scored a bunch of hits, travelled the world, and made merriment.

Then their laconic vocalist, Terry Hall, went with co-Specials Lyndval Golding and Neville Staple went and formed the oddly arty and quite pop FB3.

Waiting is their sophomore release, and I find their best. produced by the also laconic (and odd and arty) David Byrne of the Talking Heads. The album starts with a 2 minute Petula Clark style swinging 60s goofy piano ditty called Murder She Said (Angela Lansbury was unavailable for comment as to why her show was never as animated as this track), and then we get into The More I See (The Less I Believe), which mixes socially probing lyrics and skewed new wave together with spooky background vocals and muted brass phrases to set a sort of mission statement for the rest of the album.

Going Home is equal parts Police throwaway B-side and last vestiges of the Specials. We're Having All the Fun is kind of a happy sneer at squandering ones life in Thatcher's England, and veers into a joking narrative about their adventures with chemical vices in The Farmyard Connection. There is a hint of comedic Tango in The Tunnel of Love and the mid-tempo Things We Do has a melancholic fatalism circling a piano and violin vamp.

The Pressure of Life is a bit whiny and sounds like a filler track from a Hipsway album.* And by the time Well Fancy That! comes about it turns to a showtune closer that you really have to be in the mood for to get to (like servicing your 9th Pilsner Urquelli in a Prague pub for example).

The really oddity here is their take on the Go-Go's hit Our Lips Are Sealed (Hall co-wrote the song with then Go-Go Jane Weidlen). It has its own charm, but just does not come off as well as under its more famous variation.

Byrne's hand is apparent only in terms of general crispness and quality of production, rather than any inherent trait one could see as directly connected to TH; there are flashes of ethnic percussion and quirky arrangements, but it is far less pronounced.

* Yes, I liked Honeythief as well, but one great song out of 20+ cuts over 2 albums means most of Hipsway was filler.

Broken Beats

Broken Beat Radio out of Illadephia keeps popping out ridiculously delicious mixes for your auditory delight. The latest includes cuts from Osulade, Seiji and Nuyorican Soul.

Get thee there.

Holly Cole - Temptation

Holly Cole Temptation
1995 MetroBlue/Capitol

So much ink is given to singers like Diana Krall and Jane Monheit (and we won't even get into the current Norah Jones fetish of suburbanites everywhere), but there is a class of vocal chanteuse that moves far beyond the contrivances of the above. America has the infinite charms of Cassandra Wilson, and Canada has Holly Cole.

Cole does not have the dark fullness of Wilson's voice, but she does share the same knack for interpetive originality devoid of artifice, and a natural warmth that never sounds contrived. This all comes together with her sultry reshaping of other material, often in ways that would appear sardonic on paper, but come off only with a tinge of irony and a lot of love for songcraft. She has worked original material in between reworking of songs by Joni Mitchell, Billie Holiday, Lennon & McCartney, and Gershwin among many. But this album, one of her best, is nothing but Tom Waits.

This album should appeal to Wait's fans, as it keeps a very dark character to it. Smokey, stalking themes for desperate nights alone. Part of this is due to Cole, and part is her regular backline of pianist Aaron Davis and bassist David Piltch. She has always relied on a largely trio based structure, and the sparse arrangements complement Wait's songs to a tee. They are deceptive in their simplicity, but they are subtle and take just as many quirky turns as one could reasonably fit into these songs. You can hear this whole dynamic work in the stalking menace of the title track, and in the hopeful spark of opening track Take Me Home.

That aside, it will also appeal to people who would otherwise be turned off by Waits'...uh...unique vocals. Let's face it, he is an acquired taste, and someone like Cole taking his songs and making them accessible without stripping them of their emotional value is impressive.

While there are no bum cuts really, and the album would seem best played as a single session unto itself. It carries a mood you probably do not want to mess with. That said, the brass-augmented sophistication of The Briar and the Rose, and the conversational narrative Tango Til They're Sore really come to the fore. There is also the surprisingly beguiling string arrangement on I Want You that also breaks it out.

I should note that I beleive part of the brilliance of this album lies in the production dexterity of Craig Street, whose work with other vocalists like Wilson, Chocolate Genius, Chris Whitley, Me'Shell Ndegeocello, and oddly enough, Norah Jones. He gets a great overall sound from every performer he works with, allowing no filler into the sound, and this is no exception.

Some Stockhausen

I finally got around to sitting down with some Karlheinz Stockhausen, and I was underwhelmed. I listened to Mikrophonie I, and among dozens of completely meandering and dull (but thankfully short) tracks were a smattering of avant-garde bits of interest. His son, Markus, is far more engaging and not lacking in musical ambition.

Dosh - Naoise EP

Dosh Naoise E.P.
Anticon 2004

Martin Dosh is one of the more left of field operatives in the Anticon sphere (which is already far afield as is) and this EP is a collection of bits from his two previous releases, Dosh and Pure Trash, with some remixes and live cuts thrown in.

Sounding at times like a lo-fi DJ Shadow slumming in a post-rock cabana, and at others like Mike Doughty writing instrumentals by looking for new Casio tones, this is a decent teaser of what Dosh has done, particularly the Cepia remix of the title track, and in the new cut, Epic Struggles. The latter is what would happen if Bobby Hutcherson got his alt-funk groove on, and the former is just his way of introducing the repetitive spaciosuness of Steve Reich to the unsuspecting.

Happy Song for Tadhg is a throwaway that makes one think he was trying to do an electro-organic take on Autechre and failed. Not so happy, yo. Rock it to the next Episode needs to get rid of the inane vocal mantra "boiled alive" and pick up on the squandered theme of Ennio Morricone meets Talk Talk.