14 March 2013 (Day 73) – Gig # 698 Bob Mould

After a great night’s sleep I’m shaken awake by the ringing of the phone.  It’s my father-in-law ringing from Europe to inform us of the election of a new Pope.  It’s a lucky break; for some reason our alarm had failed to go off and we would have woken up at who knows what time.  Watching the excitement and smiles on the faces of the pilgrims in Rome, I realise tonight I’ll be experiencing similar sensations for far less devout and sacred reasons.  For tonight I will finally have a musicial ambition realised and I’ll be able to see and hear Bob Mould live with a band. 

This is actually Mould’s third tour of Australia.  His first visit 22 years ago was a solo acoustic affair.  I saw the show at the Prince of Wales Hotel in St. Kilda, the staging of which verged on the shambolic.  In those days, the stage was quite a low one and no one knew that Mould was going to perform seated which initially meant that only those at the very front of the audience could actually see him. It gave rise to some ridiculous sights as venue staff attempted to build a platform during the show.  His next tour was 11 years later and ago and was more of the same.  This time, he brought his electric guitar which, at one point, I remember him plugging in to play over the electronic backing tracks from his Modulate album.  

But not only is Mould bringing a band, it will also be playing tracks from the two bands with which he is most commonly associated, Husker Du and Sugar.  As neither band toured Australia in their existence, this tour will be the first time Australian punters will hear songs from these acts in the way they were intended to be heard.  (I might be wrong on the Husker Du claim.  His songwriting and sparring partner from that band, Grant Hart, toured here a couple of years back but I couldn’t go and so don’t know what he played.) 

Ordinarily I never play music during the day of an act I’m going to see that night.  It reduces expectations and leads to great discoveries during a gig which influences my listening for the day after as I relieve the gig.  But that won’t be possible tomorrow because something even greater than Mould’s performance is going to occur and I will definitely want to prepare for THAT. 

Today’s starting point is the demise of Husker Du:

(197) Husker Du – The Living End

This is the live album culled from a variety of dates of the final tour of what is arguably rock’s finest 3 piece and almost certainly it’s most influential.  It starts with Mould’s New Day Rising, switches to Hart’s The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill and then, more or less, alternates between the two songwriters until their cover of the Ramones Sheena Is A Punk Rocker, one of their two alternating set ending covers.  (Third member Greg Norton has very few writing credits leaving him time to tend to his quite magnificent moustache.)   In between there are thrills galore – Ice Cold Ice, She Floated Away, Keep Hanging On, What’s Going On, Data Control and In A Free Land  - to satisfy even the most jaded soul.  Kudos also to the compilers for compiling an absolutely slamming set of some of the finest alternative/punk ever recorded and for seemingly keeping duplication of tracks with the subsequently released DVD Live At The Camden Palace to an absolute minimum.  That DVD contains their other set closer, Love Is All Around, aka the theme to the Mary Tyler Moore Show and an oblique nod to their home town of Minneapolis.

(198) Bob Mould – Workbook

Bob’s first album after Husker Du’s demise surprised nearly everyone.  Essentially an acoustic album it commenced with the lovely instrumental Sunspots and then continued through a number of remarkable, often cello accompanied songs, such as See A Little Light, Compositions For The Young And Old and the superb Brasilia Crossed With Trenton.  Electric guitar was integrated to good effect on several tracks such as Wishing Well and Poison Years but it was only the closing number Whichever Way The Wind Blows that approached anything resembling the power of his former band. It was also a potent hint of what was to surface on his next album, the dark and powerful Black Sheets Of Rain.

(199) Grant Hart – Intolerance

Hart’s first album is a different affair but, like Workbook, was much quieter and contained sounds not associated with Husker Du.  The opener, All Of My Senses begins with the sound of keyboards, Roller-Rink sounds like a catchy keyboard instrumental, Now That You Know Me (tried out on the last Husker’s tour and included on The Living End), a song more in the Workbook mould (ahem), included harmonica while The Main contained gospel overtones.  The album’s highlight, 2541, is a wonderfully minimalist ballad.  In short the album is no less a triumph than Mould’s.

(200) Sugar – Live At Cabaret Metro (Copper Blue Deluxe edition bonus disc)

After Black Sheets Of Rain, Mould formed Sugar, another three piece, and hit relative pay dirt with their debut album Copper Blue.  This show, recorded around the time of that album’s release was widely bootlegged (under the title Bleeding) and a number of tracks were used as B-Sides, but the entire show wasn’t released until last year’s 20^th Anniversary Edition of Copper Blue.  It is an absolutely cracking gig that highlights tracks from Copper Blue as well as the subsequent Beaster EP recorded at the same time as that album.  It is one of those shows where momentum is continually building.  By the time the band arrives at the combination of Slick, the instrumental Clowmaster, Beaster’s Tilted, a cover of The Who’s Armenia City In The Sky and Beaster’s demolition set piece J.C Auto, the band is absolutely flying.  There are very few more exciting passages than this on live albums released by anyone else.

(201) Nova Mob – The Last Days Of Pompeii

By the time Mould had unleashed Sugar, Hart had already formed his band and released this debut album.  Seemingly about, err, the last day of Pompeii and the death of Roman author, philosopher and naval commander Pliny The Elder whilst attempting a rescue mission, it took his musical approach on Intolerance and brilliantly applied it to a band context. It’s a marvellous album incorporating acoustic and full blown versions of Admiral  Of The Sea (the later with its relentless “Stroke, Stroke” outro, its brilliant centrepiece), great rockers in Getaway In Time, Over My Head and Werner Von Braun.  (If you've figured out what the latter was doing at Pompeii, please drop me a line.) The whole piece brilliantly ends with the explosion of Mt Vesuvius at the end of The Last Days Of Pompeii/Benediction.  Nova Mob released only one more album and, since then, Grant Hart has released a handful of solo albums, the latest of which, Hot Wax, only a few years ago.

(202) Bob Mould Band – Live AT ATP 2008

After the demise of Sugar, Mould recorded a number of albums under his own name and LoudBomb including some fascinating experiments with electronic music. This live album was recorded at an All Tomorrow’s Parties gig in, I think, London with what is his current band.  Judging from online set lists, this album documnets a show containing a mixture of Mould solo, Sugar and Husker Du material of the type I can expect tonight.  Unfortunately it was only a 45 minute set but otherwise the band rocks like a mule.  It ends with a cover of New Day Rising which started my day on The Living End.  Sweet.

After a late dinner, I kiss “M” and head out to the legendary Corner Hotel in Richmond full of expectation.

Gig #698 Bob Mould – The Corner Hotel Richmond, Melbourne, 14 March 2013

This is Mould’s second show in Melbourne, the first being a sold out show at the same venue the previous night.  Disappointingly, the venue is only about two thirds full when the band take to the stage.  If Bob is disappointed by this, he doesn’t show it; a later call for hands in the air reveal that only a small number of hard core fans were there the night before.

With a Springsteen-esque, 1-2, 1-2-3-4, the band was off and running.  The first five tracks The Act We Act, A Good Idea, Changes, Helpless and Hoover Dam all come from Copper Blue and are played with maximum intensity.  The next 4 or 5 tracks are probably all from the current Mould album Silver Age which I’ve yet to get.  These sound pretty good,particularly  the raging second number.  

Come Again, the low key opener from Beaster is next, an odd choice, which briefly gets my hopes up that the next track would be the sensational Tilted into which it is welded on the EP.  My hopes are dashed by the first of the Husker Du numbers, Candy Apple Grey’s Hardly Getting Over It.  A ballad on that album, Mould’s band plays it at a slightly slower tempo and yet it sounds far heavier.  Could You Be The One?, the sole number from the Husker’s final and double album Warehouse: Songs And Stores comes next provoking a massive response from the audience.  This is followed by a tremendous version of Workbook’s See A Little Light. 

Almost the rest of the gig is given over to Husker Du.  Celebrated Summer from New Day Rising comes next.  With my hopes, expectations and body movements rising to unprecedented levels, my attempt at memorising the set list start to fall apart.  I reasonably sure that the next two numbers played is Rising’s, I Apologize followed by Zen Arcade’s Chartered Trips. The latter number might have also brought the main set to a close but by then my mind is frazzled by the heavy riff that Bob has sampled and looped through the PA system.

At this point, the show has been exactly what I hoped for.  The encores raise it to an entirely different level.  The first starts with Sugar’s If I Could Change Your Mind.  Then come the numbers that send the audience into an absolute frenzy, Zen Arcade’s Something I Learned Today and, miraculously the one track I had been hoping for but dare not expect, Everything Falls Apart’s, In A Free Land.  (Judging from the crowd’s eruption, I daresay it was the secret wish of most of the audience.)  By now, my body is moving in ways it hadn't for a few years as I drop all semblance of dignity and scream along to the “In A Free Land” responses in the choruses.

On the home straight now, the band returns for a final encore and Mould, sweat pouring from his body as he joyfully stomps all around the stage, plays a killer trio of tracks from Flip Your Wig.  The title track is first and surges with nary a breath into Hate Paper Doll and then, to top everything else, the track which was my working title for this blog, Makes No Sense At All.

It’s a brilliant show but I’d don’t stay to linger as I need to maximise my sleep. As absolutely sensational as tonight’s gig was, it can only be viewed as the preliminary bout to tomorrow’s absolutely heavyweight main event.

13 March 2013 (Day 72) – The Calm Before The Maelstorm

With quite a few work commitments today and a restaurant dinner with “M” after work, there wasn’t much opportunity for listening today.  But I’m not complaining; in some respects it was a welcome relief from the joyous noise that will descend around me over the course of the next 48 hours.

Keeping that in mind, I opted for some low key experimental noises starting with the band that’s provided half of my pseudonym;

(195) Sonic Youth – A Thousand Leaves

This is one of the more intriguing Sonic Youth albums.  It’s got a very loose almost improvised feel that isn’t anywhere near as loud as you think it should.  This doesn’t mean that they shied away from their patented brand of controlled guitar chaos; tracks like Sunday, French Tickler and Karen Koltrane take care of that.  Rather, many tracks provide the impression you’re listening to  Sonic Youth Unplugged, however this approach is wholly integrated into their traditional sound on tracks like Wildflower Soul, Hoarfrost and Hits Of Sunshine (For Allen Ginsberg).

(196) Tortoise – Self Titled

Tortoise is an experimental band from Chicago that specialises in languid instrumentals.  Such an approach was not altogether surprising given they were then without a recognised guitarist.  The line up for this album was essentially 2 bass guitars, drums and other percussion instruments resulting  in a great unreleased tension. The basses frequently throb with menace and you think the band is about to burst out a la Sonic Youth but it never really arrives; you might get a vibraphone explosion, as on the track titled Ry Cooder, but that’s about it.

And that’s how I feel as I’m about to go to sleep, sort of like the pilgrims at St Peter’s in Rome awaiting the election of a new Pope; excited but really wanting tomorrow to come in the expectation of greater things.

12 March 2013 (Day 71) – Clever Acts & A Not So Clever Label

Before I drifted off to sleep last night I downloaded another album from the same label site as my first two successful efforts with the aim of playing it at work today.  It was;

(189) Joan Armatrading – Steppin’ Out

This is a wonderful concert recording of Armatrading quite early in her career before she hit the real big time with the Me Myself I and Walk Under Ladders album.  On this she leads a crack band powered by the drumming of Little Feat’s Ritchie Hayward through the highlights of her early repertoire. Mama Mercy is a powerful opener leading into the jazzy Cool Blue Stole My Heart and a brace of ballads, the pick of which is probably Love And  Affection.  The heat is reapplied for the closing trio of rockier numbers You Rope You Tie Me, Kissin’ And  A Huggin’ and Tall In The Saddle.  It is a very fine set from a much underappreciated artist and why this album remains in limited CD release will continue to be a mystery.

But there was one thing about the download version of the album that really irked me.  In their infinite wisdom, the label concerned basically ended and started almost every track at the point in which the music started or ended.  As a result this makes for an incredibly disjointed listen as the tracks literally jump into each other.  I could possibly understand this happening if I bought each of the tracks individually but I did select the "purchase album" option.  Surely it wouldn’t have been that difficult to put the entire album there with appropriate track definition as per a CD release?  But I should be grateful as they did remember to keep the introduction though.

The rest of the day was spent listening to some really clever acts, starting with;

(190) Damon Albarn – Dr. Dee

Albarn has carved out such an eclectic career with his work in Blur, Gorillaz, The Good The Bad And the Queen among others that an opera based on the life of John Dee, Queen Elizabeth I’s scientific adviser shouldn’t really come as that great a surprise.   Although structured as an opera, it doesn’t have long stretches of classical instrumentation and operatic vocals.  These mesh with the other musical elements quite well but ultimately I’ll play his more mainstream work more frequently.

(191) Portishead – Dummy

It takes only the first 30 seconds of the aptly named opening track Mysterons – theramin, scratching, drums and the unique voice of Beth Gibbons – for Portishead to grabs the listener’s attention. Once focused, they never allowed the listener to lose it with a number of brilliant tracks including Sour Times, Numb, Biscuit and Glory Box.  It Could Be Sweet is not all that different to a Sade track and that the rest of the album doesn’t ultimately follow suit is testament to the musical vision of Gibbons, Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley.

(192) Squeeze – East Side Story

 On this Squeeze made the leap from likely New Wave obscurity to the reliable creator of albums chock full of with clever songs with often witty lyrics about everyday life.  It is probably their best album although its successor, Sweets From A Stranger, runs it close.  Although it contains formidable tracks such as In Quintessence, the insanely catchy Is That love and Mumbo Jumbo and the hilarious country of Labelled With You, everything is overshadowed by one of my very favourite songs, Tempted.

(193) Fountains Of Wayne – Welcome Interstate Managers

I think there’s a pretty good case in describing the Fountains Of Wayne as an American version of Squeeze.  A friend of mine reckons this album is a bit overproduced but, if true, it still doesn’t get in the way of the wonderful tunes.  Many of these appear to be about the perils of sustaining a (non musical) career such as Bright Future In Sales,  a great number about a travelling salesman. All Kinds Of Time and Little Red Light are in this vein and Stacey’s Mom gave the band a well deserved hit.

(194) Pavement – Wowee Zowee!

Not many albums start with a phrase such as “There is no castration fear” but this is a Pavement album after all.  This was their response to the success of the more traditional sounding Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain being a form of retreat to the fractured sounds of Slanted And Enchanted.  But this approach does not get in the way of gems such as Rattled By La Rush, Grounded and Fight This Generation.  Father To A Sister Of A Thought added a bit of country to their overall mix up.

11 March 2013 (Day 70) – Labour Day Blues

Today is Labour Day, a public holiday which celebrates our attainment of an 8 hour working day. As I was struggling to think up a theme for today’s post, “M” suggested I spend my day listening to some of my more bolshie records.

I had two reasons for rejecting “M” otherwise sensible suggestion.  First, today marks something like the eighth day in a row in which Melbourne has had a maximum temperature greater than 32 degrees Celsius.  Now I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to do on a bright hot sunny day is to listen to well-meaning songs that lecture me about unions, workers, revolutions, socialist utopias or the futility of war, Margaret Thatcher, George W Bush or Ronnie Reagan.  I could probably let some politically charged reggae slip by if I concentrated on the riddim alone but I’d definitely don't tend to listen to Billy Bragg, early Dylan, The (International) Noise Conspiracy, the Dead Kennedys, Atari Teenage Riot, Laibach or the Ani DiFranco’s/Utah Phillips album of union songs among others on days like this.

Instead, these are days for keeping cool, drinking beer, napping or eating.   And as things have turned out we have a family birthday celebration to attend.  After a nap, “M” and I go to the venue and we spend the afternoon eating, drinking beer or cider and standing in front of a very powerful air conditioning unit. Very nice.  And just to underscore my point, our hosts do not play any background music with the sound of all the guests drinking, laughing and chatting providing the soundtrack.

In any case, my other reason for the lack of bolshie music is that I wanted to play through the two downloaded albums I purchased yesterday starting with:

(185) The J Geils Band – Monkey Island

This was the first time the J Geils Band strayed from the tried and true hard rockin’ R&B of their previous eight albums.  Originally credited to Geils, it is quite a diverse collection of musical styles that I suspect the band has disowned as I’ve never seen a CD copy.  This is a pity as there is much to admire.  The opener Surrender and Somebody play to their traditional strength.  The title track takes a bizarre cabaret band type intro and merges it with a mid tempo tune to form an unlikely 9 minute epic. I’m Falling is a solid ballad whilst I Do appears to anticipate the direction the band would ultimately take into Centrefold and brief world domination.  But the best was kept for last.  Wreckage is a ballad that would have served as a fitting epitaph for any number of bands, as Peter Wolf looks back wistfully over a life or career (take your choice) and the “wreckage along the way” before the song ultimately disappears in a welter of guitars just a notch or two short of heavy metal.

(186) Grace Jones – Slave To The Rhythm

I was extremely nervous when I played this album.  When I wanted to buy a CD copy last year, I was put off by consumer comments which indicated the record company had made a number of changes to the original release including a change to the running order, alterations of individual track lengths and the removal of track linking material.  Fortunately these were retained in my download version which preserves the intriguing concept.  This was a remix album before the term had been invented, comprising essentially eight radically different versions of the same tune including operatic, funk and acapella versions all linked via an interview.  The complete official version is arguably Jones’ greatest ever recording but the whole album is also a testament to Trevor Horn’s amazing production, one of the few from the 80s that still holds true today.

(187) Van Dyke Parks – Song Cycle

This is one of those albums that provoke a definitive reaction of love or hate from anyone who hears it.  I’m not quite sure why because it delivers exactly what the title promises – a group of songs designed to be performed together as one half hour piece of music.  The tracks share a pastoral theme and sounds like the Incredible String Band with touches of early lush Randy Newman instrumentation and Brian Wilson inspired psychedelic madness thrown in.  Additionally the entire piece appears to start and end mid track as if to imply that this is something that has floated in and out of someone’s consciousness.  It is a very demanding listen but one well suited for a hot day, especially if you are on the fringes of dozing off.  You have been warned.

(188) Van Halen – Self Titled

Very few debut albums and careers started off with such a blast as Van Halen’s.  It starts off with  Runnin’ With The Devil a slow burning tune into the short instrumental Eruption which is effectively the introduction for the double barrelled assault of their inspired cover of The Kinks’ You Really Got Me and Ain’t Talkin’  ‘Bout Love.  The remainder of the album approaches but doesn’t transcend this specular opening. Atomic Punk is a fun homage to an imaginary hard rock superhero and David Lee Roth asserts himself on a cover of bluesman John Brim’s Ice Cream Man that predicts the approach he was to take in the early part of his solo career.  As on any of their albums, the highlight is of, course, Eddie Van Halen’s guitar work

9 & 10 March 2013 (Days 68 & 69) – 21st Century Boy

I don’t expect that anyone would want to watch a television series about my life.  (Question to self: then why are you writing a daily blog? Self: I’m doing so anonymously. Second question to self: why would anyone want to read your blog? Self: I’ve told you/me many times, I’m doing this for my/your self.  Therapist looking unmistakably like Sigmund Freud: So Mister .Youth, how long have you been talking to yourself?)  But if one was made, the subtitle on screen would read – 2013: Otis embraces the internet. 

And so that has been the case.  So far this year, I’ve set up my first internet account at home, started and maintained this blog and engaged in all almost of the tasks one does when one joins the internet age.  Well actually, there have been two things I haven’t yet tried.  One is viewing porn and the other is purchasing music online.  And as of now, there is only one task left. 

I went into this weekend (actually long weekend as Monday is a public holiday) with no fixed plans other than to beat the unseasonably hot weather that has hit Melbourne as a final reminder of the summer we’re about to lose.  “M” and I hit a local shopping centre early on Saturday, did grocery shopping, had lunch, split up for individual shopping during which I managed to by nothing and went to the movies, all in air conditioned comfort.  (For the record the movie was Steven Soderbergh’s Side Effects, a more than competent whydidit.) By the time we returned home, all we wanted to do was vegetate which we did quite effectively.

Sunday posed a problem.  A long gap loomed before we were due at a birthday shindig at 4pm.  We shuffled around the house and did our chores.  With the house clean and air temperature still cool, “M” decided on a spot of online shopping (actually browsing is a more appropriate word).  When she finished I took over and idly tried to search for some cheap and legal downloads.

I was in luck, sort of. I was alerted to a site run by one of the record labels here and went scrolling through their inventory.  In doing so I found a couple of albums that I had wanted to replace my cassette versions for a long time but had never been released on CD.  I then wrestled with the less than clear instructions that these sites invariably have and eventually became the proud possessor of two digital albums.  Next task was to burn these to CD, place them in the rear pocket of an archival sleeve, hunt out the re-recorded cassettes, remove their covers, flatten them so that each cover and track list component is visible simultaneously and place them in the front pocket of the sleeve, ready for tomorrow’s listening.

The weekend’s listening was as follows:

(182) MUSE – The Resistance

This starts off as though it was going to be the MUSE album for the ages.  The first few tracks are great examples of MUSE’s patented symphonic space rock. United States Of Eurasia (+ Collateral Damage) then follows, a track that can only be described as an out and out homage to Queen complete with Freddie Mercury vocal flamboyance. Later on comes the spectacular Unnatural Selection and Mk Ultra, each of them a bombastic (in the best sense of the term) showcase of the band at their best and obviously designed with huge stadiums in mind.  And then the last 4 tracks things provide an anti-climax of the most gigantic order.  Chief culprit is the Exogenesis: Symphony that accounts for the last three cuts and sounds like suspiciously like incidental soundtrack music.

(183) Radio Soulwax – Part Of The Weekend Never Dies (cd only)

This is gonna get confusing.  Once upon a time, brothers Stephen and David Dewaele formed a band in Belgium called Soulwax, an alternative rock band.  They then created a DJ alter ego for themselves as 2ManyDJ’s which released the Sgt Pepper’s of mash up albums, As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt 2.  They would frequently tour as one act or the other and occasionally (as when I saw them at a Big Day Out) as both.  On some tours they appeared as Soulwax Nite Sessions in which I think they play remixed versions of Soulwax tunes.  This relase is part of a DVD package which shows a Nite Sessions/2ManyDJ’s tour.  Naturally, it’s credited to Radio Soulwax.  The CD, which might be called Live At Fabric, seems to be a recording of the 2ManyDJ’s live.  If so, it demonstrates that as DJ’s the  Dewaeles know exactly how to keep a dance party moving.  The key is by baseing everything on a rock beat.

(184) Battles – Mirrored

Battles is a rock band which plays an intriguing form of mostly instrumental tracks.  There isn’t much of a reference point I can provide although some of the tracks on this, their debut, have a Frank Zappa feel to them.  Too loud to be considered ambient, too rhythmic to be considered as a truly experimental act, Battles are best described as a music category in their own right.   I suspect that this album might be the sound of a band finding its feet but I’ll need to listen to subsequent releases to get a stronger handle.

And now I’m off to surf for porn.

8 March 2013 (Day 67) – (Dance) Music For Working

For the most part, whatever is designated as “dance music” has always baffled me.  It doesn’t matter whether it was 70s disco or more recent forms such as house, trace, techno, etc, my basic problem has always been that I cannot find a way to dance to it.

I think we humans have an inbuilt, instinctive sense that allows us to discern rhythmic patterns.  It, almost more than anything, allows us to move accordingly, establishing key moments to do things (say, raising your arm John Travolta like to the heavens) that don’t occur at ridiculous times on the dance floor.   Thus, the key to dancing for me, whether voluntarily or not, has always been the beat. It provides me with the necessary aural directions; when to move my feet, arms, torso etc.  On the dance floor I get into the beat, recognise it, understand its patterns and plot out in my mind where my various body parts are going to go.

This is where my problems with “dance” music begin.  The beat is so persistent, so unyielding, so unrelenting, thump, thump, thump, boom, boom, boom, doof, doof, doof, that I experience a complete and utter sense of disorientation.  My brain shuts down, unable to detect anything in the beat that makes me want to sway in time to it.  I will then adopt a frustrated stance on the dance floor as I literally don’t know how to move.  Invariably I have to account for my presence there and instinctively adopt the headbangers stance and thrust my head up and down.  This is also a visible sign to hardened clubbers who immediately understand my predicament.  Or at least that’s what I’ve convinced myself.   Judging from people I’ve seen moving to “dance” music, I suspect that they’ve either ignored the beat altogether (making for some bizarre scenes on the dancefloor) or have taken such copious amounts of alcohol or drugs that they are dancing to a different beat completely. 

Unless “M”, to whom dancing comes naturally and gracefully, is dragging me onto a dancefloor, something far more fundamental needs to occur before I’ll even consider an expedition there.  Basically there has to be something about the music that moves me emotionally to want to dance and this obviously has to do with the quality of the music being played.  This is my other problem with a lot of “dance” music; it’s complete and utter anonymity.  For example, neighbours near my place, traditionally have a New Year’s Eve do each year, although mercifully we were spared one this year.  Their choice of music is “doof doof” my term (and probably many others) for exactly the type of anonymous relentless sound that I have in mind here.  It is largely instrumental, sounds like its being churned out of a computer and lacks any form of soul or emotion.  Above everything else it has a relentless pile driving beat that never seems to vary or even stop; most of the time I have trouble even distinguishing between songs.

I remember at one party a few years ago a period of audible silence after which Daft Punk’s wonderful One More Time was played before more silence and the “doof doof” seemingly restarting at the point it was before it was rudely interrupted.  The Daft Punk track was a blissful relief that neatly encapsulated the difference.  There are lyrics to the song and so a human (if electronically manipulated) voice but more importantly was able to convey a sense of joy and humanity that the “doof doof” could never hope to match.

As this anecdote reveals there is dance music that I actually like and which will make me move.  And it is not just onto the dancefloor.  Over the years I’ve found that the relentless beats, blips and beeps provide a wonderful backdrop when I’m faced with a task of a repetitious nature.  This was the case today, as I was faced with a far bit of data inputting, double checking and basic accounting.  In this environment I’m able to get my mental faculties to operate in an orderly, regimented manner and I’ve found that this form of music actually helps me deal with this scenario.  This is not heaping false praise on any of the artists or the recordings below.  Look at it this way, they are all records that make me move whether on the dancefloor or, in a completely unintended way, at work.

(177) The Crystal Method – Vegas

This is one of my favourite dance albums, a sensational rendering of what is probably a totally digital soundscape but invested with memorable tunes and enough vocal work to keep you thinking.  It starts off with their original take on Trip Like I Do, one of the more average tracks here but lifted into the stratosphere when reworked by Filter for the soundtrack of Spawn.  All of the up tempo numbers – Busy Child, Keep Hope Alive and its surging intertwining with Vapour Trail and Now Is The Time – are all sensational.  The remaining tracks provide some light and shade and reductions in the tempo.

(178) The Chemical Brothers – We Are The Night

Instead of choosing one of the better known albums such as Dig Your Own Hole or Surrender, I opted for this lower profile release.  It is quite a diverse albums encompassing the traditional Chemical Brothers attack on tracks like Do It Again, All Rights Reserved, a couple of tracks which betray quite a debt to Kraftwerk (Saturate and Das Spiegel) and even a track that could be termed a novelty number.  The latter is Salmon Dance with hilarious instructions courtesy of Fatlip.

(179) Mylo – Destroy Rock & Roll

Mylo is the stage name for a Scottish musician and record producer named Myles MacInnes.  This is effectively is only commercially released album which consists mostly of chilled out tunes built on a range of intriguing samples.  In My Arms is arguably the most recognisable of these being constructed from Kym Carnes’ Bette Davis Eyes but the pick is very nearly the magisterial Need  You Tonite which uses, of all tunes, Judie Tzuke’s Stay With Me Til Dawn .  But absolutely everything is overshadowed by the title track which uses what sounds like an American preacher praying for the destruction of Rock & Roll, including such unlikely acts as Men At Work and Band Aid in addition to the usual suspects.  Listen also to how the preacher mispronounces some of the acts.

(180) Fatboy Slim – Better Living Through Chemistry

If only all instrumental dance albums could sound like this.  This was Norman Cook’s debut album as the Fatboy and I think he’s yet to beat it, You’ve Come A Long Way Baby and its host of singles and videos included.  Every track is based on a pounding beat but all have their own personality.  Song For Lindy, Going Out Of My Head (sampling a cover of The Who’s I Can’t Explain), and Punk To Funk are the highlights but really any track could have been selected.

(181) The Prodigy – The Fate Of The Land

This is almost critic proof given the existence of so many iconic tracks including Smack My Bitch Up, Breathe, Firestarter and Cimbatize.  The closing track Fuel My Fire samples The Cosmic Psychos Last Cause to great effect as well as providing Bill Walsh with what I hope are considerable well deserved royalties.

7 March 2013 (Day 66) – Some Movie Soundtracks

I knew it was going to be a busy day at work with quite a few time consuming meetings.  But I also wanted reassurance that my reimport of all my compilations had been successfully completed.  I thus concentrated on single disc comps and they all just happened to be movie soundtracks. 

As I see things, four basic types of movie soundtracks have been released on CD, not counting live recordings from concert films such as Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense or the Woodstock album.  These are albums containing incidental music written for the film, specifically written songs, compilations of previously released songs that appear in some form or other on the actual soundtrack or songs that with no direct connection to the movie but thrown together as an extra money-spinner.  In many instances a soundtrack album will contain combinations of the above.    The only real variation to this scheme was that developed by Trent Reznor for Natural Born Killers in which tracks are faded in and out of each other (the transition from Leonard Cohen’s Waiting For The Miracle into L7’s Shitlist is an absolute masterstroke) and dialogue from the actual movie.

It’s been remarkable how well some movie soundtracks function as stand-alone albums.  I can’t think of that many successful albums of incidental music by rock musicians apart from some of Ry Cooder’s (such as Paris, Texas), Peter Gabriel’s Passion (the soundtrack for The Last Temptation Of Christ) or Isaac Hayes Shaft.  (You could probably add many of the early Pink Floyd albums such as More or Obscured By Clouds here as well.) There’s been a greater strike rate for acts creating song soundtracks such as Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly, Prince’s Purple Rain and Parade, the Bee Gees component of Saturday Night Fever, The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night and many others.

But it is the compilation soundtrack that has produced some notable artistic successes that have stood the test of time because the filmmakers were able to put together a fairly representative compilation of a particular scene or artist at the right point of time.  A lot of the concert documentary soundtracks such as Woodstock and Wattstax, The Concert For Bangladesh or The Band’s The Last Waltz fit here.  But the real successes are the Singles soundtrack which is a great overview of the Seattle gunge era, Saturday Night Fever for its depiction of disco, FM with its overview of 70s American MOR and at least two of the albums played today including my first selection:

(174) Various Artists – The Harder They Come

This is the album that introduced reggae music to generations of music lovers and along with Bob Marley’s Legend compilation, the reggae album most likely to be found in the large collections of people whowant to say they own reggae music.  Even if you never heard it, chances are that you’ve heard many of the individual tracks either in their original form or via cover versions.  The star of both the album and movie is Jimmy Cliff who contributes You Can Get It If You Really Want, Many Rivers To Cross, Sitting In Limbo and the title track, all now acknowledged classics.  Among the remainder there’s The Melodians The Rivers Of Babylon (subsequently butchered musically by Boney M), 007 (Shanty Town) by Desmond Dekker and the song covered by ska bands everywhere, Pressure Drop by The Maytals. 

(175) Various Artists – Dead Man Walking

I’ve always been ambient about Dead Man Walking the movie.  I know that it is about redemption and faith but is also supposed to be a coherent argument against capital punishment.  Yet when one gets to the actual execution and Sean Penn’s character finally admits his guilt and seeks forgiveness, I always think that I’ve seen the one powerful argument in its favour for the relief it gives the victim’s family.  I have no such problems with the powerful soundtrack.  The tone is set by Bruce Springsteen’s acoustic Dead Man Walkin’ and is carried through by similar superb efforts from Johnny Cash, Steve Earle, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lyle Lovett, Patti Smith and Michelle Shocked.  Light, shade and musical curve balls come courtesy of Suzanne Vega, Tom Waits and the duo of Eddie Vedder and Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn.

(176) Various Artists – O Brother, Where Art Thou

What The Harder They Come did for reggae, this album did for bluegrass music.  The soundtrack to the film by the Cohen Brothers it is notably for thrusting Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss to mass notice but also for highlighting some of the best bluegrass tunes.  These include Harry McClintock’s Big Rock Candy Mountain, You Are My Sunshine (performed here by Norman Blake), Man Of Constant Sorrow (a few versions here) and O Death (performed here by Ralph Stanley).  The current popularity of the Americana genre is simply unfathomable without it and marks another major success for the movie’s music director, the grossly under acknowledged, T-Bone Burnett.