Cabin In The Sky


The first incarnation of Tuxedomoon occurred in 1977 in San Francisco. Self described as an "eclectic international post punk new wave music group", the band created a unique interpretation of those styles by adding in art rock (emphasis on art), jazz and classical influences. In the early '80s the band relocated to Europe, where the music they created felt more at home. The four principles still live all over the map - Mexico, the US, Greece and Belgium - and this brings a very distinctive international flavor to their recently released album, Cabin In The Sky. The album features input from a bunch of current scenesters - DJ Hell, John McEntire, Tarwater and Marc Collin (Nouvelle Vague, Ollano, Volga Select) all help out in various ways. The resulting record is a slick mish mash of post-punk and jazz and Italian film noir and dance beats. Luther Blisset - (interesting Wikipedia listing for Luther Blisset) - rides minimal house-y beats, adds layers of buzzing guitars, piano vamping, sawing synths, incredibly crazed horn skronk and a bunch of other cool shit, then tops it of with Steve Brown's Bowie-esque vocals. It's a fascinating brew from a record that's caught me by surprise.

I ♥ NY Punk!


November's issue of Brit rock mag Mojo came with a great free CD entitled I ♥ NY Punk! . The issue takes an in depth look at the fertile musical breeding grounds that was NYC in the late '70s, particularly focusing on The Ramones. The accompanying CD is a veritable who's-who of the scene, and is also pretty wide in scope. It starts with glam punkers like the New York Dolls and runs from a bit of new wave right up to the post-punk scene. Being (overly?) fond of that particular style of the genre you must know that the tunes I offer will be of that ilk, and you are correct. Enjoy the chunky, driving punk funk rhythms of the Bush Tetras' Cowboys In Africa, and the laid back, seedy, smack addled jazz skronk of James Chance & The Distortions' King Heroin - notable for featuring the horn talents of the Bowie brothers who later went on to form Defunkt. A fine compilation.

1 New York Dolls - Trash
2 Wayne County & The Electric Chairs - Fuck Off
3 Blondie - Rip Her To Shreds
4 Mink DeVille - She's So Tough
5 Richard Hell & The Voidoids - Going Going Gone
6 The Real Kids - All Kindsa Girls
7 Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers - Chinese Rocks
8 Bush Tetras - Cowboys In Africa
9 Destroy All Monsters - Bored
10 Suicide - Keep Your Dreams (Live)
11 The Dictators - The Next Big Thing
12 Television - See No Evil
13 Bad Brains - Sailin' On
14 The Stimulators - Loud And Fast Rules
15 James Chance & The Distortions - King Heroin

We Have Sound


Tom Vek's excellent debut LP We Have Sound got it's US release last week - it was originally released on Tim Love Lee's hip, indie dance label Tummy Touch in April in the UK. He wrote and played everything on it, and it is a very cool slab of lo-fi, indie rock-meets-new wave-meets-bluesy stompers mixed with a little bit of everyting else. It pretty much defies categorisation. It's really good. I like his voice, I really like his guitar that riffs all over the place, and the elements of '80s pop - the beats, the funky popping bass parts - that he adds make it even more appealing to me. If You Want features the afore mentioned popping bass, tight beats and ghostly synth washes - it reminds me of a scruffier Colder, you know - machine funk with a human touch. If I Had Changed My Mind is the opposite end of Tom's sonic spectrum. It's a bluesy riff rocker with Iggy Pop-like vocals and lots of crusty, fuzzy distorted guitars. Great stuff that I highly recommend - if you like these tunes do the man a favor and buy the CD, out now on Startime International Records.

Funky Friday - The Temptations

And on the fifth day of psych-pop week, thou shalt get funky...


What better way to cap psych-pop week @ SIART than with a couple of tunes from vocal greats The Temptations. A couple of years ago Motown issued a nice 2CD set called Psychedelic Soul. It's a compilation of tracks from their late '60s and early '70s records, when the band's music began to take on a harder edge and their lyrics began to address the Vietnam war and the plight of the black man in America. What you get is lots of songs about peace, love and harmony, and even a bit of hippy dippy sentiment - all without the hippy dippy music. This stuff is hard and musically adventurous, with some of the tracks running as long as 13 minutes. It combined the soul grooves of it's era with hard rock - "acid rock", if you will - sounds. There are some positively shredding guitar solos, and lots of distortion. Producer Norman Whitfield is a whiz at the mix, and the stereo effects are very cool - the amount of stuff buzzing between left and right can be dizzying. The vocals are as distinctive as ever, with each member getting their spot in the song to shine as well as harmonising beautifully. My folks had a few of their albums, and the one that I heard the most was 1970's Psychedelic Shack. This compilation is notable for a few previously unreleased tracks, including an extended version of the stellar title track Psychedelic Shack (Long Version). Over a crushing breakbeat, wah-wah guitar and clavinet collide with the "incense in the air" as the band runs us through the crazy happenings at the shack - "this place will blow your mind". A great, fuzzy party tune, from an album that also spawned the classics War and Friendship Train. 1972's All Directions album brought the hit single Funky Music Sho Nuff Turns Me On, a groovy strut that has a bit of that Earth, Wind and Fire vibe to it - tight rhythms, vocals and big horns. The funky music sho' nuff turns me on!

Psych-Pop Week Day 4 - World Party


Competing for airtime with XTC's Skylarking in 1986 was Karl Wallinger's one man bad World Party, who released their debut album Private Revolution that same year. Fresh from his stint as a band member of celtic rockers The Waterboys, his album exploded with ideas and creativity and experiments that his old band would never have allowed him. It ranged from Dylan-esque folk rockers (including a cover of the man's All I Really Want To Do) to Beatlesque pop to Prince-ly funk jams, all mixed up with a dash of psychedelics. There was a great big hit single, Ship Of Fools. It was one of the most played records on my stereo that year. I loved it's genre mashing, it's "peace, love and harmony" lyrical vibe. It shares that same pastoral, lush feeling as the XTC record, and is quirky in it's own way too. Most of all I loved the song All Come True. It's a lovely mid tempo rocker that rides a big, chunky double bass riff. Throw in some gentle piano, spaced out keys, some Edge-y guitar riffs, some tablas, and a bit of fiddle and I'm drifting off. This tune isn't overtly psychedelic, but it has some very cool little embellishments, particularly the spaced out break in the middle with the historical names floating around in the mix. A lovely tune.

Psych-Pop Week Day 3 - XTC

This week SIART is having psychedelic flashbacks...


XTC released their eighth album, Skylarking, in 1986. They were fresh off of recording their gonzo-Nuggets-psych-rock classic 25 O'Clock as The Dukes Of Stratosfear. Their choice of producer was '70s spacepop prog rocker Todd Rundgren. The resulting album was a big change of sonic pace for the band. It largely eschewed the loud and fast angular riffing the band was best known for, and instead was lush and pastoral. Still full of the quirks of Andy and Colin's songs, but couched in such velvety smooth surroundings, with strings and nature sounds and all manner of studio trickery. This is easily the most "produced" album of the band's career, and because of that some people don't like it. Me, I'd rank it as a tie for first, or second best overall. It is an album of much psychedelic beauty - there's something going on in every nook and cranny on these songs. I will spare you the details, but I experienced this album several times in an altered state (ah, wanton youth), and was mind boggled by it's earthy richness. The album's opening two songs are pure sonic bliss for me, starting with the warm, summery buzzing of Andy Partridge's Summer's Cauldron. It begins with crickets and birds before woozy keyboards and a gentle beat kicks in. The song is a veritable hymn to the beauty of nature and warm summer days - "trees are dancing drunk with nectar". In my opinion it's one of his best tunes, and it never fails to makes me feel all warm and gooey. It segues ever so smoothly into Colin Moulding's Grass, a song filled with delicious double entendres - it's sexy and drug addled all at once, and so fantastically orchestrated. It all fades out with the same chirping birds and crickets that began it all. A couple of delightfully psychedelic baroque pop gems.

Psych-Pop Week Day 2 - Eno & Byrne

This week SIART is having psychedelic flashbacks...



In between recording sessions for the Talking Heads albums Fear Of Music & Remain In Light, producer Brian Eno and Head singer/songwriter David Byrne found the time to record an album of music that remains unique to this day - 1981's My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts. It was a collection of "cut and paste" tracks, featuring various found sound recordings that the two tweaked and shaped over assorted grooves. I had just discovered the Talking Heads, and so I was intrigued by what I might find. It was unlike anything I had heard. Over fractured, repetitive grooves the two of them threw actual recordings of exorcisms (The Jezebel Spirit), preachers ranting and mystical Middle Eastern chanting and wailing. Musically it was just as adventurous, crossing rock with Afro pop with avant garde artiness and mixing pop, funk and Afro rhythms. It's remarkable to think, in this age of sampling technology on every computer, that this was all done on tape - literally cut and paste. Because the album was so ahead of it's time it still holds up amazingly well. It is also a heady, psychedelic experience. There are two songs on it that source Arabic music, in particular the vocals of Lebanese mountain singer Dunya Yusin, and they are my personal favorites on the record. Regiment is one hell of a funky ride, with the loose shuffle of Heads drummer Chris Frantz' beats and the popping riffs of bassist Busta Jones pinning down a buzzing, smoky melody - Yusin's wail transports me to some mystical place every time I hear it. The Carrier is even more mysterious and deep, a shifting, drone-y percussive piece of ambience. Once again Yusin's voice is the focal point, and it's a moving, melancholic performance. Beautiful, mysterious and psychedelic. A perfect blend.

Psych-Pop Week Day 1 - Jerry Garcia

This week SIART is having psychedelic flashbacks. What better place to start than with...


Jerry Garcia was best known & loved as the lead singer and guitarist of hippy rockers The Grateful Dead. When I first moved back to the US in 1985 I was pretty much unaware of the band - they were not as big a draw in the UK. In 1986 I got a job as a canvasser for Greenpeace, and I met a whole new crowd of people - the "Deadheads". The incredibly loyal fanbase of the band was a trip to behold - such dedication and devotion. Some of them rabidly so, even to the point of being unwilling to give other music a chance. I wondered what could inspire it all, so I tried to join in. I went to a bunch of shows, was force fed bootlegs by some of my friends, and even bought a few used LPs. In the end I will admit to being a minor fan. I enjoy some of their music, but personally couldn't justify spending my money on seeing the band over and over again - out of 5 or 6 shows I think I got one good one. I went to see Garcia's solo band once, and found it a much more enjoyable experience than the Dead. They were a lot less jam band-y, and a lot funkier. I only own one Jarry Garcia album, 1972's Garcia, a fine record. It's got several tunes that are Dead classics - Deal, Sugaree and The Wheel were all staples of the band's shows. The Wheel starts of with a bit of jarring, discordant jangle before floating off into clouds of steel guitar, all soft and billowy. The guitar is reminiscent of Pink Floyd, albeit a more countrified version. I really like the shuffling, shifting drumbeats on the track that keep it all together. A very tasty bit of psychedelic country rock.

I promise that the rest of the week will not be as hippy-dippy as this...

Funky Friday's Seventies Soul


Bill Withers has one of those voices that is unmistakable - you hear it and you know it's him. He released his debut LP Just As I Am in 1971, and it was a hit right away due to it's leading single Ain't No Sunshine, an absolute classic of a song. Here was a singer combining elements of folk and r'n'b, showing such sensitivity and telling such great stories - gritty realism mixed with such melancholy. The album, produced by the already legendary Booker T. Jones, has just been remastered and reissued. It doesn't have bonus tracks, but it is a DualDisc, so you can pop it in your DVD player and enjoy a short documentary about the making of the album, as well as a couple of great live performances and a 5.1 surround mix of the record. Needless to say it's the shit - 12 great tracks with no filler - with 2 covers (Everybody's Talkin' & Let It Be, both very unique takes) and 10 originals that are just plain brilliant. The band is incredibly tight - Jim Keltner and Al Jackson (The M.G.s) on drums, Stephen Stills on guitar and Booker T. on keys and guitar too. The album opens with Harlem, gorgeously breezy and strummy soul with some hot strings. The tune starts softly and builds into a big, orchestrated stomper that tells a simple story about life in the mythical hood that is Harlem. The record goes on to Ain't No Sunshine and Grandma's Hands (sample spotters will recognise the opening riff, used by Dr. Dre on Blackstreet's No Diggity) and the aforementioned covers before wrapping up with the tragic tale of love gone wrong that is Better Off Dead - "she's better off without me and I'm better off dead." If you've never heard it before, the end of the song will get you. A truly great album and a classic of it's era.

Classic 12"s of the '80s - Dub Stylee


Black Uhuru's 1984 album Anthem won the band the first ever reggae Grammy award. The trio of Puma Jones, Duckie Simpson and Michael Rose were again backed up by the premier reggae rhythm section of Sly and Robbie. The album was much more of a commercial entity than the few that had preceded it. It was the band's attempt to cross over into the world of mainsteam success, so they added electro and r'n'b elements to their already heady dub brew. Lyrically the trio were as sharp as ever, bringing to life the struggles of the poor, and the injustices handed out by "the man". It's nice to note that even though they were obviously trying to reach a larger audience they were unwilling to soften their hardline stance. One of the standout tracks for me was the single What Is Life? (12" Remix) . For the 12" remix they procured the services of dance legend François Kevorkian, who worked in tandem with the song's co-producer Paul "Groucho" Smykle. They stretch out the tune, adding a lovely spaced out keyboard groove in the middle, and slightly punching up the dancefloor appeal. The sax is great on this. A lovely tune.

Retreat


The Rakes. Great. Just what we need. Another post-punk-pop band of British heritage. Four wiry guys making angular, wiry rock. Well actually, as it turns out, yes, we do need more. Their debut Retreat EP got it's US release last week on hip indie label Dim Mak - the band's album Capture/Release is already out in Europe. Produced by the audio guru of the scene Paul Epworth (Futureheads, Maximo Park, Bloc Party - he's AKA Phones, remixer du jour), the EP is a corker. Retreat is brilliantly catchy stuff with great lyrics detailing a life of continual over indulgence - go out, get pissed, do something stupid, go home and crash, wake up and start all over again. Something we can all relate to to a certain degree. An excellent nugget of sharp, shouty, handclappy goodness. Also very cool is Epworth's remix of it, Retreat (Phones Remix). He applies his magic touch and a rockin' disco anthem is born.

Return The Gift


You probably already know that the original line-up of Gang Of Four have reunited. They played a few gigs in the UK last year and the buzz was good so they parlayed it into a world tour. They also went into the studio and re-recorded a bunch of their old songs. Return The Gift is the result. It's available in two flavors - the single disc with the re-recorded songs and a two disc version with a second disc of remixes by a whole slew of current acts. Here's the deal as I see it. It seems to me a fairly redundant move to go back and re-record your old songs, especially when the originals are held in such high regard by so many people. I mean really, what's the point? Are the versions going to be radically different? Of course, being a huge fan of the band and of the art of the remix, I knew I'd have to get the double disc set. I've listened to the first disc once - not enough to give you a good opinion, although first impressions left me feeling "a bit meh". It seemed like there wasn't a hell of a big difference. The remixes? I've played that disc ALOT. It's great. I enjoy all of the mixes on it - special mentions to Go Home Productions, Phones, Ladytron and The Others. My absolute fave is the Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) remix of I Love A Man In A Uniform. I have to say I also like the re-recorded version of the song off of disc 1. It is a much tighter, louder take, although it lacks the lovely, soulful female backing vocals of the original. The remix rectifies that by inserting the ever awesome vocals of Karen O into the mix in their place. Nick scuffs up the track a bit, and to these ears, it's magic. Maybe one day I'll get around to listening to the rest of disc one, but for now I can't stop playing the remixes.
I Love A Man In A Uniform

I Love A Man In A Uniform (Yeah Yeah Yeahs Remix)