Sacotn Suggests

Delorean. Dance pop from Zarautz, Spain. I listened to their latest album, Subiza, yesterday and was very impressed. Here's the video for it's opening track, "Stay Close".

Inspiration Through Noir

I was listening to the classic 80th's synthpop hit, "Don't You Want Me", by Human League today, and I realized the idea for the song most likely draws inspiration from the film, I Wake Up Screaming. A film noir from 1941, the movie follows the story of a murder of a young woman, set through flashbacks told by those being questioned in the police interrogation room. The first flashback shows Victor Mature's character propositioning a young waitress into becoming a big star. Before you know it, her career takes off, leaving him in the dust. The film has unfortunately been taken down from youtube, but if you have Netflix, here's the link for instant viewing:

http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70048908&trkid=222336&strackid=d56f0f035238803_0_srl&strkid=2107145624_0_0

The plotline for "Don't You Want Me" is set up within the first 15 minutes.

Human League-Don't You Want Me
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"Bad Cover Version"

Ever started dating someone where it basically felt as if you were trying to imitate your last relationship? This isn't something that's happened to me recently, but I can certainly empathize with the Pulp song, "Bad Cover Version", off their final album, We Love Life. Funny side note: the bridge contains several great comparisons of other things that have gotten it "oh so wrong". One of the examples is the "second side of 'Til The Band Comes In", an album by Scott Walker released in 1970, in which Walker wrote the first ten tracks, but was forced to record covers by his record company, which make up the remainder of side two of the LP. Scott Walker produced We Love Life, but apparently was chosen for the job after the song had been written. Here is Pulp performing the song on Top of the Pops, the video featuring various imitators of popular musicians plodding through it, and the lyrics reprinted underneath for maximum enjoyment.

Bad Cover Version @ Yahoo! Video

The word's on the street: you've found someone new.
If he looks nothing like me I'm so happy for you.
I heard an old girlfriend has turned to the church -
she's trying to replace me, but it'll never work.
'Cos every touch reminds you of just how sweet it could have been
And every time he kisses you it leaves behind the bitter taste of saccharine.
A bad cover version of love is not the real thing.
Bikini-clad girl on the front who invited you in.
Such great disappointment when you got him home -
the original was so good; the one you no longer own.
And every touch reminds you of just how sweet it could have been
And every time he kisses you, you get the taste of saccharine.
It's not easy to forget me, it's so hard to disconnect
When it's electronically reprocessed to give a more life-like effect.

Aah, sing your song about all the sad imitations that got it so wrong
It's like a later "Tom & Jerry" when the two of them could talk
Like the Stones since the Eighties, like the last days of Southfork.
Like "Planet of the Apes" on TV, the second side of "'Til the Band Comes in"
Like an own-brand box of cornflakes: he's going to let you down my friend.

M.I.A. - "Born Free"

Here is the music video for M.I.A.'s new song, "Born Free". The song in of itself is a violent thrashing of industrialized punk rock, but nothing can match the genocide of the song's companion video. I won't spoil anything, all I'll say is, in the words of Steve Malkmus, "no time for gingers now".

Plastic Beach

Plastic Beach is a decent record but it's definitely the sloppiest Gorillaz album to date. For starters, it's the first Gorillaz album that has no producer. With the project now completely in Damon Albarn's hands, the final product is a tad less inspired than previous efforts. The biggest problem is probably sequencing. On the first two Gorillaz records, the first voice you hear is Albarn's, which makes sense as he is the main force behind the project, and to fully feel his presence right away adds to the experience. Oddly enough, now that he is completley in charge, we don't hear him sing until track 4. In the meantime, Snoop Dogg, Bashy, and Kano rap their way through the first few tracks. Snoop Dogg's track, "Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach", fares well enough but his presence feels a bit out of place. He's just too famous - the illusion of the Gorillaz can't be upheld.

The music for the most part on the record is top notch synth pop, but it doesn't have the superb structures that Demon Days had. In fact, the tracks on this album mostly sound like a bunch a keyboard based grooves that Albarn constructed, with vocals then provided later as an afterthought. The songs rarely sound produced in the sense that they were worked on for very long. One exception to this is "Empire Ants", which begins with a gentle sweep of piano flurries before being overtaken by Human League style synths and beat boxes, accompanied by a dreamy vocal provided by Yukimi Nagano. These grooves though should not be discredited for simply sounding not labored over. While they don't sound like the work of several people pooling their resources, they still are great examples of Albarn's knack for sonic textures and groovy hooks. "On Melancholy Hill" is a wonderful synthpop ballad that seems to glow with blissful memories.

While the hip-hop tracks on this record mostly pale in comparison to past efforts, De La Soul manage to make a great sequel to "Feel Good Inc." with "Superfast Jellyfish", and Mos Def's distorted vocal on "Stylo" sounds like a subway ride announcement from the future, on a great early 80's danceclub vamp. His vocals on the track "Sweepstakes" however, are kind of unbearable. While the album's first few tracks feel a little off, the ending just doesn't seem to work at all. Personally, I feel the album would sound a lot better if it ended with "To Binge" at track 14, and not even bothering with "Cloud Of Unknowing" and "Pirate Jet". Safe to sure though, there is a good record on Plastic Beach, it just might have benefited from a shrewder editing hand.

Despite any problems with the album's flow, the songs for the most part hold up. Here is a clip of Gorillaz performing on the Colbert Report featuring The Clash's Paul Simonon and Mick Jones (as well as deep soul singer Bobby Womack) followed by a rather funny interview with Colbert himself.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Gorillaz - Stylo
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Gorillaz
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

New Blur Song: "Fool's Day"

Despite the fact that they dispelled any rumors suggesting they were working a on a new album, Blur have decided to record and release a new track for Record Store Day. Entitled "Fool's Day", the song isn't exactly single material - nevertheless, it's is a nice midtempo groover that sounds exactly how a Blur song should. It's particularly great to hear Damon Albarn's voice back in the britpop setup again after hearing him for so long with hip hop beats and an array of synths behind him. His work with Gorillaz in the 00's has become so regular, that it has become somewhat difficult to imagine him singing in a guitar oriented band - as if the Albarn of the 90's was a totally different person. Here's the track, availible now as a free download on http://www.blur.co.uk.

New PJ Harvey track

Polly Jean Harvey never ceases to amaze me with her originality and ability to reinvent herself for each new project she approaches. Yesterday, she appeared on the Andrew Marr show and performed a new song entitled "Let England Shake", which is the first glimpse of a new record currently in the works. The song features Harvey playing an autoharp over a loop taken from "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" as performed by the Four Lads. The track is a surreal slice of freak folk which seems to evoke some of the weirdness of her work with John Parish on A Woman A Man Walked By (2009), while still being a wholly new idea (the loop is particularly an interesting choice). Aside from the performance, there is also a short interview with Marr in which they discuss her influences, and her chameleon tendencies in her back catalog. Here is the song and the interview.

Chapterhouse

Took an impromptu week off - sorry for the inconvenience.


On May 3rd, I'll be seeing the recently reunited shoegazers, Chapterhouse, in concert. The show will be at The Bell House in Brooklyn. Chapterhouse weren't the most popular band of Britain's shoegaze movement, but they did manage to carve a little piece of the scene for themselves, releasing two critically acclaimed EPs, Freefall and Sunburst (both 1990), and two albums, Whirlpool (1991) and Blood Music (1993). Aside from some flirtations with noise rock, Chapterhouse's main flavor was a marriage between dream pop melodies and dancey beats, underneath walls of fuzz. The band more or less, fell apart over the next few years follwing their second album. Although Whirpool made it up to 23 on the UK album charts, Chapterhouse's music was mostly forgotten until that album's rerelease on Cherry Red records in 2006. I discovered them a few months later late at night watching VH1 Classic's The Alternative whhere I saw the video for "Pearl". Here is said video. If you're as moved as I was, buy a ticket to the show, as it'll be your last time to see them around here before they disband for good.

Confession

I love this song

VV Brown - New Music - More Music Videos

RIP Malcolm McLaren

Say what you will about him, Malcolm McLaren certainly left his imprint on the music scene, on and behind the scenes. While his detractors would say that he was a scoundrel and profiteer of the changing musical climate, his meddling only helped it grow and become more interesting. Writers like Simon Reynolds, author of Rip It Up And Start Again, have called McLaren a "pied piper of pantomime pop", with the goal of making music more portable but "less important". Still, he brought bands like The Sex Pistols and New York Dolls to the public, which is more than noteworthy regardless of his manipulations, such as his ousting of Adam Ant from the original Adam & The Ants lineup. Aside from his managerial work, he also scored a few hits of his own, particularly on his hip-hop influenced Duck Rock album, which contained this little pop nugget, "Buffalo Gals".

Good Woman

I just bought You Are Free by Cat Power, which might be my new favorite album by her. Someone told me about the song "Good Woman" years ago, and how it related to a breakup they had. Years have passed and I can't actually remember who mentioned it. All I know is I've listened to this album three times now and I have cried all three times while listening to this song. Don't judge, listen...

She & Him on Letterman

I know I posted the video for this song a couple weeks ago, but this is a great performance (and Dave's reactions are amazing as usual). Go out and buy Volume Two!

April 5

Today is the 16th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death. Cobain's life and work has been romanticized, and subsequently under rated, by fans and detractor's ever since his passing. Like all polarizing opinions, the truth lies somewhere in between. Cobain was no genius. He wrote four chord alternative rock, squealed out noisy atonal guitar solos, and struggled to remember the words that he mumbled during live performances...and yet, he changed music forever. Cobain (and of course let's not forget his amazing band mates, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl), found a perfect medium between avant garde outrageousness, and perfect pop structures. He successfully sponged up all of his influences, and squeezed out a style that no one has been able to duplicate.  His contribution to rock history is indispensable.

An important thing to remember about Kurt Cobain personality wise, is that he wasn't all doom and gloom - the persona of a tortured artist. personally, one of the things I always loved about the man was his sense of humor and outlook on life. Here's a clip of one of my favorite Nirvana interview where Cobain can be seen cradling new born Frances Bean as they talk about touring, the MTV Video Music Awards, making amends with Eddie Vedder, and a rather funny account on a run in with Axl Rose.

Good Friday Playlist

I was raised Roman Catholic. If you asked me if I am a religious person, I really wouldn't be able to give you a straight answer. Regardless of my own personal opinion of the Catholic Church and Catholicism, the story of Jesus Christ is a seminal part of my upbringing, so it naturally crosses over into the music I listen to. First and foremost, I hate Christian Rock as a genre. It's pretty much inherently awful. That being said, there's plenty of music that references the New Testament that is great. Here is a playlist to pump you up for a live interpretation of the Stations of the Cross at your local church. Note: in addition to this playlist, a spin of the original cast recording of Jesus Christ Superstar goes without saying.

My run in with Dee Pop (of Bush Tetras)

On Wednesday Morning, I was riding the subway into the city to get to my internship. I sat down at the nearest available spot and pulled out my laptop. I had been experiencing some problems with my ipod earlier that morning, so while restoring it, I needed to keep my laptop open so it could complete the process. In order to keep it from closing in my bag, I had to keep it wedged open with a book. That book happened to be Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life, a collection of thirteen biographies profiling some of the most important underground bands to emerge in the 1980's.

When I pulled the laptop out, the book lay across the keyboard as I monitored my itunes library. Suddenly, the man sitting next to me with his son asks, "Can I look at the index of that book?". Intrigued by what this man could be looking for, I said "Sure". As I handed it to him and began skimming through the back I asked, "What are you looking for?" to which he replied, "my band". All of a sudden my mind started racing in a billion directions, "Oh shit! Who is this guy? He's obviously not in any of the profiled bands, then why would he look in the index? Oh man, oh man, oh man". He replied, "Bush Tetras". "Ohhhhhh!". Amazed, I ask, "You were in the Bush Tetras?". He quickly bounces back with "Still am". "'Can't Be Funky?!'" I ask. "That's us" he said. From there, we talked a lot about the no wave scene, music on late night talk shows, Brooklyn, my ipod problem, and splurging on music, for about 40 minutes or so.

For those who don't know, Bush Tetras were (and still are to some degree), a funk based post-punk band from the early 80's, from Manhattan. Their sound consisted of a mixture of liquid funk bass lines and abrasive guitar work. Over the course of the decades they released several singles, EPs, and compilations, but never a full length album. Among their most popular songs, "Too Many Creeps" and "Can't Be Funky" are definite highlights, (the latter appearing on the New York Noise compilation). Definitley worth checking out.
Bush Tetras - Too Many Creeps from Anna at ROIR on Vimeo.