Mad Bob at a Milestone

Not much to say on this post other than a very enthusiastic HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Robert Smith (from the Cure) who turns 50...though I guess technically he did several hours ago in England, as it's already 3:00 in the afternoon and I'm sure he's already gotten his drink/drug on. In celebration of his half century mark, it's an all Cure all day long extravaganza at the house today, a mix of all albums, b-sides, etc that started with The Top's Birdmad Girl and will end around 7:00 (or later if I decide to add the rarities outtakes) with a rousing finale of Screw from The Head on the Door...nice one iTunes shuffle!!!

Random Release: In a Big Decade

Ah, the 80s, part joke, part heartfelt nostalgia; they were a decade that saw the remnants of punk, the death of classic rock, birthed hardcore, new wave, synth pop, modern rap, hair metal, boy bands, slick R&B and set the foundations for alternative music to stick its head into the mainstream and have it subsequently lopped off. When one thinks of this decade, they’re almost always drawn to the early to mid portion, the gummy-glam styles of spiked, multi-colored hair, mismatched clothes, vibrant attitudes and immense musical sounds. Compilations of hit 80s songs, some bigger than others, have been hitting the stores since the early 90s, filling us with a sense of nostalgia even before the final fumes of the potion had worn off. And what’s really interesting to me about the 80s -- the icy, synth sound, heavy danceable beats and quirky, fun sing-a-long choruses -- is that a vast majority of them were essentially one hit wonders, proof that the times were of the moment, for as long as it took a 45 record to spin off the grooves before interest waned and refocused on the next big thing.

And while there were definitely some superstar bands that churned out multiple hits, it wasn’t so much a decade of albums and it was of singles. I honestly can’t think of one seminal album (and please speak up if you can) that speaks for the decade of lip gloss, jelly bracelets and bright bandanas, that sums up in ten songs and just over half an hour, everything that was “new wave.” And I suppose part of that is because like with all musical genres, new wave had definite variations. Duran Duran was not Tears for Fears was not Eurythmics was not Modern English, and yet it’s likely that most fans of the movement celebrated most if not all these bands. And yes, these bands all put out wonderful, cohesive, groundbreaking and even long lasting albums – Rio, Songs from the Big Chair (a possible exception now that I think about it), Sweet Dreams, After the Snow – but none of them really stand out now as “speaking for a decade” like say Sgt Peppers, Are You Experienced or My Generation does for the 60s, or Dark Side of the Moon, Rumors or Bat out of Hell does for the 70s.

Yes, there were HUGE albums in the 80s: 1984, Born in the USA, Synchronicity and let us not forget the almighty Thriller. But all of these acts were artists unto themselves, not part of any movement or so far removed from where they had come that they set a strata all their own. And no, I’ve not forgotten bands like REM, U2, B-52s and the Cure living in cult stardom, putting out record after record of fantastic music, but again, their "big" time was yet to come and even if it did occur in the 80s, it was later on, after the glitz had begun to fade and more “roots” oriented music was coming back into play.


Of all the one hit wonders and of all the bands who wanted to be so much, to speak for a generation, to produce that one album that yelled (or rather yelped): We ARE the 80s, none to my mind is more prominent or evident than Big Country. They’ll be remembered as a band simply because their only massive hit (in the US at least) was essentially the same name. In a Big Country is one of those ridiculously infectious songs that makes you want to jump up and dance and wave your hands and conquer mountains and scream, “I am alive!” And really, the same can be said for their debut (and arguably greatest album), The Crossing, a collection of guitar driven, drum heavy anthems led by the emotively plaintive vocals of guitarist and principle songwriter Stuart Adamson.

And what is truly unique and innovative (which is what so much of the 80s/new wave was supposed to be about) was that while they were by all means a rock outfit, they approached the music in their own way. Masters of the e-bow and running their guitars through specialized FX processors, they were able to recreate the sounds of the bagpipes and fiddles that represented their home base of Scotland. This is evident on virtually every track on The Crossing, a series of straightforward songs lyrically bent on turmoil both within and without and reflected in the desperate urgency of the music. This is probably best represented in the second track, Inwards, where Adamson sings of paranoia in a time when a person isn’t safe with differing views even within their own home. And the pattern pretty much follows true going forward, from the tribal drum and screeching guitar intro of 1000 Stars to the chugging home through diversity rant Fields of Fire. The one exception, in beat, and most obvious of their Scottish influences is The Storm, a six plus minute dirge to unwarranted destruction, most frantically accented by a triplicate bass line. This album almost loses itself to the fact that the lead track, single and best-known song is so great, but honestly, the rest of these songs may slightly shudder but in no way bend or break beneath In a Big Country’s heavy-handed glory.

The minor flaws in The Crossing are simply due to the telltale glassy production (by Steve Lillywhite) of the era in which it was bred, bombastic drums that nearly overpower everything else and a shimmering coat of luster to make these otherwise gritty songs that much easier to swallow on the radio. Unfortunately this album was Big Country’s only hurrah in the States, and while they did well for a time in Europe, an attempt to regain their momentum back in the US by abandoning their signature sound pretty much derailed the group creatively and critically and they were relegated to a second tier act even on the European market by the 90s. This and alcohol abuse all took its toll on the emotional Adamson (who at one time in the mid 90s lived in Nashville) and in late 2001 he took his own life at a hotel in Hawaii after having disappeared from fans and friends for several months.

In the heraldic traditions of U2 and The Alarm, Big Country brought their own brand of heartfelt, all-hands-up-in-the-arena rock, and yet because of their one hit wonder status they’re forever another token 80s act. Honestly, this suits them just as well, but in all fairness, The Crossing deserves a bit more respect to a wider audience than just the curious (like me) or the die hard believers that are apparently out there.

Random Release: A Beautiful Downgrade

I’ve always been a big fan of BBC Sessions, especially those for the late John Peel, and will jump at an opportunity to pick some up by any of my favorite artists. In fact, I think it should pretty much be a law that if you’ve recorded any sessions, again, especially for JP, that you should be required to release them to the public. Why? Well, oftentimes radio sessions capture a band in a spontaneous, whimsical or experimental mood, revealing a side to them that is not often found on official “this is who we are” releases or, because they’re pretty much recorded live, harnessing the essence of what the band is all about before (in many cases) producers with radio-friendly outcomes in mind tweak the rawness (and sometimes the edge) out of the music. Also, bands would use these sessions as an opportunity to showcase new material, often in embryonic form, or do covers, or perhaps “lesser” tracks that never made the final cut to official release on an album or even a b-side and so are a dusty lost gem tucked away in the vaults until either an after-the-fact notion to cash in brings them to the light of day or a bootlegger with a sense of what is right leaks them to the public.

With Bauhaus: Swing the Heartache: The BBC Sessions, you’ve got a little bit of all of that. As mentioned in a previous post, Bauhaus usually had their experimental on, and more often than not this is the case in their sessions for the BBC. Bare bones and minimal, the boys deliver some very powerful performances in some instances more biting and immediate than their album counterparts. St. Vitus Dance comes ripping out of the gate with pounding drums, chainsaw guitar, heavily phased bass jabs and P-Murphy’s indelibly sinister croon. The same can be said for Mask’s In Fear of Fear and the title track for this compilation, Swing the Heartache. All proof that the band was more than studio magic and just the right echo in production; they could set up quickly and bash it out to just as much if not greater affect than any mood-enhancing studio posturing.

There are also pensive, introspective moods, such as in the Three Shadows Part 2 (found only here) with its Renaissance flavors and Oedipus Rex imagery. As I’ve said before, Bauhaus are a band bent on setting a tone, an atmosphere, and a prime example can be found in Silent Hedges, as an ominous acoustic guitar builds in intensity while Murphy sings of madness and purple eyes before lamenting going to hell (again) and the rhythm section drives the point home (or rather down) with a fury controlled simply by the will of the band, to the ultimate satisfaction and salvation of the listener.

Other highlights are the chosen covers, of which there are several, the most recognizable to those within the musical spectrum being Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, this version of which was released as a single and subsequently became the band’s biggest hit (don’t ya hate that). Another standout is T. Rex’s Telegram Sam (the original of which I’m not familiar with), but one can hear in this blistering rendition that the band enjoys playing it and just playing in general, kicking the verses about with their own sense of panache. But to me the standout among these tracks (maybe even the entire album) is their take on Eno’s Third Uncle, visceral and acidic, a five minute watch-where-you’re-going, flange enveloped slug fest that also showed up as a proper release on their The Sky’s Gone Out album and notably one of the few instances when a cover version surpasses that of the original artist.

Some “light hearted” moments include a couple more experimental tracks. Bauhaus were intentionally -- and therefore first and foremost -- an “art rock” band (long before goth got pinned on them), changing bass notes into blips (The Spy in the Cab) or drumbeats into near mechanized (though in every way Kevin Haskins) pulse rhythms; but here there are two pieces of simple jazz influenced baselines with noodling leads, the first being Party of the First Part, with an overdub of the cartoon The Country Mouse and the City Mouse and the somewhat more entertaining, Departure, a narrative between David J and Peter Murphy about a man’s apparent attempt to escape an impending madness.

There are weaker moments, most evident in an abbreviated (yet otherwise lively) version of early fan favorite In the Flat Field, and Terror Couple Kill Colonel, which though leaner and faster, misses some of the forbidding slink of the single version.

Ultimately this is a flawed album, patchy and lacking a certain cohesiveness, but in a way that was always Bauhaus. Though this is compilation it’s in no way a greatest hits release (though some hits are here), but a collection of various time periods within the band, designed for completeists and those who are interested in hearing alternate takes on already familiar and well-loved versions. Explore those takes first, and then Swing the Heartache.

Q1-09 Update

Every good institution should have quarterly updates and GWILT is no different. And since this is a completely not-for-profit outfit, really the only thing I can report on here are the albums I’ve obtained so far in the year. I believe I’ve managed to pick up all the ones I’ve been looking forward to as well as a couple that I wasn’t aware of until the 11th hour, which always makes for a happy surprise.



The album I’ve been most anticipating, and which has in every way lived up to my expectations, is the latest offering from Robyn Hitchcock (here again with his Venus 3 supergroup), Goodnight Oslo. I still maintain that as brilliant has his career has been since his Soft Boys days and onward, his output of the past ten or so years has easily been his strongest. When he finally shed the Syd Barrett skin he’d been (perhaps unintentionally) wrapped in sometime in the late 80s, he was finally able to embrace the 60s as an era and not just one facet of it; though admittedly with albums as fantastically strong as Fegmania, I Often Dream of Trains and Gotta Let This Hen Out, etc, I know I’m really stepping out on a limb here (and please feel free to disagree if you like). While he may not be churning out as many quirky ditties along the lines of The Man with the Light Bulb Head, My Wife and My Dead Wife or Brenda’s Iron Sledge, there’s still enough head scratching oddness here to make his lyrics as equally obscure as they are poignant. RH has always been steeped in allegory and has learned well how to maintain the offbeat without becoming a washed parody of himself. I believe much of this has come with further maturity and an extreme comfort within his persona, as his recent releases have been much more relaxed (though no less excellently executed) as his frantic (almost violent) days with the Egyptians, etc. As always, he’s making commentary on the things he feels like, whether its relative or not to the immediate music/social environment is secondary or even in spite of, and the fact that he comments at his leisure makes his entire catalogue relevant whether it’s 1986 or 2013 (and yes, it’s coming kids). And as for the music on Goodnight Oslo, it’s all here -- the funky jaunt of the opener What You Is (complete with “hey, hey” female vocals), the achingly Beatlesesque (if in nothing else harmony) I’m Falling or a tune I’m sure Uncle Bob wishes he’d written himself, Hurry for the Sky. There’s also plenty of his neo-retro-pop-la-la, which could fit well with most any RH era: Your Head Here, Up to Our Nex, Intricate Thing and the bonus e.p. track I Just Wanna Be Loved. Even casual fans will at the very least enjoy this record for a background/party listen and true-to-the-faith believers, well, you know better than I…



One of this year’s surprises was a new release from Chris Isaak, Mr. Lucky, and his first since 2002’s Always Got Tonight (if you don’t count his Christmas and live albums), which I found to be a rather maudlin and tedious affair. Mr. Lucky, however, is Isaak back on form. Not that he ever much strays from his 50s crooner via Roy Orbison motif, but has been known to dabble in various styles and grooves (while maintaining his lyrical bent towards lost, forsaken and unrequited love) that don’t always mesh well (with this listener anyway). And while Mr. Lucky does have its slight flaws for this reason (and when I say that, I say it with the affection of a fan who’d rather hear a flawed CI song than anything by Big & Rich or the like…did I just compare Chris Isaak to Big & Rich?), there’s still a lot of classic, classic CI on here. If nothing else, Chris could have been a singles artist (had the world only picked up on more than Wicked Game), ‘cos he can definitely turn a hook and the album’s second track (and I believe lead single) We Let Her Down is one of those catchy, mid temp, downbeat pop slices that makes the late 30 something gals with the long hair and the low cut tops rock back and forth to a semblance of something called rhythm. And yes, that’s a good thing. We’ve Got Tomorrow digs back into Holly-like Crickets bounce and then incorporates a horn section that makes it an equal candidate for either the Porter Wagoner or Lawrence Welk Shows. Summer Holiday, We Lost Our Way and Very Pretty Girl are all standard though standout Isaak that could have been found on any of his “heyday” albums, with the latter almost sounding sinister enough to be an outtake from his 1987 self-titled sophomore effort. Of two duets, his retake with Trisha Yearwood of Speak of the Devil’s Breaking Apart is a competent but ultimately pointless affair as Yearwood’s presence does nothing to the overall interpretation of the song and would have served better as a surprise guest appearance live instead of taking up space here. His new to this album I Lose My Heart with Michelle Branch is old school CI in a country mood and the guitar lick is one of the best of the album. Casual fans probably won’t be interested in this album and would be better off picking up the flawless Forever Blue or “the one with the hit,” Heart Shaped World. But for big fans this is (to me) a return to form and a much appreciated “welcome back” after a seven-year silence. Also, check out the Chris Isaak Hour on A&E/Biography channel. It’s good stuff.

My other purchases thus far in 2009 are Morrissey’s Years of Refusal, a true “true to form” return to his more halcyon days, especially pointing to Vauxhall and I (though some of my “die hard” Moz fan friends are still not impressed by his “comeback”), Pet Shop Boys’ Yes, which was another surprise and, the few times I’ve had a moment, a truly immediate and delightful listen and John Frusciante’s The Empyrean, which I’d really been looking forward to but as yet have not had (made) the time to give a listen. But stay tuned for possible updates on these and other albums as we continue to explore the music of 2009.

(As an aside, to be honest with you, the disc currently getting the most spins is the Rosebuds October 2008 release Life Like, which is everything retro pop music should be in today’s oversaturated age.)

I’m also going to take this opportunity to announce a new “series” of reviews called the Random Release Review. This is where I’ll be going to each shelf (20 in all) of my CD cabinet and (turning my head) picking a CD at random, be it album, ep, single, compilation or one of Karla’s that I’m in no way familiar with. The first five have already been selected and the first one begins with the letter B (or the band does at any rate). Stay tuned for that hopefully within the first week of April.

Until then, check out my friend Greg’s music blog, The Inconsiderate Mixtape, for his take on music that’s great and not just good. I know there’s a way to add his link to the side over here, but until I figure that out, just click above and bookmark.

Verse-Chorus-Verse, Phooey!

In the tradition of Brian Eno, John Cage (and Cale), Faust, Cluster, Tom Waits, Captain Beefheart, Roger O’Donnell and heck, even yours truly, George Harrison’s 1969 solo sophomore effort “Electronic Sound” is one of the earliest excursions into the experimental deconstruction of popular music and the fleshing of found sounds. And it’s a darn fine album to boot. If Harrison ever wanted to shed an audience in his or any other era, this was the record to do it. Recorded entirely with a moog synthesizer, these two lengthy pieces are less songs than they are disconnected ideas of what music is made of, and since the idea of the solo balladeer has been in existence for centuries, even what music could be. Aside from a few schools of drone or discordant contemporary classical, there wasn’t much out there that really challenged the verse-chorus-verse mentality of western music in any genre. Even free-form jazz had a semblance of structure, a beginning and an end, a key you could fine notes to whistle in and instruments you could recognize. But here is found little more than a collection of colored noise and a few stray notes following each other to nowhere. You will not find a melody, a beat, a rhythm, a pattern or anything resembling any sort of structure, but you will find textures, atmospheres and an overall mood. And really, isn’t that what music is about, the conveyance of a particular feeling? Joy, despair, regret, get-down-and-party, these are all emotive platforms from which thousands of songs have been built, so who says that you have to have two verse-choruses, a solo and a repetitive outro to make it any more or less a song?

One of my more recent listens to this album, and you really have to listen for it to be anything more than background banter, was around 2am while feeding Fox a bottle. The emotional package I received at this time was something akin to fear and there were moments when I thought some of these snaking non-patterns were literally, even purposefully splitting open my brain like an apple. It was possibly the closest I’ve come to a musically enhanced acid trip without ever dropping and I can imagine that anyone under the influence would be in for quite a ride (from which they may conceivably never return).


The second and final release on Zapple Records (the other being John & Yoko’s “Unfinished Business No. 2: Life With the Lions”), fans at the time would, or at least should, have known that this record was not going to be “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” or “Piggies” or even “Within You Without You.” It’s no wonder that it didn’t chart, but in a time when stretching the boundaries of the mind through art was all the rage, you’d have thought it would have been a bit more well received critically. But with hindsight critics have warmed up quite nicely, hailing Harrison as a pioneer far ahead of his time. And what’s exceptional about this album is how well it’s held up over the years, simply because it was created for no time, to fit no style or conception of music, but to simply exist as it, an account of what can be done and considered if you only get out of the box.

Here’s a snippet, a vid clip montage from mainly the Beatles era and various interviews, including an extended one with Ravi Shankar. Odd, but will give you an idea.