PUBLIC IMAGE - FIRST ISSUE @ 45

 

Released on December 8th, 1978, the debut LP from Public Image Ltd, First Issue, turns 45 years old today. After the spectacular implosion of the Sex Pistols at the beginning of the year, and encouraged by the band's debut eponymous single two months prior, punk fans were eager to see what Johnny Rotten had in store for an encore. Chances are they weren't expecting to get hit over the head with an album that kicks off with a 9 minute art-rock dirge, pleading for a death that never comes, and ends with a 7 minute disco piss-take whinging about how they "only wanted to be loved". And while it may have been dismissed by many at the time as a petulant private joke, the reality of the album was that the band were digging in their heels in order to utterly upturn the apple-cart of what punk (and pop music itself) was and could be.

PiL came into being thanks to a casual conversation between John Lydon and Keith Levene back in 1976, when they both realized that the day would soon come when they'd be on the outs with their respective bands (Sex Pistols & The Clash) and looking for new opportunities. They promised each other they'd put their heads together when that time came, and sure enough, PiL were born a couple of months after the Pistols fell to bits in January of 1978. With close friend, Jah Wobble, quickly recruited for bass, and drummer, Jim Walker, sourced via a music paper ad, the band set about inventing their music the way they imagined it should sound, as if the Pistols has actually succeeded in destroying rock 'n' roll instead of reanimating its fetid corpse.

Beginning recording in July at Virgin Records' Manor studio, the first track to emerge was the single, Public Image. I've gone into great detail on that song's single release already, so I won't repeat myself too much here. You can look it up if you want to. Suffice it to say that the song set the bar high for the rest of the album, perhaps too high. Following its completion, the next set of songs, Theme, Religion and Annalisa, were laid down at Virgin's Townhouse studio.

Theme kicks off the album with a 9 minute excruciating wall of thunderous bass, whip-cracking drums and Keith's guitar sounding like you're in a continuous auto accident with a flurry of shattered glass smashing into your face. Lydon tops it all off with his insistent wailing of "I wish I could die", though the song is not anywhere near suicidal. Ironically, there's something actually quite obstinate and life affirming about the agony being expressed and the clear indication that nothing is capable of convincing the songs protagonist to genuinely give up the ghost. Lydon has described it thus, "Didn't you ever have that feeling when you get up with a hangover, and you look at the world and think 'Count me out, I'd rather die!'?"

Religion started off as lyrics written while Lydon was on tour in the US with the Pistols. He tried showing them to the rest of the band, but they weren't interested. The idea of splitting the song into a spoken recitation followed by the full mix was another example of the LP balking at convention, refusing to pander to expectations. The song was divisive among the band members. Wobble, particularly in later years, felt the disparagement of religious belief was unfair, and he wasn't happy with the contrivances of the mix, with its radical panning of instruments and voices sounding forced. Keith always loved the track and came up with the idea of the two versions. Annalisa follows with its harrowing true life story of a young German girl starved to death by her superstitious parents, who believed she was "possessed". That wraps up the first side of the LP, while the single kicks off the second, leaving the remainder of the album to struggle towards completion.

After the first four songs were recorded, Virgin's advance dried up and the band were forced to resort to recording at Gooseberry Sound Studios, a cheap reggae studio used because Lydon knew it from the recording of some Sex Pistols demos. Lowlife, Attach and Fodderstompf were all recorded there, sounding less produced and immediate in their impact than the first half of the album. Fodderstompf, in particular, was another divisive track due to its absurdity and expedience. Jim Walker hated it, considering it a rip-off for anyone who bought the album. Keith didn't have anything to do with it. It's really all Wobble and Lydon. Built on a tape-looped drum beat & some kind of electronic squelching sound, musically it's all about Wobble's bass, which bubbles and percolates incessantly. Atop this minimalism, Lydon and Wobble exchange quips in annoying Monty Python style falsetto voices, wittering on about how they "only wanted to be loved" and how "love makes the world go 'round". At one point, Wobble lets slip the true motivation of the track, "We only wanted to finish the album with a minimum amount of effort, which we are now doing very SUCCESSFULLY!" As puerile as the humour is, if you love it, you LOVE IT! I'm in that camp, personally, and consider it the clearest harbinger of where the band would go on their landmark sophomore release, Metal Box. The formula, "slap a beat down and do weird shit on top", is sturdy and flexible and one I've utilized COUNTLESS times in the creation of my own music. The song even became an underground disco hit at NYC's infamous Studio 54, where its sentiment had an ironic appeal for the club's decadent celebrity clientele.

For the packaging of the LP, the parodying of the press begun with the tabloid newspaper style wrapping of the single was taken to another level. The record was packaged in gorgeous glossy photos of the band members, each emulating a different popular magazine cover. Lydon graces the front, with his hair a natural colour, combed and contained, all pimples covered in picture perfect foundation makeup and sporting a vacant stare that exactly captured the hollow essence of a vapid celebrity. The same is true for the rest of the band images. On the bottom of the back cover, the final indignity is printed as "Public Image Ltd would like to thank absolutely nobody. Thank you." Up yours!

With all its contrarian cantankerousness, the press had a field day ravaging the album. Sounds reviewer Pete Silverton said that the single is the "Only wholly worthwhile track on the album." He dubbed the rest of the songs as "morbid directionless sounds with Rotten's poetry running just behind it." CREEM's import reviewer dismissed the album as art-rock nonsense, comparing Lydon's singing to a rabid Yoko Ono. Yet that initial disparagement has given way to retrospective praise as the album's daring and uncompromising nature became an inspiration for future generations to push their own limits and take their own chances. It was the beginning of a process that would come to full fruition on albums like Metal Box and Flowers of Romance, albeit the latter represents something of a dead end for the intrepid musical traveller when it comes to PiL's forays into the unknown.

The album wasn't released in the US until a remastered reissue in 2013. Warner Brothers, the band's US label, felt it was unsellable and demanded the group re-record parts of it. They went back in the studio in February of 1979, but their efforts were for naught and only an alternate version of Fodderstompf emerged, used as a B-side on the Death Disco 12" single, released later that year. No other alternate recordings seem to exist, save a different mix of Annalisa, which was included on the 2018 retrospective box set, The Public Image Is Rotten. There are rumours of another song, You Stupid Person, being recorded after the single and subsequently abandoned, but only Jim Walker seems to recall it, claiming to have a cassette copy of a rough mix, but the other band members are more vague about it, and Lydon has no recollection of it at all.

As far as debut LPs go, First Issue is certainly one of the most audacious to have come from the original "punk" movement, offering numerous clear signposts for escaping out of the "Death Valley" of punk's restrictive three chord thrashing. It's a bratty bastard of an album, but it has proven to have staying power and influence well beyond the practical joke it was initially accused of embodying.

D.O.A - THE THIRD AND FINAL REPORT OF THROBBING GRISTLE @ 45

Released on December 4th, 1978, the second studio album from Throbbing Gristle, D.O.A. - The Third and Final Report, is turning 45 years old today. After the relative success of their debut album, Second Annual Report, and it's follow up single, United b/w Zyklon B Zombie, TG were able to finance their next album on the sold out sales of their first, which they'd pressed in an initial run of less than a thousand copies. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough of a fiscal foothold that they were able to put a bit more into their recording process & production values than had been possible with the first album, including some actual multi-track recording and a colour LP sleeve.

By moving beyond the mostly live recordings of the first album, it was an opportunity to explore the band's sonic potential in a more controlled environment. There were still live excerpts on D.O.A., but there was more emphasis on crawling out of the murk and achieving some clarity with their sound. They also decided to reveal themselves individually within the context of the band, offering up solo tracks from each of the four members. Peter Christopherson concocted a pastiche of surveillance recordings and found sounds, Genesis plucked out a violin based existential suicidal lament, Cosey invoked homey intimacy with the sounds of children playing and a remarkably pastoral guitar, and Chris put together an electronica tribute to ABBA's Dancing Queen.

Overall, the album offered up a bizarre and rather disjointed collection of musing and examples of their controversial nature. Death Threats made a track out of their answering machine tape, capturing agitators leaving their condemnations for the group. I.B.M. was a harbinger of technological tyranny, E-Coli warned of a bacterial apocalypse and Hamburger Lady, the album's crown jewel, told the tale of a burn victim's unending torment. All in, the album may have been a bit of a dishevelled assemblage of impressions, but it certainly held together as an expression of the group's individual and collective obsessions.

The cover photo and calendar poster, included with the first 1000 copies, added to the controversy of the release by showing a young girl in a potentially exploitative situation, deliberately left ambiguous by the group in order to breed a sense of vague unease with the product. Other packaging games included having the second 1000 copies of the album pressed with false track markers (the "bands" visible on a vinyl disc) to give it the appearance of having fifteen tracks of exactly equal length and a short sixteenth track. The official TG discography called this pressing the "Structuralist Spirals" edition.

Because of the intensity of so many of its individual elements, the album may be one of TG's most challenging releases, outside the overt rawness of their purely live albums. It's not casual listening or background music and, while it has moments of softness, they are shattered by occasionally brutal assaults, or twisted by deeply unsettling dives into bleak oblivion, so one must constantly adjust to each composition's entirely distinct aesthetics. Ultimately, it's an album that manages to touch on nearly every corner of the human emotional landscape.
 

JOHN & YOKO - UNFINISHED MUSIC NO. 1. TWO VIRGINS @ 55

 

Marking its 55th anniversary today is the debut album from John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Unfinished Music No. 1. Two Virgins, which was released on November 11th, 1968. A record like this can only exist if one of the people making it is a Beatle who doesn't have to worry about whether anyone buys it and has access to a record label owned by his band. That's not to say this shouldn't exist. The fact it does is a wonderful thing because it's such an incredibly bizarre, self-indulgent mess of chaotic fun. It's the sound of two people rediscovering their inner children and sparking a whirlwind romance in the process.

John Lennon first encountered Yoko Ono in November of 1966 when he was invited to attend one of her exhibitions in London. She was an obscure Japanese underground artist and John found her work possessed a decidedly positive world view, something he found exceedingly appealing given the general pessimism of most alternative artists. After the exhibit, he kept in contact with her and, two years later, while wife Cynthia Lennon was away from their home on vacation, he invited Yoko over to spend the evening in order to show her his home studio and play her some of his sound experiments. These were totally avant-garde improvisations he knew the Beatles would NEVER have any interest in, but Yoko was fascinated by them and the two began to work on making some noises together that night. The next morning, Cynthia came home unexpectedly and discovered the pair dressed in matching white robes and sitting cross legged on the floor, staring into each other's eyes.

What they created for this album was essentially a lot of random incidental noises and vocalizations layered over-top of a series of tape loops and snippets of pre-recoded bits and pieces. They had no arrangements in mind or plans for any of it. Lennon described Unfinished Music as "...saying whatever you want it to say. It is just us expressing ourselves like a child does, you know, however he feels like then. What we're saying is make your own music. This is Unfinished Music."

After it was recorded, Lennon had to spend the next six months trying to persuade the rest of the Beatles to release it on Apple Records. Their hesitance was somewhat justified, given it was generally reviled by both fans of the band and music critics. Actress Sissy Spacek, using the pseudonym Rainbo, even recorded the song "John, You Went Too Far This Time" in response to the album's cover! Despite its bizarre nature, John & Yoko still ended up working with George Harrison to construct the similarly inspired sound collage, Revolution 9, for the "White" album.

The album ended up becoming the first of a trilogy created by the couple, all working within the same strange cacophony of experimentation. Not exactly the kind of "music" most Beatles fans were looking for. As a result, these albums have become rather obscure artifacts within the canon of both The Beatles and John Lennon. The cover for the album featured the couple stark naked in their birthday suits. The distributors for the record were none too pleased with such an image and the LP ended up shipping tucked inside a brown paper bag for retail sales, which were unsurprisingly minimal.

QUEEN - JAZZ @ 45

 

Celebrating its 45th anniversary today is the seventh studio LP from Queen, Jazz, which was released on November 10th, 1978. While it was a commercial success at the time, it followed a pattern of ups and downs for the group throughout the decade, being viciously ridiculed by critics at the time of its release, though radically reassessed in later years in the wake of Freddie Mercury's passing.

Though Queen's rise to superstardom was initially a continuous trajectory upward, after the breakout success of Bohemian Rhapsody and A Night at the Opera in 1975, the band began to suffer through an oscillation of expectations. They continued so sell millions of records, but the persistent expectation to exceed past successes meant they were constantly unfairly dismissed if a record didn't, in some tangible way, seem to surpass what had come before. It's an impossible position to be in as a band. After Rhapsody, A Day at the Races, was met with mixed reviews and suspicion, until News of the World came along the following year and blasted away all the doubts that critics had been pelting the band with, but then Jazz came along and the press seized at the opportunity to feast on the band's flesh anew. Of course, The Game followed next and knocked everyone sideways before the band fell afoul AGAIN with Hot Space. And on it went...

When it came time to record Jazz, the band were staring down the barrel of massive tax bills in the UK, which meant that recording at home simply wasn't economically feasible. They had to scramble to avoid being crushed by the taxman and initially opted to record in France as an alternative. It was while they were attending the nearby Montreux Jazz Festival, likely the inspiration for the album's title, that fate would have them run into David Bowie, who was recording Lodger at Mountain Studios. Bowie recommended the band relocate to that studio and they were impressed enough with the facility that they moved operations there in July, the day after the jazz festival's completion. In fact, they liked it enough that the band would eventually buy the studio and make it their permanent base of operations going forward. On July 19, Brian May's birthday, the band attended the 18th stage of the 1978 Tour de France, which inspired Freddie Mercury to write the lead single, "Bicycle Race". They spent a total of about three weeks in Mountain Studios, only taking a few days off for Roger's birthday on the 26th, when they allegedly trashed a Montreux hotel. Mercury was reportedly seen swinging on a cut-glass chandelier in the hotel during the party! After wrapping up in Montreux, they returned to France to finish off overdubs before sending the mixes to New York for mastering.

For the packaging of the album, Roger suggested the minimalist disc graphic he'd spotted as graffiti on the Berlin Wall. The internal gate-fold photo showed a wide angle shot of the band's gear displayed in Mountain Studio. With Bicycle Race and Fat Bottom Girls picked as the premier double A single for the album, the band concocted a promotional event held at Wembley Stadium in the UK. They staged a nude female bicycle race that would provide images for the poster, included with early pressings of the LP, and the single's sleeve, although they had to paint on bikini bottoms to avoid protests for the single cover. There are also reports that Halford's, who supplied the bicycles on loan, hit Queen with a bill to replace all the seats due to "improper" use. Though the band saw it all as a bit of "cheeky" fun, they came under fire for their objectifying of women. Critic Dave Marsh wrote in his review in Rolling Stone, "Fat Bottomed Girls" treated women "not as sex objects but as objects, period (the way the band regards people in general)", and finished by famously tagging Queen "the first truly fascist rock band".

Most other contemporary reviews of the album were similarly disparaging. Mitchell Cohen of CREEM called Jazz "absurdly dull" and filled with "dumb ideas and imitative posturing". Village Voice critic Robert Christgau said the album was not wholly bad, even finding "Bicycle Race" humorous, although he said Queen sounded like the band 10cc "with a spoke, or a pump, up their ass". Sales of the album and its singles were certainly respectable, but the tactic of releasing another double A-side single didn't pay off as well as it did with We Will Rock You b/w We Are the Champions from the previous album. With critics of the era behaving like a tank of hungry sharks, any signs of weakness were a clarion calls to start the feeding frenzy. Queen were CLEARLY on their way OUT, so you'd better get your bite in before they sank into the abyss.

In the years since its release, Jazz has most certainly been given a repeal of such undeserved harsh judgments, with both critics and fans coming to recognized the album's strengths. Within its baker's dozen songs, the band took fans on a breakneck, whiplash inducing thrill ride of styles and techniques. Rather than a chaotic hodgepodge, it's a roller-coaster ride, from the bizarre mania of Mustapha, to the menacing funk-rock of More of That Jazz, the band keep listeners on the edge of their seat through every turn. Numerous songs became live staples and Don't Stop Me Now, in particular, became Freddie Mercury's most quintessential composition, embodying the singer's philosophy and attitude in a way that has even been scientifically recognized as one of the most catchy songs ever written!

Personally, while I loved the album at the time it came out, and still do, back at the end of 1978, I was beginning a journey into a different realm. Though I started that year by joining the official Queen fan club, and stocked up my wardrobe with Queen T-shirts, badges and belt buckles (and I DID go to high school with ALL of it on!), by the end of 1978, I'd discovered music by RAMONES, The Clash, Sex Pistols, DEVO & Elvis Costello, so Jazz was kind-of the "beginning of the end" of my obsession with Queen. 1979 would not see them issue a new studio LP, only the uneven, poorly received Live Killers, and while I bought The Game in 1980, it was the last Queen LP I'd spend my money on for at least two decades. But nostalgia brought me back to the boys eventually and I still appreciate giving this record a spin now and then.

THE MONKEES - HEAD (FILM) @ 55

 

It was 55 years ago today when the one and only feature film by The Monkees, HEAD, officially hit theatre screens with its New York City premier on November 6th, 1968. While the film systematically dismantled the band's carefully cultivated pre-teen "manufactured image" in the hopes of appealing to a more mature, progressive counterculture audience, it ended up only alienating existing fans while the hipsters never even gave it a chance due to the band's reputation. And while it was initially a staggering commercial flop, ravaged by critics of the time, something strange happened in the decades following its release. Since then, it has become a deeply treasured cult film, inspiring in-depth analysis and speculation and, in retrospect, is seen as one of the very few films of the psychedelic era to actually capture the true experience of the trip, rather than portray it within the context of a "cautionary tale".

At the time the idea began floating about for doing a Monkees movie, the TV series was wrapping up its second and final season. Both the band and the show's producers were looking to break out of the format of the TV show. While it had been an innovation in TV structures at the time, it still had its own very rigid internal formula, one designed to mostly appeal to a younger audience and was only mildly concerned with making any kind of philosophical or political statements. Everyone essentially knew they simply weren't interested in creating a feature length version of a Monkees TV show episode. In order to help redefine their position and plot a course forward, Bob Rafelson, the show's creator and producer, hired friend and then an unknown young actor by the name of Jack Nicholson to help with the script. As his first foray into the world of feature films, Rafelson was entirely expecting that this might be his only chance to make a movie, so he set the basic premise that he wanted HEAD to be a collection of vignettes, each with a different reference to a Hollywood trope or style. If this was the only movie he'd ever get the chance to make, he wanted to make every kind of movie he's ever loved.

In order to flesh out the details of this conception, Bob, Jack and the band ensconced themselves at an Ojai, California, resort, where, with tape recorder constantly rolling, they got high and brainstormed their little hearts out, spewing forth a barrage of disparate ideas and scenarios, allowing nothing to limit their imagination. At one point, someone asked Bob what the blackest thing in the universe could be and, thinking for a moment, he concluded it was Victor Mature's hair, thus concocting the premise that the entire movie takes place in his hair. After the weekend brainstorming session was completed, Jack took the tapes and began the impossible task of trying to stitch all these crazy notions together into a script that could make some sort of thematic sense. He had to craft ways to get from one scene to another with no apparent connection between them. In the end, he came up with an approach that took the viewer on a journey as if they were watching the TV, flipping through channels and landing on random programs, with a continuity of themes that would keep surfacing again and again with each change of the channel. Ideas of media control, packaging, pandering to expectations, confinement, interpretation and escape all wove themselves together through this madcap journey, dissecting the band's image and intent, and rebuilding it into a commentary on popular culture and the nature of reality itself. Ambitious stuff for something that looked like a hodgepodge mess from the outside.

The music for the film was obviously still an integral component and the band made every effort to ensure that its maturity and sophistication went well beyond anything they'd done before. With two original songs from Peter, one from Mike, one from Harry Nilsson and two more from Carole King, they had a half dozen solid compositions to work with. As well as the band's own performances, session musicians included such luminaries as Neil Young, Leon Russell, Ry Cooder and Stephen Stills. For Mike's Circle Sky, the band were filmed performing the song live, with absolutely zero augmentation or post production overdubs. It's a roaring proto-punk raver that shows the group off as the tight, intense garage band they had become in the real world. Carole King's Porpoise Song became the visual highlight of the film as they utilized the then unknown technique of solarization, a process which was expensive and difficult to achieve and which ultimately caused delays in the post production phase, pushing back the release date. For the accompanying soundtrack album, Jack Nicholson was put in charge of editing the LP together, taking the half dozen songs and interspersing them with a cut-up assemblage of audio and score music cues from the film. The end result is something akin to the likes of Nurse With Wound or Negativland, with bizarre juxtapositions of dialogue and sound effects creating bridges between the album's core musical elements.

Production on the film got off to a rocky start, with the band discovering that only Jack would get scripting credits, something that was necessitated by industry union rules at the time requiring a single name to be associated with the screenplay. There were also disputes over the wages being paid to the band, which resulted in the group going on strike the first day of shooting, with only Peter showing up to the set. It was pretty tense and the friction between Rafelson and the band afterwards never really resolved itself, leaving a permanent rift between the producer and the band.

Promotion of the film was approached with the same sense of experimentation which had driven the creation of the movie. Inspired by Andy Warhol's film, Blowjob, which shows nothing but a man's head and expressions as he receives oral copulation, the poster for the film and the TV ad showed the head of John Brockman, who did the PR for the film. As a gag, the title, HEAD, was chosen because the producers were looking forward to their next film project, where their promotions could proudly proclaim, "from the people who gave you HEAD". The ad taglines summarized it as a "most extraordinary adventure, western, comedy, love story, mystery, drama, musical, documentary satire ever made (And that's putting it mildly)." The band themselves were conspicuously absent.

The evening of the NYC premier, Rafelson commented that he and Nicholson were arrested "for trying to put a sticker on a police officer's helmet as he mounted his horse." With the film deliberately destroying the mythology of the band, young Monkees fans were completely turned off by the product and the critics took it as an opportunity to destroy the band in print. With nearly nonexistent box-office receipts, the film vanished from theatres with little notice and it began its journey through the cultural underworld, waiting to be reappraised by the public.

My first exposure to the movie came on December 30, 1974, when CBS aired it as their Late Movie after the 11 o'clock news. I happened to be out with my parents at their friends place, where I stumbled on the film on TV and got a chance to see roughly half of it before I was yanked away from the screen so we could go home. I desperately tried to find it when we did get home, but it seemed to have vanished from the airwaves. I was a fan of the TV series and had no idea what this was, but I knew I LOVED IT! I was only 11 years old at the time, but something about it mesmerized me. Yet I had no opportunity to see the complete film again until about 1989, when I was loaned a VHS tape with a dub of the film on it, accompanied by John Water's Desperate Living. I watched the two movies while out of my mind on mescaline and had a religious experience with both of them. At that point, I became an evangelist for HEAD, insisting on showing it to everyone and anyone who I could get to sit down in front of my TV for 90 minutes, preferably under the influence of a suitably potent psychedelic substance. There wasn't a single case where the film didn't make an impact, and there are a number of converts who were created by my efforts. I eventually got VHS, then DVD editions of the movie and, once the internet came into common use, discovered that there were many others out there who had come to appreciate the movie the way I do. I still consider it in my top three favourite films of all time, which includes the aforementioned Desperate Living, and The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowsky.

In recent years, there have been many people who have done in-depth explorations of the film's themes and structure. It has spawned actual university courses! The book The Monkees, Head, and the 60s, written by Peter Mills, who taught the university course, offers an excruciatingly detailed exploration of every element of the film, including the threads that lead to its creation and the aftermath of its release. For many, myself included, it is a critical document of 1960s counterculture. Director, Bob Rafelson, went on to produce groundbreaking films like Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces. For fans of the band, who have long since embraced the film in all its eccentric glory, it has become an indispensable chapter in the band's legacy, one which proves beyond any doubt that they were artistically and creatively valid beyond any criticism for their "manufactured" origin.

BLACK SABBATH -SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH @ 50

 

Marking its golden anniversary this month is the fifth studio LP from Black Sabbath, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, which was released 50 years ago in November of 1973. As the band struggled to regroup after an exhausting tour and expand their musical pallet, their eventual success created perhaps the album defining the pinnacle of their career.

On the back of the release of their previous LP, VOL. 4, the band had burned themselves out on a tour which ended up being cut short when guitarist Tony Iommi collapsed during their LA gig from a combination of overwork and overindulgence, blazing out on the tail of a massive cocaine binge which had been going on for days. The situation for the guitarist was nearly life-threatening and precipitated the band taking their first actual vacation period since the group was founded. After spending some time apart to rest and recuperate, the initial plan was to take the same approach to their next album as had been so successful on their previous, so they booked into the same LA studios and began their first attempts at buckling down and getting to work. The problem was that Tony was bone dry in the inspiration department and the rest of the band were entirely dependant on him to get the ball rolling when it came to songwriting. Other factors, like their continued substance abuse, also conspired to diffuse their focus and make it impossible to recreate the atmosphere of the previous album. Even their favourite room in the studio wasn't available as it had been overtaken by a massive synthesizer system installed by Stevie Wonder.

After floundering in frustration in LA for a month, the group decided a change of venue was in order and opted to head back to the UK where they rented Clearwell Castle in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England, in which the likes of Led Zeppelin, Mott the Hoople and Deep Purple wrote and recorded. The castle provided a suitably ominous creepiness for them to work, with the armoury and dungeon offering particularly spooky settings. Band members even reported sightings of ghostly apparitions while wandering the castle's dimly lit hallways, though given their penchant for chemical indulgence, who knows what they actually saw. The group were also prone to pranking each other in the most vicious manner, which significantly amped up the sense of fear and paranoia, resulting in some members refusing to sleep there and, in the case of drummer Bill Ward, who often seemed to get the worst of it, he insisted on sleeping with a dagger at hand.

Mayhem aside, the creative damn burst, thanks to the ominous setting, when Iommi stumbled on the riff for the album's title track. Up to that point, they were seriously starting to think that they were finished, but once they hit on that riff, they knew they were back. By this time, they were also looking to expand the diversity of their sound, so they started to incorporate more experimental elements like strings, keyboards and synthesizer. Ozzy had picked up a MOOG synth and the group even got Yes keyboardist, Rick Wakeman, to guest on Sabbra Cadabra, though he refused payment for his work and was happy to receive a few beers as compensation. The group even attempted experiments with instruments like bagpipes and sitars, but these proved unsatisfactory and were abandoned from the sessions. At one point, members of Led Zeppelin dropped in for a visit and an impromptu jam session was recorded, but never released.

Once the album was completed and released, the band were surprised to find that they actually created something the British music press were willing to acknowledge as a good album. Their previous works had notoriously been dismissed by UK critics, so it was a surprising about-face to finally receive a bit of praise from this quarter. But as Ozzy later commented, he felt like he should have called it quits from the band after this release as the writing was on the wall that their peak had been reached. Internal conflicts and tensions between the band members were about to take their tole. They were far too dependant on Iommi to get songs written and Geezer Butler was also feeling like Osborne was far too reliant on him to come up with lyrics.

The album went on to become a commercial success as well as garnering critical raves. Within the scope of the band's canon, many consider it the high water mark of their career. After this, their conflicts and personal demons would undercut their ability to work together successfully. They still had three more LPs in their pockets before the original lineup would fracture, but none of those would be considered in the same light as their first five.

FRIPP & ENO - (NO PUSSYFOOTING) @ 50

 

Released 50 years ago this month, the debut LP from Fripp & Eno, (No Pussyfooting), is marking its golden anniversary. As well as being a notable cornerstone in the evolution of ambient music, the album's technical innovations are worthy of appreciation. It's a minimalist approach which primarily used Robert Fripp's guitar as the principal sound source (although Eno does incorporate some synth into the background loops of the second track). The key innovation here is Eno's implementation of a dual reel-to-reel tape system, which linked the two decks in such a way that sounds recorded on one deck were carried over by the tape for playback on the second, which in turn would feed the sound back to the first. The effect was to create a long echo effect with a correspondingly extended decay envelop. The result was a droning sound, which multiplied a single note into near infinite overlapping layers, where subtle variations in playing could create complex harmonic interactions. The album, using this technique, includes two side-long compositions, recorded at discrete sessions nearly a year apart: "The Heavenly Music Corporation" on side one, and "Swastika Girls" on side two. The title for the latter song originated with the discovery of a porno magazine fragment on the pavement, which Eno happened upon while walking towards the studio the night of the mix. The page featured the title phrase, along with a photo of naked girls with swastika emblems on their arms. The fragment was brought to the studio and kept on the mixing desk throughout the production.

While the titles for the album and "songs" offer zero indication of any real connection to the sound of the record, the cover photo is quite a literal interpretation, showing the two artists sitting in a small mirror lined room, with infinite reflections receding off into the distance. They are separated by a small table, upon which are a series of "nudie" cards, displayed in a manner which appears to suggest some sort of perverse Tarot reading.

At the time of its release, the album was very poorly received. The record label was utterly opposed to it, given that Eno was launching his post Roxy Music solo career in parallel with the issuing of this bizarre and inexplicable album. With "Here Come the Warm Jets" featuring mostly radio friendly pop music, they were fretting over fans and critics becoming confused by the non-sequitur nature of (No Pussyfooting). The album did receive some favourable reviews, but most critics ignored it, and commercial sales were minimal enough to ensure the album stayed well away from any charts. Yet in retrospect, and with the benefit of hindsight, the visionary nature of the album has become far more apparent, and subsequent reappraisal has elevated it to a substantive level of influence and admiration. It certainly had an impact on artists like David Bowie, who would soon involve both musicians in some of his most innovative works.

THE THE - SOUL MINING @ 40

 

Released on October 21st, 1983, "Soul Mining," The The's debut album, celebrates its 40th anniversary today. Although Matt Johnson had released a solo album in 1981 that eventually became part of The The's discography, "Soul Mining" remains his formal debut and includes some of his most memorable and iconic songs.

The The began gaining momentum in late 1982 with the release of the single "Uncertain Smile," followed by "Perfect" in early 1983. Both songs gained significant popularity on underground dance floors on both sides of the Atlantic. By the time the album was ready for release, Johnson had cultivated a substantial audience for his work. Initially, Johnson signed with CBS Records after a bidding war, but his relationship with the label soured after the New York recording sessions, which produced the two singles, floundered due to conflicts with producer Mike Thorne. Johnson then relocated back to the UK and switched signed to Some Bizzare & Epic Records.

The initial UK recording sessions aimed to revive Johnson's concept for the album, tentatively titled "The Pornography of Despair." However, those sessions did not meet with Matt's satisfaction, leading him to abandon his plans and start the album from scratch. He renamed the project "Soul Mining" and composed a mostly new set of songs. These were demoed with Johnson using a four-track porta-studio, with Matt handling vocals, guitar, keyboards, and a drum machine. When it came to assembling studio musicians for recording, The The used a residency of live performances at the Marquee club in central London as an audition for potential contributors. From these events, Johnson found talents like Orange Juice drummer Zeke Manyika, DIY synthesizer pioneer Thomas Leer, and the experimental Australian musician Jim Thirlwell, credited on the album under one of his early aliases, "Frank Want." Thirlwell would later achieve significant success with his "Foetus" project, also signed to Stevo's label. The re-recorded version of "Uncertain Smile" replaced the sax solo with a piano solo performed by Jools Holland, who delivered the performance in a single take after only a brief listen to part of the backing track.

For the release of the album, Johnson's brother Andrew contributed another of his paintings, which had also been used for both the "Uncertain Smile" and "Perfect" single covers. Later reissues of the album substituted a photo of Matt on the cover. Album sales were somewhat modest at first, but it has remained a consistent seller over the years and has since achieved gold record status. The critical response to the album was decidedly positive, with Johnson's lyrical complexity and emotional depth well appreciated compared to the banal material that dominated the pop charts of the day.

PSYCHIC TV - DREAMS LESS SWEET @ 40

 

Celebrating its 40th anniversary today is Psychic TV's sophomore studio LP, 'Dreams Less Sweet', which was released on October 21, 1983. While the band's debut LP, 'Force the Hand of Chance', left the sounds of Throbbing Gristle far behind, PTV's second album demonstrated that, even with the radical departures of their debut, they were still finding new structures to explore and could not be confined to any particular genre or strategic approach. Indeed, the album forges entirely new cornerstones for musical exploration, departing from the almost conventional pop song structures of the first album in favour of a near-classical aesthetic, with short movements carefully interconnected to create a narratively intricate sonic suite.

While still signed to Stevo's Some Bizzare Records, they had the luxury of working with a budget that allowed for the use of some state-of-the-art equipment, including the Zuccarelli Holophonics system, an experimental binaural recording process. This technology utilized a complex sound imaging technique which was capable of creating three dimensional effects using standard stereo speakers. Though headphones provided the optimum listening experience, properly phase aligned loud speakers were able to accomplish the illusion as well. The system does not use standard microphones; instead, it relies on a set of sound pickups housed in a physical 'body' designed to replicate human hearing physiology as accurately as possible.

For recording 'Dreams Less Sweet', this device was used in a variety of ways to capture unique acoustic environments, including extensive location recordings in places like The Hellfire Club caves, Christ Church in Hampstead, and Caxton Hall. Even the sound inside a coffin was captured using the device. This experimental recording process also drove the group to pursue different musical directions, combining aspects of folk, ethnic music, neo-classical and musique concrète. The focus was primarily on natural acoustic sounds, with minimal use of amplified instruments such as guitars, synthesizers, or drum machines, as were common on the first album.

Conceptually, the album represents a set of complex layers of themes and symbols, involving every facet of the production, from the composition of the music to the smallest elements of the graphic design. Whether it was the flower on the front symbolizing a pierced genital, the location of the group shot on the back cover, or the subtle wolves hidden behind chain-link fencing, every element was meticulously considered, calculated, and integrated into the whole. Musically, this included a song composed by Charles Manson and another with lyrics derived from the final sermon of Jim Jones during the Jonestown massacre. At its most subtle and sweet, the album's subliminal implications were often at their darkest and most subversive. When it reached its crescendo of chaos with a flurry of honking car horns, it was at the peak of its innocence and optimism.

The album stands as the single most complex and multifaceted work Psychic TV ever produced, and also their most sophisticated, technically. Shortly after the completion of the album, a rift developed between co-founders Genesis P-Orridge and Peter Christopherson, with the latter and his partner, Geoff Rushton (henceforth known as Jhon Balance), splintering off to found their Coil project. PTV's relationship with Stevo also floundered, resulting in the founding of Temple Records, their own independent label imprint. From here, Psychic TV would venture into more traditional rock structures, entering into their "Hyperdelic" phase, exemplified by the Godstar single, before changing course again into the Acid House electronica vein, which would define their work in the latter half of the 1980s and beyond. While PTV would occasionally get experimental with their music throughout the remainder of their career, nothing they did after 'Dreams Less Sweet' came close to the sophistication and complexity achieved on that album.

PUBLIC IMAGE LTD - PUBLIC IMAGE b/w THE COWBOY SONG @ 45

 

Released on October 13th, 1978, Public Image Ltd's debut single, Public Image b/w The Cowboy Song, turns 45 years old today.  It's a single which could arguably be positioned as the cornerstone of post-punk.

After the chaotically spectacular implosion of the Sex Pistols on their first US tour in January of 1978, the music world was eagerly awaiting to see what frontman Johnny Rotten would conceive of as an encore.  Few could have foreseen that he had far more in mind than merely "business as usual".  The seed for that next step had actually been planted nearly two years earlier during a gig where the Pistols were playing with The Clash, when they were still a five piece with Keith Levene on guitar.  During that gig, Levene and Lydon struck up a chat and vowed that, should they find themselves without their respective bands at some point in the future, they'd hook up for their own musical adventure.  Sure enough, they were true to their word and, after John went on a sojourn down to Jamaica for Richard Branson to scout for reggae bands, the two started to put their new band together before the summer began to bloom.  Finding the next piece of the puzzle was easy, with close friend John Wardle, renamed "Jah Wobble" by a slurring and drunk Sid Vicious, eagerly stepping up to play bass.  The only thing left was to get a drummer, which they did via a music press advert where they eventually unearthed young Canadian jazz drummer, Jim Walker, to round out the quartet.  

All four of these disparate souls were on the same page about one thing at least, and that was the kind of music they wanted to make wouldn't be a continuation of standard punk three chord thrashing.  Keith had very different ideas about what a guitar could do and Wobble was very much looking to bring the depth of dub into the mix.  Combined with the flexibility of Walker's drumming, it didn't take long for the fission of their talents to spark and the first flame they ignited was the song, Public Image.  Lyrically, it was a snarling backlash aimed at his former band and manager, decrying their inability to appreciate what he was offering and only being concerned with his superficial presence.  "You never listen to a word that I said, you only seen me for the clothes that I wear.  Or did the interest go so much deeper, it must've been the colour of my hair."  

The song is propelled by the subsonic throbbing of Wobble's insistent bass, bouncing off the gunshot impacts of Jim's powerhouse drumming.  Filling out the space between the rhythm section and the searing vocals was a wall of harmonic chiming, shimmering and glistening guitar, as Keith shredded out myriads of harmonics from his Veleno aluminum special.  It's a sound that was light years away from the "chug-chug" of punk bar chords, inspiring the later sounds of dozens of guitarists in bands like U2 and The Banshees.  It was a clarion call, a siren, a great bell ringing and declaring a new approach to the instrument.

While the A-side of the single was laying foundation stones for musical futures, the B-side was content to be a prickly prank, demonstrating that PiL were not shy about spending Virgin Records money on a bit of nonsense.  The Cowboy Song takes a galloping western drum & bass rhythm and then slathers it with incomprehensible caterwauling and the irritating noise of a record skipping and scratching, ending it all on a locked groove that repeats that noise indefinitely until the needle is ripped off the record.  It's a juvenile joke which shows how young the band were, but I've always found it rather a good laugh, in the grand scheme of things.  It showed that PiL didn't take themselves too seriously and could have a sense of humour about themselves and the music business.

That sense of humour was also reflected in the packaging, which featured the 7' single being wrapped like a piece of fish in a custom printed sheet of newspaper.  The paper was a parody of the salacious gutter press, which had been stalking Lydon's career from the get-go.  It feature lurid made up stories of the band members, with sensational photos and suitably garish typesetting.  The whole package worked together brilliantly with the band's name, creating a meta-commentary on the music press while ripping its guts out in the song's lyrics.  

The single was a significant hit in the UK, peaking at number 9 in November of that year.  A promotional video was created for the song as well, recreating the PiL live set of the time with its green lighting and draped backdrop.

DEVO - Q: ARE WE NO MEN? @ 45

 

Released on August 28th, 1978, DEVO's debut LP, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, turns 45 years old today. After incubating their music and philosophy over the course of some 5 years, the world was introduced to the concept of "De-Evolution", the principal that humanity had peaked as a species and was now backsliding into primitivism and ignorance.

Inspired by the Kent State Massacre of 4 students on May 4th, 1970, co-founder Gerald Casale began to formulate the basic principals of DeEvolution into the band, DEVO, back in 1973. Along with co-founder, Mark Mothersbaugh, brothers Bob 1 & Bob 2 and Alan Myers, the band spent three years developing songs, stagecraft and iconography in order to represent their vision of a degraded, displaced and disjointed dystopian future. By 1977, the group were ready to record and their demo was causing the likes of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Robert Fripp and Brian Eno to be in the running to produced the album. The job ultimately landed with Eno, who flew the band out to Conny Plank's studio near Cologne, Germany.

Production of the album ended up being something of a battle of wills, as the band held steadfastly to conceptions about how the songs should be produced, while resisting potentially beneficial suggestions from Eno. In later years, band members would express regrets over their stubbornness and refusal to collaborate more openly with Brian. But despite the friction, they managed to produce an album of tight, angular and innovative music, which would prove to be deeply influential as upcoming young artists sought something more than the three chord slash of punk.

I know my own reaction to the band and the album was a sense of revelation. I saw them perform on Saturday Night Live and was immediately won over by their quirky, alien idiosyncrasy, which was counterbalanced by an uncanny sense of nostalgia for mid century modern aesthetics. Parts of it reminded me of music from Warner Bros cartoons, while other aspects left me feeling like I'd stepped into a '50s science fiction B-movie. Coupled with their hazard suited, herky-jerky robotic stage antics, you had the perfect formula for fanatical DEVOtion!

While some critics at the time of its release couldn't quite grasp what the band were doing, the album has still managed to secure a solid position as essential listening from that era, in the ensuing years since its release. It's an album I can still listen to at any time and enjoy its strangeness, while marvelling at its ability to resist sounding dated.

CABARET VOLTAIRE - THE CRACKDOWN @ 40

Celebrating its 40th anniversary today is the fifth studio LP from Industrial music pioneers, Cabaret Voltaire, with The Crackdown being released on August 18th of 1983. It's the album which saw the band take a decisive turn away from overt experimentation and fundamentally lay the cornerstones of what would become known as "EBM" (electronic body music). Its funky electro-grooves became the signposts for bands like Font 242, Front Line Assembly and countless others.

Recorded late in 1982 at Trident Studios, London, England, the band were now paired down to a duo, with Chris Watson having left part-way through the recording of their previous album, 2x45. With Watson's "Musique concrète" contributions now absent, the group leaned more into the latent groovy essence which resided in its remaining members. It was also the era when MIDI based electronic drum machines and sequencers were making their mark on the electronic music scene and the Cabs were on the bleeding edge of incorporating that tightly synchronized syncopation into their music. The wobbly sync of analogue gear was gone and the rhythms subsequently became tough and tense.

The album was produced by the band themselves, along with Mark Ellis (aka, Flood), who would become a stalwart producer in the genre of electronic pop, working with artists like Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, New Order and Orbital, among many others. The result was a genre defining shift from a band which had come from oblique avant-garde obscurity into now setting themselves up to lead a new revolution on the underground dance floors of the UK, Europe and North America. Taylor Swift would never be the same!
 

NWA - STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON @ 45

Marking its 45th anniversary today is the debut LP from NWA (N****s With Attitude), Straight Outta Compton, which was released on August 8th, 1988. For many, this was the album which announced the arrival of "gangsta rap", giving the fledgling genre a sense of danger and risk which it had only flirted with up to this point.

Prior to the release of Straight Outta Compton, the rap music scene of the mid 80s was commercially dominated by mostly innocuous "party" music, built on electro-funk grooves and principally concerned with fairly non-threatening subjects. While the genre had debuted in the mainstream with a sense of social conscience on tracks like The Message and White Lines, the mainstream of the time was mostly filled with themes of hanging out, and having a good time. With NYC as the birthplace of the sound, the West Coast scene was largely overlooked as inconsequential. That all changed with NWA.

Formed in 1987, NWA brought together MCs Ice Cube, Dr Dre and Eazy-E. Relative unknowns at the time, they'd go on to become iconic names after the release of this album. Musically, driven by DJ Yella and the Arabian Prince, the sound slowed the groove and dragged it away from the Kraftwerk inspired thrust of Planet Rock, into a downtempo heaviness, built on sampled R&B & jazz records and anchored by the booming kick of Roland's TR-808 drum machine. Lyrically, the album pierced the furiously raw nerve of urban black alienation, dispensing with any restraint or politeness and thrusting expletives into the faces of unsuspecting listeners. Unlike the controversies around something like 2 Live Crew and their focus on vulgar sexuality, NWA's outrages came from a sense of revolution against authority, no more perfectly vocalized than by the album's most notorious track, Fuck the Police.

The sheer audaciousness of Fuck the Police became one of the driving factors in making this record such a notorious hit. The song even merited a stern warning from the FBI to the group, and police were refusing to work security at their shows. All of this blow-back from the authorities, however, only served to intensify the group's notoriety and publicity. While radio stations flatly turned away from the album, it still sold in the millions thanks to the shock factor that was unleashed by that track. I can clearly recall the sense of awe that swept my own social circle as this record hit our turntables. We'd never heard anything like it. It was so stark, so angry and so firmly footed against its oppressors. Someone had finally given voice to the deep outrage that was fuming in the guts of the disenfranchised urban cores of North America. It was a moment when you realized it should have been said so much sooner, but that it was about fucking time that it finally hit the mainstream.

While this new breed of rap uncovered the harsh realities of city life, it also unleashed a kind of misogyny which would form the unfortunate alternate thrust of this double edged sword. Women became "bitches and 'ho's" and subjects of abuse. It's only one of the more uncomfortable aspects of the genre which only became exaggerated in later years as the culture became less concerned with communicating the social injustices of the disenfranchised and more focused on the braggadocio of wealth, sexual prowess, violent confrontations and social status.

Yet at its best, NWA and Straight Outta Compton offered a desperately needed reality check for a culture which has continued to decline as disparities between classes continue to be aggravated. Along with Public Enemy on the East Coast, they brought rap music into the '90s with a sense of danger and urgency that has not been equalled since those heady heydays. This was likely the last time, in my recollection, when music was able to upset the establishment in a way which had any real impact. There hasn't been a musical movement since then which has threatened the mainstream in such a tangible and visceral way. However, such rage and determination has since been co-opted into mere consumerism for the 21st century, with artists assessed based on the quality of the footwear they put their names to instead of the validity of their message. That's not to say there aren't those still speaking truth to power, but those voices seem more pushed to the fringes rather than occupying the culture's central ranks. 

 

KRAFTWERK - TOUR DE FRANCE @ 20

 

Marking its 20th anniversary today is the eleventh studio album from Kraftwerk, Tour De France Soundtracks, which was released on August 4th, 2003. It was their only collection of new recordings in 12 years, with The Mix being released in 1991, but it was also their only collection of new compositions in 17 years, with the last set, Electric Cafe (aka Techno Pop), coming out in 1986. While the group continue to tour regularly, they have not released any new studio recordings since, albeit numerous live collections have been made available from their 21st century tours. Tour De France was also the last album to feature Florian Schneider before his departure from the band in 2008 and his passing in 2020.

The album was conceived as a tribute to the Tour De France bicycle race, which was celebrating its 100th anniversary that year, though the album release was delayed, missing the actual anniversary of the race. It was also an expansion on the single of the same name, which was released 20 years earlier, in 1983. The cover graphics for the single and album are nearly identical. Following the release of the album, the group began to tour again, revamping their live presentation to utilized the now familiar four podium "laptop" setup, with each member having a compact array of computers, keyboards and minimal controls, all backed by large visual projections, which eventually evolved into 3D graphics in more recent years.

With such a long lapse in activity from the band, it was a concern as to whether fans would be there to pick up on the release, but the band's impact had become so pronounced within the popular music world, with it's decisive shift towards electronic pop, that the album was a global hit, rising to the upper ranks of numerous charts. Stylistically, the album continued along the path of tight, punchy dance music forged by The Mix from 1991.

With Ralf Hütter now the only remaining founding member of the group (or from their "classic" era lineup), fans continue to speculate on whether or not they have another album of original new works in the wings. 20 years is a long time to go without anything new, especially for a group who are now recognized as being on the same level as The Beatles in terms of influencing the direction of popular music, and some could argue they've surpassed the Fab Four, and convincingly. They're still out there touring regularly and packing venues with their 3D live shows, which I got to see in 2012, and which duly blew my mind. I can't accept that they haven't got at least ONE more album up their robotic sleeves.

PSYCHIC TV - TUNE IN (TURN ON TO THE ACID HOUSE) @ 35

 

In August of 1988, 35 years ago this month, Psychic TV came out of the closet as an Acid House band after having pranked the club crowd with a fake Various Artists compilation of dance music in June of that year under the title, Jack the Tab. The TUNE IN single is purported to be the first UK release to use the term "ACID HOUSE" as it directly referenced the Chicago originating style. Whereas the Jack the Tab album had obliquely alluded to the movement, though skewing towards a more hip-hop & funky style of groove, Tune In went full tilt into the classic "four on the floor" techno-disco beat which characterized the US inspiration, though the signature squelching TB-303 wasn't quite in place just yet.

 

At the time of its release, I'd only recently clued into the sound via the seminal Phuture 12", Acid Tracks. I was a fan of TG's brand of "Industrial" music and Psychic TV, but what I heard from Phuture was a completely fresh sound with a whole new sense of possibilities. I recall many of my friends who were into experimental music were suspicious of this new sound, finding it too dry, basic and minimal, but I was twigged and my guts told me something big was coming down the pipes. When I saw Tune In on the shelf in my local import shop, I remember I got a sudden rush of delight by seeing that someone like Psychic TV had recognized the potential of what was coming. I hadn't heard the Jack the Tab LP yet, so this came as a total surprise after hearing the retro psyche-rock of their latest album, Allegory & Self. It felt like a paradigm shift was happening.

 

The single was originally released on Temple Records under the Jack the Tab name with a label showing a picture of Superman holding a Psychick cross, and without any mention of the name, Psychic TV. This short-lived version was quickly pulled from distribution after DC Comics expressed objections to the use of their intellectual property and threatened legal action. 

 

Soon after the release of this single, it seemed the UK exploded with ACID HOUSE music and rave culture soon followed, with clandestine warehouse and outdoor parties sprouting up all over the country, luring young party-goers into the ecstasy of new designer drugs and all night techno dance parties. For me, the birth of the entire modern electronic music scene traces back to the summer of 1988 and the release of records like Psychic TV's Tune In. For the next few years, until Genesis P-Orridge and family were chased out of the UK, Psychic TV pursued a course of becoming the ultimate psychedelic electronic dance band, putting on marathon 3 hour live shows across the UK, US and Europe, travelling in a Merry Pranksters style school bus, and spreading the word of tuning in, turning on and freaking out.

 

HERBIE HANCOCK - FUTURE SHOCK @ 40

 

Released in August of 1983, Herbie Hancock's Future Shock turns 40 years old this month. Fusing jazz, funk, hip-hop & electronic dance music, the album, along with the Rockit single and it's unforgettable music video, would bring Hancock's name to its highest recognition in popular music.

With two decades of work under his belt, Hancock was well established in the jazz scene, both as a solo artist and for having worked with legends like Miles Davis. He was always a forward thinking musician and he'd done extensive work throughout the 1970s defining the jazz-fusion sound, incorporating funk grooves with jazz sensibilities and pushing it all into the modern age by incorporating synthesizers and electronics. But Future Shock didn't even begin life as a Hancock album.

The origins of the album began with bassist Bill Laswell and keyboardist-producer, Michael Beinhorn, who were looking to devolp a follow-up to their sophomore Material album, One Down. Many of the songs on Future Shock began as demos for what was thought would be the next Material LP. However, once the ball began rolling on these compositions, the duo approached Hancock to work with them on developing the songs further. From there, reggae drumming legend, Sly Dunbar, guitarist Pete Cosey and DJ Derek Showard, better known by his stage name of GrandMixer DXT, came onboard to fill out the studio band. Together, they managed to channel the zeitgeist of a new breed of fusion music, incorporating modern jazz sensibilities with cutting edge alternative hip-hop funkiness. They soon realized they were on to something when demos of their recordings started receiving unexpected positive reactions from people who had a chance to hear them.

For the single, Rockit, a stunning video was directed by 10cc's Godley and Creme, who helped mastermind an iconic set of robot dancers and musicians created by Jim Whiting, a production which swept the MTV music awards of that year. The video managed to keep the song in heavy rotation on the fledgling music channel, propelling the single and album into major sales territory. It was one of those rare moments when true innovation and creativity managed to break into the mainstream music scene.

QUEEN @ 50

 

It's time for another Queen to celebrate a jubilee, this one being golden, as the debut eponymous LP from Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Meadows Taylor and John Deacon (credited as Deacon John), collectively known as QUEEN, was released 50 years ago today, on July 13th 1973. It would be the coronation of one of rock's greatest bands, a creative collective who would leave an indelible and enduring legacy of music and performance.

Before their first album hit the record shops, Queen had to evolve through a series of manifestations which began in 1968 when Brian May formed the group, Smile, with lead singer and bassist, Jim Staffell. May had worked with Jim previously in 1963 in a band called 1984, named after the Orwell novel. Brian had taken a break from music to pursue his degree in physics and infrared astronomy at Imperial College, but was back into playing again. To complete the band, drummer Roger Taylor was hired after auditioning from an ad requesting a "Ginger Baker" style player. While attending Ealing Art College, Staffell became acquainted with one Freddie Bulsara, an Indian of Parsi descent who had grown up in Zanzibar. Bulsara was a design student and took a shining to Jim's band, even offering Brian to join as lead vocalist, though May turned him down because he didn't think Staffell would want to relinquish the role. By 1970, however, Staffell was tired of going nowhere with the band and packed it in, leaving an opening for Freddie to step in.

Once Freddie was on board, it didn't take long for him to suggest a new moniker for the band, christening them QUEEN. Though the other members were initially hesitant, Freddie, who'd also adopted the sir name of Mercury, was confident that, "...people will love it". Whether the connotations of the name were evident or deliberate is somewhat debated, but I have a hard time thinking Freddie didn't have a sly subversive intent up his sleeve. Initially, the band rotated through a number of bass players before they finally encountered John Deacon in 1971, whose modest demeanour and skill in electronics became a perfect compliment for the other quarters of the band.

After scrounging around for a bit, trying to find someplace to do some recording on the cheap, an encounter with an audio engineer friend managed to get them into De Lane Lea Studios' new premises in Wembley. The studio was looking to bring a band in to test out the new gear and rooms, so Queen were able to record five of their original songs: "Liar", "Keep Yourself Alive", "Great King Rat", "The Night Comes Down" and "Jesus". During the recording sessions, producer Roy Thomas Baker was present to hear Keep Yourself Alive, which impressed him enough to promote the band to a number of record labels.

Throughout 1972, Queen, working with Baker as producer, proceeded to record their debut, negotiating to record during studio down time to save costs. Roger Taylor recalled, "You could see the working girls at night through their laced curtains, so while we were mixing, we would have a little bit of diversion". The process proved to be somewhat fraught with conflict, especially between May and Baker, as the former's perfectionism clashed with the latter's desire for live spontaneity. The clash lead to what Baker referred to as "kitchen sink overproduction". The band had also wanted to use the De Lane Lea recordings, but Baker insisted on new versions of those songs. The mixing process proved to be just as difficult with no mix meeting the band's approval until engineer Mike Stone stepped in and was finally able to satisfy everyone's tastes. In the end, the band managed to work through their differences and crafted a bristling mixture of heavy metal and progressive rock, all shot through with a vein of glam's sense of drama. Recording wrapped on the album by November of 1972, and the band then went on a spree of performances to promote the as yet unreleased album. They were still lacking a record deal, so there was some manoeuvring to do, in order to secure a contract.

The group's management firm, Trident, managed to eventually strike a deal with EMI and the album was finally released on July 13th of 1973. The album received overall positive reviews from the music press, with Rolling Stone writing, "There's no doubt that this funky, energetic English quartet has all the tools they'll need to lay claim to the Zep's abdicated heavy-metal throne, and beyond that to become a truly influential force in the rock world. Their debut album is superb." Commercially, the album was a modest success, but delivered nowhere near the kind of sales that they'd soon be pushing. The band was, while highly developed, still finding some of its footing and figuring out how to properly balance its excesses. Their mastery of the studio was not quite fully in bloom, though their ambitions would push them into that sweet-spot very soon.

As a long time Queen fan, the rawness of their debut makes it a singular and fascinating glimpse into a band just starting to flex their creative muscles. All the roots of what they'd become are firmly in place, it was only a matter of time before they'd sprout into full flower. That rough edge, however, gives this album a dynamic which is completely unique within the groups canon of recordings. They'd never sound quite like this again, albeit their followup, Queen II, would perch confidently on the foundations laid by their debut. If you're looking for a version of Queen with some youthful vigour and bite, this is a perfect place to start. It's certainly a dazzling debut by any band's standards.

MAGAZINE - REAL LIFE @ 45

Marking its 45th anniversary this month is the debut LP from Magazine, Real Life, which was released in June of 1978. After showing the punks how to write catchy pop songs with The Buzzcocks, Howard Devoto stepped up his game by hooking up with some top notch musical co-conspirators, producing an album which continued to push boundaries as "post-punk" dropped the artifice of three chord grinding affectation and set about creating some truly original and effective music.

Along with Devoto, the band featured some truly remarkable musicians who would soon become major influencers in a variety of other bands. First there was guitarist John McGeoch, who would become one of the true innovators along with the likes of Keith Levene in terms of finding new tones and textures for the instrument. He's find his way into influential albums not only with Magazine, but with Siouxsie & The Banshees, Visage and even Public Image Ltd after Levene's ouster. Then there was the bass work of Barry Adamson, who would also be part of Visage before going on to be part of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds. Then you had the keyboard wizardry of Dave Formula, who brought in layers of synthesizers to help push the band's sound into the fringes of modernism. It all combined to make a sound which was forward looking and innovative, setting a standard for bright, insightful and intelligent pop music.  

SILVER APPLES @ 55

Released 55 years ago this month, in June of 1968, it's the eponymous debut LP from Silver Apples. It's an album which may well be the single most foresightful collection of rock music to ever predict the future.  

Silver Apples was formed in NYC by electronics wiz, Simeon Oliver Coxe III, and drummer, Danny Taylor. Simeon played a bizarre conglomerate of electronic oscillators and effects processors which were crudely affixed to a wooden frame. He played the oscillators via telegraph switches triggered with his hands, elbows, knees and feet. Drummer Taylor worked with a kit which was composed of two complete drum sets, each tuned to a different key so that he could change the key of his playing in synch with pitch changes from the electronics. Together, the duo created a sound which was completely and utterly idiosyncratic of their era. There simply were no other artists exploring anywhere near their sound.  

The use of synthesizers in pop music was barely getting off the ground in 1968, with a scant few examples of artists utilizing the recently release MOOG modular system. Micky Dolenz had picked one up and used it on a couple of songs with The Monkees, the Rolling Stones had followed a few months later, but for the most part, it was a mere novelty. It certainly wasn't the source of any band's principal sounds like with Silver Apples.

Silver Apples had started out as a fairly conventional rock band by the name of The Overland Stage Electric Band, with Simeon on vocals, but once he started bringing an old 1940s military oscillator into the picture, the other band members felt alienated and soon departed, leaving only Simeon and Taylor to rename themselves as Silver Apples in 1967. For their first album, seven of the group's original songs had lyrics provided by poet friend, Stanley Warren, including the album's single, Oscillations.  

While the album and its followup were both commercial flops at the time of their release, and a third aborted album fell into a void of lost obscurity, the music of Silver Apples would eventually find a cult audience in decades to come. As electronic music came into its own in the 1980s and 1990s, its supporters began to rediscover the prognosticating brilliance of Silver Apples, who's sound was like a blueprint for experimental electronic music which would surface a full decade after the original albums were released. In the 1990s, Simeon would revive the band as a solo outlet, performing at techno raves.  

THE ROLLING STONES - SOME GIRLS @ 45

 

Celebrating its 45th anniversary today is the Rolling Stones' classic comeback LP, Some Girls, which was released on June 9th, 1978. After slipping into a slump in the middle of the decade (they didn't call that "best of" album, "Sucking In the '70s" for nothing), the band regrouped and managed to knock out the most commercially and critically successful album of their career. At a time when they seemed destined to be drowned out by disco, or made irrelevant by punk, they managed to embrace both genres in tandem, harnessing the infectious dance grooves of the former, while embodying the brazen rawness and edge of the latter.

After kicking off the '70s with a couple of solid albums, The Rolling Stones spent much of the middle years of that decade middling around with unfocused studio albums and lacklustre live releases. As a result, the band's popularity had waned significantly and they were in serious danger of becoming relics of a bygone era. The emergence of punk culture in the latter half of the decade was branding old farts from the '60s as "dinosaurs", lumbering about the world on their great big tours and motivated solely by their avarice for ticket and merch sales. Keith Richards was also struggling with legal issues resulting from drug charges in Canada, so the burden fell on the shoulders of Mick Jagger to rally the troops and rescue the band from oblivion. By 1977, Ron Wood had secured himself the position of permanent 2nd guitarist in the group, so they had a solid lineup for the first time in years. With the younger generation's wolves snapping at their heels, the band set about getting back to basics and crafting a lean, mean collection of songs capable of capturing the era's zeitgeist.  

Keith's legal issues ended up soliciting the help of US president, Jimmy Carter, and Richards was able to negotiate release from Canada in February of 1977, securing a visa which allowed him to first detox in the US and then travel to Paris to join the rest of the band in the studio. The severity of the charges for heroine possession with intent to traffic were such that there was a very real possibility of the bad-boy guitarist facing up to seven years in a Canadian prison. This dangling sword over the band's head meant that they could be facing the prospect of disbanding and that this might be their last album for a very long time. The thought that Some Girls might be their swan-song was clear motivation for them to put everything they had into giving their best effort in the studio. With the list of guest musicians kept to a bare minimum, the group turned to each other to create a tight, tough and focused sound, the likes of which hadn't been heard for many years. Richards eventually escaped the prospect of a custodial sentence with an agreement to perform a couple of benefit Stones concerts, but the experience certainly helped get the band's house in order.

With Richards distracted by his legal woes, Mick Jagger became the principal creative force during the writing and recording of the album, taking sole writing credits on a number of tracks. The explosion of dance music culture in the discos became a very big influence and Jagger sought to bring some of that four-on-the-floor vibrancy into the band's wheelhouse. Also, by 1977, punk had made major inroads into the public consciousness. Its sense of urgency and disregard for authority or manners had reinvigorated the rock 'n' roll landscape with a sense of danger, risk and innovation, something which had been lacking since the psychedelic inspired creativity of the previous decade gave way to the MOR "yacht-rock" sounds of the '70s. This time, however, it wasn't all utopian idealism and love, but rather it's inverse, with young artists embracing a decidedly dystopian misanthropy.  

Ronnie Wood securing his full-time position in the band helped bring a fresh energy to the group dynamic, shining a new light on their relationships. This interplay meant that, for the first time since 1968's Beggars Banquet, the group were confident enough to eschew the parade of guest players and lean into their own abilities for much of the recording. The result was a collection of songs which were brimming with renewed confidence. 

When it came time to package the album, the band wanted something extravagant and designer Peter Corriston came up with an elaborate die-cut design inspired by an old Valmor Products corporation advertisements for wigs. The cutouts revealed faces printed on the inner sleeve featuring the band in drag along with celebrities like Lucile Ball, Judy Garland, Farrah Fawcett, Raquel Welch and Marilynn Munroe. Color overlays on the images varied by market. The result was quite striking, but the fact celebrity likenesses were used without permission triggered a barrage of legal threats, including one from Valmor, who did go through with a suit and won monetary compensation. The cover was quickly pulled and the celebrity images were removed (except for former Beatle George Harrison). Where they had been was plastered over with garish punk like phrases like "Pardon our appearance – cover under reconstruction". Jagger personally apologized to Liza Minelli for using mother Garland's likeness when he encountered her at Studio 54. 

Despite the controversy over the album's cover, as well as over certain lyrics (the title track attracted scrutiny with the line "Black girls just want to get F****d all night/I just don't have that much jam."), the album went on to become one of the Stones' best selling releases of all time, garnering near universal critical praise in the process. It spawned numerous hit singles, including Miss You, Beast of Burden, Respectable, and my personal favourite, Shattered. It remains one of the band's most popular albums and helped propel their career well into the next decade.