THE RESIDENTS - MARK OF THE MOLE @ 40

Released in September of 1981, The Residents’ Mark of the Mole is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month.

After taking some time to decompress with something relatively “light” in the form of The Commercial Album in 1980, The Residents were ready to dig back into some serious conceptual ground again, similar to what they’d done with their epic and exhausting Eskimo LP from 1979. For this new project, they set their sights on something far more ambitious than a single album. The concept for this new project was to create a “six part trilogy” of releases to tell the tale of two vastly different fictional civilizations and their complex conflict with each other. Thus, they embarked on the creation of the infamous “Mole Trilogy”.

Mark of the Mole was the first chapter in this story, which told the terrible tale of the “Mole” people, a subterranean society who were driven from their underground homes by catastrophic flooding. The Moles were known for their work ethic and valued their labors above all else. As refugees, the Moles found themselves searching for new lands until they came across the aquatic “Chubs”, a race rooted in their hedonistic leisurely lifestyle. The Chubs initially welcomed the Moles as workers, but then rejected them when automation technology rendered them obsolete. Thus the conflict ensues.

The scale of this project proved to be rather more than the eyeball headed four had anticipated, but the project proceeded with some struggle. These efforts eventually resulted in The Residents mounting their first ever live tour after only ever having performed a couple of times in the prior decade of their existence. The complexity and expense of these endeavors would eventually take their tole on the group and there are rumors that these conflicts caused the eventual departure of at least one founding member of the group during this period. However, the touring and promotion of this release and the albums that followed on its heels raised the profile of the Residents to the higher echelons of “cult” status. Still, it didn’t make them rich, by any means.

Though Mark of the Mole was followed by releases such as The Tunes of Two Cities, Intermission and The Big Bubble, the narrative of The Mole Trilogy became very confused and fragmented and it was never made particularly clear if any of these releases was actually part of the “trilogy” proper. In that respect, the story of the Moles and Chubs never seemed to come to any resolution and the group moved on to other projects soon enough, abandoning the threads they’d woven thus far. Ultimately, it seems the Mole Trilogy proved to be a lesson learned as the group matured and became far more consistent when developing their larger conceptual works and bringing them to some kind of completion. In hindsight, however, the Mole story and the tours that were connected to it remain a high water mark for The Residents as far as creative depth and cultural impact are concerned.

CABARET VOLTAIRE - RED MECCA @ 40

 

Released in September of 1981, Cabaret Voltaire’s third full length studio album, Red Mecca, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month.

Before becoming dance floor staples in the mid 1980s Industrial/EBM club scene with their breakthrough album, The Crackdown, Cabaret Voltaire were pursuing a strange brand of discordant pseudo-free-jazz funkiness that drifted between fractured syncopated grooves and flat out noise. The pinnacle of that strand of their early career is centered on the Red Mecca album. It’s where they managed find the perfect balance between accessible grooves and atonal dysphoria. While their earlier efforts had their moments of genius, they also had experimental misfires or moments that just came across as merely academically interesting, though not necessarily “enjoyable” or emotionally engaging. Red Mecca offers up a much more consistent collection of tracks that straddle the eccentricities while clinging firmly to the rhythmic core driving the music forward.

Thematically, the group were very much influenced by their recent tour of the US and the looming totalitarianism evident in the American Christian Evangelical movement which formed a counterpoint against the erupting fundamentalism of Islamic states like Afghanistan and Iran. How prophetic is it that, here we are, four decades later, and we’re still witnessing these ideologies thrashing against each other on the world stage with the US even more threatened by religious fundamentalism than ever before. In that sense, the album’s themes have remained just as vital and relevant as ever.

This was the last full album to feature the founding trio of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson. Though Chris would be around for the beginning of the 2x45 sessions, he’d be gone half way through working on that album, which was a record where the first steps towards more conventional dance floor grooves would be emphasized. As such, Red Mecca is the natural end point for the evolution of the band from its early experimental roots to their fullest sophistication within the avant-garde musical arena. It’s an album of spiky beauty and razor sharp charms.

PARLIAMENT - THE CLONES OF DR. FUNKENSTEIN @ 45

 

July 20th marks the 45th anniversary of the release of Parliament’s fifth album (their fourth with Casablanca Records), The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein, which was issued this day in 1976.

The album is the 2nd in a series of releases which built out the “Funkenstein” mythology that was begun on the previous album, Mothership Connection, and would continue through the remainder of Parliament’s output up until 1980’s Trombipulation. These albums would lay out the epic tales of space funk and the battles of Starchild to bring the groove to the groove-less, thwarting the unfunky machinations of the dastardly Sir Nose'd D'Voidoffunk! They represent the P-Funk gang at the peak of their powers during the heyday of the ’70s, when massive funk bands roamed the land like great prehistoric beasts.

The album’s creative core consisted of George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, Garry Shider & former James Brown horn man, Fred Wesley, handling the brass arrangements. Together, they fashioned some of the great funk albums of the era and the P-Funk axis. They were firing on all cylinders at this point and were benefiting from the financial support of their label, which sought to put the same kind of epic showmanship into them as had proved so successful with label mates KISS. You can see the influence in terms of the elaborate costuming and makeup on the cover and the massive stage show they’d been touring with, complete with an actual spaceship for George Clinton to emerge from during the intro to their sets. These were the glory days of the record industry when money seemed to be no object and the sky was literally the limit!

FUNKADELIC - MAGGOT BRAIN @ 50

 

July 12th marks the 50th anniversary of Funkadelic’s third album, and last with its original lineup, Maggot Brain, released on this day in 1971.

The P-Funk axis is fundamentally known for it’s party anthems and their upbeat attitude infused with social conscience woven into intricate narratives. Within that landscape, Maggot Brain, a title believed to reference George Clinton’s discovery of his murdered brother, stands as the darkest, dankest, deepest well of apocalyptic despair and anger ever put forth by Clinton and his cohorts. Not that it doesn’t bring the grooves when it wants to, but those moments are book-ended by two mammoth slabs of sound that anchor the album in the very earth that buries the screaming head on its cover. From its music to its graphics to its themes, the “funketeers” never got heavier than this LP. It even featured liner notes lifted from the pseudo-Satanic religious cult, The Process Church of the Final Judgement. This is psychedelic acid-funk where you’re gonna need some counseling after your trip.

The album opens with a brief narration from Clinton where he states, “…I knew I had to rise above it all or drown in my own shit”, setting the stage for a 10 minute dirge of an instrumental title track focused squarely on Eddie Hazel’s mournful guitar histrionics. For most of the song, Clinton drops out nearly all of the backing instruments so that Hazel is left in the void of his grief, encouraged by Clinton to imagine how he’d feel to learn of his mother’s death. It’s a lonely, desolate beginning to the album, but also one of the most profoundly emotive pieces of music ever put to tape.

From there, the album kick into gear with some furious funky grooves until we get to the other end of the spectrum with the closing track, Wars of Armageddon, another near 10 minute epic which layers breakneck rhythms with a collage of sounds effects and voices, creating a cacophony of chaos. From beginning to end, it’s almost as if the album is a run through the “stages of grief”, with the finale reveling in the madness, and accepting our doom with one final apocalyptic explosion. The journey from there to here is fraught with anger, revulsion and frustration and perfectly reflects the cultural state of the times while still remaining relevant to current issues.

It’s an album of outrage and desperation and it’s not surprising that it marked the end of Funkadelic’s first phase of existence. Three of the core members ended up departing after it’s completion for various reasons. Some financial, but drugs were at the root of others. In the case of guitarist Tawl Ross, he reportedly got into an "acid eating contest, then snorting some raw speed, before completely flipping out" and has not performed since! What was left behind with their first three albums: Funkadelic, Free Your Mind… and Maggot Brain, is a legacy of psychedelic funk that remains a watershed canon of music for Clinton & crew and R&B music in general.

THROBBING GRISTLE - LIVE AT THE AIR GALLERY @ 45

 

July 6th marks the 45th anniversary of the premier live performance by Throbbing Gristle, which was held at the Air Gallery in London, UK, in 1976. 

While the “Prostitution” performance at the ICA on October 18th of the same year is generally considered TG’s “official” debut, with its attendant press and resulting controversy (where an MP notoriously referred to the group as “wreckers of civilization”, an epithet they handily appropriated for their own mythos, thank you very much!), there were two shows prior to this which constituted TG’s “soft launch”. Those being the Air Gallery on July 6th and the Winchester Hat Fair show on Aug 21st. These were much less promoted affairs and were essentially a warmup for what would be put on at the ICA. 

For the Air Gallery show, the group were set up in a manner which separated the group’s performing space from the audience’s position with the PA system. The group were in a central courtyard area which was only visible from certain windows in the building while the PA was positioned away from the windows so that, in order to hear the performance, the audience would not be able to see the group and those who could see the group could not hear the PA. Musically, the set consisted of a continuous rambling instrumental dirge with little resembling anything that would manifest into any recognizable TG compositions. The various releases of the recording list no track names with "Dead ED" and "Very Friendly" on the cassette cover only being applicable to the Winchester Aug 21st recording. The monaural recording is dominated by Genesis’ base & violin and Cosey’s fuzz guitar, with Carter’s synths swelling up from time to time and virtually no audible evidence of Sleazy’s presence. 

At this point, the group had been together barely a year, having mutated out of the primordial ooze of COUM Transmissions when, first Peter Christopherson and then Chris Carter joined long time collaborators, Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti. Carter’s arrival, in particular, shifted the focus from transgressive performance art to sonic exploration. After a year of experimenting with techniques and tools at their Death Factory studio in Hackney, where the foundations of Industrial Records would take shape, bringing TG to the public became the next step and the first footing on that journey began with the Air Gallery show. 

It’s an embryonic entity that exists in the recording of this show. The mood is almost contemplative and introspective, lacking the sense of confrontation that would characterize their shows starting with the ICA performance. The beast was just waking up, testing its limbs and lurching out from the weight of its placental remnants and amniotic fluids. It was certainly imbued with the distinctive dissonance that would become its trademark, but it just needed to take a few steps before standing fully erect to reveal its true stature. This it would do soon enough and the strides it would take would leave their indelible imprints across the landscape of modern music in the last quarter of the 20th century and beyond into the 21st.

MIKE & RICH - EXPERT KNOB TWIDDLERS @ 25

 

Celebrating its 25th anniversary today is the one-off collaboration between Richard D. James (Aphex Twin) and Mike Paradinas (μ-Ziq), Expert Knob Twiddlers, which was released on June 24th, 1996.

The album came about as a result of James sending out a number of invitations to various electronic music producers in 1994 offering the opportunity to collaborate with him. While invitations were sent to the likes of Luke Vibert, Squarepusher and Cylob, it was Paradinas who managed to get it together to actually make the sessions happen. Once in the studio, the two found themselves indulging their mutual senses of humor as well as their penchant for electronic instrumentation. They also found that, stylistically, they were plumbing the depths of the retro-lounge music sensibilities which were just beginning to experience a resurgence at the time.

The roots of this revival actually go back to the late 1970s with Industrial music pioneers, Throbbing Gristle, and their habit of ending their live shows by playing Martin Deny albums and eventually parodying his LP cover style on TG’s Greatest Hits release. But it would take another 15 years for the resurgence to hit its peak in the mid 1990s, propelled by the publication of the ReSearch books, Incredibly Strange Music (Vols. 1 & 2). The album that resulted from James & Paradinas’ collaboration would be a kind of fusion of easy listening with funky electronica.

The humor of the album can be plainly observed in every aspect from the cover graphics, which portray the two producers playing a game of Downfall like the box packaging of a classic 1970s Milton Bradley kid’s game, to the song titles (Giant Deflating Football, Eggy Toast, The Sound of Beady Eyes), to the often crudely funny sound samples used in the songs, which includes things like belching in Upright Kangaroo. It’s clear that they were having a lot of fun in the studio while working on this album, though that irreverence may have left some critics a bit ambivalent and wondering if they were just pissing about or trying to make a serious album. Personally, I’ve always found it to be a thoroughly enjoyable listening experience from start to finish and lacks some of the more frustratingly self-indulgent edgy elements that can make their respective solo works often mixed bags when it comes to being able to play the whole album without having to skip that one track that just makes you want to bat the needle off the record.

After 25 years on the shelf, I think it still holds up well, though it probably should have been released earlier than it was. It was in the can as early as 1994 and, had it been issued then, it may have seemed more ahead of the curve in terms of embracing the easy listening revival, which hadn’t quite kicked into high gear like it did by the time Expert Knob Twiddlers was actually released. It would have been seen as more of a trend setting record than a bandwagon jumper. Despite it’s inside-joke indulgences, there’s still a forward looking innovation in terms of integrating the feel of the lounge era with the experimentation of ‘90s electronica.

THE SPECIALS - GHOST TOWN @ 40

 

Celebrating it’s 40th anniversary today is the landmark single by The Specials, Ghost Town, which was released on June 12th, 1981. It would not only capture the zeitgeist of a a crumbling UK in the early years of Thatcherism, but it would end up haunting the 21st century as we came to grips with a deadly pandemic in 2020.

The title song began to take shape in Jerry Dammers’ head while touring through the UK in 1980 during a period of severe economic hardship and social unrest as riots became a frequent event in major cities. With shop keepers boarding up windows as a precaution and pensioners on the sidewalks flogging precious mementos for spare change in order to buy food, the depressing conditions of the times seemed to demand a statement from the band. Dammers came to some very specific conclusions in terms of how he wanted this song to sound and feel, meticulously working out every detail of its arrangements, and some of those concepts were quite alien to the other band members, incorporating unfamiliar chord progressions and unusual arrangements in order to create the mood the song required. But Jerry was insistent on these elements, something which only served to exacerbate the already percolating tensions within the band. These conflicts had begun to boil during the recording of their sophomore LP, More Specials, with some members of the group taking exception to Dammers insisted on expanding the sound palette of the band while diverging into other musical styles. Pushing the strange song structure for Ghost Town during its recording nearly resulted in outright rebellion in some cases.

Yet he persisted and managed to get it all recorded. That process itself was something of a deliberate, self inflicted constraint. While More Specials was recorded in a state of the art 24 track studio, its possibilities only caused confusion for bandleader Dammers as he felt overwhelmed by the possibilities on offer. So, for Ghost Town, the decision was made to record on a modest 8 track system, essentially recording all the major parts in mono and then mixing them with stereo reverb and delay. The results of this process give the record a decidedly well balanced sound though it got a little tricky when, at the last minute, Jerry decided he needed to add some flute to the mix and there were no tracks left. He took a gamble on dropping in the overdub on the same track as the horns. It was a dangerous move given the horn section were no longer available for re-recording during the flute recording. If there were any mistakes on the timing of the drop-in, it could bleed over the horn section and ruin it.

The single features two tracks on the B-side. The first, Why?, is an emotional plea for tolerance written by Lynval Golding in the aftermath of a brutal, racially motivated attack that sent him to hospital with broken ribs in 1980. Friday Night, Saturday Morning was written by Terry Hall and offers up a recounting of a mundane night out in Coventry.

The reception of the single upon its release was somewhat mixed in terms of critical response, but any doubts about the song were soon swept aside as, by year’s end, the single was ranked number one on the “best single of the year” lists in all three of the major UK music rags: Sounds, NME and Melody Maker. It became the theme of the times in the UK with its ghostly atmosphere and dire depiction of a decaying urban landscape. As civil unrest and rioting continued after its release, it couldn’t help but be considered the soundtrack to the times. In terms of charting, it held onto the #1 slot for 3 weeks and lingered in the top 40 for ten weeks. It became the crowning achievement of The Specials in their original incarnation, but also their farewell as the band fractured and fragmented soon after its release, with Terry Hall, Lynval Golding & Neville Staple peeling off to form Fun Boy Three before the end of the year.

As brilliant as the title song is, it’s hard to imagine anyone predicting how poignantly appropriate it would become again nearly 40 years after it’s release in the spring of 2020 as the world sunk into the misery of a global pandemic. As COVID-19 sent the population into hiding, closing shops and emptying streets, the refrain, “This town is coming like a ghost town”, became all too much a reality for communities around the world. It’s no wonder the song found itself experiencing a surge of new appreciation and popularity. Its message of loss and suffering echoed across the decades to find a new and even more horrifying reflection than the unrest and fear which had inspired it in the first place.