INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - SEVERED HEADS, SINCE THE ACCIDENT

Though it was released in 1983, Severed Heads' Since the Accident (followed hotly by City Slab Horror) reached its peak saturation point in my social circles starting late in 1984 and remained omnipresent at least well into 1986.  Somehow, Tom Ellard and Gary Bradbury crafted an electrifying electronic frenzy of mind shattering infectiousness so compelling it ended up soundtracking more long nights of debauched, psychedelic mayhem than I can possibly count or recall in their entirety.  All I know is that there wasn't a gathering on any given weekend that didn't feature some Severed Heads in the mix somewhere and it usually coincided with that point in the evening when the stimulants were at their most intense and reality seemed to shatter into a million little pieces. 

Severed Heads made it their intent to inject a bit of absurdist levity into the "Industrial" music scene.  I can recall reading an interview with Ellard where he stated openly that the apparent moroseness of groups like TG and their "can the world be as sad as it seems" world view were very much at odds with his more lighthearted Aussie sensibilities.  And, indeed, Severed Heads were nothing if not bursting with jabs of humor and ridiculousness, whether it was a tongue in cheek song title or some nutty tape looped bit of conversation.  It was not uncommon to find oneself aching from grinning like Ren with his happy helmet cranked up to maximum. 

The production techniques and sounds they achieved on these records were also a hugely influential element as they were distinct and surprisingly potent, especially when they were cranked over a decent sound system.  The sweeping crunch of a Heads kick drum could make you feel like a giant was bouncing on your head.  And somewhere in that mix was an almost Aboriginal influence on some of the rhythms as they conjured this kind of loping bounce you'd imagine some bushman hopping around to.  It was all an intensely idiosyncratic concoction that managed to push the boundary of "noise" into the accessibility of "pop" music.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - THE FUN BOY THREE

In 1982, The Specials fractured and the front loaded trio from the group, Lynval Golding, Neville Staple & Terry Hall, broke off to form the short lived, but highly influential Fun Boy Three.  Hall has been pretty dismissive of the group's first LP release, but I've always found it to be a grossly underrated and daringly innovative hybrid of pop song craft with African rhythmic sophistication.  Though the album was somewhat of a rush job, I think the spontaneity that was captured in the performances is more valuable than if they'd had the time to premeditate their assault more carefully.

The album is a masterclass in the mixing of extremes both in style and content.  Not only does it manage to bridge a wide variety of musical genres, but also techniques, bringing together electronics and acoustics in innovative and surprising ways.  It does the same with the themes within the songs going from the sheer playful joy of something like T'Ain't What You Do (It's The Way That You Do It), which famously brought the world the delight which was Bananarama, right down to the dour resignation of The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum.   That latter song, surely, must be considered the top candidate for the theme song for western civilization for the past 40 years.  Its timeless message of madness in the realms of power has only become more and more relevant with every year that's  passed since its release. 

FB3 only put out one other album before Hall moved on to new pastures, an album which is more finely crafted in its songwriting, but slightly lacking in the exuberantly spontaneous joy and innovation of this debut.  Both, however have stood well the test of time with this album defying the aging process nearly completely as it retains its freshness even after 4 decades since its release.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - PARLIAMENT, TEAR THE ROOF OFF

Though I'd heard the odd track here and there and knew some standouts that I'd always perk up to when they hit the speakers, it wasn't until sometime in the early 1990s when I came across a 2nd hand copy of Parliament's "Tear the Roof Off" best of compilation that the floodgates of P-Funk fandom fully opened and gushed forth the groove into my musical life.  As I say, Clinton & crew had been on my radar for some time and I even had a couple of pieces of vinyl in my stash, but this compilation managed to put the scope of what they were doing out there for me to appreciate in some breadth, enough for me to eventually start assimilating anything to my collection that had the "P-F" stamp of approval. 

What fascinated me the more I started to dig into the Clinton canon was the mythology he'd built into his works.  It wasn't just a bunch of music to dance to.  It was stories and fables and allegories and there were messages of struggle and triumph and spirit overcoming oppression.  And it was all laid atop some of the fiercest grooves in the kingdom of funk.  Back in the 1970s, it was sort of a magical time for this genre as massive ensembles roamed the touring landscape, bringing the beat to the masses.  These groups were as majestic as dinosaurs and they've become just as extinct in the world of DJs and digitization.  None were more spectacular than Parliament/Funkadelic, The P-Funk All-Stars.  This amorphous array of aliens would descend from the heavens to impart their syncopated sermons of sublime funkitude. 

What was happening during the peak of their activities in the 1970s and 1980s was totally inspiring in that Clinton had assembled this free-wheeling circus of virtuoso musicians and dazzling performers who could reconfigure themselves like Transformers from one musical incarnation to another.  One minute they were Parliament, then they were Funkadelic, next a fragment would break off and become Parlet or The Brides of Funkenstein or someone would shoot out into orbit for a solo like the incomparable Bootsy Collins.  It wasn't fixed, it was trans-dimensional and transcendental.  This kind of flexibility would be a key guiding principal in several projects I'd undertake over the years. 

I wish I could point out one of their original albums for this, but I just can't narrow it down when there are so many great ones and they all deserve some level of acknowledgement, which is why I felt this "greatest hits" package would be appropriate as an umbrella to cover them all.  As the song says, "I like my funk uncut" and you ain't gonna find none more pure than the "P".

FORGOTTEN FILM - PAPERHOUSE

It doesn't have a well known cast or a notable director or any of that, but the 1988 UK film, Paperhouse, is notable simply for being a fantastic fantasy thriller with an entirely original story and solid performances from everyone involved.  I discovered it as a rental around 1990 and was instantly captivated by its mix of whimsy and its vague sort of horror film aesthetic.  It's not in any way a gore fest or anything like that, but it does integrate some moodiness and scare tactics into its storytelling in a way that ratchets up the tension to make for a good bit of suspense and drama.

The film tells the tale of a lonely, socially isolated little girl who is haunted by a trouble relationship with her father and who finds solace and escape in her dream world.  In real life, she is obsessed with drawing, in particular this idealized house which becomes the setting for her dream world.  She discovers that whatever she adds to the drawing turns up in her dreams.  After exploring the possibilities of inanimate objects and amusements, she determines she could do with a bit of company and draws in a little boy.  It soon becomes apparent that he isn't merely a figment of her imagination, but is actually someone in the real world with whom she has forged a psychic connection in her dreams. 

The film's conflicts and drama are driven by a narrative device which unfolds as the girl realizes that the flaws in her drawings can impact the dream world in some disturbing and occasionally horrifying ways.  Most disturbing of all is the realization that this darkness can also manifest in the real world and threaten both the girl and the boy she has summoned into this situation. 

While it leans into some thriller/horror tropes, it doesn't use them for cliched effect and, in the end, the story is a truly beautiful and inspiring tale of the struggle against loneliness, loss and coping with trauma.  It's one of those movies that gets me choked up whenever I see it, though I haven't had the chance for a long time.  I don't know where you might find it, but if you do ever come across it, spend a sitting on it.  You won't be disappointed.

INFLUENTIAL BOOK - CHARLES DICKENS, GREAT EXPECTATIONS

There aren't many books from my school days that have stayed with me since those years, but the Dickens classic, Great Expectations, is one which made a permanent impression on me.  Perhaps it's the image in my mind of the ghostly Miss Havisham lingering, forlorn, in her mansion, enrobed in her tattered wedding dress, lamenting her being jilted at the altar all those years ago.  Her long game revenge plan of manipulating the charming girl Estelle into a guided missile of misery to be aimed at any hapless suitor as an adult is fascinating and perverse.  Watching it play out over the course of the book along with its tragic results has always been appealing to me, especially being something of a fanatic for haunted house stories.  This isn't a supernatural tale, by any means, but it still manages to exude that sense of dread and mystery. 

The book is also, as is often the case with Dickens, a study in class inequity and bias, displaying the nature of privilege and how one's station in life is so critical in determining one's success.  Though its setting is some 2 centuries ago, its themes and messages remain timeless, a trait which Dickens managed more than a few times. 

I've seen a number of film adaptations of it over the years, usually to very good effect.  The most recent was the 2011 UK production staring Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham.  I was rather taken aback by that casting as I always pictured the jilted matron as being much older, but when I considered the actual practicality of the story timing, I realized that the character wouldn't actually be that old at the time of its telling, it being only some 20 years after the failed nuptials. 

After all these years since I read it in high school, it has become an iconic cautionary tale of the dangers of allowing oneself to be possessed of bitterness.  It shows how thoughts of revenge can turn one's heart to stone and destroy any chances for happiness in the present or the future.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - MRS. MILLER'S GREATEST HITS

Not all "influential" albums qualify as necessarily "good".  Some music, in fact, takes a more Nietzschean course and transcends such primal dualities as "good" vs "bad".  This is the very essence of the true "outsider" when it comes to music and the performing arts.  These are the dedicated souls who pursue their art without any need for the validation of critical approval or even fan support, though they often end up with some form of both.  The sheer inevitability of their existence makes them invaluable treasures in the end. 

It was, I think, some time around 1995 when Elva Ruby Miller, Mrs. Miller, came into my sphere of consciousness.  Her 1966 "Greatest Hits" album was lent to me by an acquaintance who never managed to get the record returned.  Normally, I'm very good about borrowing, but this one refused to leave my grasp once it found itself there.  It only took a minute of the first track for me to be enchanted by the warbling, soprano atonalities fluttering from these grooves. 

Mrs. Miller had somehow managed to forge a successful recording career in the 1960s despite her obvious lack of professional skills.  Against a backdrop of professionally recorded and performed music by, I assume, the top studio talent of the day, Elva plonked down her vocals like mom having been summoned unexpectedly from cooking dinner and she left the beans burning.  She sounded kinda rushed and off key and she'd forget lyrics and then stick an ice cube in her mouth for her whistling solo and all of this was crashing together simultaneously into this glorious symphony of ineptitude.  It's like they only let her do one take of every vocal and didn't let her see the lyric sheet beforehand. 

She managed to have a career at a time when outsider artists could even have hit records (as in Tiny Tim's Tiptoe).  For me, discovering her, along with The Shaggs, sent me on a musical side quest for other artists who managed to defy the odds and the standards of the day to create their own space where they could be free to be themselves and damn everyone else, though you're more than welcome to hang about if you like.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - THE STRANGLERS, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE MENINBLACK

When I was in grade 11 high school (1979-1980), I became friends with this guy who was also getting into some of the new music that was coming out.  He'd twigged that I was listening to The Clash and asked if I had heard the Sex Pistols and we got chatting about these bands, which were not at all popular with the rest of the teens in our isolated Northern Ontario school.  He mentioned that he had a cousin who lived in the UK and would send him tapes of the latest bands.  We started to hang out after that and he was the first person to play me any music by The Stranglers, who fast became his favorite band. 

I wasn't quite so into them at first.  I liked them well enough, but it wasn't until I heard The Raven that I started to find them really interesting, particularly the Meninblack song with it's half speed drums and evil Munchkin voices.  When they put out the Meninblack album in 1981, an entire LP dedicated to exposing the conspiracy of aliens farming humans for food, I was all in.  The Gospel According to the Meninblack became the first album I'd buy from The Stranglers.  I wasn't put off by the middling reviews for the album as I found the combination of the mechanical percussion and Dave Grenfield's synths highlights of the album and the whole concept was super cool to me.   I had no idea at the time that the endeavor would turn out to be something of a "curse" for the band, who endured a year of terrible misfortune while they attempted to record, promote and tour the album.

With the sudden, unexpected passing of keyboardist, Dave Greenfield, I wanted to highlight what was my "gateway" into appreciating this band, who were so significantly stamped with their identity thanks to Dave's inimitable musical prowess.