The other day I was sitting on a bench in a shopping mall waiting for my charming companion (Hi, Renate!) to come back from whatever shopping she was doing, and as I sat there I heard an old, old disco song being piped through the shopping mall's multitude of little speakers they have nestled in their ceilings.
The song was Maxine Nightingale's "Gotta Be The One", and I hadn't heard it in ages. (Not since The Disco Boom of '76.)
There was a bit in the song where Maxine sings "gotta be the one"...
I will get back to playing you Australian power pop songs on this Australian power pop blog, but first a little detour...
The 16-year-old of the household (Hi, Natalie!) and I were watching some YouTube videos of owls the other day, and for some reason ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky" popped up. (It may not have had anything to do with the owls, but you never know.)
As I played the video of "Mr. Blue Sky" I said, "I love that song". Natalie said, "That's a good song. I've heard it before. It was in an ad. What was the ad?"
This coincidence was provided by regular contributor Michael (Hi, Michael!). It'll be a bit tricky to mention the newer band involved here because they appear to heavily monitored in the copyright-infringement department. I'll do what I can...
I've asked this question before, but do you have an album that you think is worth buying, not for a few songs, or even one song, but for just one note?
The other album is blues guitarist Roy Buchanan's Live In Japan, and the song on the album that contains The Note is "Lonely Days Lonely Nights". Actually, to be precise it's not really a note – it's more a squeal. (In guitar terms it's called a "pinch harmonic".)
The Note in "Lonely Days Lonely Nights" occurs at 2:46, but I don't recommend you go straight to it. Even if you don't listen to the whole song, and just want to hear The Note, I firmly recommend you listen to the guitar run (2:44-2:46) leading up to it. ("Guitar run". Non-technical translation: "lots of notes".)
If you're going to listen to The Note, you definitely need to hear that run leading up to it. The guitar run is what makes it so – yes, I'm going to say it – noteworthy.
Anyway, the choice is yours. (You can even choose not to hear the song at all, and go to another blog as you mutter under your breath, "I thought this was a power pop blog...".)
As I was listening* to today's Song of the day, Pugwash's "This Could Be Good", a melody popped up at the 16-second mark that prompted me to wonder, "Now where have I heard that before?"
A couple of months ago on this blog there was a slight brouhaha regarding Irish band Pugwash. I posted a lovely song of theirs entitled "It's Nice To Be Nice". (And I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment in the title.) Because it's a lovely song it prompted a commenter to ask about the album it came from. I supplied the album to the commenter, thinking it was out-of-print. (You can see where this is going...)
Anyway, I received a deservedly firm message from the author of the song, one Thomas Walsh (Hi, Thomas!) who informed me that the album, Jollity, is definitely still in print. (Here.) Oops.
To make up for my enormous faux pas, I bought two Pugwash CDs (Jollity and Giddy – I do like the names Pugwash give to their albums.) A little bit more money and I'll be buying more.
In the meantime, the CD arrived in the post. And because the last few days here have focussed on my recent CD purchases, I'm going to add a rather enjoyable track from Jollity as well (and hope that Thomas doesn't mind me playing it):
And I think that's about it for letting you know what CDs I've been buying lately. (I've bought some other ones, but they have't arrived in the mail yet.) I shan't bother you again with what shiny plastic and aluminium discs I have. Well, not for a while.
Remember back in the 70s and 80s, when rock bands would start their songs with medium-tempo chugging on a guitar before presenting the main riff? My friend Pete does...
This week Michael has sent me "Swords Of A Thousand Men", a song by British band Tenpole Tudor. I'll say straight away that both the band and song name look mildly familiar but I don't think I've ever heard it.
0:19-0:30 – The verse has begun, and the lead singer is singing. His voice sounds familiar. It sounds like another singer from the 80's, but I can't remember who. Hang on... ... ... Nope. Nothing rings any kind of bell, metaphorical or otherwise. I can see that other chap's face, but I can't see his name. I think it might be Martin. Maybe it'd help if I think of a band. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark? Nope. Depeche Mode? Nope. Heaven 17? Maybe. Heaven 17's singer sounds like the Tenpole Tudors' singer, but that's not who I'm thinking of. I think I'm wasting both your time and mine thinking about this. Hang on again just a bit more... ... Nup. I'm definitely wasting your time.
0:30-0:44 – It's the chorus, and throughout it I keep thinking the backing singers are about to burst into "toora-loo-rye-aye" Ã la Dexy's Midnight Runners. They do get close, though, when they sing "hoorah, hoorah, hoorah, yea". And at 14 seconds, that chorus was nice and short. Yep, it's a zippy song.
0:44-1:01 – It's the next verse, and I like the weird thunder noise at 0:54 when the singer sang "Thunder in the air..."
The more I'm listening to "Swords Of A Thousand Men", the more I'm thinking: "Is this a novelty song that Michael's sent me"?
Despite that slight suspicion, from what I've heard so far I'm not minding this song at all. Actually, I think I'm getting swept up in its enthusiasm.
1:01-1:15 – The next chorus. It's just like the first chorus except for the lyrics. I like how they all sing "...won this town..." (from 1:06-1:09). It's very... ah... um... I don't quite know how to describe the way they sing that phrase. I guess you can listen to it yourself and then let me know how to describe it.
1:16-1:21 – The bit after the chorus leading up to the sort-of guitar solo.
1:21-1:39 – This is a strange guitar solo. I don't know if it can be classified as a guitar solo, so I'll try to describe it briefly and let you decide. A guitar plays a simple note, slides it down to a lower note, and lets that lower note stay there. Once that lower note is firmly in place, another guitar plays a few notes. After that second guitar finishes playing its few notes, the first guitar plays the note that slides down again, and the second guitar comes back to play a few more notes. This all happens one more time, and then it's back to the verse. Was it a guitar solo?
1:39-2:56 – More lusty singing and rampant enthusiasm. As this song continues on its merry way to the end of the fade-out, I've come to the conclusion that "Swords Of A Thousand Men" is primarily a drinking song. I can imagine pubs across Britain in the 1980s full of young men and women holding glass filled with alcoholic beverages and singing along to this song as loudly as possible.
I've finished listening to "Swords Of A Thousand Men", and now I'm thirsty.
Before I go and get that drink, I reckon I'm in a position to sum up what I thought of the song. I can tell you what I thought of it in three words: silly but fun. And I enjoyed it.
I don't think it's terribly fair on you if I play you four New Pornographers songs all at once, or even one a day for the next four days (for a blog, I'd loathe the lack of variety in that), so I'll limit myself to just one.
Non-compelling Factoid: I bought Randy Newman's 1983 album, Trouble in Paradise a long, long time ago. I loved it, lost it*, and after not having it for a couple of decades I decided to buy it again.
This coincidence is tiny (it's only two notes), but before you dismiss it out of hand (or ear) please repeat to yourself: "phrasing and harmonies, phrasing and harmonies, phrasing and harmonies..."
I'm extremely glad I bought the CD – not just because of the songs (which, as alluded to above, are splendid), but because of the packaging. It's rather good. It comes with a 16-page booklet and everything. You don't get that with your puny little downloads.
It's amazing where you can end up on the Internet when all you want to do is watch a YouTube video. After what I thought was going to be quick and easy looking for a particular video on YouTube, I looked at it, then something else, and then something else again, and then something else after that as well. All of those other videos had nothing to do with what I originally wanted to look at. (Do people ever say the Internet can waste your time?)
Anyway, for some unknown reason (well, it's unknown to me) I ended up watching a heap of videos. The last one I watched before it prompted me to write this post was of a Macedonian pop song. As I was listening, I noticed a tune in it that sounded very reminiscent of something extreme popular in the Anglo pop world.
I must apologise in advance for the Song of the day over the next few days. I've been in a bit of a CD-buying frenzy lately, and as a result I'm going to pester you with a pile of non-Australian songs from some non-Australian albums. (I bought some classical music CDs in amongst the pop ones, but don't worry – I won't play you any of those.)
We'll start with Kelly Jones, an American lady who made an album in 2008 called SheBANG! which harked back to the sounds of the 1960s when female vocalists were called "girl singers". It's a real charmer of a "girl singer" album. (It's also extremely short. With 10 songs and a total running time of 28 minutes, I'm not bothered at all by its brevity. For me it only adds to the album's charm, as it reflects the days when albums didn't outstay their welcome.)
I'm familiar with "Hang On Sloopy", but I had no idea about the other song. Thanks, Michael!
Update (22 August 2012): Thanks to a couple of aurally observant chaps named Marty and Steve (thanks, chaps!), I'm able to say "Let the similarities continue"...
I think I've figured out why. I'm currently reading Ken Scott's autobiography, From Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust, and last night I got up to the part where he talked about working with The Tubes.
Plus last week I was chatting with my friend Stephen (Hi, Stephen!) and he mentioned quaaludes which reminded me of Quay Lewd and then "White Punks On Dope".
Ah, the subconscious mind. The things it does to people...
I recently spent a fair chunk of the morning looking at bass guitars on the Internet (bass guitarists do that sometimes), and I came across a song I liked.
The song is called "Toucher La Lumière", and it's by a French band called Bonin Ouaib. The video is the band's bass player demonstrating his Hofner violin bass as he plays along with the song. He starts off by showing the various sounds the bass has, and then accompanies the song.
Apparently, the bass-playin' chap is called Jeremy (I can't find a last name for him), and he's known as Mr. Mellotronik on YouTube.
There's no MP3 for the song, so you'll just have to be content (well, as content as you can be with a video focussing on a bass player) with what I found.
Incidentally, if you're not interested in the bass guitar stuff before the song (if you're not a bass player, I'd say there's a fairly high degree of probability that you won't be) go straight to 0:52 in the video:
This week's Educating Peter is brought to you by guest contributor Steve. (Hi, Steve!)
Although my friend Michael (Hi, Michael!) instigated this series, and it's usually Michael who supplies the songs each week, Steve felt it high time that he muscled in with a song from the 80's he loves.
(That's fine by me. I welcome any suggestions from all you 80's-lovin' music fans. If you're willing to let me loose on a song you hold dear to your heart, then I'm more than happy to get stuck into it. Unless of course, it's a song I'm less than happy to hear.)
I must admit straight away that when "The Killing Moon" was first released I thought it was dreary. Whenever the song came on the radio I'd either change the station or, if I couldn't do that (e.g., "Hey, Peter, what do you think you're doing? That's my radio!"), I'd wait as patiently as I could until it had finished, and then I'd be very glad when it finished. (Why is it that the songs you don't like seem to be longer than the ones you do?)
I also feel the need to comment on the name of the band. For me, calling your band "Echo & The Bunnymen" practically invites ridicule. I won't ridicule it (even though I think it's a ridiculous name), but I will say that when I hear the word "Bunny" in close proximity to music I tend to think of this.
So, with those biases and associations out in the open and waving in the breeze, let's listen to the song with the ears I have now, as opposed to the ears I had when I was 23 years old and irritated whenever I heard Echo & The Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon".
0:00-0:15 – OK, this is exotic. Is that an oud I can hear? Or maybe a balalaika? (Note to self: brush up on your knowledge of non-Western instruments before you start mentioning them.) To me this introduction is trying to sound Middle-Eastern, but they're making it hard for themselves because an acoustic guitar is playing B minor and then G major. Those two chords aren't very exotic. Or Middle-Eastern. Ah well. At least they used some non-standard and interesting instrumentation at the start of the song.
0:16-0:23 – Well I never knew that before. (Probably because I was young and not paying attention.) The bass player sounds like he's playing one of those acoustic basses that musicians tend to use on those "unplugged" programs. They look like this...
... and I love the sound of them. (Very warm.)
0:23-0:46 – Oh, dear. This chap sure does take himself seriously. ("This chap" is Ian McCulloch. No relation to Jimmy.) Just look at him in the video. Unfortunately, for all that seriousness I had a wry smile when he sang "soon" – or to be more precise, "soo-oo-hoon" – in a very strange way (at 0:27). It's as if he was attempting a falsetto there but it came out wrong. Incidentally, I don't know if this is the case, and I haven't heard Ian McCulloch sing all that much, but he sounds to me like he has a cold throughout the song. As I'm listening to his voice I keep wanting to find a scarf and wrap it around his neck and then give him a cup of hot cocoa. The reverb-drenched guitar at 0:41 sounded moody (with a capital "M"), and it reminded me of two things that I guess don't usually get thought of together: The Smiths and Chris Isaak...
But back to "The Killing Moon"...
0:46-0:56 – Hooray! We've arrived at the chorus, after hearing E minor then C major, E minor then C major, E minor then C major, E minor then C major (stop me when you've had enough)... Ooh I like the chord progression for the chorus (G major then C minor). And I've just noticed that the bass guitar now sounds like a regular electric bass. (Did it change for the chorus, or did it change earlier and I missed it?) By the way, and this is an extremely minor point about pronunciation, but I'm having trouble getting my head around the way Ian sings the word "thin" in the phrase "Through the thick and thin" at 0:54. I'm trying to figure out how to write how it sounds to me. Coming out of the mouth of Ian it sounds like a combination of "fin", "fen", and "then". This is extremely minor, and I'm wasting your time by mentioning it.
0:56-1:00 – Ian sings "You will wait until", but the way he sings it (sorry to go on about his pronunciation again), it comes out as "You will wait un-tay-hell", and that made me think he was going to sing "You will wait on tables", and I immediately pictured him as a waiter in a restaurant, standing next to you as you sit at a small table, and he's wearing a black-and-white waiter's outfit, with one of those white cloths over his arm. ("May I present you with the wine menu?")
1:00-1:06 – Just more of the chorus.
1:06-1:00 – Oh-oh. We're back to the verse, with its interminable E minor / C major chord progression. (It isn't really a chord progression – it's just the same two chords played over and over again. Grrr.)
1:20 – Now, I really, really don't want to harp on Ian's pronunciation any more than I already have, but (here we go again...) Ian sings a word at 1:20 that I didn't understand. After listening to it a few times I remained baffled, so I resorted to a lyric sheet (the online variety). According to this page (and this page) Ian sings the phrase "So cruelly you kissed me". Its the last word in that phrase that has me stumped. I've heard it a few times now, and I'm sure he's not singing "me". No, make that absolutely sure. He has to be singing something like "moon", or "move", or "moo". It sure as shinola isn't the word "me". If it was that, it'd make perfect sense in the context of the phrase ("So cruelly you kissed me"). But I can't hear "me" at all. For all I know, Ian's singing "So cruelly you kissed moon", which makes a little less sense. But it makes more sense than "So cruelly you kissed moo". Maybe he's singing about someone called "Moo". That way, it'd make a lot of sense: "So cruelly you kissed Moo". I can dig it.
1:37-1:56 – And now to the next chorus. I've just realised that I've probably written way too much about this track already, and it's been going a minute-and-a-half. Eek! The song goes for almost six minutes. I might have to make this quick.
1:37-1:56 (cont,d.) – This chorus sounds a lot like the first one. Maybe everything has a bit more echo this time. (There's definitely has a weird reverb on the snare drum here.)
1:56-2:27 – The Middle 8. Considering it lasts 31 seconds, that's a pretty long middle 8. Because I'm aware that I need to stop typing and start posting, I'll just say the middle 8 is moody.
2:27-2:35 – Oh, another middle 8. No, wait. It's the start of the next verse, but without vocals. (And I've typed the word "middle" so many times now that it looks weird to me.)
2:27-2:58 – The verse after the middle 8. More echo. More sound effects. More mood.
2:58-5:46 – Another chorus. Repeated. And repeated some more. And then repeated again. Etcetera. (Not Pete Cetera.)
3:42 onwards – This is the start of a sort-of guitar solo (it's more like moody guitar noodling – "moodling" if you will) with some bizarro vocalising by Ian. This is going for aaaages.
4:14-4:15 – What on Earth is that?
4:31 (or 4:45, or 5:12, or anywhere else) – This song just won't stop.
5:46 – It finished. Yay!
I've now heard "Killing Moon" after many a year*, and I still find it dreary. A little less dreary, perhaps, than 28 years ago – but dreary nonetheless. It's very moody (thanks to a minor key and a lot of echo), the lyrics are suitably literate (they were my favourite part of the song), and it all fits together so that the band's intentions seem to be fully realised, but it's all just a bit too dour for my liking (or the mood I was in when I was listening to it).
(I must also do something about all those parentheses. I use them far too often.)
Nevertheless, I'm happy to conclude that "The Killing Moon" was slightly less dreary than it used to be for me. (Although "happy" is probably not the word to use.)
No offence to the Echo chaps and their fans, but if I'm ever in the mood to listen to something gloomy I'll turn to The Cure. They're my kind of dreary.
Ah, personal taste.
(*I'm glad I resisted the urge to say "many a moon".)
