Bunch of Mockers

Thanks to a link that I foolishly followed from the ever interesting boingboing blog I have become obsessed with WFMU’s search for the best Fake Beatles bands. Compiled partly of bands with monikers aimed at duping fans into purchasing what they think is the genuine article, names such as ‘Beatlerama’, ‘the Beatle Buddies’, and ‘John and Paul’ are amply present. The most intriguing appearances though are from the more alternative fakes.

One of my favourites and coming in at No. 11 on WFMU’s countdown is a cartoon subtly called the Beagles which followed the misadventures of the canine duo and their Scotty manager. The show featured original songs in the Beatle vein of sound which tied in with the plot.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJB4sel2xA4&feature=related]

Other additions to the list include songs that have been mistaken as the Beatles, one of which ‘Peace of Mind/The Candle Burns’ is being claimed not only as a lost Beatles recording but also as a forgotten relic of Pink Floyd circa Syd Barrett era.
Although the BeeGee’s contribution to the ‘did they/didn’t they record it’ debate has deservedly been prioritised to the top spot.

The Rutles are abundantly mentioned with regards to parodies of the Fab Four but Dudley Moore and Peter Cook deservedly get a mention for their brilliant sketch on the band in their performance of L.S. Bumble Bee which ends with a cameo by John Lennon looking all dapper as some sort of exclusive toilet doorman.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaQFQyYdZQU]

Diplo

Photo by Tim Soter

One of the highlights for many at this year’s Electric Picnic was the appearance of Philadelphia-based DJ Diplo. To explain the diversity of his DJing style, I need only note his opening tracks: kicking off with XR2, a horn-laden, bmore bass-thumping track he produced for MIA, he thundered into DJ Jean’s The Launch, a forgotten trance hit from the late 90s. Heard outside its original context, this track becomes a guilty pleasure, finding new meaning as it straddles new styles, its muffled countdown acting as the perfect opening for such a barn-storming set.

Consistently busy, Diplo’s most recent work is that with hipster queen Santogold. Having produced three tracks for her self-titled debut album, he went on to create Top Ranking, a mind-bending fusion of Santogold’s tracks and a selection of dub sounds from the likes of Benga and Skream, as well as choice oddities by artists as varied as B52s, Devo and even Aretha Franklin. That said, Santi herself was such a perfectionist that she insisted on the man re-recording it on several occasions, his own personal favourite would have been two or three versions before that which saw the light of day.

Another mix of his that caught a lot of attention was I Like Turtles, a mix for Pitchfork in August 2007 which was subsequently released through his Mad Decent label. Similarly eclectic, it’s a breathtaking run through some of the biggest songs of last year from the likes of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Soulja Boy and Justice, some classics such as Orbital’s Halcyon, and, of all things, even a bootleg of The Bartman. His motivation behind this mix was to make it so good that no-one would be able to follow with a better one, and, to date, there has been no subsequent Pitchfork mix. If that isn’t an indication of its success, I don’t know what is.

As far as running a label is concerned, his major enjoyment comes from his ability to oversee the work of others while taking a break from his own, and the artists that he feels garner special a mention are London’s Boy 8-Bit and Baltimore’s DJ Blaqstarr. On the other hand, his major frustration comes when certain acts don’t provide him with new material. Already well-documented, Bonde do Rolê have had a turbulent year, with the departure of one member, the addition two more, and a heavy amount of touring. While he understands the financial necessity of such a schedule, Diplo hopes that the group will soon knuckle down and get back to the studio. He’s certainly not the only one.

As for the man himself, he claims that his next work should come at some point in 2009. An unlikely source of inspiration for him is Mississippi-born modernist writer William Faulkner, whose Go Down, Moses was an inspiration for Diplo’s 2004 album Florida. A fellow Southerner (the album takes its title from Diplo’s birthplace), Faulkner was the first major figure from the South he found to create work that was truly challenging and interesting. While the atmospheric Florida has more in common with the work of DJ Shadow and RJD2, his DJ sets, like that at Electric Picnic, are unlike those of any other. His Stradbally set raced through everything one would imagine from listening to his mixtapes and then some, was technically impeccable and, more importantly, a whole lot of fun. Having played just four shows on this island since 2005, one can only hope that he will come back soon, and often.

Mental illness and Rock

Art by Scalder

“I’m full of dust and guitars”. Syd Barrett uttered these words to a Rolling Stone journalist in an interview in 1971. This haunted statement provides one of the most harrowing insights into the mind of a mentally unwell rock musician. The words betray a consciousness that is both empty and ruined, yet which still holds a place for music. At the time, Barrett was well known as a former songwriter and guitarist in Pink Floyd and as a solo artist in his own right. In the neon raddled excess of the late sixties psychedelic period, fans were fascinated by his playful outsider’s take on the daily world. He had a childlike ability to turn the ordinary inside out, conjuring odd psychedelic fantasies from the grey mundanity of contemporary English life. The elaborate alternative England that is palpable in his best work with Pink Floyd is an archaic, imaginative place, teeming with scarecrows, cross-dressers, gnomes and bicycles. However, as the late sixties snaked darkly into the early seventies, it became obvious to his former bandmates, his fans, and most likely to Barrett himself, that he was experiencing serious mental illness (most likely LSD abetted schizophrenia).

Barrett was not alone in undergoing a form of mental breakdown during the late sixties. He was only one member of an ‘exclusive’ club of talented musicians around which a pervasive and enduring rock’n’roll ‘type’ developed, namely the ‘drug casualty’; where the flame of youthful brilliance is snuffed out by a spectacular and rapid mental deterioration normally attributed to overindulgence in psychedelic drugs. This stuff utterly fascinates music fans. Any half-hearted flick through the pages of Mojo and Uncut magazines will reveal how entranced we are by the myth of the ‘drug casualty’. Indeed, in Barrett’s case this interest intruded into his personal life. Up until his death, he was sporadically bothered by people who arrived at his house in Cambridge on some sort of deluded pilgrimage, hassling a man who had more interest in painting and pottering around his garden, than he did in attention and his own past.

While Syd was perhaps the best known example of this myth, there are plenty of others from his generation who share elements of his unstable back story. For example, Rocky Erickson from The 13th Floor Elevators, former Beach Boy Brian Wilson, and Peter Green from Fleetwood Mac. Again, there is a ferocious appetite for printed material relating to stories pertaining to their mental breakdowns. It sells magazines. Stick a big psychedelically coloured picture of Barett’s stoned young head on the cover of Mojo over the words ‘Meltdown’ ‘Burnout’ or ‘Frazzled’ and you have a formula for success as tried and tested as putting Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell in a wacky movie about sporting underdogs. People want to know all the grisly details about these musicians’ eccentric stunts. At times, the musicians themselves seem to become gruesomely detached from the music they made, surrogate Kerry Katonas for 40-year-old rock fans who relish the finer points of how Brian Wilson filled a recording studio with sand, how Syd Barrett shaved off his eyebrows, or how Rocky Erickson underwent electroconvulsive therapy. These stories are played out in exhaustive detail and from multiple perspectives on a monthly basis in our favourite music magazines. And they are just the so-called acid related breakdowns.

Of course, it can reasonably be argued that because the artists mentioned above belong to a different era, stories about their mental collapse have now entered rock lore, and fan’s preoccupations with them are as harmless as recounting Marianne Faithful’s alleged brief encounter with Mick Jagger and a Mars bar. However, when this fascination is transposed into the setting of a modern audience and its relationship with a troubled performer, things become more unsettling and problematic. The vampiric relationship between the media, fans and Amy Winehouse flap uglily around the mainstream media for all to see. It might be worth turning our attention, therefore, to a performer in the alternative bracket, Daniel Johnston.

For those not familiar with him, Daniel Johnston’s story is marked out by a long struggle with both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Much of this is documented in Jeff Feuerzeig’s 2005 documentary, The Devil and Daniel Johnston. Feuerzeig’s film chronicles Johnston’s career trajectory from the beguilingly fragile cassette recordings he recorded as a hyper prolific youngster in the 1980s, through the mental illness that saw his life see-sawing from one damaging event to the next (attacking his manager, believing that various people and places were under the control of Satan, and wrestling the key from the ignition of a small plane that was subsequently successfully crash-landed by his father). Throughout this catalogue of illness-related hurt and chaos, Johnston maintained an adoring fanbase within the indie rock ‘hood. Bands like Sonic Youth, Half Japanese, Nirvana and Teenage Fanclub queued up to sing his praises. He played to hordes of worshipful fans, and all the while was (and still is from time to time) deeply, troublingly ill.

Just what is at the heart of Johnston’s relationship with his fans? There are some questions that are hinted at, but which remain largely unanswered in Feurzeig’s documentary. For example, at what point does adulation become exploitation? Do people go to his shows because they want to be infected by the giddy, innocent, Beatles on Hersheys rush of his best material, or because they want to see the crazy man-child that Sonic Youth once toured with? Recently, he played the Whelans venue in Dublin as part of a tour with some noted and venerable luminaries from the alternative music world, including Jad Phair, members of ‘Teenage Fanclub’ and ‘Yo La Tengo’. The gig was something of a success but afterwards, something about it still did not seem right to this journalist. What was it? Was it that a few whoops from the room felt a bit too extreme, a bit too patronising? Or was it a case of a hyper sensitive journalist over-thinking the occasion?

Certainly, according to some accounts, the time he played before, a year or so previously in the Vicar Street venue, an element in the audience were there to see him off the back of the documentary, and received his show in a strange and patronising manner. Anyway, this time around the tone was less one of condescension and more one of adulation. Yet, on the surface there is not much in Daniel’s current live performance (apart from an anxious tremor perhaps) that should distinguish him in any way from fleets of ‘sincere’ indie bands that played the same venue to more muted responses during the year. However, he was revered where others were overlooked. This could be one of the key points in the enduring love-affair with artists who are mentally unwell. What other bands often affect could be what Daniel Johnston actually does. At the core of much music is a very conscious leap from a self-aware way of thinking to a mock innocence. People who could quite coolly sing about fucking their girlfriend’s sister will instead construct a ditty about falling in love with a duffle-coated girl on a park swing in Glasgow. While not always, sometimes much of this is coolly calculated, affected, and as much a carefully spun shell of artifice as the one which surrounds the gurning tosser who chooses his best lucky shirt to wear to Krystle.

So maybe we are drawn to the mentally ill rock artist not just because of sensationalism, but because something special about their songwriting cannot be faked. If, for example, Chris Martin decided to pull all his toenails out with a pliers and run naked through Notting Hill batting cars with an umbrella, would Coldplay suddenly become more artistically credible? It’s doubtful. It’s nice to think that if Syd Barrett’s and Daniel Johnston’s songs were buried in a time capsule and dug up in hundreds of years, that they would be judged on their own merits; As things of precious wonder that stand apart from the details of the mental turmoil from which they were created.

That Lucky Old Sun

I’m excited and worried about the new Brian Wilson record- ‘That Lucky Old Sun’- in equal parts. I can’t really listen to to Wilson’s newer stuff it without getting a little upset about all that Wilson was, and the Hal-esque singing monkey he now is. [For more, read Darragh's piece on Mental Illness in Rock]. The new record, by all accounts, is quite introspective, and a return to ‘Smile‘, rather than ‘Pet Sounds‘. Van Dyke Parks is back on board, and the record has a imagistic story arc. However, Wilson’s so bloody detached about the whole thing:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA3KxFgqs4E&feature=related]

In a slightly fan-girlish interview, Zooey Deschanel chats to Wilson about the new record, and life in general. Except he calls her ‘Joey Deschanel’:
Brian Wilson and Zooey on Myspace Tv

Ending on a positive note, though, here’s a live performance of ‘Southern California’. If you listen to it carefully, you’ll pick up on a reference Wilson makes in the above Deschanel interview- about singing with his brothers at home. Wilson’s never lived anywhere apart from Southern California his whole life. It seems, and sounds like, he’s headed home for good.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnXNagv-mGA]

You Can’t Wait For Life

Last week it was announced that queen of the hipsters Santogold will be supporting Kanye West on the European leg of his present tour. As previously stated, I felt that her album could have become an album by which to remember this Summer, but for the unfortunate fact that A) it leaked in late April, and B) it wasn’t really much of a Summer. That said, during the period to which we arbitrarily refer as “Summer” I spent a lot of time listening to her self-titled album, as well as Top Ranking, the dub-centric mixtape put together by Diplo which placed her tracks against a selection of dub beats and soul classics – the likes of Benga & Coki‘s Night and Aretha Franklin’s Save Me (to name but two). In short, these two collections just get better and better with each listen. So, having seen her at Pukkelpop and again at Electric Picnic (where she was most definitely a highlight of what was considered by many to be a lacklustre lineup), I can definitely say that she is not to be missed.

As for Mr West, well, who knows. While he has, to date, released three albums of undeniable quality, his performances can often be brief and erratic, and his most recent track, Love Lockdown, has not exactly met with unanimous approval. He doesn’t rap on it, and it’s sung in that autotune style used by T-Pain for example. Either way, I for one am quite excited by the prospect of his forthcoming album 808s & Heartbreak, if only because the title suggests a particular approach as well as a hint of introspection and vulnerability not seen since All Falls Down. Due out in December, the album will no doubt have been leaked by the time he takes to the stage at the RDS, but if not, he’ll definitely have enough songs to hand to keep the fans happy. Whether or not Love Lockdown and its friends are any match for Gold Digger or Touch The Sky remains to be seen, but at least we can rest assured Santogold will have won herself a new set of fans.

Jeremy Jay

Here’s an homage-artist with a back story to back himself up. Jeremy Jay loves Francoise Hardy, both her music and her sense of style. He borrows her reverb-soaked sensibilities, and he probably weighs just about as much as she did in the 60s with a few fashionable layers included. He is also into the French New Wave (film, not synthy post-punk). He’s an American Francophile, playing to the era of the chanteuse what Adam Green plays to the Reno crooner.

But here’s the thing: Jeremy Jay grew up in Monterrey, California, speaking French as the primary language of his household. Weird, isn’t it? This obviously doesn’t absolve him completely from accusations of derivation. But it adds another layer to his oeuvre. And it makes for a great catch-line doesn’t it?

Honestly, it’s not just a chanteuse fanboy playing around. The real invocation here is Bowie. Jeremy Jay inhabits that post-gig, stale cigarette territory that pops up so poignantly on Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane. ‘Beautiful Rebel’ particularly strikes that chord, and despite the fact that Jay himself cites Buddy Holly and Richie Valens as direct influences, it’s hard to believe that he hasn’t spent any time with the 1970s Bowie that channelled those acts originally.

Jay’s debut album, A Place Where We Could Go, is out now. I’m not sure if it’s out in Ireland. But it does exist.

Listen to Beautiful Rebel here.

And then put the 10th October in your calendar, because that’s the date that Jeremy Jay comes to Dublin to play the upstairs of Whelans, supported by Analogue’s favourite ever thing from Waterford, Ugly Megan.

Stereolab

“I think we’re not savvy enough in terms of computers, having a blog, showing ourselves. I think we’re missing out on that a bit.” Laetitia Sadier, the immediately recognisable singer with avant-pop darlings Stereolab is discussing the band’s low profile. “Radiohead – they’re really taking their fate into their own hands. I think they’re a really good example of people who know what they are doing and are really successful at it. And I find that we’ve always done the music and when it comes to the marketing we leave it to someone else, it’s not our job.”

For almost twenty years now, Stereolab’s brand of retro-futuristic space-pop has kept writers like myself searching for new ways of saying the same thing. As is the case with The Fall, their records are always changing, and yet somehow always the same. You know there will be French lyrics, xylophones, buzzing guitars and ancient synths and improbable songtitles (‘Puncture In The Radax Permutation’, ‘Lo Boob Oscillator’, ‘The Noise of Carpet’ and so on). Likewise, you can be guaranteed gorgeous tunes, glorious string-arrangements and “alittlebitofpoliticsladiesandgentlemenyesindeed”, as Ben Elton would once have had it.

Since forming from the embers of McCarthy in Camberwell in the late 80’s, Stereolab have released at least twenty, exemplary, long-form examples of airy, other-worldly pop music. Some of it, like ‘Ping Pong’ and ‘French Disko’ sounded like hit material. Others didn’t quite frankly, like the 18 minute ‘Refractions In The Plastic Pulse’ or the succinctly but precisely titled ‘John Cage Bubblegum’. Yet almost all of it, however odd, is superb. No-one else can really pull off the combination of drone-rock, lounge music and pure pop like Stereolab. If you need further convincing, try 2001’s Sound Dust for size. It’s a career high, one of the very best records of this young millennium and each ‘lab record since has faced the daunting task of topping it or even matching it.

Stepping up to the plate this summer is Chemical Chords, which has already been well received among the critics, and one hopes this reception translates into sales. This is their brightest, poppiest and, let’s not be coy, grooviest record yet. “We wanted it to be an upbeat record, so it’s good if it makes you feel like dancing. Then the aim is achieved,” says singer Laetitia, “It may not sound like it now, but there was the idea of Motown rhythms which of course is pure pop, pure dance pop.” This is certainly in evidence on songs like ‘Three Women’ and ‘Neon Beanbag’. Also in evidence is Stereolab’s interest in all things scientific. There’s a track here called ‘Pop Molecule (Molecular Pop)’. What provoked this long-time obsession? Laetitia explains: “I don’t know, maybe Tim is attracted to that. A kind of futuristic idea, a hopeful idea of the future where science maybe comes into play and solves a lot of our problems. Within the music there’s also a lot of spirit. It’s not as materialist as it may sound. Within those musical molecules, those chemical chords I think there’s also a spiritual dimension, you know, that is not necessarily stated, but it’s there between the chords.”

One of the album’s standouts is the childlike ‘Daisy Click Clack’, a track which might stand a chance of climbing the charts, if someone is astute enough to have the characters from In The Night Garden fronting it. This is no criticism, but Laetitia is defensive: “That’s the sunniest of the tracks on this record. Personally, I like it. Tim [Stereolab’s other founding member and all-round boffin] wasn’t so sure about it. He thought it was maybe a bit over the top. I was like ‘if you think that don’t put it on the record’, but it still made it on the record. There were 16 others that didn’t.” And what will happen to those? “Hopefully they will come out at some point on a proper LP with a proper release and the attention it deserves. Because it’s really a two-parter, this record. We did record 31 tracks for it. It’s like this is the day side and the other batch will be the night side. They can’t all fit on one record but it couldn’t have been a sort of double album because really that’s way too heavy, way too much information to carry within one same box, so I think it’s best to separate them. The only danger is that the other batch gets kind of ignored because you only get one shot every two years in this business.” So the Ash route of whacking single tracks up on their website is not for Stereolab. “I guess we still think in terms of albums. We’re so conditioned to that ,I mean how can we not think in terms of albums? Sometimes you buy an LP and you’re not ready for it and it sort of goes over your head a little bit. It’s only a year later you totally get that record. I’m sure that’s happened to all of us who are of a certain age, heh heh. How can it always be immediate, the impact a song has on you?”

Of course, one of Stereolab’s strengths has always been the attention they have always paid to records as artifacts. For every major release LP or single there are hoards of obscure split singles, or one-off single releases on coloured vinyl. This should come as no surprise as the band are noted record collectors. Perhaps they are a dying breed in the age of mp3s and ringtones. Laetitia laments the lost art of record hunting, “It’s a pity but what can be done? You just have to accept that people aren’t buying records like they used to. Ways of getting to music have changed. I guess we just have to accept that.” Some of our readers may remember Laetitia and Tim’s appearance on The Adam and Joe Show, where they were required to justify the stranger inclusions in their universe-sized record collection. There were vinyl records which played in reverse from the centre to the rim, recordings of motor car exhausts and the slightly less outré Beach Boys Christmas album.

Are there any obscure records which have eluded Stereolab’s vast record collection? It turns out Laetitia’s bandmate and ex-beau was the hoarder in that particular relationship: “You’d have to ask Tim that! Cause he’s the record-acquirer. I’m sure there are things… I know there was a thing in France in the 70’s when it was at the end of the night, you know around 1 o’clock, when programmes had ended on Channel 2. They would have a sort of little cartoon that was very poetic. It was of a man wearing a big coat that sort of flies up in the air, and I think it was Hofer de Roubaix that did the soundtrack to it and it was very very pretty. I don’t think Tim ever managed to track that down.”

Apart from several examples of fine indie pop, Laetitia and Tim have also managed to produce a child together. One wonders what sort of music a child of this pair grows up to like. “He likes reggae” asserts the mother who knows best, “and he’s really into Daft Punk.” How does he feel about Stereolab’s out-there output? “He’s actually really proud! He doesn’t tell us so, but we hear that through others.” Quite rightly so. Back in 1999, on an LP called Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night, Stereolab’s famous interest in Marxist theory met the personal on the track ‘People Do It All The Time’, the singer urging her child to “grow… reviving old ideas that will carry”. It was a gentle touch, displaying a warmth one doesn’t always associate with the world of dialectical materialism. I ask Laetitia if she actually gets involved in praxis. Do Stereolab vote? Have they ever been involved in a political party? Do they protest? Laetitia gathers her thoughts: “No not really. I would like to be more politically active but somehow I’m doing other things. I’m doing music and a school of shiatsu at the moment and it’s strange that I’m not in a political party… But maybe it’s because I feel it would be a bit pointless at this stage because I think there’s not enough people who want, and I include myself in this, who really want profoundly to change society. To radically change society, that is, because I think society is changing every day. It’s just shifting you know? But what I think is really important at this stage is for consciousness to stay as wide as possible. For people to be aware. When you think of that huge blurb of people, that mass, the consumer mass… I mean I see that last night 20 million people watched this horrifically stupid show en masse but I thought ‘I don’t meet these people, where are they? Who are they? Do they really have an influence?’ The whole of the media is catering for these people, whom it completely despises. But I think people are cleverer than that or can be anyway. Maybe they’re watching it but totally not buying it at all. Aware that it’s for 15 year olds or 12 year olds who are attracted to this kind of…pap. I’d say it’s important to remain critical, aware and conscious.”

Warming to this idea, we discuss the state of television, radio and the music press in general. I came across Stereolab via the brilliant and much-missed ITV Chart Show one Saturday morning in 1994, when I caught the video to ‘Ping Pong’ on the indie chart. Does Laetitia think it’s a pity that quirky-pop on TV has been relegated to digital music TV stations? It seems I’ve touched on a particular bugbear, and have prompted something of a rant. “Oh! Yeah, listen, you know that sucks! I mean really this thing where the media is really catering for that nondescript blurb in the middle I mean what’s wrong with having an hour a week of some indie news you know? Bloody hell! Like how come we’re not represented at all? There used to be John Peel and he’s gone and there’s no-one to replace him! And that really pushes bands like us into the ground.”

It’s difficult to disagree with that. But there is one beacon of hope: “I was watching [BBC’s] The Culture Show and it’s great!. I only saw it once last week and it’s really great. They had… whatsisface…Primal Scream. They played a song at the beginning and one at the end. I mean I don’t really like Primal Scream. My expectations were really low…” Probably just as well given their current incarnation… “But I was thinking ‘oh there’s a song there! Wow! It’s rocking! Alright!” Just when I think the lady is going quite bonkers she settles into her theme again. “So here you can hope to see a bit of music and hear it but it’s…too few and far between. On French TV there’s a channel called ARTE. It’s part French owned, but mostly German and basically you end up only watching ARTE. I know I did. And there’s a programme called Tracks and it’s kind of alternative culture and music. But you know it goes a lot to the US, hip hop or New Zealand in the tribes you know? It’s a bit out there. But you can hope to see a little reportage on Peaches for example.”

Laetitia adds, “You know there was a lot of people who thought we’d split up! And we were saying ‘no actually we’ve been making records all this time!’” Let it be known. It remains a joy to have them around.

Illustration by Sarah Jane Comerford

Concept Album

Art by Sarah Jane Comerford

For many people, myself included, the phrase ‘concept album’ will forever be associated with the progressive rock of the early to mid seventies. That period of time when it was perfectly acceptable to release lengthy, portentous, rockified variations on classical themes in ornately illustrated triple-gatefold sleeves (preferably designed by Roger Dean). Frank Sinatra may have got there first with In The Wee Small Hours, and The Beatles may have pushed the concept album further with Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but the concept album truly came into its own in the purple, unfashionable, pre-punk seventies.

Many of the ‘concepts’ explored in these albums are daft beyond belief. Side two of Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s Brain Salad Surgery contains a monstrous thing called ‘Karn Evil 9: Three Impressions’ a twenty five minute long a suite of music which ‘boast’ the world’s longest drum solo, and lyrics which give an account of a dystopian future where humanity is enslaved by a centralised computer’s army of evil robots. Brilliantly, its co-author Pete Sinfield went on to write Heart’s “These Dreams” and “Rain Or Shine” by Five Star. Meanwhile, Rick Wakeman donned a cape and recorded prog-dramatisations of The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Journey To The Centre Of The Earth and the supremely ridiculous The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and The Knights Of The Round Table, which Wakeman preformed on ice while touring, causing the sometime Strawbs/Yes member to go bankrupt. No wonder that these days he’s a Grumpy Old Man. It may have been a lot of twaddle, but listening to such records now makes one yearn for a bygone age where mellotrons were inescapable and songtitles looked like the table of contents from some academic book you find in a university library. Yes’ The Yes Album, the least pretentious and best album the band ever made in many ways, contains a track called ‘Starship Trooper: (i) Life Seeker (ii) Disillusion (iii) Wurm’. The subtitles and Roman Numerals seemed to say “This is important! Pay attention!”, but Jon Anderson’s frustratingly flowery lyrics are more likely to draw chuckles from the unconverted, while ardent Yes fans look on disapprovingly.

The very best concept albums manage to shake off that air of self-importance, and are extraordinarily good whether you care to pay heed to the story or not. Gentle Giant’s Octopus is a prime example of this. The album is about the friendship between two giants. And why shouldn’t it be. It’s not exactly prog, being much more jazzy, punchy and danceable than that tag might suggest. Gentle Giant comprised Kerry Minnear and brothers Ray and Derek Shulman, both of whom had been members of Simon Dupree and The Big Sound. Camel’s Music Inspired By The Snow Goose is, as the title suggests, indebted to Paul Gallico’s short story of the same name and still sounds great thirty-three and a third years after its initial release. Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall may be the best-known, best-selling concept albums of the 70s, but the curious are directed to the output of Gentle Giant, Camel, Yes and ELP, certainly they’re the most entertaining of the seventies concept album boom.

Looking beyond progressive rock, there aren’t many great concept albums to choose from. A notable exception is Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly. His debut solo album from 1982 is the first part of a trilogy that also included Kamakiriad and Morph The Cat. While those latter albums may be a little slick and tasteful for some, The Nightfly is an absolute treasure. It revolves around a series of images of 1950s America. The beginning of the Cold War, the dreams of the future, the space-race, the post-war optimism – all of it is presented here. ‘I.G.Y.’ sums up the mood perfectly in the lines “What a beautiful world this could be/ What a glorious time to be free”. Even the promise of “spandex jackets – one for everyone” is celebrated. It’s breezy and utopian, but the perceived threat of a nuclear holocaust lurks around every corner. ‘New Frontier’ is sung from the perspective of someone in “a dug-out that my dad built, in case the reds decide to push the button down”.

The last word in concept rock must go to The Residents, who are themselves a concept band. Everything they do is part of a concept. What that concept is exactly, is far too sprawling, complicated and downright crazy to outline here, but some things are clear. They like their anonymity, so nobody really knows who the members of The Residents are. They perform in a variety and disguises but publicity shots usually show them in tuxedos with eyeballs for heads and wearing top hats. They have a spokesperson give interviews on their behalf. They have collaborated with XTC’s Andy Partridge, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz of Talking Heads and Lene Lovich. Their first major album, Meet The Residents, had a sleeve which parodied that of With The Beatles (titled Meet The Beatles in the US, of course). Cartoon seafish were scrawled over the Fab Four’s faces. They released an album called The Third Reich ‘N’ Roll which is ostensibly about the fascistic allure of rock and roll. Its second side was subtitled Hitler Was A Vegetarian. Its sleeve depicted Dick Clark brandishing a carrot. The music contained therein is an astonishing and frightening cover-megamix of rock and roll and sixties pop faves. Their best album though is 1980’s The Commercial Album. The Residents decided that the true music of America is the radio jingle, so they released an album containing 40 minute-long jingles. A note on the sleeve suggests that by repeating each track three times you can listen to the album as a collection of three minute pop songs. It is a superb album, dark, perverse, funny and occasionally very catchy. Everything a concept album should be, in fact.

What the f**k?!

Swearing is neither big nor cool. Am I right? Well I mean that’s what I’ve always been told. Copious use of profanities in songs is, usually, little more than a display of bravado and adds nothing to the song itself. Despite this, swear words in trashy dance songs seem to push my buttons.

See this trashy little number by STFU for example. I remember hearing it at Backlash one night and revelling in it’s utter bombasity. It stood out for me, perhaps because it was one of the few tracks with vocals played that night but more likely because it’s no shit composition was pretty catchy.

This video you’re about to see, however, takes the proverbial biscuit. I was turned onto Diva Avari by a friend, and quite frankly, felt both awestruck and visually violated by this video. Note the contrast between the vocalist herself, her dancers and of course, her gimp. Lovely stuff.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKck5BJpe_M]

I bizarrely enjoy the song. I’m not sure if it’s a case of my inner child giggling at the Diva’s copious swearing or just that I enjoy a house beat on occasion. Either way, this is a song that will be stuck in my mind for quite some time, not least because of it’s hilarious/disturbing video. Enjoy and if you care to share any more rude, lewd or crude videos with our readers, feel free!

Issue 5 launch party @ pogo tomorrow night

I’ve been so busy whoring this out on facebook and myspace that I forgot to actually mention it on our own site! Yep that’s right we’re having another shindig at POGO to celebrate another new and improved issue of Analogue. For those of you still recovering from our last bash at Stereotonic, brace yourself this is going to be even more intense. Berlin minimal techno pioneer Marcell Dettmann in POGO club and Nic James in the Lobby Bar while Analogue takes over POGO live in Crawdaddy for the night. Two of the most promising irish electronic duos take centre in C, Nouveau Noise and Storkboy Choons & Colours Move followed by another legendary Aero Vs. Moro dj set. It’s on this Saturday night doors at 11pm, it’s only a tenner in for friends of Analogue so come along and have a boogie to some great music.

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