Video by Ed Tannenbaum. Music by Mighty Dog (?), a group that has managed to escape being logged by the world wide interwebs. Dancing by Pons Maar, who likely has the coolest name on this, or any, planet. See the same effect in action on this National Geographic special, and this episode of Fame.
As if the baby making anthems “Choosey Lover” and “Between the Sheets” weren’t enough to carry The Isley Brothers’ 1983 LP Between the Sheets, the bros go and throw this house-ish number in towards the end for good measure. Good on you dudes.
The Isley Brothers - Between
the Sheets (1983)
01. Choosey Lover
02. Touch Me
03. I Need Your Body
04. Between the Sheets
05. Let’s Make Love Tonight
06. Ballad for the Fallen Soldier
07. Slow Down Children
08. Way Out Love
09. Gettin’ Over
10. Rock You Good
[via So Good Music]
Check those lucite guitars and Orange amps! Curved Air’s “Back Street Luv,” from their aptly titled second album, Second Album, hit number four on UK charts in August of 1971. The vocals on the album version have a groovy stereo effect going for them, though the rest of the LP is a bit middling. However, definitely scope the punchy, propulsive “Everdance.” I’d bet $10 that Stereolab has jonesed on it pretty hard at some point.
Curved Air - Second Album (1971)
01. Young Mother
02. Back Street Luv
03. Jumbo
04. You Know
05. Puppets
06. Everdance
07. Bright Summer’s Day ‘68
08. Piece of Mind
[album via Rock Revolt]
Along with Wham’s “Last Christmas,” this sludgy, Don Was-produced sad-fest stands as one of the few Christmas songs I can stomach on repeat listens. While George Michael attempts to rise above holiday doldrums by giving his heart to someone special, Cristina, Ze Records' preeminent misfit princess, deadpans her way through them with brutal reality:
They’d killed a tree of ninety-seven years,
And smothered it in lights and silver tears.
They all got wrecked, they laughed too loud,
I started to feel queasy in the crowd,
I grabbed a cab back to my flat,
And wept a bit,
And fed the cat.
Merry Christmas, dammit.
[via Rooms With Brittle Views]
On the Jools Holland hosted show The Tube, UK DJ Greg Wilson shows off his wheels of steel, complete with tape effects (!), with a bit of simple mixing of David Joseph’s “You Can’t Hide (Your Love From Me).”
Joseph’s classic single hails from his boogie-drenched album The Joys of Life:
David Joseph - The Joys of Life (1983)
01. No Time to Waste
02. Joys of Life
03. Guiding Star
04. Baby Won’t You Take My Love
05. You Can’t Hide (Your Love From Me)
06. Dreaming
07. Be a Star
08. I’m so in Love
09. Do You Feel My Love Now Baby
10. Discover (Bonus)
11. You Can’t Hide (Your Love From Me) (Extended)
[album via Edufunky]
Broadcast on BBC Four this past October, Synth Britannia gives a decent, straightforward overview of the emergence of synthesizers in popular British music in the late 70s/early 80s. Time has been rather kind to most of the musicians interviewed, including Phil Oakey, John Foxx, Gary Numan, Andrew McCluskey, Martin Gore, Vince Clarke, etc, and most seem like pretty ok guys who very much believed in the direction they were taking music. Nobody interviewed, however, seemed to be able to pronounce “Moog” correctly … but I digress.
Worth a watch if you’ve ever gotten all dreamy eyed while thinking about the Mute Records catalog, or, alternately, if you’re into peeking at sexy close ups of Fairlight CMIs and B roll of London streets.
Synth Britannia - 90 minutes:
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9
Though sadly only represented via blurry surrogate in this video, Annie Lennox’s backing vocals on “Darling Don’t Leave Me” still, unsurprisingly, manage to outshine the robotic sprechgesang of Robert Görl, the former drummer of Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft. From Görl’s 1984 solo album, Night Full of Tension.
Tired of looming over you deck of Oblique Strategies, thinking about how you totally got that Brian Eno name drop James Murphy laid out in the last issue of Spin magazine? Bored with postulating “what it must have been like” to hang with Bowie in Berlin? Disenchanted with the non-music revolution you hoped to start when you picked up that MicroKorg at Guitar Center?
Fret no more! You can now mix an ambient soundscape all by your lonesome at inbflat.net. Props to the girl with the DS-10 synthesizer (2nd column, 3rd row), but my money is on the dude with the e-bowed banjo (5th column, 2nd row).
[ thx to K.F. ]
Dope Classics @ Cafe St Ex
Thursday, September 10th
No cover, music @ 10:00
Pete & Co. of Fatback fame asked me to join them at this month’s Dope Classics. An honor indeed! I just broke the 32 year old seal on a Star Wars storybook/soundtrack LP I’ve been hoarding for a rainy day, SO GET YO MINDS READY FOR THAT SHIT.
