Posts Tagged ‘The B-52s’

I’m gonna jump in a crater. (See you later.)

Posted: August 21, 2016 in Miscellaneous, music, Record reviews
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I’m taking another break from blogging. I’ll be back in November, and with a story, too, if this goes well.

Today I want to salute my most loyal readers – those generous people who take the time to write comments no matter what stupid things I’ve said. Some of them write under more than one alias. I’m grateful to all of them, whatever name they choose. Here they are – and, because they are such a modest bunch, for the first time ever I will reveal their most impressive accomplishments!

Accused of Lurking: Invented Post-Its.

frostybooboo: Commercial fish farmer who tags his fish with Post-Its.

number9: Snowbird who splits her year between a yellow submarine and an octopus’ garden.

Ofelia: Master of the Brazilian freehand accordion.

seasidedave: International clam thief.

Sherry: Scared Kenny G so badly, he stopped using his last name.

thecorncobb: Sailed alone around the world in a balloon-rigged sloop.

Wm Seabrook: His Mad Men-style ad agency named the Euro, the TiVo, and the Yugo.

Thanks, everyone. Enjoy the rest of your summer, if you’re north of the Equator. If you’re not – bundle up!

Random Pick of the Day 1
Talking Heads, Fear of Music (1979)
Fear of Music has “Cities,” “Life During Wartime,” and “Heaven,” three of the best songs of the ’70s. This is an awesome album.

Particularly interesting are the final three tracks: “Animals,” “Electric Guitar,” and “Drugs.” They point toward the dark, strange band Talking Heads threatened to become. Even amid the darkness and the strangeness, however, you can count on David Byrne to stop making sense. For example, he’s angry that animals don’t help. “They’re never there when you need them,” he complains. Who does that bring to mind? I’m about to tell you!

Random Pick of the Day 2
Talking Heads, Little Creatures (1985)
This album disappointed me when it was released. I’d heard all this before. I admit, though, that I would’ve had trouble with anything released in the shadow of Stop Making Sense. Listening to this album 30 years later, I’ve changed my mind. It’s solid. But the most important thing about Little Creatures is that it’s the closest Talking Heads ever came to making a B-52s record.

You think The B-52s couldn’t create a song like “And She Was”? They did – it’s called “Roam.” You say The B-52s could never match “Stay Up Late,” a vaguely sinister song about a baby? How about “Quiche Lorraine,” a vaguely sinister song about a poodle? And what’s that line in “Creatures of Love”? “Well I’ve seen sex and I think it’s alright.” That’s great, David, but have you ever made love under a strobe light?

It would be wrong to say that Talking Heads are The B-52s with more words and funkier baselines. Wrong, but with some traces of truth. There are several points in the space-time continuum where these bands intersect.

True, their only IRL meeting, when David Byrne produced Mesopotamia, sucked. As much as I love the title song, I’m the first to admit that no one knows how to play it, not even the band that wrote it. And I think I know why: “Mesopotamia” is a slower version of “Cities.”

 

The LinkedIn 500

Posted: May 14, 2014 in Miscellaneous, music, Record reviews
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In the first week of May, I made my 500th connection on LinkedIn. What does this mean?

I don’t know. But it must be a milestone because 500 is a cool number. It’s not a prime number, but it’s right next door to one: 499. So when I made my 400th connection I decided to work very seriously on my next hundred. Because these numbers look like career homerun totals, I made a game of it, announcing each stage to my wife:

407: “I’m neck and neck with Duke Snider.”
439: “I’ve got Andre Dawson in my rearview mirror.”
453: “Bye-bye, Yaz!”
493: “Did you know that Crime Dog was tied with Lou Gehrig? What? Who is Crime Dog? Why am I talking to you?”

I stood at 499 for about two weeks. I wondered if I should invite someone special for my 500th. The obvious choice was Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, but I figured he was kinda busy being a co-founder and I didn’t want to wait 200 years for Reid to say yes. I also thought it would be fun to connect with someone who had the same name as a person I admired, but either that person had no presence on LinkedIn or there were 119 of them (as with David Bowie).

Number 500 arrived when I wasn’t looking – an invitation I’d extended weeks before and forgotten about. Lucky 500 is an editor who works with a publisher I once worked for. As with many of my connections, I’ve never met this person, but if he’s one of my guys you can be sure that he rocks.

(Note: At this point I didn’t actually have 500 people in my network, because at least one had died. Her profile is still active. If we’re connected and you’re still breathing, write and say hi. I’d love to hear from you.)

When I hit 500 feedbacks on eBay, they sent me a certificate. Actually, they sent me a link to a certificate that I could print myself. I wasn’t expecting LinkedIn to give me a handjob and a parade, but still I was disappointed when nothing happened. Then I thought, maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way. Maybe I’m the one who should be doing something, and not just my end-zone dance. Maybe I should be printing T-shirts for my posse. (Don’t send me your shirt size. I’m not doing this.)

LinkedIn (the site also spells it “Linkedin”) long ago transformed itself from sparkly toy to networking ninja. If I want to find out who I know at a particular company, I can do it in seconds. Before LinkedIn, this would’ve taken days or weeks, if it could be done at all.

So if nothing much happens when you make your 500th connection, so be it. In fact I’ve moved past that mark now. I believe I’m tied with Eddie Murray (504), but then, who’s counting?

Random Pick of the Day
Various artists, The Crow (1994)
This movie is about a murdered man resurrected by a mystical crow to reign death and destruction upon his enemies. Please don’t make me write a sentence like that again. The heart of the soundtrack is “Burn” by The Cure, closely followed by Nine Inch Nail’s cover of Joy Division’s “Dead Souls,” “Snakedriver” by The Jesus and Mary Chain, and the dreamy “Time Baby III” by a band called Medicine. (The vocal on that one is by a former Bangle.)

As for the other 10 songs, Stone Temple Pilots’ “Big Empty” has had so much radio play that it bounces off my brain. The remaining nine are interchangeable, but appropriately mopey, metal.

Random Pan of the Day
The B-52s, Cosmic Thing (1989)
Why am I panning this record? I love The B-52s. Cosmic Thing was their big comeback. It has “Love Shack,” “Roam,” and one of their best lines, on the eternal topic of shaking your booty: “Don’t let it rest/on the president’s desk!”

But most of Cosmic Thing is easy-listening filler. “Roam” still sounds good, but “Love Shack” is getting tired. When this record came out, the mellifluously named Bart Becker, music editor at my paper, Seattle Weekly, wrote that this was a band that had pretty much lost it. Twenty-five years later, I reluctantly agree. By 1989, The B-52s were not even all that wacky anymore. I can only recommend Cosmic Thing to confirmed idiots such as myself. For anyone else, The B-52s and Wild Planet are all you need.

Bart Becker would’ve been the perfect name for an infielder on the San Francisco Giants.

 

No fumar

Posted: April 3, 2014 in music, Record reviews
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Machine Head
Deep Purple
1972

The biggest sin of “Sins of the ’70s Week” was the sin of omission. I forgot Deep Purple! Yeah, yeah, yeah, the freaks said/man those cats could really swing (“Space Truckin’ ”). Some of these songs do have a sort of big-band swing to them, but most of them are having a bad night in Suck City. Jon Lord’s organ sometimes sounds like a harpsichord. So does Richie Blackmore’s guitar. And yet this band has a good claim on the invention of heavy metal.

I loved this album and spent many hours tormenting my parents with it. These days I smile as each song begins but after a couple of minutes I want them to end. I have no patience with the berserk Bee-Gees falsettos, the alleged lyrics, and the solos, which are always Blackmore first, then Lord, unless they decide to mix it up and have Lord go first, then Blackmore. (Improv jazz bands that always give you the tenor sax solo followed by the trumpet solo followed by the piano solo, or the piano solo followed by the tenor sax solo followed by the trumpet solo, make me feel like Ricardo Montalban as Kahn. I grow fatigued.)

Of course you can’t discuss Deep Purple without tripping over “Smoke on the Water.” Duh-duh-DUH, duh-duh-DUH-DUH, duh-duh-DUH, DUH-DUH. It’s slow, it’s turgid, it takes forever to end. It’s like building blocks for beginning guitarists. You can’t get to “Stairway to Heaven” without first mastering “Smoke on the Water.”

“Smoke on the Water” is also a rarity among rock songs in that it reports on an incident that happened to the entire band. You don’t get a lot of journalism in this genre. If you’re paying attention to Deep Purple’s lyrics you’re in trouble, but while forcing myself to pay attention this evening I was surprised by the stripped-down Hemingway ending:

We ended up at the Grand Hotel.
It was empty cold and bare.
But with the Rolling truck Stones thing just outside,
making our music there.
With a few red lights, a few old beds,
we made a place to sweat.
No matter what we get out of this,
I know, I know we’ll never forget
smoke on the water
and fire in the sky.

In the 1940s, legendary editor Maxwell Perkins said that there will always be a new class of sophomores who will discover Thomas Wolfe and be entranced by him. There will always be a new class of middle-schoolers who will discover “Smoke on the Water” and be entranced by the damn thing. This year at our chess club, one of my middle-school girls told her BFF, “I just heard the most awesome song.” I asked her what it was and she handed me an earbud and pressed Play. Duh-duh-DUH, duh-duh-DUH-DUH, duh-duh-DUH, DUH-DUH.

Longest instrumental lead in a song that actually has words
Here’s something else about Deep Purple. In this contest I just dreamed up, they smash their puny human opponents with “Lazy.” “Lazy” begins with a jazzy riff that doesn’t open the door for the singer until 4:22, daringly late for a song that ends at 7:22.

First runner-up: Boston, “Foreplay/Long Time,” Boston (1976)
Boston owes a lot to Deep Purple’s influence (check out “Never Before” on Machine Head). “Foreplay/Long Time” is almost exactly the same length as “Lazy” (7:47), but Boston only strings us along until 2:45, when the singer enters and declares that he has to keep moving along so he can keep chasing that dream. Tough luck, honey, I can’t stay and commit to a healthy relationship.

Second runner-up: The B-52s, “Planet Claire,” The B-52s (1979)
And we’re still in the ’70s. Fred Schneider doesn’t start singing until the band has run through all of their outer-space sounds at the 2:30 mark. The song ends two minutes later. (The Foo Fighters do a cover of “Planet Claire” that clearly show this song’s debt to the Peter Gunn theme.)

Worth mentioning: Love and Rockets, “Body and Soul,” Hot Trip to Heaven (1994)
The actual singing begins at 2:20, but throughout the song a woman sighs suggestively every four seconds. “Body and Soul” runs a mesmerizing 14:14 and, as the reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine notes at Allmusic.com, “they [Love and Rockets] sound like they’re trying to figure out what the hell is going on.”

Note: As you can see from the comments on this post, the first and second finishers are actually Mike Oldfield for “Tubular Bells” and Pink Floyd for “Shine on You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-5).”

Note from the far future (7 July 2019): I forgot The Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rolling Stone.” I am a double dumb-ass. There’s no singing in the first 4 minutes (almost tying “Lazy”). The radio edit is 6:59 and the album version cracks the 12-minute mark!

 

Let me count the ways: Enough is enough!

Posted: September 4, 2013 in music, Record reviews
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I thought I had finished listening to and saying stupid things about every band with a number in its name that we collectively thought up, but I was wrong, as I so often am. Loyal reader and Southern industrialist corncobb has unearthed two bands that I’d overlooked: 8-Ball and Infinity. Thanks a lot, loyal reader and Southern industrialist corncobb!

Well, this blog wouldn’t exist without my loyal readers. Actually, it wouldn’t exist without WordPress. So in the interest of completing Let Me Count the Ways Week, which is now in its 10th frakking day, I gave these groups a good listening to. And boy was I sorry.

8-Ball and Infinity were both founded in the 1990s, 8-Ball in Japan and Infinity in Norway. 8-Ball is associated with several songs that are used in video games or with video magazines. “(Need for) Speed” uses unnecessary parentheses and shows how closely these boys have listened to Deep Purple, though Deep Purple wouldn’t spend five minutes listening to 8-Ball. “Can’t Carry On” sounds like Candlebox moving from California to Seattle in the ’90s and pretending to be a grunge act. “Masquerade” is something the Foo Fighters would scrub out of their swimming pool.

That brings us to Infinity. The Infinity gang loves Madonna. To her music they add just enough rapping to keep their grandparents on edge. The only song they have that is even halfway listenable is “Sleeping My Day Away,” and that’s because they didn’t write it – it’s a cover of a song by the Danish rock band D-A-D. No, I am not starting a project where I review bands with capital letters for names. I’ve already done ABBA and AC/DC anyway.

The one thing I like about Infinity is that this summer they toured Norway as part of the “We Love the ’90s!” tour. I have no idea what the ’90s was like in the home of the Norse gods, but it probably wasn’t like what I saw in the first Thor movie. I’ve always wanted to visit Scandinavia (Special D just put her head in her hands) and if I ever get to Oslo you can be sure I’ll report back on “We Love the ’90s!” I’d be crazy to miss it. Imagine the band merch!

The summing up
A couple of weeks ago, I gave Special D what I’ve written on my novel so far, all 25,000 words of it. She gave me her usual excellent feedback. Since then I’ve been thinking pretty hard about what she said and where I think my book is going. Listening to 110 or so bands with numbers in their names and then unfairly judging them and dismissing their life’s work in a few biting sentences was a fun project for my off-hours.

Despite the crappy bands this project stuck me with (Kenny Rogers & The First Edition, The Four Seasons, and 101 Strings lead that pack), I ended up listening to a lot of music I liked: U2, Three Dog Night, Gang of Four, The Bobby Fuller Four, The Jackson Five, Nine Inch Nails, UB40, The B-52s, Galaxie 500. For once I’m going to emphasize success rather than failure, and that means I want to single out the bands I didn’t know or didn’t know well and that happily surprised me: 2 Nice Girls, Timbuk 3, Sixpence None the Richer, 16 Horsepower, Matchbox Twenty, and 50 Foot Wave. I was pleased to reacquaint myself with 10cc’s “Neanderthal Man” and that Dean Moriarty song by Aztec Two-Step.

A warning: Don’t ever put a four in your band’s name. The 14 bands in that sad category were offset only by Bobby Fuller, Gang of Four, and The Four Tops.

Thanks to everyone who suggested bands and put this list together. I never would’ve gotten half of them without your help. For the record, here they all are, including the acts I reviewed in the two months before Let Me Count the Ways Week started on August 25:

.38 Special

Kenny Rogers & The First Edition
One Direction
KRS-One

2 Live Crew
2 Nice Girls
2 Unlimited
2Pac
Amon Düül II
Aztec Two-Step
Boyz II Men
RJD2
U2

3 Doors Down
3 Mustaphas 3
311
3OH!3
Fun Boy Three
Loudon Wainwright III
The Three O’Clock
Third Eye Blind
Third World War
Three Dog Night
Timbuk 3

4 Non Blondes
Bobby Fuller Four
Classics IV
Four Bitchin’ Babes
Four Men & a Dog
Gang of Four
The Four Aces
The Four Freshmen
The Four Fellows
The Four Havens
The Four Horsemen
The Four Seasons
The Four Tops
The Four Toppers

Ben Folds Five
The Dave Clark Five
Deadmou5
Five Finger Death Punch
Five for Fighting
Five Man Electrical Band
Maroon 5
MC5
Q5
The 5th Dimension
The Five Satins
The Jackson 5
We Five

Apollonia 6
The 6ths
Six By Seven
Sixpence None the Richer

7 Seconds
7 Seconds of Love
L7

Crazy 8’s
8Ball
8-Ball

Nine Inch Nails

10cc
10 Years
Ten Years After

12 Rounds

16 Horsepower

East 17
Heaven 17

Matchbox Twenty

UB40
Level 42
Black 47

50 Cent
50 Foot Wave
The B-52s

MX-80
M83

The Old 97’s

Apollo 100
Haircut 100
101 Strings
blink-182

Galaxie 500

Area Code 615

1000 Homo DJs

1910 Fruitgum Company

10,000 Maniacs

Do as Infinity
Infinity

Let me count the ways: Brought to you by the numbers 47-80

Posted: August 31, 2013 in music, Record reviews
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Today was Day 1 of the Labor Day three-day weekend. I’m explaining that for the benefit of my readers residing outside the USA, particularly the person who dropped by yesterday from Hungary. (Sorry, you don’t get your money back.) So although I did a lot today, most of it was in the categories of walking, observing nature, watering various leafy objects in the garden, and napping. That explains why tonight’s entry is shorter than recent entries.

No disqualifications this evening. Let’s go 47!

Black 47
I don’t know where Level 42 got their name from, but I do know that Black 47 comes from the worst year of the Irish potato famine. These boyos are Irishmen living in New York. They play Celtic folk (interest dropping), rock, rap, and reggae (interest back up). I listened to Fire of Freedom (1993). I liked “Rockin’ the Bronx,” which really does mix up all these genres – imagine The Beastie Boys transplanted to Dublin – but overall this music is firmly in Thistle & Shamrock territory and I didn’t make it through all 14 tracks.

50 Cent
The first thing to know about 50 Cent is that, given his early years, it’s a miracle he’s still alive and getting ready to turn 40. Like Alex Alexakis of Everclear, Curtis James Jackson III actually lived the gangsta life he writes about. The second thing to know is that for years, 50 Cent was an unstoppable money machine, vacuuming in the cash for his own albums and for the ones he produced for his buddies (collectively known as the G-Unit). The third thing to know, although this one means nothing, is that I will never take gangsta rap seriously.

I listened to his breakout record, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2003). This one produced two songs that invaded the mainstream and became huge hits, “Wanksta” and “In da Club.” I realize now I’ve heard “In da Club” or variations of it for years, especially during the run-up to battle or chase scenes in less-cerebral science-fiction movies. I also admit that it gets under your skin. Get Rich also gave us “P.I.M.P.,” a topic that never grows old, although this one has a calypso chassis that almost makes it palatable.

The only thing I really like about 50 Cent is his name, which I think was a fantastic choice. I enjoyed calling my Boise friend John “35 Cent,” but he got tired of it.

50 Foot Wave
This is rock that looks back at punk and looks forward to kicking you in the head. Kristin Hersh (of Throwing Muses) runs this project. I’ve only heard the 50 Foot Wave EP (2004), but it’s obvious that 50 Foot Wave could run rings around The Ramones, stand toe-to-toe with Foo Fighters (though they’re nowhere near as melodic), and scare the pants off Coldplay. Recommended if you need to knock everything out of your brain.

The B-52s
I can’t write objectively about my favorites. Check the tag cloud or go here.

MX-80
Experimental music from the 1970s and ’80s with punk tendencies and much dry humor. The production is not very clear, though it is clear that MX-80 is playing music strictly for MX-80. If you like it too, so what.

“Someday You’ll Be King” from Out of the Tunnel (1980) has a punchy, uncontrolled quality to it and gives you a taste of some late-’70s punk. “It’s Not My Fault” sounds like Talking Heads and Devo went through the transporter at the same time and came out the same band. I haven’t heard any of their other albums, but I’ll bet Out of the Tunnel was the closest MX-80 came to commercial appeal. (Out of the Tunnel and their next album, Crowd Control, are available on the same CD.)

Thirteen bands to go. Tomorrow we’ll start with M83 and see if we can reach 101 Strings.

 

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