Mixtape
So here are a few more noises I've been putting close to my ear recently.
The Specials - Friday Night, Saturday Morning
The Specials were the coolest band in history, I mean just look at them:
Absolutely no mucking around with this lot. Of course the bonus is they wrote some great tunes in their time, which is all the better. I'm a hardcore fan of their first self-titled album from the 70s which was one of the first to fuse the pent-up fury of Punk with the lackadaisical good time fun of Jamaican Ska. 'Friday Night, Saturday Morning' is a b-side from a slightly later period in their career (it's available on the 'A's B's and C's' compilation) where the angry feelings of living in a messed up Thatcherite town subsided into an oppressivley languid state from whence classics like 'Ghost Town' were born. The song's dreary content matter is accompanied by an understated fairground shuffle and a bleak end-of-the-pier organ line that creeps in and out of the verse.
Feedle - Go Home Revolving
Don't want to write too much about this track as I'm going to be interviewing this genius of Lap-Gaze in a future post. But can I just say that the new Feedle album 'Leave Now For Adventure' is a wonderful bit of Electronica recalling elements of Minotaur Shock, 65DaysOfStatic and M83.
Belle Epoque - Miss Broadway
This is some kind of monster French Disco-Rock track from the 70s that somehow manages to fuse tough Heavy Metal vocals with a determinedly funky "Name Of The Game"-style bass line. I guess it is Funk really, but don't tell anyone. Oh and the Ian Carey mix is also well worth checking out and is at the top of my playlist for the next Rogue night.
Aztec Camera - Walk Out To Winter
A generic bit of 80s fluff that somehow still manages to do its stuff. Notable because I share the same surname as the singer and also because the 12" mix boasts the longest intro in any pop song (I suspect).
Roxy Music - More Than This
Someone once told me they played this one the clock struck on the Millennium while hundreds of balloons were released. Couldn't think of a better song for the occasion (other than the Imperial March of course). Roxy Music were a complete anomaly when they first came out in the early 70s. A Prog-Rock band with no discernible influences who specialised in a refined, yuppyish style that wouldn't actually catch on for another 10 years. Of course by the time 'More Than This' and its album 'Avalon' came out in the mid-80s, the Roxys were old hands at crafting sophisticated pop songs, their images evoking endless cocktail parties and yacht-borne romances.
Gerling - The Hi-Jackers Manual
I don't understand how this band slipped under my radar. This is what all this Nu-Rave bollocks OUGHT to sound like. Energetic, punky, dancey fun for everyone!
My Chemical Romance - Teenagers
Guh... I can't believe I'm actually posting this but having heard it a couple of times, and considering it's MCR, once one of the most obnoxious instigators of kiddy Emo shite, this is actually quite passable - perhaps even good. The whole album sounds like a cross between Queen and 'American Idiot'-era Green Day.
Haven't sold it to you, have I? What if I were to say that MCR are well ahead of their game in understanding that Emo is soon to be as dead as a 14-year old with a slit wrist? I think we're pretty much agreed on that one. At the same time, a multi-million dollar band doesn't want to alienate its slowly maturing fanbase. The answer? Firstly, do it all over again, except this time with a billion times more pomp. Pomp in place, next carefully place your tongue into your cheek, not too much now, but just enough for us to know that you're actually smiling and winking away - both championing and killing off the Emo scene with each line.
People my age have spent many hours wondering about Emo. What is it? Why is it so popular? What's the fucking point? And after many lengthy debates, I've come to this... Every generation since Punk broke has had to have some form of angsty rock music to listen to in its teens, be it Grunge or the Smiths or Limp Bizkit or Black Flag or whatever. Emo is just the successor to these forms of music and manages to work because firstly it pisses people off, secondly it confuses people, thirdly it pisses people off even more.
"Teenagers scare the living shit out of me/They could(n't) care less as long as someone'll bleed/So darken your clothes/And wear a violent pose/Maybe they'll leave you alone/But not me"
Think you know better? MCR've got news for you - even they are passed it now. You see those hordes of stripey-sock wearing kids with tubes through their ears - they're cooler than you and they don't give a shit. That's Punk Rock.