Am I the only one to notice the similarities between “In the Fast Lane” [1] by Jean-Luc Ponty and “Good Life“[2] by Inner City?
“In the Fast Lane” — released one year earlier than “Good Life” — was popular at Sunday Afternoon at Dingwalls.
“In the Fast Lane” is the 819th entry in my World Music Classics* series. Think of it as a giant mixtape which you can put on shuffle.
*If you are not logged in, you cannot see the World Music Classics series in its totality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GX_4PgUhYo
“Encore” is a musical composition by Nicolas Jaar.
As usual, one thing leads to another.
This particular Youtube upload (above) features the photo “Dancers Wearing Gas Masks In England On February 1940“.
The photo stems from the Edward George Warris Hulton collection and features girls wearing gas masks and dancing a can-can-like dance.
The sample at the beginning of the song:
is from an audio recording of “The Creative Act,” a speech by ‘mere artist” Marcel Duchamp given in 1957.
In view of its non-elitist (although it can also be read as a defence of Duchamp’s own greatness) point of view (considering bad art also as art); its emphasis on reception and audience participation; its view as the artist as a mere medium, I pronounce “The Creative Act” to be a nobrow manifesto of sorts.
“Encore” by my poulain Nicolas Jaar is World Music Classic #699.
Steve Hillage‘s “Palm Trees (Love Guitar) “[1] from his Green album is World Music Classic #381.
click to play
Lee Hazlewood @80
Lee Hazlewood (9 July 1929 – 4 August 2007) was an American musician best-known for “These Boots Are Made for Walkin“[1] and “Some Velvet Morning“.
“Some Velvet Morning” is WMC #347
“These Boots” is WMC #348
Thriller (1982) – Michael Jackson [Amazon.com]
I’ve mentioned Michael Jackson twice[1][2] on this blog, once when I was amazed by his choice of footage in “They Don’t Care About Us“[3], and once when I did the obituary of James Brown when I mentioned that Brown’s “rapid-footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson”.
Jackson was the embodiment of things gone awry as the result of mediated fame in the 20th century, when he was catapulted from child prodigy[4] to natural freak[5].
With more than 100 million albums sold, Thriller (1982) is the bestselling album of all time and is iconic in the history of 20th century popular music, where he is the natural heir to Elvis Presley. Beyond both dying from an abuse of prescription drugs, parallels beween Presley and Jackson are numerous (Graceland/Neverland). Lisa Marie Presley, for a short time married to Jackson in the nineties wrote at the time of Jackson’s death that he knew “exactly how his fate would be played out” and feared his death would echo that of Elvis Presley.
Jackson dies, long live Jackson.
Shinehead‘s reggae version of “Billie Jean.”
Here he is reincarnated in Shinehead‘s reggae version[6] of “Billie Jean.”[7]. But one of the earliest samples of “Billie Jean” was in 1983, when Italian studio project Clubhouse mixed Steely Dan‘s “Do It Again” (1981) with “Billie Jean” as the “Do It Again Medley with Billie Jean“[8] .
*Daryl Hall has claimed that Michael Jackson admitted to copying the bassline from “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)“[9] in his song “Billie Jean“.
PS. For those of you who miss the Jahsonic old style of haphazard blogging about anything he finds, please check Jahsonic’s microblog[10] at Tumblr.
“Lesson #1 for Electric Guitar” is WMC #342
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9lwuojEREI]
Lesson #1 for Electric Guitar[1] was the first album released by Glenn Branca, originally in 1980 on 99 Records as a mini-album. It was re-released in a remastered form in 2004 by Acute Records and is variously classified as no wave or noise rock. It combines punk aesthetics with those classical music.
Glenn Branca[2] is an avant-garde composer and guitarist of the New York “downtown music” scene known for his use of volume, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series.
99 Records was an independent record label that existed from 1980–1984. 99 (pronounced Nine Nine) Records was run out of a record store with the same name, located at 99 MacDougal Street in New York City’s Greenwich Village, and owned by Ed Bahlman. Artists included ESG, Liquid Liquid, Bush Tetras, Glenn Branca, Y Pants, and others.
Downtown music is a name given to the New York music scene from the 1960s to the 1980s. A scene that suppposedly began in 1960, when Yoko Ono — one of the Fluxus artists, at that time still seven years away from meeting John Lennon — opened her SoHo loft to be used as a performance space for a series curated by La Monte Young and Richard Maxfield.
RIP Bob Bogle (1934-2009) of the The Ventures
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ11y7pYl-8]
American guitarist Bob Bogle of surf music act The Ventures, died age 75.
The Ventures are an American instrumental rock band formed in 1958 in Tacoma, Washington. The band had an enduring impact on the development of music worldwide, having sold over 100 million records, and are to date the best-selling instrumental band of all time. They are known for such singles as “Walk Don’t Run“[1] and “Perfidia“[2], both cover versions. The sound of The Ventures influenced punkabilly band and Jahsonic favorite The Cramps.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beTsOONfVNk]
“Stained Sheets” (1979) Lydia Lunch
“Stained Sheets” is World Music Classic #325
Marvin Gaye @70
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVTN5o9Kgu8]
Marvin Gaye (April 2 1939 – April 1 1984) was an African-American singer, songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer who gained international fame as an artist on the Motown record label in the 1960s and 1970s. He is best-known for “Sexual Healing,” a 1982 song and the first hit record to use the Roland TR-8081 for bass.
The lyrics of ‘Sexual Healing” song discussed a man’s aching for finding sexual healing with his woman – hence the title “Sexual Healing“. According to David Ritz, when he interviewed Gaye for an autobiography, he noticed comic book pornography in Marvin’s room and mentioned to the singer that he “needed sexual healing” causing Gaye and Ritz to write the lyrics.
1 The famous Roland TR-808 was launched in 1980. At the time it was regarded with little fanfare, as it did not have digitally sampled sounds; drum machines using digital samples were much more popular. In time though, the TR-808, along with its successor, TR-909 (released in 1983), would soon become a fixture of the burgeoning underground dance, techno, and hip hop genres, mainly because of its low cost (relative to that of the Linn machines), and the unique character of its analogue-generated sounds. The TR-808’s sound only became truly desirable in the late 1980s, about five years after the model was discontinued and had become cheaply available on the second hand market.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OtuZjBc_H0
“Sex Without Stress” by the Au Pairs
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. As I explained, I now do music on Facebook almost exclusively (join me there at Jan Geerinck with a brief note).
It’s been so long that I need to explain what WMC stands for: World music classics is an ongoing series of World Music Classics.
It had been a while since I’d heard “Sex Without Stress” by the Au Pairs.
“Sex Without Stress” is a musical composition by the British post-punk band the Au Pairs first released in 1982. It was also released on their album Sense and Sensuality. The song is also featured on Stepping Out of Line: The Anthology.
From the lyrics:
The Au Pairs were a post-punk band who formed in Birmingham in 1979. Musically they were very similar to bands such as Ludus, Gang of Four and the Delta 5. That is, the rhythm section was tight and funky (obvious influences were James Brown and Funkadelic), but the guitars were light and “scratchy” (like Subway Sect). All these bands shared a strongly left wing social outlook, but the Au Pairs stood out due to their frontwoman, Lesley Woods, being an outspoken feminist and lesbian: the band were greatly influential in this respect on the riot grrrl movement a decade later. Music historian Gillian G. Gaar noted in her history of women in rock (She’s A Rebel: The History of Women In Rock & Roll) that the band mingled male and female musicians in a revolutionary collaborative way as part of its outspoken explorations of sexual politics.
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