Men Without Hats

Some bands are so much better than their most well known song. Case in point, Montreal’s Men Without Hats, one of the quintessential 80s new wave pop bands/ The Safety Dance was of course a piece of pop genius. But that was just the tip of the iceberg of this band’s sound and ideas. I’m only really familiar with their material through 1987’s Pop Goes the World, but their first three albums ( Rhythm of Youth from 1982 and Folk of the 80’s (Part III), from 1984, are the other two) offer a complex landscape of pop songs that most bands can’t achieve in twice that many albums. There are a lot of interlacing themes among the songs (Pop Goes the World is a concept album with many refs between songs) which are hard to describe without many listenings (which are always fruitful). From a musical standpoint, the two most unique aspects of the M w/o H sound are the extremely atmospheric keyboards and lead singer Ivan Doroschuk’s voice, which has an extreme urgency to it, like he’s been to the top of the ferris wheel alone, seen the destruction at the edge of the universe, and knows there’s no way to describe it to you.

Here’s a live clip of their song Where Do the Boys Go off Folk of the 80's (Part III). Note the fans. This is exactly the kind of people who I remember were into M w/o H. Those are my people. And ya gotta love a band with two keyboardists. Ya just gotta…

Post Surgical Ankle Porn

Got the splint-cast-thing taken off yesterday. Now I'm in for 4 weeks of cam-boot + crutches with gradual weight bearing (not much) and daily mobility work. Here are a couple of pictures of what it looks like. The stitches will dissolve (good thing) and we don't even have to remove the tape. The doc said to let it fall off on its own. Still can't get it wet. Have to shower creatively for a month. Fun fun.

The Sherbs

The Sherbs were an early 80s reincarnation of a very successful Australian rock band of the 70s, Sherbet. I’m not familiar at all with the Sherbet material (there's some on Youtube) and unfortunately there’s not much Sherbs material available online. I got to like them from a couple of songs (I’m Alive and We Ride Tonight) that got decent airplay on album-oriented rock stations. They can be loosely classified as a progressive rock band. Vocalist Daryl Braithwaite had a subtle but distinctive sound that was not falsetto, but still ranged up toward that territory, vaguely reminiscent of Steve Perry but much more restrained. The Sherbs sound was somewhat atmospheric, with synthesizers playing a prominent role. The songs were on the poppy end of prog-rock, but this was nowhere near Top-40 (at least not in America). Overall, the sound was of the same flavor as a lot of local progressive rock bands in the Rochester area at the time. Nothing earth-shatteringly novel, just a sound of its times and some interesting rock songs. Rock music took off for many distant lands after that time and has never returned to this rather simple, maybe slightly pretentious at times but not ostentatious, sound.

Here’s a song from the Sherbet era:



Here’s the 80s Sherbs manifestation (same personnel, according to their Wikipedia entry). Quite a bit different, but you can see where it came from:



I’m really glad that people are archiving all of these old TV show appearances of bands on Youtube. Of course, the bands in these shows are lip syncing these songs (or something close to that). But you get a flavor of their studio sound and what they looked like.

Remind Me - Royksopp

Everyone I know loves this song. Most of us discovered it as the music behind the Geico commercial with the cave man on the moving walkway in the airport. The song is wistful, atmospheric, catchy. A breath of fresh air compared to most contemporary pop in America. Royksopp (sorry, I don’t do umlauts) is two guys from Norway and has been around since 1998. They have two albums and a bunch of singles out, and thanks to the internet, many folks in the U.S. know more about them than this one song.
Having listened to a good portion of their material, I would say that within the electronic form, they are quintessentially modern and European, squarely in the Kraftwerk lineage. The video for Remind Me (below) is one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in a long time. It encapsulates their ultramodern, Bauhaus- and De Stijl derived aesthetics. It’s beautiful – and yet the wistfulness, even sadness, of the song questions everything that the modern, urban, metropolitan, cosmopolitan world has become. And who we are living in it.

Morning Megachild

Good Mushroom Year

The last few weeks have brought an amazing bloom of mushrooms in these parts. Here’s me in the middle of a faerie ring of Russula. We don’t know the species, but this one appears to be an ectomycorrhizal symbiont of oak trees (as are many of the common basidiomycetes around here). The outbreak of mushrooms has been a boon for my lab because we have started some studies on native mushroom feeding Drosophila. We collected some of these Russula and placed them in a container as a bait in order to trap the flies by netting them. (You can also use store bought mushrooms for this, but for the purposes of the experiment, we wanted to use the same kinds of mushrooms as the flies had already been eating [as larvae].) Males of the mushroom feeding species also use the mushrooms as lekking sites.

It has always mystified me why so many people have the urge to eat wild mushrooms. Given that some are incredibly poisonous, it never seemed to me to be worth messing around with them. Of course, many of them are edible and some are incredibly tasty. Still, I’m happy with the ones from the store.

Stupid species names

Most of the hundreds of species of Drosophila, the organism my lab group and I work on, have perfectly good names (here is a list of the small subset of Drosophila species that are in a database of hosts of known endosymbiotic bacteria; Mateos, M., Castrezana, S.J., Nankivell, B.J., Estes, A.M., Markow, T.A., and Moran, N.A. (2006) Heritable Endosymbionts of Drosophila. Genetics 174: 363–376.).

Some really nice names are: D. albomicans, D. melanica, and D. palustris


But some species names are just stupid. These are often species named after people, but the Latin suffix system for species (seemingly not manditory for species but compulsory at the family level) is frequently, I feel, cumbersome and ridiculous.

Today's winner: Drosophila busckii

I really have no idea what the species is named after (a person perhaps; it was originally described by a taxonomist named Coquillett in 1901 and had the original name buskii; I don't know why it was change later or by whom). No offense, but whatever it was: bad move. Somewhere there are some "rules" for naming new species, either descriptively, by geographic location, or after people. It seems pretty arbitrary to me, so I think there should be an obligation to make species names that roll off the tongue and are easy to spell. Anyone who refuses to do so is kind of like someone whose name is Bartholemew and insists on being called Bartholemew and not Bart. Probably not a person I would want to hang out with.

Greatest Hits

CNN.com had this story up yesterday about the conflicts that artists and labels have surrounding greatest hits compilations. I’m a little torn on this issue but I ultimately side with the artists on this. Hits compilations are certainly a money grab by the labels. They do make money. I have a lot of them (although a lot of my collection I’ve gotten as used discs). Because for me it’s “about the songs”, for many bands I’m mainly interested in just a few songs (usually their better known songs, since I occasionally DJ parties and these tend to get requested).

The main point of the article is that labels are pressuring newer artists to release GH compilations early, which is pretty ridiculous. A number of both newer and classic artists have resisted the GH pressure. AC/DC is the most interesting band in this list. The artists correctly hold that albums have integrity (and sometimes, songs that are big hits for a band are not that band’s favorite songs, e.g. Don’t You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds)(Their 1985 Live Aid performance of this song is posted above. I don’t remember them playing this when I saw them in Buffalo in early ’86.). iTunes has changed things quite a bit, for those artists whose material is available there (coverage is still pretty spotty or completely absent for many, which I would guess is probably mostly attributable to artists and labels not liking the terms[?]).

The CNN.com story also amusingly calls out Aerosmith and U2 for releasing egregious numbers of hits compilations.

Some art

for your Thursday morning...

(Ankle is doing much better. Basically pain free at this point. Thanks for everyone's well wishes!)

The Three O'Clock

Since the folks over at PowerPop posted the Conchords (excellent and hilarious) lampooning of Psychedelic rock, I thought I would blog about the Three O’Clock, my favorite psychedelic revival band from the Paisley Underground scene in LA in the early-mid 80s. Led by vocalist/bassist Michael Quercio, these guys brought a pretty unique hard-driving guitar edge to the sound (which seemed to be absent from the other bands of that scene that I have been exposed to, e.g. Dream Syndicate and Green on Red). Quercio’s high, lush vocals lent a sort of hyperactive plaintiveness to the sound. In terms of pure songwriting, this band was one of the best in the 80s, in my opinion. Every one of their albums is laden with novel pop music ideas and repays virtually continual relistening. I owe my love of this band to my friend Dave, who introduced me to a ton of alternative music in Durham, NC in the early 90s. Sadly, the Three O’Clock had broken up by that time.

I’m not sure exactly how influential the neo-psychedelic sound/aesthetics have been. Prince (whose Paisley Park record label put out the last Three O’Clock album, Vermillion, in 1988), the Bangles (part of the 80s LA neo-psychedelic scene), and the Church (see their 1986 album Heydey) all had mainstream success with the meme. This was one of many undercurrents in pop/alternative music that were percolating in the 80s, which give the lie to anyone who complains that 80s music was boring or monolithic.

Happily, there is a decent Youtube footprint for the Three O’Clock (ignore the first link). Here is the video for their song Her Head’s Revolving, from their 1985 album Arrive Without Travelling.

On Recovering

I had outpatient surgery today to (hopefully) fix tendon inflammation that I've been battling for almost a year. Don't know what started it but we have an interesting (and bizarre) hypothesis that the doctors actually find plausible, which I might blog about in the future sometime. Things went well except for trying to get up our front stoop on crutches for the first time. For about a half second my weight was on the ankle. Not good.

The pain after the surgery has been exquisite, as I had a couple of hours between when the anesthesia wore off and actually downing the pills that the doctor prescribed. Oxycodone, the "safe" kind of hillbilly heroin (because it has acetaminophen in the mix, which apparently makes it hard to abuse due to some pharmacology I don't understand). It took a while to kick in. I should say the pain is exquisite, because it's still there, just hiding behind a thin veil. The drug is a house of cards and the pain, in the shape of the throbbing flesh under and behind my ankle, is a fat, writhing slug inside it, threatening to bring the house down. Sleep turned out to be the glue that keeps the house up at all. But it's still fragile. Sand castle would be another good metaphor for it.

I like to go to sleep to a story (usually unabridged CDs of Tolkien which take years to get through as bedtime stories a few nights a week). I found online the complete text to Gibson's "Burning Chrome". the quinitessential cyberpunk hacker story, and had my laptop read it to me in one of its synthetic voices. Good stuff.

And Mrs. Slig is an angel, by the way.

Message of Love - the Pretenders

In my post below on Pat Benatar, I forgot to list the Pretenders as a major female-led band at that time. American-expat-in-the-UK Chrissie Hynde can arguably claim to have become more legendary than any of the woman rockers I did list. I've liked the Pretenders' sound ever since Brass in Pocket hit the radio in the U.S. in 1980. Their first three albums, Pretenders, Pretenders II, and Learning to Crawl (my all time favorite album cover), are as good or better musically than the first three albums of any other artist in the history of rock.

Message of Love, from their second album in 1981 (was released earlier on an EP), exemplifies the rock solidity their songwriting. Hynde's completely unique vocals, combining passion with gutsiness, overlie a decepively simple guitar track that wrings extreme beauty out of its chord-rhythm work and fits perfectly over the classic, almost walking, bassline (not a little out of tune in the live clip below). It's poignant to realize that bassist Pete Farndon and guitarist James Honeyman-Scott both died of drug overdoses within two years of the release of Pretenders II. Hynde and drummer Martin Chambers added guitarist Robbie Macintosh and bassist Malcolm Foster for 1984's Learning to Crawl. After that, further personnel changes and less stellar material tended to drag the band down into the general mainstream rock/pop decline of the late-80s/90s, but nothing can tarnish how original, and absolutely trenchant for rock music, the Pretenders's early songs were.

Dusted - Belly

Tanya Donelly’s post- Throwing Muses, post- Breeders band Belly had a hybrid sound mixing hard-edged punk stylings with her rangy, expressive vocal (which could alternately evoke Sundays singer Harriet Wheeler and Siouxsie Sioux). Their sound was pretty much par for the alternative music course of the early 90s, but their one song that I really like is Dusted (studio version here as backing for someone’s home movies involving Tigers, a child, and other random stuff; a live version here, after their song Slow Dog) from 1993. This is a fast, guitar driven track that is perfectly balanced by the sweet high vocals. There is a really good counterpoint between the lead guitar line and the vocal. Melodic punk at its best.

Dept. of Bad Food Ideas

Casseroles almost invariably gross me out. Why eat mushy, overcooked food all mixed together? Why not cook and serve things separately? (Or if you're gonna mix things up, cook quickly in a wok, not slowly in an oven.) Skip the crusty bread crumbs or crushed up stale crackers or whatever they are. Don't need the extra carbs. And casseroles are even more disgusting when they are a vehicle for leftovers.

New Lyrics

(no song yet; as you can immediately see, it's kind of a meta thing)

Not Enough Words

v1
Party back porch becomes a stage
Only a mirror
If you could just figure out
Stanza and verse

v2
Useless poetry on summer nights
Light pollution of the town
Rain for her on dance floors
You're not around

v3
You'll take up smoking
Like you took up D minor
Chords of long suffering
Bohemians

Ch1
There's not enough words that rhyme with girl
Not enough words in the world
She's oblivious to this
Flaw of the universe

v4
You'll never do the drugs or crash
The car you need to figure tragically
You'll just hoist longnecks beneath the moon
Smartly rehydrate for work before noon

v5
Goddesses seldom know they are
Though they all seem to share that Greek ruin statue stare
Angels are only under your nose
Never think to write songs for those

Ch2
There's not enough words that rhyme with love
Armies of poets curse god above
She's so oblivious to this
Grand joke of the universe

v6
Holy of holies the chance it requires
Brownian kiss of disavowed desires
The idea may need to dissolve, an orphan
When the 8-ball shake drags you away

Ch etc. out

Hooks

Hooks, the things that make songs “catchy” (and to some extent “accessible”) are the sine qua non of pop music. I’m really interested in precisely studying the characteristics of hooks. One phenomenon I notice now and again with a pop song is that it will have multiple different kinds of hooks. The 1983 song Shy Shy by British synth-popsters Kajagoogoo is a good example. It’s also a good example of some hooks working better musically than others. The hook that sold this song commercially is of course the chorus, which few who were aware of pop music in the 80s could forget, even if they wanted to (which is most of the time; and I apologize for the earworm I’ve given you by even bringing it up). However, I’ve always thought that the intro and verse of this song are much stronger musically with their atmospheric interplay between the bass line and the synth washes and rhythmic guitar work. The vocal part is underlain by a nice chord progression as well. (The resemblance to Duran Duran is no coincidence. The song was produced by Duran Duran keyboardist Nick Rhodes. But in actuality, this song was a hit before any of Duran Duran's.) However, as soon as the bridge arrives “Hey girl, move a little closer…” the song loses everything. It sounds like a different song. It’s even worse when it hits the chorus. It’s almost forcably inserted into the song seemingly from another (far inferior) song. There is some rhythmic complexity in the chorus, but with me it has no staying power. I probably liked it the first few times I heard it, but since then I simply yearn for the (all too brief) verse sections of the song. Anyway, without dwelling too much on this particular song or band (a one hit wonder in most analyses, at least on this side of the pond), I just think this is a nice example of simplistic hooks versus actually musically effective (or at least good-sounding) hooks. Your mileage will no doubt vary…

Chromatic Aberration

I'm currently doing research for a book on insect pigmentation, which is fun because I'm learning a lot about things I never studied before, like vision, which involves several kinds of pigments. Here's something amazing that I found out reading about animal visual systems concerning chromatic aberration , which refers to the phenomenon that different colors do not refract identically in a lens, resulting in slightly different focal distances and colored "fringes" around images. This is a problem both in photography and in biological vision (where it may interfere with depth perception).

this is from: Kirschfeld, K. 1982 Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B 216: 71-85

"...we [humans] see over the whole range from 400 to 700 nm, and to reduce the incidence of short wavelength light therefore cannot, in principle, overcome the problem of chromatic aberration , which from 400-700 nm corresponds to more than 2m^-1. This aberration is considerable and corresponds e.g. to a change in the distance of an object from our eye from 100-40 cm. Indeed, there are many kinds of psychophysical experiments that demonstrate the existence of chromatic aberration, which our nervous system has obviously learned to deal with. Among the most convincing demonstrations are experiments in which human observers wear prism glasses that artificially introduce a kind of chromatic aberration: all edges viewed through the glasses appear with coloured fringes. These fringes diminish and disappear over a 3 day period, and if the prisms are removed complementary 'phantom' fringes are seen (review: Stronmeyer 1978). Such observations indicate that our nervous system should be capable of matching the different 'colour extracts' of an optical scene detected by the three different cone types in such a way that the chromatic aberration does not become conscious."

Weird eh?

The Stronmeyer reference is:
Stronmeyer, C.F. 1978 Form-color aftereffects in human vision. pp97-142 in Handbook of Sensory Physiology Vol. 8, eds. Held, R., Leibowitz, H.W., and Teuber, H.-L. Berlin, Springer-Verlag.

Band Names

Latest band name ideas (would also work as album names) that occurred to me as I was driving uptown for a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee (best fast food coffee in the universe, by the way):

Contrail Kabbalah
Contrail Rosetta

I like the first one a little better, probably because of the alliteration. Of course, I am not in need of these right now, so if anyone would like them, they're yours.

Jailbreak - Thin Lizzy

Thin Lizzy is a staple of the Classic Rock format in the form of their two major hits, both from 1976, The Boys are Back in Town and Jailbreak. But I bet few American radio listeners know that they were from Ireland. Their sound, from guitar riffs through Phil Lynott’s vocals, is quintessentially American. In fact they were doing this early enough to arguably lay claim to partially inventing a sound that later Southern Rock bands like 38 Special were still mining well into the 80s. It would make an interesting musicology master’s thesis project to quantify exactly what makes Thin Lizzy sound this way and what mix of influences produced such an iconic result. The live version of Jailbreak linked above is a little too fast and doesn’t quite capture the simple power of its central guitar riff. I recommend picking up the studio version. But on the other hand, as a document of the live hard rock experience in its heydey, the video is perfect.

Motorhead

Like many in the states, my first exposure to Motorhead was their appearance on the classic BBC comedy The Young Ones. These guys absolutely rocked then, and they rocked about 15 years later when my bandmate (in U-pump) Matt and I saw them play in Madison, WI. Lemmy cruises above it all like a larger than life hood ornament leaning into the heavy metal future at 95 mph.