Re: YouTube

by Guest Sat 25 Sep - 18:51

violator wrote:

BLONDIE – HANGING ON THE TELEPHONE (cover version)

and THE NERVES – HANGING ON THE TELEPHONE (original version)

When Parallel Lines was released, skinny ties and all, the new wave tag appeared permanently glued to the group. Yet Clem Burke – whose drumming was about as solid as possible pushing the songs on towards victory – was sporting modish thin ties and short hair on New York’s streets four years before.

The new album saw Jimmy Destri pop out as master (co-) songwriter with '11:59' and 'Picture This' and Debbie Harry working her vocal style to fit the lyric and mood with impeccable brilliance.

To see Blondie in concert at this time was to hear material from the third album far more suited to the live show than their studio counterparts would have had you believe. The band’s artistry and live delivery had developed and mirrored the excellence of the new material. Obviously, Harry remained the centrepiece of the performance, but there was equal opportunity to appreciate and embrace the contrasting attack of Frank Infante and Chris Stein. It was time to re-evaluate the band and shrug off some of the blind devotion to the beauty of their singer.
"The danger is that Debbie could become over-exploited and that could hurt the group,” said Jimmi Destri. “We could turn into a European joke band if we're not careful, and one thing we don't want is to become a second-rate Abba."

“I think it's a firmer statement of our principles,” said Debbie, “because what we've always done is a wide variety of pop music.”

“Parallel Lines is a better Blondie. Better songs. Better playing. Better singing.”
The video here is HANGING ON THE TELEPHONE.

Raw and energised, and perfectly updating The Nerves’ original, ‘Telephone’ was the whole package with a zippy guitar break just in the right place.

In an interview in 1982, Debbie said, “Jeff Pierce from the Gun Club was a fan of ours. He sent our manager a cassette of 'Hanging on the Telephone' by The Nerves, Jack Lee's band."

"We were playing it in the back of a taxicab in Tokyo, and the taxi driver started tapping his hand on the steering wheel. When we came back to the US we found that the Nerves weren't together anymore and we said, gee, we should record this.”

by Guest Sat 25 Sep - 19:08

BAUHAUS – ZIGGY STARDUST

This week in 1983 saw the release of THE SINGLES 1981–1983, a greatest hits mini-album by BAUHAUS issued by Beggars Banquet, (September 1983).

Comprising six classic tracks from ’81 to ’83, all issued as singles apart from the version of Ziggy Stardust which was taken from the David Jensen Radio One session of 22nd July 1982.

Track listing: The Passion of Lovers, Kick in the Eye, Spirit, Ziggy Stardust, Lagartija Nick, She's in Parties

The video here is ZIGGY STARDUST.
Every gesture of the performance was perfectly placed.

Without totally embracing that period, Bauhaus somehow tapped into the same source of hysteria that made glam the excitable thing it was.

Even at The Batcave their records were played back with T. Rex and The Sweet without sounding out of place or out of date. And, like Ziggy Stardust records, theirs were a cut above the rest.

by Guest Sat 25 Sep - 19:27

WIRE - MAP REF. 41°N 93°W

It’s now 40 YEARS since WIRE released their third studio album, 154, (September 1979).
Taking its title from the number of gigs the band had played up to the time of recording, its direction veered further from the punk energies of the first two efforts.

Stunning and literate, tracks like ONCE IS ENOUGH, a gritty, angular rocker which relied upon distortion, power, took its title-phrase hook to make its point; and A MUTUAL FRIEND, had a similar sense of edginess but substituted the raw power of distortion guitar for the more discreet edges of synthesizers.

In equal measures disturbing, stimulating and attractive, the songs here were coolly cynical observations, provocatively constructed in language not normally associated with rock, and effectively sung by either one or a combination of the band's three voices.

No matter how arcane the lyrics became, every song had an insistent edge, as sinister as they were attractive, but never lacking that secret Wire ingredient: an unmistakable and defining pop sensibility balanced with a sardonic sense of humour. From the tightening TWO PEOPLE IN A ROOM with its savage hook ("My god they're so gifted"), the openly mordant BLESSED STATE ("Loved in the flesh / Butchered in the mind") to the giddy organ feels of 40 VERSIONS and ON RETURNING.

Aces were in abundance, including THE OTHER WINDOW, an amusing description of coerced voyeurism ("He took his seats on a foreign train / He thought it pleasant to travel again / He read again the letter from his friend") and the remarkable pop triumph, MAP REF. 41°N 93°W.

“An unseen ruler defines with geometry
An unrulable expanse of geography
An aerial photographer over-exposed
To the cartologist's 2D images knows
The areas where the water flowed
So petrified, the landscape grows
Straining eyes try to understand
The works, incessantly in hand
The carving and paring of the land
The quarter square, the graph divides
Beneath the rule, a country hides"

“It happens to be a song I wrote the lyrics for," explained bassist Graham Lewis in 1980.

"I thought it was a very straightforward song — the awe of flying over the American continent, for the first half of the song, and being in the situation of the aerial photographer — who had already come to be in that position with the usual preconceived ideas of what it was going to be like, even if it was from photographs or the Atlas or whatever.”

“The second part of the song is about driving through Holland, which is also a very flat area, but you still have the grid effect, roads in the Midwest and in Holland, canals and dikes. It's about the perception that you have of travelling, really."

It's also about puns and wordplay. But, for all the hidden meaning, how was one to know that the song was about flying over the American Midwest?

"If you'd have looked the map reference up, you'd reference up 41°N 91°W is in Des Moines County, Iowa, about ten miles west of the Mississippi,” said Graham.

by Guest Sat 25 Sep - 19:38

DEPECHE MODE - BLASPHEMOUS RUMOURS

On this date in 1984 DEPECHE MODE released their fourth studio album 'Some Great Reward', (September 24, 1984).

The album peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number 51 in the United States, and was supported by the Some Great Reward Tour.

In early 1983, Depeche Mode were on tour in the States and the Far East, and it was the latter which flavoured their next album, Construction Time Again, much of which was recorded in Berlin.

Witnessing unsettling scenes of degradation and poverty, the band were inspired to write 'Everything Counts', intended as a harsh condemnation of modern market forces. Another change was the use of non-conventional musical instruments having just acquired a sampler. However, they were not content simply to take their samples from other records. Instead, they toured the area around their East London recording studio, recording the sounds of construction sites and railroad yards, then programmed them into the machine.

The result, similar to those being experimented with by the so-called industrial bands – Einsturzende Neubauten, Test Department and SPK – played a great part in establishing Depeche Mode's credibility as musicians.

The group responded with a fresh sequence of sparkling singles: 'People Are People', which became their first ever U.S. hit, reaching #13 in March, 1985; 'Master And Servant' (which made a lowly #87, thanks largely to radio resistance to its dark S&M themes); and, finally, 'Blasphemous Rumours', a song which questioned God's very motives – alluding to his ‘sick sense of humour’ - and was considered so risky even in the generally enlightened U.K. that it was released as a double A-side, with the harmless 'Somebody' taking up the air-play slack.

Taken from the album ‘Some Great Reward’, the single BLASPHEMOUS RUMOURS peaked at #16 in the UK singles chart.

by Guest Sat 25 Sep - 19:52

violator wrote:
Witnessing unsettling scenes of degradation and poverty, the band were inspired to write 'Everything Counts', intended as a harsh condemnation of modern market forces.

by Guest Sat 25 Sep - 20:31

PIXIES – GIGANTIC

This week in 1988, the PIXIES were on the LWT TV show ‘Night Network’ performing GIGANTIC, (September 25th 1988).

In early 1987, after barely six months of playing and rehearsing tunes like the conquering ‘Levitate Me’ and nightmares like 'Nimrod's Son', the Pixies sent their demo to the smart British indie label, 4AD, which counted among its acts the Cocteau Twins, Throwing Muses and Ultra Vivid Scene.

The label saw brilliance in the Pixies' slashing guitars, pounding rhythm section, and Black Francis' brutal lyrical psychosis. They immediately signed the band and released the eight-song demo tape in all its ragged glory as the EP Come On Pilgrim.
The record had all the core elements of what would become the Pixies sound: an underlying salsa feel, surf riffs, ferocious grunge guitar, howling screams and razor-sharp lyrics.

Stylistically on Come On Pilgrim, the Pixies drew from the rock'n'roll palette they'd stick with; there were hues of Neil Young, Big Black, Violent Femmes, and Television....

by Guest Sat 25 Sep - 20:52

I da, jucer se navrsilo tocno 30 godina (!) od izlaska Nirvaninog iznimno uspjesnog albuma Nevermind. :)

24. 09. 1991.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit", "In Bloom", "Come as You Are", "Breed", "Lithium", "Polly", "Territorial Pissings","Drain You", "Lounge Act", "Stay Away", "On a Plain", "Something in the Way", "Endless, Nameless"