Thursday, 23 May 2013


That's Entertainment : Billy Idol



So, today is the World's Biggest Sneer Day.  So at 10.30am, pop in to the kitchen, brew yourself a cuppa and then sneer at anyone in proximity.

And talking of sneering...

I've been doing a bit of research lately, in to the origins of the online community, etc.  For I was a dunder-head in 1993/94 walking past the computer lab scoffing at school colleagues sitting at a desk sending a message back and forth across the room.  "Why the hell would you want to do that?" I would have laughed (not even LOL'd - didn't exist yet).  "Computer nerds!"  Which is weird, cause I loved sci fi back then but railed against the invasion of computers in to everyday life.  Ker-ching - yep, cool.  Online shopping - yep, cool.  Email?  Now that was daft...in 1993!

So how does this all lead to Billy Idol, possibly one of the 1980's biggest MTV pin-ups and reputed music industry 'bad boy'.

Well...

Let's start at the beginning.  Photogenic young English punk lobs up in America in 1981 after three punk albums with Generation X (one of the first 'punk' bands to go on Top of the Pops).   Becoming a solo artist and linking with axe wielder Steve Stevens, young William Broad fashions a naughty bad-boy Brit image [the inspiration for the Spike character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer] sets teen girls hearts aflutter, infuriates parents and spawns a dozen or so timeless 80's pop rock hits.  Conquers the world.  

Did I mention the hooks?  Just take a look at this tracklist.  Each a pearl.  I can't hear a dud track.

Anyway...come the 1990's, Billy Idol is probably at the crossroads.  No longer a bubblegum MTV darling...what does he do?  He proves his rock star gravitas and breaks his leg in a horrifying motorcycle accident [the accident leads to a different Cradle of Love video being filmed and creates a classic video in the process.]  Doing an interview with a rock journo, they pass comment that the contraption on his leg makes him 'look like a cyberpunk!'.  Anyway, Billy has time up his sleeve, so starts getting in to sci fi novels.  With his resources, he gets involved in the cyber community, learning about tech.  And here's where it gets really, really cool.

Releasing Cyberpunk in 1993, everything about the album is critically and commercially panned.  And why not?  It's probably ten years before it's time.

Why should we care though?  Take a peep at this...

* It was recorded in a home studio on a Macintosh computer.  NO ONE at the time recorded on a home computer.  It has a real DIY aesthetic.  They even recorded parts separately and mashed them together on the computer and furthermore blurred the lines between artist and producer as each core creator in the Cyberpunk album experimented with sounds and instruments and plied the pieces together.

* Some albums came as a digipak and were issued with a floppy disk with a screensaver.   Yep...in 1993 99% of us would have still been a bit WTF?

* The special edition album came with an electronic press kit - an industry first.  It contained album clip art, soundbytes, samples, a bio, lyrics and links to other cyber culture.   There was discussion of a CD ROM which would have come out if the album had been a hit...but being "prohibitively expensive" in 1993 and seeing as the album flopped commercially, the ideas were shelved...sadly.

* It was the first ever album to include an email address in the booklet - an email to contact Billy (email address is now inactive but it's idol@well.sf.ca.us ).  

* He recorded a number of videos and released them as a video EP producing a quasi movie, and going all Lady Gaga big event, multi million dollar video before it was an industry norm.

* He utilised, if not co-invented Blendo - a fashion of mashing colourful footage with images edited live on a computer to fit the music as it was being played live.

* The artwork was all cutting edge graphic design on the computer.  All cover art was done with Adobe Photoshop in its infnacy.

* Throughout the promotion of the album, Billy Idol extolled the virtues of bubbling new technologies predicting some of the high technologies we now take for granted.  His idea was musos could record and create, outside of a music label, and perhaps away from one another, and bring all the elements together for a final result.  New material could be worked and recorded, anywhere, any time without limit.  

* And whilst the music is a bit dated now, it really is a pre-millenial dystopic vision of how computers would become engrained in every facet of every day life from convenience, accessories and even law and order and Big Brother.  The synthetic world he envisioned has partially come to be and he had plenty of help from many within the cyber culture of the time (although he has as many detractors for 'apportioning' the image and ideals for his own artistic uses).  But supporters say Billy Idol gave IT a profile it never had up to that point.  


For this alone, I applaud Billy Idol.  It's hard to do new stuff in a market that always likes your old stuff better than your new stuff.  And whilst these days he's a bit of a pop relic of the 80's, he still maintains his rock star cool.  He's kind of like a living dead rock star.  And the back catalogue certainly keeps the cash registers ker-chinging.  Cyberpunk certainly put a full stop on his music career but I guess we'll always have his delicious cameo in The Wedding Singer to chuckle along to, being a smart enough fellow to send himself up.

So anyway...sit back and enjoy the tunes.  Billy certainly has an enviable track list here.  And if you get a chance, check out the Cyberpunk tracks on YouTube.  It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it is certainly interesting and something that is/was chillingly prescient.

So is it 10.30am yet?  Got your cuppa?  Now look at the person next to you and one...two...three...SNEER!!!  


Dancing With Myself

Mony Mony

Hot In The City

White Wedding

Rebel Yell

Eyes Without A Face

Flesh For Fantasy

Catch My Fall

To Be A Lover

Don't Need A Gun

Sweet Sixteen

Cradle of Love 

LA Woman

Heroin

Shock to the System

Speed

Scream
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Thursday, 9 May 2013


That's Entertainment : The Police 




In mid-1991, when I was 15, I borrowed a cassette tape from a bloke at school called The Police : Every Breath You Take: The Singles because I'd heard Every Breath You Take on the radio and wanted to copy that song.  Sitting in my area, I popped the tape on and scrummaged around for a BASF C90 to high-speed dub the cassette on to.  Roxanne came on and I had a minor epiphany.  Having heard this song a number of times, I knew it and never knew that it had been sung by The Police.

Leaving it on, and scouring the cassette cover, each subsequent was another revelation and by the time I'd flipped Side B and finished that as well, I just couldn't believe ALL these songs were sung by the same band.  Now people talk about religious experiences, and I'm not trying to be flippant, but as a 15 year old, that single cassette tape was like a tap on the shoulder, a whisper in the ear, and full blown bolt of lightning to my body.  

I hastily dubbed the tape and pretty much spent the next three months listening to it non-stop, revelling in the majesty that is The Police.  I realised I was 5-6 years too late, discovering the band had broken up in 1986 and that this was their legacy.

Now, 22 years later, there isn't a week that goes by when I don't listen to at least one of their songs.  My favourite will always be the remixed, re-released Don't Stand So Close To Me '86.  That was the version on the cassette tape and it has a weird vibe, electro to it.  Possibly, as I found out later, it's electric drums and the band's last hurrah when they reconvened in 1986 to put together what could have been their sixth LP.  But the drummer Stewart Copeland broke his shoulder falling off a horse the night before sessions began and the bad blood and animosity scotched any reunion (Sting had released a solo album and was quickly become an 80's pop icon in his own right).

And for a band who's output was five albums in the six years 1978-1983, their output was tres magnifique.  Mixing punk and New Wave sensibilities with swathes of pop, rock, ska, jazz and reggae, the band was a sign of the times taking all these elements and churning out hit after hit.  I personally think the diversification never let them get stale.  The tempestuousness of the trio's relationship, Sting's yelpy, often paranoid vocal and cerebral lyrics, Andy Summers delicious guitar lines and Stewart Copeland's jazz infused drumming style were all equal in the sound and flavour of The Police.  And coming out in that New Wave era, they were one of the early bands to get in to the video clip era with hit after hit eventually coming their way.

Commencing with the spiky, punky Outlandos D'Amour containing So Lonely (probably the only song I can sing and play bass to), Roxanne (that song about suicide and prostitution) and Can't Stand Losing You.  The LP has an urgency and immediacy about it, being something of a flop on release, it's a declaration of intent. 

LYRICAL MOMENT: In every song I love a Sting lyric; this is a fantastic karaoke moment in So Lonely: Now no one's knocked upon my door for a thousand years or more.  All made up and no where to go.  Welcome to this one man show.  Just take a seat they're always free.  No surprise no mystery.  In this theatre that I call my soul.  I always play the starring role.  Oh and that guitar interlude, solo...love it.

Regatta De Blanc arrived in 1979 with the Message in a Bottle and Walking On The Moon scooting to #1 in the UK.  

LYRICAL MOMENT: In every song I love a Sting lyric; he delivers in the reggae Message In A Bottle:  Walked out this morning, don't believe what I saw.  Hundred million bottles, washed up on the shore.  Seems I'm not alone at being alone.  Hundred million castaways looking for a hoooome.

On the day of their next world tour, The Police rush-completed Zenyatta Mondatta only TWELVE months after releasing their last LP (which really was the norm back then).  Containing the chilling Don't Stand So Close To Me - the complex story of a teacher and his pupil's illicit affair.  It also contains probably the most ear infectious lyric in De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da...  yep...trying get that one out of yer heads!

LYRICAL MOMENT: In every song I love a Sting lyric; Don't Stand So Close To Me:  He starts to shake and cough...just like the old man in that book by Nabokov.  Sting used to be a school teacher.  That 'book' by the way is Lolita.

Exactly a year later, Ghost In The Machine arrived.  Carrying one of my all time favourite album sleeve covers.  This album uses a lot of synths, and it contains Spirits In The Material World, the haunting Invisible Sun and Demolition Man, which would later lend it's name to a Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes BSU film, which funnily enough contained a Sting re-working of Demolition Man [a song Sting originally wrote for Grace Jones in 1981 and re-recorded for The Police].  But the piece de resistance is Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic.

Go on...pause...listen to it.  Come back to reading this later.  

What a beautiful little song eh?  It's on The Wedding Singer soundtrack and is just one of those sunshine on a rainy day songs.  

LYRICAL MOMENT: In every song I love a Sting lyric; Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic  :  Though I've tried before to tell her, of the feelings I have for her in my heart.  Every time that I come near her, I just lose my nerve as I've done from the start.   OR   Do I have to tell the story of a thousand rainy days since we first met?  It's a big enough umbrella but it's always me that ends up getting wet.  The musical intro is wonderful, the tinkling keys a joy and the song is pretty close to the perfect pop ballad.  It seriously is one of the best singable songs and one, if I was a chick-lit film maker would use in EVERY single film I did.  It conveys so much in it's 4min 21sec.  Cupid should learn it - would help him in his job  :-)

After touring the world and becoming a quintessential MTV band, The Police release their next album 18 months later in mid-1983.  This is where the 'mega star band' became the 'hulking behemoth'.  Gone was the punky reggae.  In came plenty of meticulous production, high art and world music concepts, and the fraying fabric of the band.  Recording was laborious, with the rockstar egos getting in the way...recording and dubbing parts individually.  There were spats and tantrums.  But out of all this tempestuousness, Synchronicity, arguably one of the finest and biggest selling albums of the 1980's, if not all time was created.

This is an album I own on cassette tape, LP and CD.  It is superb.  Every song is a piece of majesty.

But it's the quartet of singles - Every Breath You Take, King of Pain, Wrapped Around Your Finger and Synchronicity II that drive this beast of an album.  I am particularly fond of the Stewart Copeland penned Miss Gradenko, a quirky song if there ever was one.  People go on about the 'stalker' element to Every Breath You Take, but it is amazing.  However, if there's anything reaching perfection, it is  King of Pain.  In the human condition, the death of life is taken with much seriousness, and is a sombre event, full of sorrow and anguish.  But Sting highlights painful everyday occurrences and shows how the rest of the world views it as 'insignificant'.  There's a cruel irony in all of it, but song is suffused with an amazing vocal performance from sting and a tour de force musical drive from the band.  Personally, I interpret it as one man describing his mournful position on life and death, but by song's conclusion, he realises that this inner darkness is what makes him human and is something to be celebrated.  Otherwise, what have we got?  We'd be nothing better than the animals.  Bit deep for 8am over a bowl of Rice Krispies, yeah?

Anyway...Synchronicity led the band on it's way around the world again.  Millions of sales, a slew of hits, big 80's videos [check out Synchronicity II - Sting's look was when he was in Dune and it has that 80's Mad Max post-apocalyptic vibe about it].  

They burned brightly.  They produced a catalogue of music that some say comes close to equalling The Beatles.  They didn't outstay their welcome.  I'm also a Sting fan, and I see past any of the Sting-bashing that goes on in the press {a bit like all that Sir Alex Ferguson bashing in soccer circles}.  

For $12.99, you can usually grab all these hits at JB Hi Fi:  https://www.jbhifionline.com.au/music/pop-rock/police-the-2cd/222590

I know one of today's readers saw them live in 2008 at their reunion tour.  I won't name names.  But I bet s/he would agree that The Police are up there as one of the BEST bands ever.


So Lonely

Roxanne

Can't Stand Losing You

Message In A Bottle

Walking On The Moon

Don't Stand So Close To Me

De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da

Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic

Invisible Sun

King of Pain

Wrapped Around Your Finger

Synchronicity II

Every Breath You Take

Don't Stand So Close To Me '86
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Wednesday, 1 May 2013


Plug It In:  BIG BLACK DELTA


If you haven't already, check out BIG BLACK DELTA.

Am really liking their track SIDE OF THE ROAD.

For mine : mixes LCD Soundsystem, 80's synths, Peter Gabriel and ELO.  Fan-fuggin'-tastic!!!

Album out now.



Official Website : http://bigblackdelta.com

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Plug It In:  CUB SCOUTS

If you haven't already, check out this cool little Brissy band called the CUB SCOUTS.

Am really liking their track DO YOU HEAR.

Find 'em on the usual suspects - Itunes, Twitter, Facebook, Triple J unearthed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5HHyuqxZsY

http://www.triplejunearthed.com/CubScouts
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That's Entertainment : Milli Vanilli




I recently got in to a heated argument...no, let's be honest...it was full blooded fisticuffs.  

I dared to say to someone going to a concert and having the singer lip-synch wasn't a gig, it was a mimed cheat.

They argued that the music didn't matter, as it was about the image, the style, the 'performance'.

I spluttered in to my ginger beer, arguing that if you paid $140 to see a poppette, you should at least hear them sing.  Otherwise, why not buy the CD and sit at home with it turned up really loud and then change your own clothes in-between each song?  They took exception to this.  I told them the truth hurts.  They asked me if I thought they were some sort of idiot.  I replied it wasn't their fault their genetic code had let them down, but I was open minded and said 'each to their own'.  The gauntlet had been laid down, it was handbags at three paces and slaps were exchanged.  I'm glad to say the squealing ninny was dragged away before things got really ugly and I left with my tail between my legs.

And I don't like arguing in front of the children, but sometimes principles need to be defended.

Then my young son asked me why I was fighting, and I broke down and cried.

I sat him down.

I told him back in very late 1989, I loved a song so much that I quite literally wore out the tape.  He asked me what a tape was, I dragged out a box and searched through a pit of ageing cassette tapes, and burst in to tears.  It was gone; the piece of treasure was missing.

And after all these years, that shameful secret tape, the one I had spent so long burying, hiding away from everyone only to be listened to slyly on my boom-box when no one was around, was gone.   

He patted me saying everything would be alright.  But it wouldn't.  I loved that bloody tape!

Sniffing, I found a compilation CD and loaded it in to Itunes.  Where Were You - 1989.  All class.

As we waited for it to upload, I told him how wonderful the world can be.  Sometimes so briefly.  And sometimes you get lied to, get cheated, get broken hearted.   Then I pressed play.

Bliss.  Milli Vanilli.

You see, I had the cassingle of Baby, Don't Forget My Number.  I played it back and forth.  The synth beats made me feel great.  I waited each week as it would air on VIDEO HITS and I thought it was the coolest song ever.  My mates and I knew all the moves... I've been searching high...I've been searching low...  ba-ba-ba-ba baby!!!!  Don't forget my number!!!

And an older bloke at boarding school who was in year 11 had his own room aside the dorms.  Let's call him *James*.  He had a record player.  He had the 45 of Blame It On The Rain.  He would spin it all day and all night, and sometimes, he'd open the door a crack and let us Year 8 kids have a listen.  It was like being taken to the pub, a brothel and a tattoo parlour all at once.   

Yes... we were young and Milli Vanilli ruled the world.  Mike Hammond on 2Day FM played 'em to death, The Rev Doctor Doug Mulray over on Triple M derided them mercilessly.

And no one knew the dark secret that would soon shame the world.

You see, Rob and Fab of Milli Vanilli didn't even sing.  They were dancers, and the faces of Milli Vanilli.  In reality, the guys could barely string two English sentences together, but here they were topping the charts, especially in the US, with THREE #1 hits.  They won a Grammy!  They sold millions of records.

When the scandal broke, you couldn't bury your face quick enough.  I think James lost a chunk of himself on November 12th 1990 (probably November 13th here, with time zones, and the way news travelled back in 1990...it could have been three weeks later in Australia!).  

Poor old James was never the same again.  

James went from being a person respected by his peers and juniors and staff to a husk of a lad, burying his head in his text books just so he could pass his HSC (out of 500 marks back then) and run away from the hurt and pain inside.

Me.  Well, meh.  I've always had my cassingle.  Listened to it with pride.  I always argue that Baby, Don't Forget My Number still is a great song, sung by someone other than the chaps on the cover.

But back then lip-synching was a sinful act.  Only wicked, talentless hacks would dare do it.  Vermin, bottom feeding, soulless *!&#!@!s!!!

My son asked me what they called it today.

"Son," I said.  "Today, it's called the Top 40."





Baby, Don't Forget My Number



Blame It On The Rain


Girl I'm Gonna Miss You


All Or Nothing


Girl You Know It's True

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