Thursday, 8 October 2015

That's Entertainment : Kanye West 


I H8 Kanye West.

Thinking about him sends my blood pressure north.

= A cat always land on it’s feet. =

However, I once was in JB Hi Fi in Paramatta and I heard an 80’s vibe synth pop song that really made me feel good about myself.

I thought it was really really cool.

So asked the lass at the counter who it was.

They smirked as if to say WTF?!  “It’s Kanye West…”

= Dropped buttered toast always fall on the floor butter side down. =

A little piece of me died.  But I dug the song.

I was in a vortex time loop…something bizarre was happening.

I couldn’t breathe… 

= Ever thought about tying a piece of buttered toast face up, to the back of a cat, and throwing both out a 10 storey window and seeing what happens? =

Next thing, I’m in ICU on a ventilator.  Apparently I’d taken a fall.  My brain couldn’t reconcile I liked a Kanye West song.

I bought the album 808s & Heartbreak.  It’s front and centre in my collection.  I <3 it.  It is awesome.  I still H8 everything else about him and his music.  But 808s & Heartbreak is a classic in every sense of the word. 

= I tested the theory.  The toast wants to land butter side down; the cat wants to land on its feet.  It’s still spinning, polarised.  Stuck in a vortex infinity time loop forever.  =

When I play 808s & Heartbreak, I am the cat and slice of toast, spinning to infinity, polarised, the butter trying to smack the ground…the feet trying to land.

I’ma gonna stop you right there…

808s & Heartbreak is a bloody fantastic album and you should own it.  Most people ignored it or hated it even when they bought (it still went to #1 despite it being widely derided).  It was perceived and received negatively by pundits.  I like to buck trends.  You can buy it real cheap.  Treat yourself.  Join me in the infinity loop.






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That's Entertainment : Oingo Boingo / Danny Elfman



Education.  It’s very important, so this school holidays I took Alex to the movies to see Pixels.

Awesome film.  Tonnes of fun.  Big 80’s soundtrack.  And it’s got him in to retro gaming.  Plus he’s learnt that Adam Sandler is this era’s Orson Welles or Gregory Peck.  

So now, I’ve been sifting through the video racks and sharing 1980’s movies that I think are absolutely pertinent to Alexander’s ongoing education.  And as much as I love them, there are only so many times a week I can watch Ghostbusters 1 and 2 or the original Star Wars trilogy [the kids can’t understand why I mutter so much when they re-watch their beloved prequel trilogy, though that said, the lot of us have gotten very, very excited by the trailers for The Force Awakens].

F*** Frozen, we’re here to have fun!  [Never seen it; never want to].

Now, I would have loved to have slipped in Highlander, Batman, Gremlins or A Nightmare on Elm Street but…ahhh…no, I think we have a few years to wait to watch those.  Maybe Rad or BMX Bandits?  Next holidays!

So we stick with The Last Starfighter, The Goonies and Raiders of the Lost Ark with the occasional well placed cough to censor a ‘naughty nanny word’ and a hand over the eyes for the yicky bits.

Then of course, there is Weird Science, a John Hughes masterpiece.  Quite possibly one of the grandest ‘male’ wish fulfilment movies ever, where two young lads create their perfect woman in their computer and end up with Kelly Le Brock as the dream dame.  And as much as I’d love to…I just can’t.  In the pile with Freddy Krugar and Connor McLeod!

So where am I going with this?  Well Weird Science the movie had a soundtrack song called, funnily enough, Weird Science.  The band that sang it was Oingo Boingo.  This was a band that took jazzy new wave leanings with synths and horns and made themselves a niche pop rock act during the 1980’s gaining some popularity.  Each show was a bit of an event - with whacked out theatrics and comedy and raucous horn section improvisation.  

The singer of Oingo Boingo is/was Danny Elfman.  He’s pretty much scored every Tim Burton film - Pee Wee Herman, Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland and quite a few Sam Raimi flicks - Darkman, Army of Darkness, Spiderman 1-3, Oz the Great and Powerful, as well as the Men In Black trilogy, Avengers 2 and 50 Shades of Grey.

Oh, he’s also the guy who wrote the theme tune for The Simpsons.

And as oddball as his Tim Burton movies are, Oingo Boingo are similar - askew, off kilter, off beat, eccentric.  To keep it simple, I’ve included three of my favourite cuts.  I hope you enjoy them too.

Now back to the movie education of Alexander Raymond…it’s not some weird science.  It’s fun, fun, fun until daddy takes the remote controller away.




Oingo Boingo






A little Weird Science clip:

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That's Entertainment : the KLF


1991 seemed to be a turning point year in music.  The 1980’s were slowly being forgotten and new found freedoms and global sounds were coming to the fore. 

Michael Jackson was King of Pop yet by the end of the year, his reign was being threatened as Nirvana’s Nevermind knocked off Black and White from the top of the Billboard Charts.  In turn, the hair metal acts were swept away by Metallica and Guns N Roses, who both released hugely anticipated albums that dominated the scene for the next two years, seeing hard rock hit the zeitgeist, whilst U2 had gone away and done their homework (giving them well needed ‘away’ time from the public conscious) and released Achtung Baby, allowing them to become the stratospheric #1 pop rock act of the 1990s.  Industrial and electro pop was gaining strength and Shoegaze and Techno was equally popular in Britain.  Quite literally, there was something for everyone.  Cross pollination was de rigour and rap acts were still allowed to sample as they pleased without seeking permission.  

For me, 1991 was a great year with plenty of aural delights on offer.  Up there with 1985, 1997, 2004, 2007 for purely great pop/rock/dance music.

Yet amongst all this was one band that became the biggest selling singles band of 1991, who just didn’t care less for the cult of personality that came with being a popular music act.

They were The KLF.

Having secured a kitsch hit in 1987 as The Timelords with Doctorin’ The Tardis, they gratuitously mined pop history and incorporated the sounds and vibes to create their own dance hits.  However, sampling was about to get legal and after The KLF released a slew of songs in multiple remixed forms across 1988-1990, they finally learnt to borrow without the legal problems and this culminated in 1991’s The White Room LP.

The hits kept coming and by 1992, feted as music heroes, they self combusted after numerous stunts which included firing blanks from a machine gun over the head of the music business attendees at the BRIT Awards, then dumping a dead sheep that said I Died For Ewe - Bon Appetite.  Their promotor claimed “The KLF have not left the music business” as they left the show [and their BRIT Award statuette was later found buried near Stonehenge.  This up yours to the music biz exemplified their loathing of the business, its performers, participants and its hanger ons and may well have come at the expense of one of The KLF’s key members who now says at the time he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown).  But music is at its best when things go crazy.  Later they set up their own anti-art foundation and burnt one million pounds

That The KLF could release these brilliant pop singles whilst despising the music biz so much is pure irony.  Nothing is crazier than having Tammy Wynette do vocals on a techno song!

For me, these songs represent a time and a place that has fonder memories.  I was 15, and in year 9.  I had not a care in the world.  The KLF were a part of the soundtrack of that year (and a little bit in to 1992).  These tracks are well worth a listen to for the first time or as a bit of retro.





Last Train From Trancentral https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frIUgilfsWA








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Thursday, 17 September 2015

That's Entertainment : Richard Marx


In this day and age, there doesn’t seem to be successful singer/songwriters out there in commercial radio and ARIA Chart land.  Which is weird, because there are so many ‘talent’ shows on the telly.  In the 1980’s, there seemed to be heaps of them and one who really springs to mind is Richard Marx.

Having written a number of songs for other artists, Richard Marx began stockpiling some of his tracks that he couldn’t bear to part with for a hoped for solo album.  Gaining a record deal, at the age of 24, he released his debut album with a mix of rock pop and ballads that would set the template for his 30 year solo career.

Should’ve Known Better is a perfect slice of 1987 - the production, the drums and bass, the guitar licks - and it’s breezy and good on the ear.  Don’t Mean Nothing is a sultry Joe Cocker-wannabe (ironically, it went up against Joe Cocker for a Grammy) with slide guitar from The Eagles’ Joe Walsh.  Both tracks are great examples of well created pop rock and are worthy of a spin.  The funk Endless Summer Nights sounds like something from a love scene from any late-80’s movie and was another success for the young artist, reaching #2 on the US Billboard Chart and was followed by his fourth single Hold On To The Nights (his first #1 US hit).

I got in to Richard Marx, by all things, Right Here Waiting.  An earnest ballad - which I’m a sucker for - it was #1 for five weeks in 1989 and was one of the earliest Cassingles I remember buying.  The previous single - the crunchy toe tapper - Satisfied had been a Top 20 success too (in the US, he had three #1s in a row with Hold On To The Nights, Satisfied and Right Here Waiting) - and both Satisfied and Right Here Waiting seemed to be on Video Hits for an eternity.

However his biggest Australian hit would follow in 1992 with Hazard, a song rumour would have it was originally written for John Farnham (and rejected by the Sadie the Cleaning Lady singer).  It was Top 10 for 10 weeks (#1 for 3 weeks) and at a time when ABC, 7 and 10 all had Saturday morning music shows, it was played ALL THE TIME.  It’s black and white film clip riffed on Twin Peaks (although the lyrics and actual video kinda contradict each other).  Take This Heart followed in the wake of Hazard and remains one of his bigger selling and higher placing singles in Australia.

Although Richard Marx would continue to record and release albums and tour constantly, his time at the top of the pop charts had come to an end.  He’s still out there releasing finely crafted professional pop that won’t be seen or heard on commercial radio / TV any time soon.


 









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Thursday, 10 September 2015

That's Entertainment : Atlas Genius


Atlas Genius - funny sounding name, awesome sounding band.

It was only a week ago that I discovered Atlas Genius whilst driving in my car and listening to SWR FM (I know, another discovery on community radio!).  It was an ordinary morning, nothing unusual and I was sipping my morning Mocha.  Same ol' story - heard song on radio, really dug it, missed the call out, emailed the station, got a reply.  Checked out the album on Friday and a week later I haven’t stopped playing it to the exclusivity of everything else.

All I know about Atlas Genius is this: their new album Inanimate Objects dropped on 28th August, they’re Aussies and they’re making it big in the US as we speak.

I guess we could lump them in with the rest of the indie-tronica coming out of Australia but that would be disingenuous.  These guys actually have their own style and whilst there are reminiscent flourishes of other bands, they lead a vanguard of nu-disco bands like Scotland's Chvrches who have rock and industrial leanings - like big drums and bass lines and guitar licks - as well as nuanced atmospherics and affects.

All I have to say is - with an album of 11 tracks there are rich pickings to enjoy and highly recommend A Perfect End as well as the single Molecules.  Stockholm is another guilty pleasure and The City We Grow is also a belter and this is the first time in many a moon where I have immediately whipped out the lyrics sheet and meticulously pored over the words so I could actually sing along correctly.

This is one band to listen out for and I’m excited to check out their debut record as well as highly anticipate their next album.

I’m going to go all out a la Ian “Molly” Meldrum and categorically state that if Atlas Genius aren’t ruling the world in 2-3 years time, I’ll eat my hat.









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Thursday, 3 September 2015

That's Entertainment : 5 Seconds of Summer


I should be happy.  

Summer is just around the corner.

But...

I’m conflicted.

Like really confused.  And angry.

Why?

Here I was, sitting in the car, minding my own business, humming along to a pop-punk song playing on SWR FM and trying to figure out which snot nose pop-punk band like Blink 182 had released this slab of pop-punk confectionary.

I missed the call out from the DJ, so I ended up emailing them for their playlist, which got emailed back to me a few days later.

Imagine my surprise and possibly disgust at finding out it was 5 Seconds of Summer.  A tiddlywinks band!!!  Argh!!!

I got over it.

Then imagine my surprise - 5 Seconds of Summer have actually released it as a CD single through JB Hi Fi.  Yep!  I bought my first CD single since 2009 and it was 5 Seconds of Summer.

I want to curl up in the shower in the foetal position and cleanse myself.

After some hysterics, and uploading the track to my I-tunes, I have to say that for a bunch of Aussie lads, this is a really really infectious ear worm that has you humming and shaking your head in no time.  And for very good reason, it’s airing on every radio station multiple times a day.  The tiddlywinks will love it.

So there you go.  They often say never judge a book by it’s cover.  Well, I have.  I haven’t dared go sniffing out any of their other stuff.  But She’s Kinda Hot by 5 Seconds of Summer is a winner.  It should go to Number 1.  And it’s co-written by the Madden brothers.

Oh dear.

I’m so conflicted.  I hope the feeling lasts say...five seconds.  

Oh, and summer…it’s still just around the corner.  I think it’ll be kinda hot.




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Thursday, 13 August 2015

That's Entertainment : Wolf Alice


This week, something new.  


Wolf Alice are a London band who fuse dreamy pop with harsher grunge/alternative rock trappings to sound something fresh, bold and exciting.  A bit like The Pixies meet Angus & Julia Stone.  One review said they were ‘feral and sophisticated’ and that’s probably the best way of summing them up.

Recently releasing their debut album - after a handful of singles and an EP - My Love Is Cool is one of those things that grows on you, with soundscapes that jar and make you re-check your i-tunes to see if you’re actually listening to the same album, let alone band.

For mine get stuck in to Bros - a jangling race to the finish, You’re A Germ - a snot nosed, abrasive pop punk up yours and Swallowtail - a mellow, haunting ballad-type thing, which is completely at odds with much of the rest of the album until it segues in to a rock out in the last minute and Giant Peach - which is a L7 meets Britpop concoction.

With plenty of atmospherics and fuzz feedback, Wolf Alice appear to be a band on the cusp of being something special, and one can only hope they keep up the good work.

Worthy of your time, give it a whirl.  Regardless of your tastes, I’m sure you’ll find something to nibble on.








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Thursday, 30 July 2015

That's Entertainment : Devo


Dun dun dun dun dun…

Whip it…whip it good!

Ha!  Right through my childhood and teens, Devo’s Whip It was one of those ‘novelty’ songs, like Mexican Radio or Rock Lobster, that seemed to be played at Blue Light Discos or on late night TV video shows and always got the crowds jumpy and happy…like some sort of nergasm fun-time button had been pressed.  Funny to think it was written as a pi$$-take theme with then-American President Jimmy Carter in mind as a way to get Americans to ‘work harder’.

It was only later that I learnt and appreciated what an envelope Devo pushed.  Taking New Wave synth hooks, dry wit, whacked out experimental art and visual style along with punk rock trappings, Devo combined these elements to release surreal, satirical observational songs and albums that cut at the core of 1980’s American society.  Devo - a contraction of de-evolution - were seen as weird, nerdy, out there by the mainstream yet today they seem to have been prescient pioneers.  That’s right, the nerds inherited the Earth but we didn’t listen to their warnings.

Where George Orwell spoke of Newspeak, Devo predicted America’s reliance on Doublespeak - language that deliberately disguises the stupidity and sinister cynicism of those in control of the media and the governments.  And funnily enough, where we’ve had a generation of political spin, Devo were embraced by Australia early on in the piece by Countdown (although for it’s popularity, Whip It only made it #77 here).  

Not only Devo in name, Devo made famous songs their own, covering Working In The Coal Mine as well as appropriating both the Rolling Stones’ I Can’t Get No Satisfaction and Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced?   They also utilised the new video format to produce quirky and arty video clips which were often visually opposed the lyrical content of the song.  

By the end of the 80’s, Devo had had their day, slowly becoming bigger than their cultish status allowed.  Now, Devo are acknowledged as pioneers and originals, paving the way for popular culture to be skewered, remixed, rehashed, reheated and re-examined.  Their songs are used for ads - often the band thinks it is subversive but it pays the moolah and they get to laugh.  For me, every time I watch Yo Gabba Gabba! I laugh out loud - lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh is the resident artist and I can’t help but think he is ‘corrupting’ a whole new generation of independent thinkers.  Ha!

Whip it?  Whip it good!





Mongoloid          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6lY8UmMIUY   [fan made video]



Gates of Steel         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goV57pGmiCk










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Friday, 24 July 2015

Plug It In: Big Black Delta


Big Black Delta is back with a stomping, synth boogie pop dance rocker called It's Ok that will slam itself in to your head and force your knees to angulate and your feet to tap.  Soon, you'll be smiling like a Cheshire Cat and burning a whole in the floor as it infuses in to your brain.

This new one reminds me of ELO, Marc Bolan and that song from Flashdance - Maniac whilst being totally fresh and contemporary - almost peerless.

Check out the track here:


And seriously, the last album was AMAZING, if It's Ok is a taste of things to come, get ready to have your mind blown.  Currently taking Pledges for the new album, sign up here http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/bigblackdelta and get in to the goodies on offer.

And to reacquaint yourself, check out BBD's previous hits.



This is the past, present and future served up in delicious 4 minute feasts.  





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That's Entertainment : Death Cab For Cutie




First up, let me allay your fears:  Death Cab For Cutie are not some death metal act intent on excising you of your soul.  They are, however, a rock act who like to twist your heartstrings and leave you  an emotional wreck, killing you with heart aching, heart breaking, gloom-pop that’s great if you want to get yourself up for watching The Notebook.

With poetic song titles that evoke emotional turmoil, love lost and the human condition, Death Cab For Cutie are a band that have been around for almost 20 years.  They were appropriated as a flag waver for the 2000’s ‘emo [emotional] rock’ genre because of their downbeat sound and poetic lyrics however it was in 2003 via Adam Brody’s Seth Cohen role in The O.C. that DCFC gained widespread notice.  Appearing on the soundtrack for 2009’s Twilight : New Moon caught them more ‘teens’ looking to sob in to their diaries.

A number of brilliantly crafted albums have seen DCFC slowly become a big-selling rock band with an impeccable live act.  Having seen them a few times in the past couple of years, the lads in DCFC certainly serve up a live show that is impossible to ignore.  And despite the ‘emotional’ leanings of their music, the band are jovial chaps, well versed in rock history and ply their trade with much gusto. 

Singer, guitarist and writer [the main man] Ben Gibbard was also briefly married to Zooey Deschanel and the latest DCFC album, Kintsugi, is a result of that marital disintegration.  Better still, Ben Gibbard was one half of another band The Postal Service which release a masterpiece in 2004 [their single Such Great Heights was used by Telstra in the past 2 years for ads].

And if you want to cry - like quite literally sob uncontrollably - try listening to What Sarah Said.  A song about a true-love dying, the dying patient’s words to her lover are “Love is watching someone die”…So who’s going to watch you die?  

Yep.  Choked up.

Anyway.  It’s not all miserablism.  There’s some lovely pop gems as well.

But I’ll leave that up to you.  I’m out of here!

Taxi!!!!

Ahem…Death Cab For Cutie.




Death Cab For Cutie




You’ve Haunted Me All My Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AKCne5vvaQ


The Postal Service

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Thursday, 2 July 2015

That's Entertainment : Charli XCX


After self-recording and producing a handful of indie singles as a 14 year old then recording a debut album and handing them out at raves, Charli XCX came to notice after writing Icona Pop’s I Love It.

And with the quick release of her first and second studio albums, augmented by a string of snot-nosed, J-Pop inspired, bombastic, booming party anthems and video clips, Charli XCX has hit the mainstream in a big way.

Playing up the Lolita pop image and rocking and raving harder than most ‘rock’ acts, Charli XCX is brains too.  She writes (or co-writes) her own material, acts the brassy badass and tears up the stage.  She swans in to town, glams up, reaches in and rips out your heart, and sneers her way through what could only be described as the ultimate feminist fantasy.

Move over Madonna, clear off Rihanha.  Charli XCX is beauty and the beast.

Don’t believe me?  Check out Boom Clap (a song attached to the teen movie The Fault In Our Stars).  It’s a glam stomper Marc Bolan would be proud off.  Funny story too - in-between balls at the cricket all summer they play snippets of songs.  This boomed out every so often and for weeks I couldn’t pinpoint a lyric to search and when I did, I came up empty.  It was only when I went to the Australia Vs England One-dayer at the SCG that a young English backpacker and his mate used Shazam to tell me who it was.  

I ended up buying the Japanese version of the new album Sucker cause it had all the hits sung in Japanese as bonus tracks.  Ha!

I’d like to think Charli XCX has a big future.  I’m kicking myself I didn’t go see her at The Metro in April.  Least of all because I could have scored a cool t-shirt or two.  That said, no one wants to see a thirtysomething lurching around a gig full of young ‘uns daubed in gloss and glitter and dressed like jailbait.

Charlie XCX!  Better than candy in your pocket outside a school!  Check it out!














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