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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